Foot Dragging

Chiz Escudero should stop dragging his feet and should make known his plans if he's running for President once and for all because really, people are starting to NOT care.

He wants to run alright, that's obvious enough, except that he's not getting the party nod and he's having problems with funding his candidacy. Danding, the party founder, is hard pressed to choose who between his nephews, Teodoro and Noynoy, he should support, leaving the presumed NPC standard bearer, Escudero out cold. Obviously, blood is thicker than water.

Get Together Tonight

For the first time ever, I'm posting a bouncy, pop song by Adam Kling. A team-mate once called me the Renaissance Man, so this is really a first. Heard this over Star World and I took to it instantly because it contains the lines,

"Give me one reason if you've got one reason,
'said there ain't no reason that
we shouldn't get together tonight."

and

"I'm sending you an invitation, respondez-vous, s'il vous plait."

adam kling get together tonight mp3 | lyrics

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Disrupted

ULTRA and Marikina Sports Park remain closed. So my swimming and jogging routines have been disrupted. That's why my Body Mass Index recently reached the overweight territory (convenient excuse).

I might have to run tomorrow, from the CCP all the way to MOA, hopefully it won't rain early in the morning. I'm registered for the Adidas half-marathon this Sunday and I'm ill-prepared due to the lack of practice venues.

Of Disasters and Heists

Some builders are now suggesting that houses built in low-lying areas situated in the Marikina Valley should be multi-storied, obviously a provision for the possibility of flooding.

It's just that the Marikina fault line also runs along the valley, which does not really bode well for tall structures.

Or if houses are built way up, in the hills, away from the river banks, they are also in danger of landslides.

Life in these islands.

Anyway, a group of armed men dressed like special police forces (bomb squadron) attempted a violent heist through a blitzkrieg on a Rolex shop inside Glorietta 5 earlier today.

It is easy to presume that robberies and bank heists become all-too-common as the campaign season kicks in, and that so many people nowadays are becoming desperate because of the typhoons that ravaged the country. I don't know. No place seems ever safe anymore.

As for the first QC International Marathon that created a monstrous traffic jam along the QC Circle, better job next time.

Reminiscences

Reminds me very much of high school and my hometown of Camp Phillips in Bukidnon. I convinced my teacher, Mrs. Barola to make Rodgers & Hammerstein's Climb Ev'ry Mountain our final graduation song. I accompanied the entire graduating class on the piano in singing this final farewell to our alma mater.

Dancing Inmates

The Cebu Dancing Inmates are it again, this time they're shimmying to the beat of Nobody, Nobody but chuuu...

OK, they're a highly talented and disciplined bunch, do you even think this could ever happen in a high-security prison in the US? Hmmmm only in the Philippines.

Tourists are lapping it up, and the inmates seem to be enjoying themselves. And that's a good thing.

Except that the viewing experience is starting to feel like you're inside a torture chamber.

Since the Korean pop song is a smash hit in these islands, even KFC's Chuck and Jollibee engage each other in a dance showdown in the middle of the street. So funny!

Calling a Spade a Spade

I stand 5 ft. 8 inches tall, and last time I weighed myself, I was 165 lbs which alarmed me, it may have gone down a bit because prior to the onslaught of Ondoy, I jogged and swam in Marikina. True enough, my calculated body mass index (BMI) is 25.1. (Check out any BMI Calculator on the web).

A normal BMI is 18.5-24.9, overweight is 25-29.9 while obese is >30.

It's official. I am overweight. Ngek! That's why I'm joining the Adidas half marathon on the last week of this month.

Visiting Marikina

I went to Marikina earlier today, just to see for myself how the shoe capital of the Philippines is coping up with the tragedy that submerged the city under water two (2) weeks ago.

The water has long receded and the sun's out, so what remains are piles of dried-up mud and garbage waiting to be collected. Dust motes are everywhere, it gets under your skin, especially in Provident Village. I dropped by the Sports Complex where I do my regular early evening jogs and weekly swim. Predictably, it's closed. There's mud in the oval and it has been made a temporary area where stalled cars are brought. The lobby is filled up with boxes and boxes of Lucky Me Noodles, mineral water and sardines.

The Thai restaurant is thankfully open, the bakeshop across the street is again doing business briskly, and so is the public market. Mercury Drug, Red Ribbon and other establishments near the City Hall remain closed- staff are still busy cleaning up and doing the necessary repairs.

I couldn't believe that the waters affected Blue Wave and Robinson's, the ground level tenants like Starbucks and KFC remain closed. The mall and the supermarket are located quite far from the river. The hospital seems operational already, which according to news reports, the water reached the second floor during the height of the typhoon.

I feel bad for Marikina. I may not be a resident, but I go there several times a week. I haven't been to other parts of the city. And I have no idea how residents of San Mateo, Montalban, Cainta and Taytay are coping. But the city is up and about. The clean up is almost done so I'm pretty sure, I'll be back soon in Marikina.

Scherzo from A Misummer Night's Dream

Yevgeny Kissin breezing through the Scherzo section of Rachmaninoff's transcription of Felix Mendelssohn's From A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Very light-footed and crystal clear, you'd think that you're hearing the rain beating against the windowpanes.

Pachydermal

While Sta. Maria in Laguna, Talim island and Cardona in Rizal remained in dire need of relief goods, President Arroyo chose to distribute these in --good grief!--her hometown of Lubao in Pampanga, which when compared to the devastation suffered by these towns, is relatively unscathed by Ondoy.

She's been visiting Lubao quite frequently, which clearly means she's using this tragedy to position herself as their potential Congresswoman once she's no longer President.

To quote Miriam, she really has a "pachydermal" face.

There's Always a First Time

Sa loob ng pampaseherong jeep kaninang hapon lamang, isang ale na siguro ay singkwenta anyos na, ang muntik ko nang itulak at ihulog sa daan habang ang jeep na aming sinasakyan ay tumatakbo at binabaybay ang daan papuntang Cubao.

"Ma-ma, pakiabot naman ng bayad," sabi niya sa akin, dahil ang puwesto ko nga naman ay nasa unahan malapit sa tsuper.

Sa pinakaunang pagkakataon sa buong buhay ko ay mayroong tumawag sa akin na Ma-ma, at lubos ko itong kinainisan at kinabahala dahil ito ay hindi katanggap-tanggap.

Tiningnan ko siya ng malalim, at sabay sabi, "Lola, sandali lang po ha?" bago ko inabot sa tsuper ang kanyang pamasahe.

Relief Efforts, Feline Version

In the aftermath of Ondoy and Peping ravaging the country, one morning I woke up to a scratching sound on my front door. I knew it was just my next door neighbor's cat, Kuribod, using my door as his scratching post.

But when I opened the door an hour later, there it was, on the doorstep, a plastic bag containing leftovers. He obviously dragged it from a garbage pail.

Which got me thinking: I learned from Jessica Zafra's blog that cats normally leave dead roaches, rats, or any object on your doorstep as a gift, or as a token of goodwill. Which makes a lot of sense, because I would have expected him to consume the contents of the bag, which in this case, remained full.

Usually, when I open the front door, I just leave him to step in and inspect any nook and cranny in the house. And it must have occurred to him that the mess on the floor (books, DVDs, newspapers) means that I am a typhoon victim, well, sort of. And thus, to commiserate and to add to the relief efforts, he gave me leftovers he found from the garbage.

UPDATE (10/05/09) True enough, I found a medium sized, dead rat on my doorstep this morning. I really must clean up, so that he'd stop treating me like a refugee.

Practical

The airwaves is full of suggestions and survival tips during times of "Acts of God" emergencies. Practical suggestions such as stocking up on batteries, light clothing and other essential items that can fit in a small bag, as well as home remedies to treat athlete's foot and other fungal infections due to prolonged exposure to flood waters are extremely welcome.

There are some, however, who seem to be ignorant of the word "practical." One group showed a TV reporter their items to stock up for emergencies: a block of food resembling hopia that could last five (5) years (that's right, years not months) and some aluminum sheet blanket which not only keeps the body warm, but can be used as a reflector to catch the attention of rescuers. The catch is that these items have to be imported from the US, the aluminum blanket in particular, is reportedly made of "space-age technology" material.

Unless we're actually dealing with a disaster on the scale of Nagasaki and Hiroshima or a volcanic eruption like Mt. Toba's, and since we're neither members of the French legion nor soldiers in Afghanistan, we can simply subsist on biscuits, or granola bars, or dried fruit to tide us over. We don't need any high-protein five-year hopia which nobody knows where to buy anyway.

As for the aluminum blanket, isn't that dangerous? That still conducts electricity. Any blanket will do, thank you very much. We do not need space-age mumbo jumbo for tragedies that are essentially earth-bound. The term "emergency" requires that the items be ideally inexpensive and commonly available in your local grocery store, meaning you need not order from a NASA supplier.