Down the Rabbit Hole

Driving to work this morning made me smile. I saw my old car, TCA-981, and I was very happy that it's in good condition. Seeing it brought back memories of my first years behind the wheel... July 1, 1994 (or sometime close to Daddy's birthday) It was early evening, we were about to close up our shop (which was then close to the Lopez Elementary School). We were just waiting for Daddy because it was his birthday and we were looking forward to a dinner outside the house. When Daddy finally came, we three siblings jumped up and down with excitement because he was driving our new car! Mommy knew about it of course, but I think they kept it a secret from us kids. Anyway, it was a shiny and blue 1991 Toyota Corolla 1.6 GL that had caught Annapet's eye when she joined Daddy in one of his car-hunting expeditions. It became the family's travel companion, having gone to Baguio on family trips at least twice. The plate: TCA-981.  It's the car I grew up with. ...

"What do you want on your birthday?" I'm always at a loss when asked this. Since my birthday is coming up soon, I thought long and hard and finally came up with my birthday wish list a few days in advance (an achievement).  The catch: I only get one item from the list; then I revise the list for next year. =) Quad-band cellphone Neutral density filter Tripod Sportswatch (more specifically, new batteries for my old one) Prescription sunglasses I used to include the latest Harry Potter book in my birthday wish list, but I've already completed the set.  This year, I ended up with a phone since it's been in my birthday list the longest. Thanks to rapid devaluation of phones and to BPI Installment Madness, I was able to get a quad-band phone (with wifi functionality, which I consider a bonus) priced under P10,000 at 0% interest, 12 months to pay scheme... and I also received an extra phone as part of the deal. =)

On my way home tonight, I happened to look up at the evening sky. That moon is weird, I thought; it looked like a full moon except for a small part of the arc that seemed to have been chomped off very cleanly by Cookie Monster.  When the skies had cleared, I looked up again. Lo and behold, a normal-looking full moon! I must have been imagining the misshapen moon due to the thick cloud cover. Or was that an actual lunar eclipse, and I just didn't realise it (again!)? Apparently, what I saw really was a lunar eclipse. It's a partial one, and the Philippines had ring side seats to see the eclipse during moon rise. However, the rain clouds hovering over Manila made the moon hardly noticeable.  Too bad I only noticed (and almost dismissed) the eclipse when it was about to end. I would've loved to see the maximum eclipse in which more than half of the moon was covered by the Earth's shadow.  More details about this eclipse are in Wikipedia (see the link below): h...

A great film, but I won't attempt watching it when I'm alone ever again! The movie was SCARY. Five minutes after it had started, I ran out of the room and double-checked the locks on the doors! I only continued watching, under pillows and blankets, because Tommy Lee Jones was in it (he played the sheriff, Ed Tom Bell) and I was waiting for his typical I-will-save-the-day scene. However, he maintained a low profile throughout this film, so atypical of his roles as a U.S. Marshall and a Man in Black. Javier Bardem, as the hitman Anton Chigurh, was SCARY. Putting him in the cast was a great move by the Coen Brothers. Because of his portrayal of the antagonist, I had difficulty sleeping! The lack of background music in large sections of the film echoed a feeling of hopelessness in such a violent community... and was SCARY. The colours used in the film were a bit on the sad side too, making the area look like a ghost town. Where were all the people?!? The feel of the ne...

Rating: ★★★ Category: Movies Genre: Comedy A healthy dose of Brit comedy. The film injected humour as it tackled the obstacles met by a man while training for a marathon and running his life. The turtle won over the hare again! I just don't understand why the title includes the term "Fatboy". The hero was not that fat (or at least not as fat as I had thought).

There are good days and there are bad days. Today started out badly. I woke up with a splitting headache and a bad feeling in the stomach, so I wasn't sure if I could finish this 5k. And the bad move: I ate cheese sandwiches on my way to Nuvali. Perfect, I thought, I wasn't going to throw up on an empty stomach. =| But who could pass up this kind of challenge, right? I was determined to finish the New Balance Trail Adventure in one piece! I walked/jogged my way slowly up and down the narrow trail to the finish line, and got to look around me. This was my closest approach to the Tagaytay ridge on foot! There was a lot of grass and a few scattered trees (quite expected).  Clouds over the Laguna de Bay enhanced the already great view: cloud-covered sunlight casting a golden glow on vegetation and on muddy soil. =)  Too bad I didn't carry my camera along during the run... what a waste of view.  Fifty-one minutes later, I crossed the finish line. Headache go...

Thank you, Dara for pointing at the sky this afternoon! As the sun was setting, strange bursts of colour were seen above the rain clouds. This was the first time I've seen sun dogs (or what I think are sun dogs). At first, we thought aurora borealis (but we're too far from the poles and it's too early in the day to see that) and then I thought oil spill in the sky (overactive imagination, right?). Or was it a horizontal rainbow? (a what?!?) Then I remembered Dr. Ken McNally mentioning sun dogs. Whatever that is, the light scattering phenomenon surely livened up our early evening while still in the lab. 

How do you differentiate fresh from stored rice? Without the complex technological platforms used in metabolomics, the best instrument is still the NOSE. It, for example, can differentiate between jasmine and basmati, two forms of aromatic rice. Basmati rice, usually eaten after a year in storage, is preferred mostly by South Asians; jasmine rice, eaten soon after harvest, is preferred mostly by Southeast Asians. Both types of rice contain the same aromatic compound but they have their own distinctive smell. At the IRRI Seminar on June 10, Fe discussed the aroma profiles of jasmine and basmati varieties. Aside from the main aromatic compound, hundreds more contributed to the distinct aromas of the two rice types. These differences are detected by the human nose.

Thanks to Al Gore's presentation, I was able to enter the SMX Convention Centre for the first time. Unfortunately, photography of any form was not allowed inside the lecture hall as the presentation was going on. The fear of having my camera confiscated prevented me from sneaking a photo (and they did reprimand someone who was photographing the slides – I think he had a better chance of writing down the references, and then downloading the images from the Associated Press website). Yup, I was able to buy a bronze ticket. Actually, I wondered why I got a cheap ticket and yet I was seated in front. It turned out that the spot I was seated in had ring side seats of the giant screen... not of the stage with Al Gore on it. I had to sit sideways and strain my neck to see the people onstage. Once the talk began, the houselights were dimmed, and it didn't matter anymore that I was on the far left side. Al Gore was barely illuminated. The focus, evidently, was on the conten...

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee..."  – John Donne (1624) Hans T. Sy, president of SM Prime Holdings, welcomed everyone to the SM Leadership Conference Series. His opening line, John Donne's "No Man is an Island", strikes home today's theme. What a way to introduce the man of the hour, a speaker who encourages environmental awareness: Mr. Al Gore. The former U.S. vice-president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate brought his famed presentation "An Inconvenient Truth" to Manila, this time updated for the Asian audience. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, as well as the movers and sha...

We trooped to Fort Bonifacio to participate in the Walk the World event on June 6. As usual, I did not dare run with my camera on me, so I took photos before and after the actual 5k run. The skies were gloomy, in sharp contrast to the Neutrogena run (runners were basking in sunshine then), but everyone was in a happy mood, especially the walkers. They had with them a marching band and street dancers!!

... and get hungry yourself in the process! Fe, Dara, Crystal, and I joined the United Nations World Food Programme's Walk the World–Pilipinas. It's a charity event conducted to raise funds to help keep children in school by providing daily school meals (which cost around P10 a student) in conflict-ridden areas of the Philippines, such as Mindanao. I guess this is our way of contributing directly to the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals. Instead of joining the 1k walk, we ended up running (and walking) the full 5k route. Noan and Tita Angie participated in the walk, complete with the marching band, the giants ( higantes ), the balloons, the tribal dancers, and the corporate participants. I clocked 00:46:02 in my first 5k race, based on the time I crossed the finish line (unofficial race time). Not bad, I thought, since I was aiming to finish in under an hour. Dara and Crystal, also running 5k for the first time, finished the course earlier than I did....

Three photographers, one camera. Two hours, 103 km on varying terrain. Photos by Rochie, Kuya Jun, and Dara.

After the Pahiyas (2010) adventure, we trooped to Tanay, Rizal to see the famous Daranak Falls. The general area of the waterfalls is a popular filming location; in fact, on today's trip, we passed by the road to the film set location of "Langit sa Piling Mo", a current GMA-7 television series.  I'm glad that despite the fame of the place, it is still accessible to non-showbiz folk. The Manila East Road (which goes round the Laguna de Bay) is paved and relatively safe to go on (no traffic!). I loved driving on the hairpin turns and seeing the transformation of the scenery: mountain, lake, rice field, then back to mountain. There were also a lot of reminders to be alert for landslides because the roads cut through the Sierra Madre range. Keeping passengers not nauseated with the road was quite challenging in the Mabitac–Pililla stretch. A lot of blogs have been written on how to go to the waterfalls via the Manila East Road, but most of the writers start from...

melon, corn, sugar Everyone contributed to the pot-luck halo-halo in the lab. Absolutely no occasion.

FROM YOUTUBE: Social Media Revolution: Is social media a fad? Or is it the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution? This video details out social media facts and figures that are hard to ignore. This video is produced by the author of Socialnomics.