Power Mac to the people

Nowadays as I toil like Phil Spector (with less talent and not-so-deranged hairstyle) with my iBook’s GarageBand program and attempt to create my own “wall of sound,” I find that I spend more and more time at the Power Mac Center flagship store in Greenbelt 3. Toying with the M-Audio equipment (pre-amps, control surfaces and MIDI controllers). Looking longingly at the Jam Packs (rhythm section loops, world music loops, etc). Tinkering with those iMacs (if Leonardo had gotten around to designing computers, he would’ve invented something as stunning). Just being there in the futuristic Apple garden.

Worth checking out also is the newest Power Mac Center in TriNoma, which carries Apple products, peripherals and accessories. The Power Mac Center, inspired by Apple Stores worldwide, is owned locally and managed by Lawrence Sison and Myrabelle Tan.

“The TriNoma branch was designed with the customer in mind,” says Power Mac Center marketing director Lesley Ang. “iMacs, MacBooks, iPods and speakers are featured in interactive, high-touch fashion. Accessories are categorized according to customer needs, and a mirror was integrated into the bag display area, so customers can try the bags. Yet the store continues to evolve as we take in feedback from customers. We will continue to introduce improvements while preserving what gives customers a glimpse of the Apple experience.”

Hobbes and Landes: Ode to toys

Walking into Hobbes and Landes will transform the young ones and even the “young-once” into babes in Toyland. 

You see, the shop sells everything such as Brain Teasers, those challenging bronze-cast puzzles that will take a bloke like me half of forever to figure out; limited-edition Fantastic Four action figures in battle mode (to quote Ben Grimm, “It’s clobberin’ time!”); chess sets with Opium War or Boxer Rebellion pieces made of pewter; and stacks and stacks of board games (Zenith is one of the bestsellers). “Hobbes and Landes is also known as a science store, since we have educational board games and toy telescopes,” says one of the salespersons at the TriNoma shop, while watching me fail disastrously at figuring out the puzzle.

“You need to be patient,” the woman explains, easily disentangling the pieces.

Nothing beats going to TriNoma, sitting down in front of a networked computer and annihilating your enemies — in a friendly cyber-medieval game of Warcraft, of course. (Or the perennial favorite CounterStrike.) And the best place to do that is at B-Connected, Bench’s foray into the digital realm, which is brightly lit and elegantly designed. B-Connected store supervisor Gievale Sodusta says, “We currently have 27 computers, but by the end of the month we’ll be adding 20 more.” The shop also has a booth where gamers can indulge in PlayStation 3 games on a big-screen TV. Whoa! Imagine blasting evil monks or the Regenerators in the science lab of doom with your infinite rocket launcher in Resident Evil 4. Go ahead, zombie punks, make my day.