Roy Tang

I wish there was more to the story, but the true story is rather short: I had a moment of carelessness as I hurriedly tried to disemabark from the crowded MRT, and by the time I was getting on an FX at Megamall I noticed that the front pocket of my bag was open and my phone was missing.

The PSP which was in the same pocket was still there so I guess the thief was in a hurry. My best guess for the point of attack would have been as I was lined up at the outgoing gates and rummaging through my pockets for the MRT ticket. I’m normally very careful in these situations but I was carrying more stuff than I usually do so I guess I really let my guard down here.

I’ve never actually been the victim of petty theft before, so I wasn’t sure what to do. I had someone try to call the phone, of course there was no response. We tried to lay a trap by sending a text message along the lines of “Hi, I’m the beautiful lady who wants to give you P20,000. How can I recognize you since we’ve never seen each other before?” but I doubt it would have worked. In the end, I’m told there’s really nothing I can do. At least I was running on prepaid so I don’t have to cancel the line or anything. And I’m pretty sure I didn’t have any sensitive info (passwords, etc.) on the phone.

My first reaction was actually annoyance at my own carelessness – especially since I tend to be vigilant 99% of the time, but that 1% that I let my guard down I actually get bitten. Although looking at it another way, if I wasn’t vigilant 99% of the time I might not have lasted so long without having a cellphone stolen. A number of people were amazed that I was taking it mostly as a matter-of-fact, as I should be emo’ing over my lost phone. It’s just a phone.

I’ll just imagine that my cellphone went towards providing a nice Christmas dinner for a starving family. Then that happy occasion brings their family back together and convinces the thief to turn away from his life of crime and walk the straight and narrow, and he gets a job and his children get to go to school and become productive members of society.

Meanwhile, farewell N73, I hardly new ye. Any suggestions for a new phone? The features I typically require are:

• Call/text obviously
• Cameraphone (I use it to take pictures of stuff I need to remember)
• Bluetooth (since I prefer using my laptop to send SMS if possible)
• MP3 player – actually I wasn’t using the MP3 player on the last one recently, but having a player on my phone saves me from buying an Ipod or whatever separately
• Alarm, Tasklist/Event notification – I am not confident in my ability to wake up early without a cellphone alarm.

Other features (internet, radio, etc) are lower priority.