DVD Medley

You know you're watching pirated DVD when the audio doesn't seem to be in sync with the images on screen.

I watched the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 by an all-Russian orchestra and soloist and -*gulp*- the piano already sounded when the soloist hasn't even started to touch the keys yet.

Which reminded me of that longish bus ride from Zhanjiang to Shaoguan, wherein watching a DVD inside the moving bus turned out to be a coma-inducing experience. The DVD consisted of truncated parts of two different movies, played over and over again until I somehow lost consciousness.

Old Ties

Part of a text message exchange with my friend Estela went on like this:

Este: "We should meet up. I need to touch base with old friends. Feel old and tired."

Me: "There you go again, with your depressing mood swings."

Este: "I can't help it. Circumstances in my life are really depressing."

Me: "Then watch 'The Sound of Music', Oprah or read Kahlil Gibran."

Este: "I was the Drama Guild President you know, which makes me a drama queen for life!" *^&%$@#&

Me: "I was the Rondalla club Veep, so let's color your gloom with bright sounds."

*now start imagining that you're listening to rondalla music, preferably "Mabuhay"*

And then she called me up and we made plans to meet up when she gets back from the highlands.

Requiem from Sarajevo

Requiem in D Minor

Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART

Jose Carreras, Ruggiero Raimondi, Cecilia Gasdia, Ildiko Komlosi

Sarajevo Philharmonic Orchestra
Sarajevo Cathedral Choir
conducted by Zubin Mehta

Under the aegis of the UN High Commission for Refugees, this concert took place in the rubble-strewn, bombed-out National Library building in Sarajevo in present-day Bosnia-Herzegovna, formerly part of Yugoslavia.

The break-up of Yugoslavia in the nineties set the stage for the war in the Balkans along ethnic lines that led to the creation of three independent states: Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia. And as everybody knows, Bosnia suffered some of the worst destruction and atrocities.

The concert here is more symbolic rather than artistic. It is not fair to evaluate the performance on technical merits alone. To begin with, the players may have been playing on borrowed instruments; practice venues were probably non-existent; the chorus and orchestra members, still reeling from the aftermath of the war and who may have spent some time in bomb shelters, were clearly assembled from among the ranks of those who fortunately survived the war.

This is a city that is putting a brave face to the world and making a big statement about the war. By performing Mozart's final masterpiece, the Requiem in D Minor which he composed for his own impending death, the city is appealing for deliverance from the ravages of war.

The concert is interspersed with images of burning buildings, ordinary citizens caught in the cross-fire and running for their lives, and the wondering faces of children who have been robbed of their innocence so early in life.

The National Library is virtually in ruins, and it is from these ruins and ashes that the city wishes to rebuild itself.

Palliative

The consensus is that the Fed will likely cut interest rates anew. I don't really think this is something to cheer about, because the previous rate cut, which was bigger-than-expected, proved to be a palliative, rather than a cure to the sub-prime crisis. The additional rate cut only means the US economy is in deeper trouble.

And what seems to be an anomaly here is that it is the low-interest rate scenario that may have started the sub-prime mortgage to burst to begin with. Clearly, the Fed's intervention is meant to preempt any signs of recession.

By the way, I think the peso is already over-valued. When exporters and OFW families start getting hurt, you know that the optimal point has been reached. Unfortunately, the last quarter is seasonally the time when the currency is at its strongest.

Sights and Sounds

I spent the week-end with Jun and Jenny soaking in the warm spring waters of Pansol in Los Baños, Laguna and gatecrashing (well, sort of) the birthday dinner of Val's sister in their home inside UP Los Baños.

I played the piano (it's the same German brand we have at home in Bohol) which I think, got us invited consequently by Val's mom to lunch the following day :) Also, Val and her sister drove us around for a tour of the huge camping and park grounds.

Back in Manila, Jun and I watched the Victory Concert of the Philippine Madrigal Singers at the CCP. What can I say, except that the Madz has proven once again that the group is the yardstick, the gold standard, by which every choral group will be measured against.

It's a good thing that over-performed Theme from the Lion King has been removed from the repertoire.

Paralyzed

It's as if the world came crashing down my feet the moment those deep, penetrating eyes were fixed on me. I have always maintained a facade of being calm and level-headed, but beneath the placid exterior lurks a boiling, panic-stricken, swooning--can you even put these descriptions together?--composure. And when those x-ray gazes zero in on my hidden vulnerabilities, probing my deeply-felt emotions and cross-examining my motives, all my defenses seem to have given way.

I have been unable to mount a counter-offensive, paralyzed by an unforeseen and inexplicable force. It's as if a tornado blasted its way through, uprooting everything in its path, changing the landscape, forever.

Executive Pardon

What did I tell you, Erap's been granted an Executive Clemency by the President. But with strings attached, such as not seeking the highest political office.

Again, this move has been widely expected, it was simply a question of when. Considering that the administration is mired in bribery scandals, the pardon is a good way to win beauty points with the masses.

Irresponsible

If the Glorietta blast was really caused by plumbing mismanagement (police investigators claim they found no crater, no bomb parts or residue), then we can add this sorry incident to one of ABS-CBN's lowest moments.

Obviously, Korina Sanchez's brand of journalism has infected its news reporting team.

Without any proof whatsoever, Maria Ressa disclosed in an interview after the incident that the only groups capable of carrying out the blasts were either the "Jeemayah Islamiyah or law enforcement," effectively casting a dark cloud over Gloria herself.

How irresponsible.

The probability that it might just be an accident was simply relegated to the sidelines. The station even interviewed people from the UP Chemical Engineering department to discredit the police's story. Problem is, everybody's simply speculating, yah? And pushing the terrorist angle seems the only way out for this news team that has pushed itself into a hole.

Hello Kitty

I once gave Che a Hello Kitty keychain for Christmas (or was it your birthday, Che?) and immediately, she complained, "Ron, this is fake."

"It's genuine," I insisted, of course.

"Who has ever heard of a yellow Hello Kitty," she protested.

Feigning ignorance, I said, "Doesn't she come in different colors?" I thought Hello Kitty was like a cousin of Rainbow Brite.

"Naaawh."

Which reminds me of my office colleague Chelo. She used to complain that people mistake her for wearing fake branded logos when in fact, she really splurged on the real thing.

"Maybe you don't have that X factor," I'd tell her and she'd simply blurt out a guffaw in response.

I'm not really sure if the two proceedings are related.

Oars Up

Dragon boat videos courtesy of Joyce and uploaded by Ay-ris.

China 2007

TVC

Mind-boggling

I don't really understand why many people would set their watches 15-30 minutes in advance. So if you ask them what time it is, they'd look at their watches and perform some mental subtraction before telling you the correct time. Why?

Why don't they just set it to the correct time, and spare themselves the subtraction effort?

Isn't it that the point of wearing a watch is to remind you of the correct time? It defeats that purpose when you deliberately set it to an incorrect time, isn't it?

You may file this under Ron's Pointless Ramblings or Anecdotes of the Non-sense Kind. :)

Aftermath

Jun and I dropped by Glorietta Mall last Sunday after the early morning New Balance Run for a Cause at the Rockwell Centre, to see for ourselves the extent of the damage caused by the deadly blast last Friday.

I don't understand the hasty decision of the management to keep areas of the mall not affected by the blast open. Really now, is management trying to minimize the losses arising from the incident? Shouldn't the mall just open until after a thorough security check and a conclusive investigation?

Heating Up

Last week, oil prices touched US$90 per barrel and this volatility will likely continue as tensions in oil-rich Northern Iraq over Turkey's determination to retaliate against Kurdish rebels remain.

With the US housing slump on account of the sub-prime mortgage market imploding and dragging over-all US growth, associated credit risks spread out across the globe are still playing out and the extent of the losses are still being assessed.

With the Glorietta blast last Friday aggravating the situation, stocks predictably nose-dived although the peso has somewhat recovered. I'm pretty sure the Central Bank intervened to calm the markets.

However, I think the peso will likely strengthen further with the onset of the holiday season.

Minority

In high school, pop music ruled the airwaves. I seriously couldn't find anybody who shared my growing enthusiasm for classical music and what people call 'standards', you know, the Broadway kind.

And then one time, a hastily-prepared program required somebody to sing without prior notice, right then and there. One girl I knew who was taking voice lessons with her aunt, came up on stage and sang in a capella, "Amor, amor, amor."

It seemed like, except for the older teachers, nobody had ever heard of her piece, which was in Spanish. Weaned on Jose Mari Chan, Francis Magalona, New Kids on the Block and Tiffany, the audience didn't know what to make of her performance. It was as if E.T. had just been found in the middle of the plaza.

When she finished singing, nobody clapped. (I'm not kidding).

DVD

I bought a new DVD player over the week-end. Do not, for a moment, expect the unit to be state-of-the-art, portable or sleek. It's not. Anyway, I was only interested in the basic features, so I settled for a made-in-China brand you'd normally find in electronic shops in Quiapo.

I entered one appliance shop specializing in China-made TVs, DVDs and videoke machines somewhere in Cubao. The prices were dirt-cheap, almost a steal, so I picked one and asked the keeper to "demonstrate" the features to me.

It turned out the buying experience proved to be more interesting than the unit itself. Immediately, using the remote control, the player refused to open the disc tray. Curiously, the disc trays of the other DVD products on display were the ones that responded to the remote control.

And so I chose another unit with a functioning disc tray, but which, for crying out loud, wouldn't play the sample DVD disc.

I chose another fully-functioning unit with a variety of features I didn't expect from a really cheap unit.

At home, I read the English manual to complete the set-up. I had to tear it into pieces. Yes it was in English, but I couldn't understand it. It's like those machine-generated translations from Babelfish that make no sense whatsoever.

Anyway, I managed to set up and connect the wires to the correct ports, without any explosion (in Macau, I simply turned on the electrical fan in some dingy hotel room and immediately, something exploded). Hey, the signs were in Chinese.

Finally, I was able to watch the documentary on Cecilia Bartoli and the Mozart Violin Sonatas I bought in Quiapo which my DVD drive cannot read. Not bad.

Morning Visit

I woke up one morning with this text message from Frodo: "Look outside your window."

True enough, he was standing outside the gate bearing a DVD copy of our dragon boat China trip last June.

Since my DVD drive, for some reason, doesn't play back the copy, we had breakfast instead at the nearby McDonald's.

"I'm a new person." Really. "I've started going to the gym, in place of rowing. And I'm into wake-boarding as well."

I thought he was still active in rowing. I haven't seen him for quite some time.

And then he sort of dropped a bomb: "My wife's pregnant."

Aware that he already has three kids, I said, "Oh my God."

I was supposed to say Congratulations, unfortunately that didn't come out of my lips.

Trip Down Memory Lane

In a small place where I grew up, almost everybody knows everybody else. In the eighties when the country was mired in political turmoil, we were sort of shielded from the maelstrom brewing in Manila and the big cities, tucked away in our corner in the Bukidnon plateau. The company where my father worked during those times dominated the pineapple global export market. Thus, corporate financial stability provided families working for the company a semblance of security during those troubled times. Not exactly Amish-like, but more like those German immigrants deep in the mountains of Venezuela.

I don't know how it is nowadays, but I always thought we were the lucky ones. We had our own hospital, dairy farm, schools, school buses to pick us up. We were even living in company-owned housing communities, with its own security force.

Since PLDT did not have a presence in the area, we had our own operator-assisted telephone system wherein if you pick up the phone, you speak directly to the operator to transfer your call. There were no assigned phone numbers. Also, in determining which call goes to who, we were assigned various combinations of short and long rings (such as beep beep beeeeep, beeeep). In fact, once the telephone starts ringing, everybody else in the whole neighborhood, or perhaps the entire community, would be paying attention should their assigned rings play out.

My family left Bukidnon for Bohol in the mid-nineties. I often wonder about what has happened to the place since then. Last time I was there, my grade school got bigger, and the Church now resembles a huge warehouse. I think the population has grown bigger as well.

Maybe next year, I'll probably visit Bukidnon. I haven't been there in like, ten years.

Web Tools

Good thing slide.com is back. I guess the site is experiencing a surge in traffic.

As I have mentioned before, when Blogger went out of beta mode and introduced widget-friendly settings, this development naturally led to an explosion of customized blogs featuring not just your usual text-and-pix content but mini programs, videos, interactive games, site stats, weather reports, RSS feeds, satellite maps, slide shows, and mp3 background music as well.

I started blogging when Blogger expected users to be at least a little familiar with HTML. I have zero experience with Web languages and I am as dependent on the mouse as the next Joe. I still can't memorize correctly the damn HREF link code. Currently, it is quite possible to have zero knowledge of both HTML or XML and still come up with a pretty decent personal site.

Anyway, I like Slide because with my cascading pictures in the sidebar, it makes amateurs like me appear computer-savvy.

Snapshot is very convenient as well, since it allows you to remain on the page while viewing the contents of your link on a snapshot window, including slide show pictures from Picasa, and videos from Youtube and Veoh.

For videos, I rely on Youtube, Dailymotion and Veoh. Youtube's video playing time is limited to only 10 minutes maximum. Dailymotion, a French video-sharing portal, has better video quality, longer playing time although it still has a limited number of videos for the classical repertoire. For animes, cartoons, TV series and full movies at virtually unlimited playing time, Veoh tops my list, although Boxsweeper, which allows you to download full movies as well, comes in at a close second. Veoh is what you call an online video and Internet TV browser rolled into one.

For widgets, go to Widgetbox, it has a bewildering variety of widgets for your blog which can be customized not only to Blogger but other personal sites such as Facebook, Livejournal, even Friendster. Oh by the way, I think I'm one of the very few people, at least among my friends and colleagues, who do not have a Friendster account.

For webcams, video conferencing and plain VoIP calls, I use Skype, which is based (I think) in Luxembourg. It's free and the quality's good, although sometimes there are "rough patches" in the reception, but overall you can talk to anybody in the world for free.

MAD TV Fan

Jack TV keeps on showing MAD TV reruns, and the show disappeared from its usual noontime and prime time slots. I hope the station starts programming new season episodes soon.

MAD TV: Steroids

Beach-starved

Having spent the better part of my growing-up years in the Bukidnon highlands, hilly but cool and pine-crested, I was literally starved for the beach. And so were the rest of the neighborhood kids. You see, trips to coastal areas were pretty seldom for us who lived in a land-locked plateau surrounded by mountains.

In fact, on trips to the city, after passing through the steep and winding highway snaking down Carmen hill upon entering the city, we'd be clapping our hands in excitement, complete with oohs and aaahs, each time the cobalt color of the sea comes into view. It triggers immediate memories of frolicking and swimming in the beach during the annual company-sponsored summer picnics.

Having lived in the city for quite some time with Manila Bay only half an hour away (more depending on the traffic), I now feel the exact opposite about living near the coast.

Land of the Pharaohs

My royal friend the Prince of Persia backpacking in the Middle East. I had to share this pix to other people who, like me, have never set foot, and probably never will, in these hallowed grounds.

Luxor

Aswan

Edfu and Komombo

AbuSimbel And Temple Of Isis In Philae

Pyramids of Egypt

Masiao

Masiao in the 80's was a highly-popular illegal numbers game in the Visayas and Mindanao area, sort of like present-day Jueteng. I'm not familiar with jueteng but masiao required betting on the following day's results of Jai Alai games that were played in Manila. If I'm not mistaken, jai alai originated from the Basque region.

Jai alai players were "imported" Spanish players from the Basque region, Cataluña and the rest of España.

A whole industry revolved around jai alai-based masiao, employing thousands, from the "financiers", "collectors" and the "runners."

The system was a bit sophisticated, if you ask me, because bets were in the form of "units". Very much like buying shares in the stock market, you get a big share of the prize money the bigger your bets.

You can also buy those "leaflets" containing statistics of players' performances, as well as "tips," strategies and those strange shapes and figures, which were supposed to hide the winning numbers. I couldn't really understand how they could give out tips, because it only means those who published these leaflets already knew the results beforehand, right?

Anyway, kids like me would easily blow our allowances betting numbers divined from dreams, shapes of flowers, cloud formations, and even from inspecting the underbelly of spiders.

One cousin claimed she got the winning number in her sleep and proof of this was the pair of gold earrings dangling from her ears.

We were impressed.

It was so popular I sometimes skipped recess in order to have money for masiao. I never won anything.

And so I stopped.

Puccini's Tosca

Puccini's operas are emotionally draining. Here's the aria, "Vissi d'arte..." from Tosca, powerfully interpreted by Angela Gheorghiu. You can hear the despair in her voice. In the aria, she demands to know from God why she is being made to suffer terribly.

Export Woes

Exports for the month of August fell 4.8% y-o-y compared to last year's, surprising many people, although 8m07 still showed a 4.3% growth over the same period last year.

Why should it be a surprise, the unabated strength of the peso is clearly affecting the export sector's competitiveness. It is something that should be expected.

Are we looking at the peso soaring towards the PhP43 territory?

Ceasefire

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Not The Same

And so you wonder (I know you do), "What has Ron got to say about the Jon Stewart episode wherein a satirical piece about women leaders showed the picture of Cory Aquino scrawled with the word "Slut" in it."

Also, "What's the difference between this Jon Stewart skit and that Desperate Housewives episode?"

Since I watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Jack TV after lunch, here's my take on the matter:

The Daily Show is clearly satirical, which means the show delivers their messages through irony and satire.

So when Cory is called a slut, it really means it's the other way around: I mean, who in his or her right mind would ever paint Cory as slutty, to begin with.

What it means is that women leaders have simply been pigeon-holed into stereotypes (e.g., only good in bed, among others) and that women candidates' chances at being elected to the highest political offices may be hindered as a result.

At least, that's how I understood it.

As for the Desperate Housewives episode, I didn't think it was tongue-in-cheek, ironic or satirical at all. In other words, it wasn't funny. It was delivered as if it were something that the viewers should be careful as well.

Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D

Itzhak Perlman setting the stage on fire with his rendition of the finale marked Allegro Vivacissimo to Tchaikovsky's fiery Violin Concerto in D, with Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Flaw_less

Last summer, I stepped outside my gate to my next-door neighbor's mini variety store wearing nothing but my boxer shorts.

Typical of any Filipino neighborhood, a small crowd gathered in the small benches exchanging pleasantries and gossip.

As I handed over my payment to the keeper, however, a "special child" sitting nearby promptly went behind me and- gasp! - pulled down my boxers, exposing my butt for all the world to see.

I didn't actually pull up my boxers immediately, I took my time. I mean, I have been active outdoors so I was tanned and, like Rosanna Roces in the nineties, flawless.....JOKE!

What was I supposed to do, die of shame?

Racial Slur

Many Americans feel bewildered at finding an almost-unanimous reaction from Filipinos regarding the Desperate Housewives episode wherein Terri Hatcher's character made a derogatory comment about medical degrees obtained from schools in the Philippines.

They say it is a joke, and shouldn't be taken seriously.

I don' think so, because it is comments like these that perpetuate a stereotype that is hardly fair and which manifests itself in supposedly funny jokes. Xenophobic perceptions like these, whether tongue-in-cheek or not, shouldn't be allowed to pass in a supposedly mature democratic society like the US.

If we make a joke about 9-11, do you think Americans will find it funny?

Exactly.

I know it's like comparing lemons and oranges. But my point is, a line has to be drawn somewhere. After all, we live in politically-correct times.

Americans don't get it. They feel they can get away with everything, including insulting every other nation on earth by passing it off as a joke.

If they start behaving and thinking like they're not the only people on this planet, probably they'd understand this point clearly.

Returning the Favor

I think I know why Enrique Razon of port operator ICTSI got involved in the ZTE mess: his latest port operations now include one in Shandong province in China.

He may have gotten this deal in exchange for you know, a similar deal for a Chinese firm to expand its operations in the Philippines.

I read somewhere that Gloria initially raised objections to the broadband network project. What made her make a 180 degree turn is obvious: she helped Razon snatch the deal in China. In exchange, Gloria and Razon had to return the favor and facilitate the Chinese company's getting the deal for the broadband network. That is why suddenly, you have Gloria pushing for the deal despite widespread objections ("media attacks," according to her).

Problem was that this project made no economic sense whatsoever.

To appease the Chinese, I think Gloria and Razon will be hard-pressed to come up with another project that will benefit another hand-picked company of the Chinese government.

You can be sure that this time around, it will be more carefully prepared.

(Marc, analysts and economists love to speculate).

Baroque Break

Little-known gems from the 17th-18th century composers like Caccini and Vivaldi are being rediscovered thanks to musicians like Cecilia Bartoli.

Here she interprets Vivaldi's "Sposa son disprezzata" from the opera, "Bajazet."

A Polish duo performing Caccini's Ave Maria with Ewa Iżykowska, soprano and Jerzy Maciejews on the piano.

Variations on a Fat Theme

For many westerners, it is impolite to comment about somebody's weight. "Oh my, you've gained weight," will cost you friends.

Filipinos, however, have no qualms about weight-related issues. Almost always, meeting somebody you haven't seen for quite some time (this is relative, it could mean just a few days to a few years) would elicit instant comments about (1) your weight ("ang taba mo") (2) the color of your skin ("ang puti mo") and (3) the state of your love life ("may asawa ka na ba? wala? why not?").

(3) above is easily defensible: just say the I'll-cross-the-bridge-when-I-get-there bit, or simply claim you're a "workaholic." As for the state of your skin's pigmentation, you can't really comment much about it. When you've been active outdoors swimming, rowing, jogging and biking, you'd turn a shade darker. And then people start comparing you to a construction worker. When it's raining most of the time so you stay indoors, you'd turn a shade paler, and people start likening you to a chick. Then they start suspecting that you're taking Glutathione pills or going to derma clinics for a Diamond Peel.

It is (1) above that a lot of people are most sensitive to mainly because among the three, it is the one closely associated with self-esteem issues (yah, I got this from Oprah).

Ang taba mo is merely a statement of fact that you're fat. But if spoken with emphasis on taba (as in "tabaah"), it could actually mean that "you're HUGE."

Ang taba mo naman seems to suggest that the speaker finds it unfortunate, even distressing at finding you fat.

Ang taba taba mo, by repeating the word twice, suggests that you're excessively fat.

Ang tataba nyo is a collective generalization, almost an accusation that you and the rest of the group love to raid the refrigerator.

Anyway, when I met up with Jun, Jen and Pam over the week-end to swim at Rizal, I realized all of us (yes, myself included) appeared heavier.

After swimming however, we hied off to Amici for a hearty lunch of sun-dried tomato and four-cheese pizzas, seafood pasta and gelato.

Yes, we promptly put back the calories we just burned, and added some more.

Done and Over With

What Neri did not disclose in the Senate hearings on the ZTE deal, Jarius Bondoc bared in his column anyway. The stench of the ZTE corruption is starting to get to me, I hope I won't be writing about it anymore.

Anyway, Neri reportedly warned Gloria about the stinky deal three times but pressed him to approve it anyway. In addition, he said the deal was the handiwork, apart from Abalos and ZTE officials, of Enrique Razon of ICTSI which holds the container port services monopoly at the Manila South Harbor.

I don't know how Razon got into the picture, since ICTSI is a port operator and not into telecommunications. Razon earlier threatened Neri over the latter's plans to liberalize port operations at the Manila South Harbor. International port services are currently operated only by two companies, the other one being ATI. (How do I know this? I covered both companies when I worked as an investment analyst).

To deflect the heat away from Gloria, clearly Abalos will have to be the sacrificial lamb.