Down the Rabbit Hole

This movie is one of absolute my favourites. A classic Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan rom-com. Seeing it again after a long time made me sit back and look beyond the plot. This time around, I felt that the movie was a time capsule, a historical mark to how different or similar things were just before the turn of the century. Internet connectivity When I first saw the movie, I didn't have internet connection at home and didn't even have an email address. Back in 1998, dial-up was the way to go to access the internet (at least in the Philippines I think). Yes, complete with that tell-tale screeching noise heard in the background as the modem connected to the internet via the phone lines. Connectivity was only fast enough to send email. Things that are very easy to do these days like video-conferencing, or even viewing photos, were impossible those days (or people needed to have the patience of Job to wait for photos or big files to finally come up).  Fast forward to 2011, I've...

I finally deactivated my Facebook profile today. It wasn't an easy decision; it did take me a few weeks before I actually clicked that Deactivate button. After all, Facebook has made contacting family and friends a lot easier. Sharing photos, sending invitations, discussing topics, playing computer games... all these became convenient as well. Despite all these niceties, I thought it was time I pulled the plug on my profile.  Each person has his/her reason(s) for deleting or deactivating their accounts. Some do so because of privacy issues, or because they've got an online stalker, or because they own multiple accounts, or because they spend too much time using it. Mine is quite simple (and may be unreasonable for some): I just grew tired of it. 

Red light, red light, what do you say?                                                                         I say, "STOP" and stop right away.                        Yellow light, yellow light, what do you mean?                                                               I mean, "WAIT" until the light turns green.     Green light, green light, what do you say?                                                               ...

Ate Madie's youngest son, Carlo Miguel, was welcomed to the Christian world on January 16. I wasn't able to be there for the baptism itself because I was "jet-lagged" . I did get to the lunch party on time, though. So, here are some photos of family and friends in attendance...  

Finally, I got to watch this movie on cable.  Admittedly Frost/Nixon (2008) is one of the more gripping movies I've seen. No, there were no gun fights, car chases, hostage situations, nor weather and geographical disturbances. There wasn't even a cat fight! What made the movie compelling to see then?  They just talked. Yes, they did. I could remember only two movies where the characters mainly discussed issues stopped me from doing anything else: Lions for Lambs (2007) and Phone Booth (2002). In both movies, the characters were all fictional. However, Frost/Nixon was based on the series of interviews between famous reporter David Frost and the former US President Richard Nixon during the aftermath of the Watergate scandal. The movie showed what happened in the background: Nixon's staff and family around him, and the drama occurring within Frost's production team as the interviews progressed. More importantly, the movie showed the verbal sparring betw...

I came across an interesting article by Charles Spence and Alberto Gallace entitled " Tasting Shapes and Words " (Food Quality and Preference 22(3): 290-295).  Synaesthesia. This is what doctors call the condition in which people use more than one sense to perceive a stimulus... just like seeing colours when music is played (they are NOT high on drugs) and also like associating shapes or sounds to tastes and flavours (the topic of the paper... please click on the link). I always thought that people who describe food this way were doing so metaphorically. Just like when wine connoisseurs describe vintages as either sharp or rounded (wines have edges?), smooth or rough (wines have texture like solids?). Apparently, this notion is wrong. There are people who have this synaesthesia capacity and LITERALLY associate taste with shapes and words. Interesting! 

Macbook, iPad, iPhone...  Our living room played host to three Macs when Biboy was home. As he settled in upon arrival, the three Ates played with the toys (Anna on my Mac, Ate Maddie on the Biboy's iPhone, Rochie on the Daddy's iPad... or was it the other way around?). This reminds me of my mom's first encounter with the Mac. One day, Biboy asked for her permission to go out of the house because he was buying a Mac. She readily allowed him, and so he took off. When he returned, she asked, "Where's my burger?" Biboy got confused; he said that he didn't buy food. It turned out that she thought that he'd gone to McDonald's to buy burgers.  A few years later, she's adept at using the iPad herself. :) I think this was taken on Christmas eve 2010. Now that Biboy is back in the US, only the resident Mac stayed behind.

The first birthday celebrated in the lab this year is Roslen's 40th. To make it more special, people in the lab organised a very special cake to mark the occasion. the birthday cake part 2 of the birthday celebration

The seat of government of Laguna province has seen its share of transformations since the incumbent governor, Mr. ER Ejercito took office in 2010. The most telling of these changes is the addition of a water fountain just inside the gate. A statue of Jose P. Rizal, what looks like a miniature of the Luneta image, is right behind the fountain. I'm glad Ate Madie and I dropped by the area in the evening, just before the rain started to fall. People were already leaving the place in search of shelter from the rain drops. The lights around the fountain gave the curtain of water a golden glow. It was magic. Check it out.

The unit began as Grain Quality and Nutrition Research Center in 2004. Soon after, it became Grain Quality, Nutrition, and Post-harvest Center... and it celebrated its sixth anniversary on December 15, 2010. Here's a look back at some of the group shots in the lab... 2004 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Dear Family, It's been almost a month since Christmas, and so I thought that this should be a good time to look back at last year's reunion.  *** Biboy's plan to surprise everyone bombed because the family got wind of his arrival. Nevertheless, it was a nice evening; the small kids got to decipher the toys and the "raffled off" iPad together, Lola was pleasantly surprised to see her nieces, and everyone got lots of gifts. As everyone was settling down after all that excitement, Tita Ising announced that she was giving away money to the kids...  Then there was chaos.  Rochie

It's the nth time I've registered a car at the Land Transportation Office and still each time was far from perfect. So in case anyone needs a beginner's guide to vehicle registration, here are a few things I've learned over the years, one blooper after the other... Having the car registered on time is cheaper than having it done later. A vehicle's registration deadline depends on the plate number. The last digit corresponds to the month ("1" is January) and the digit just before that determines which week is the deadline for registration. For more of this information, check out the blog entry:  http://rochiecuevas.blogspot.com/2011/01/car-registration-2011.html . The Third Party Liability (TPL) policy is required for registration. In case a policy is already reactivated, make sure that there's an extra envelope whose contents include the policy and a copy of a note from the Philippine Insurers and Reinsurers Association ( PIRA ). Car emission...

Joey Pepperoni has recently started welcoming pizza lovers in SM City Calamba. A new pizza joint in my hometown is always a treat for me; I just had to try it out... but it's no fun trying it out alone. I had to bring some home for my sister to try. Honestly speaking, I had a hard time choosing what to get because the menu had such mouth-watering offerings. I ended up with the Joey Pepperoni pizza (the promo pizza, P59 for an 8-inch thin crust pizza) and a Quattro Formaggi (P165 for 8 inches of pizza topped with parmesan, white, mozzarella, and cheddar cheeses). They were delicious!! They were simple, no-frills pies that are light on the stomach and on the pocket. This is a welcome alternative to Pizza Hut and Shakey's whenever I crave for pizza. 

The year-end holidays were made special because the youngest of our brood, my brother, dropped by from California to surprise the family based here in the Philippines. Personally, I would've loved it if he had spent as much time with his relatives as with his friends, but he had his own plans for his holidays and we didn't figure so much in it. Nevertheless, his presence, during the hours that he did stay with them, lit up the faces of my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandmas who haven't seen him for two years... their smiles were all so precious. Lola Estay, unfortunately, has a very short memory span nowadays. She was confused when he arrived, not recognising him at all; when he was saying good bye to her, she refused to believe that he's flying off. On the other hand, he made Lola Bats extra happy over Christmas; watching him say good bye to her was nothing short of difficult. At first she was light-hearted and smiling, but when the time had come for me to bring him...

Is the "end of the world as we know it" approaching? I've read earlier today that there's snow in Hawaii !! This US state, which has a typical tropical climate (according to Wikipedia ), is one of the 49 states to experience snowfall this year. The only exception, currently, is Florida. It's interesting because snow is not normally seen in tropical parts of the world... well, maybe on mountain tops, just like in the Hawaiian islands. After a quick search in the Internet, I found out that snow in the tropics is not so rare after all. Bummer. Here are a few links showing the other places where snow falls near the equator: http://gerdemb.livejournal.com/36212.html http://www.meattradenewsdaily.co.uk/news/050810/brazil___snow_in_the_tropics_confirms_global_warming_is_a_myth_.aspx   http://www.acp-eucourier.info/Toursim-Snow-and-f.349.0.html If snow is indeed possible in Hawaii and in other tropical places, would the Philippines also experience snow sometime in t...

... but did not fly over for it. The organisers of the training course use the Internet to get attendees all over the world together one hour each day, for three consecutive days, to listen to lectures starting at 11am EST (which is 12mn, Philippine time). In short, my work days, over the course of the training, will actually spill over to the next day. The lecture series is about a software used to record and to quantify separation of molecules based on size. The mode of delivery is interesting. The lecturer is heard over the Internet via the computer's sound system; in my case, since something's wrong with its speaker, I hooked the Mac to the stereo at home... voila! The lecture is heard in home theatre quality. :) Participants can field questions, to all participants or to the organisers only, through an online chat interface (complete with speech bubbles). The lecturer can then respond verbally during the Q&A portion. Plus, there's an additional window where...

It's that time of the year again when I need to brave the long queues to have the car registered at the Land Transportation Office (LTO). For the past few years, since the satellite office has opened in Calamba, I no longer need to travel to the Binan office for this (yey!).  The LTO  website reminds the motoring public: For those with plate numbers ending in  "1" , don't forget to register your motor vehicle on  January 2011. I couldn't remember when in January I should go to the LTO and have my car registered. Thankfully, the website also furnished this schedule: Reminders   Registration Week Middle Plate Number First Week 1,2,3 Second Week 4,5,6 Third Week 7,8 Last Week 9,0 Now all I have to do is bring the car there next week.

I looked at the sky tonight and noticed that the moon has a halo. That halo meant that rain is coming soon; as I was staring at the moon, I remembered Ernie Baron's trivia tidbits in TV Patrol (ABS-CBN)... this halo was one of the things he had mentioned during his weather news broadcasts. Seeing that halo wasn't too much of a surprise. Floods have devastated parts of the Philippines, particularly in the eastern areas. Three-fourths of Queensland, Australia is also submerged in flood. These are reminiscent of what happened to Metro Manila and Southern Luzon when Typhoon Ketsana (aka Ondoy) dumped a month's worth of water. The weather forecast at work seems to be correct: the dry season will see a whole lot of rain. 

As rain started falling, we entered Calle Arco, a restaurant just past the arches of Pagsanjan in Laguna province. We were welcomed by pink walls adorned by antique china serving plates and paintings. A giant wine bottle was resting on one corner while hardwood chairs and tables awaited clients wanting to taste what Calle Arco had to offer. Since we came in at 9pm, we had the restaurant all to ourselves. On the days that I've passed by the restaurant, it was always filled with people. Ate Madie had eaten there already and said that the food was good. I'm not used to ordering food for twelve people, so my aunts took charge of making sure that we would just have enough for dinner. We ended up with sisig (pork or chicken served on a sizzling plate with chilies and with calamansi), sinigang bangus belly (milkfish belly in sour soup), pancit canton (lo mein) and bihon (stir fried rice noodles), steamed vegetables, and rice (of course!). I have to agree with Ate Madie; everything...

I finally went to the orthopedic doctor on Thursday. After examining my foot , he said the my posterior tibialis tendon is the culprit. To further illustrate the point, he showed a model of the bones of the foot, pinpointing where the tendon runs. Instead of asking something related to the pain, I blurted out, "Are those real bones?" The doctor assured me that the foot model is not made of bone while reaching down under his desk. He pulled up a model of the vertebral column and the pelvis. "Now these are real bones", he said. Creepy. He then proceeded writing the prescription. So now, I'm on NSAIDs for six days and I'm minimising putting weight on my foot to curb the foot pain.

My car, a blue Honda Jazz, is now five years old! :) I bought it in 2006 as a Ph.D. student, replacing the Honda SiR I was driving since college. Daddy always says that if we treat a car with respect and take care of it, it will keep us safe. And the Jazz has always been reliable, mainly because it's regularly maintained. My mini-zoo on the rear seat has grown over the years as well. They keep me company when I travel long distances on my own; they also double as distractions when my nieces and nephews travel with me. The Jazz mini-zoo residents! From left to right: the unnamed bear from PUP thesis students, Doc bear, Moo, Buster, and Teddy. Missing in the photo: Koala bear, Kangaroo, Halloween Cat, Space Monkey, Turtle, Panda bear, Robin Hood bear, and Mickey Mouse. The stuffed toys are tokens or keepsakes from my trips. Those absent in the photos are currently in storage (because I never got round getting them back in the car after the accident in September 2010).

"The president of Mars is coming in January," my supervisor announced during the group's end-of-the-year lab meeting. Everyone hushed while we mulled over what she said. Just as she was about to give instructions in preparation for this guest, I blurted, "Are there people in Mars now?!?"  It took her a moment to realise that I misunderstood her statement. She replied, "Mars, the chocolate, not the planet!"  Oops!

What a way to perk my morning: a long and furry black blur ran across the corridor and behind my seat in the office. I was so surprised that I screamed while jumping away from my cubicle. The rat, realising that it had reached a dead end, scurried off between the wall and the cubicle divider panel. I think I ran further than the rat, quite honestly; I was more scared of it than it of me. The rat, wily as ever, successfully evaded capture yet again. It lives free to scare me another day!

Seafood + fish = ALLERGY!!.  I'm allergic to seafood (except for bivalves).  Over lunch, I had an allergic reaction to my food. Either it had fish sauce OR the chicken used was injected with antibiotics that I react to. As usual, it was a race against time to an antihistamine and I was disadvantaged because I've used up all the tablets I had bought in 2010.  So I went off campus to buy medicine in a nearby grocery shop. Back in the office, I was able to rest easy because the allergy seemed to subside, thanks to the medicine.

Okay, I've had enough.  My right knee has bugged me with sharp stabbing pains on random occasions; sometimes when I go up and down stairs and when I jog. The pain is concentrated just below the knee cap (I think). I need to stop whatever I'm doing (running or walking) and use my umbrella as a walking cane whenever the knee pain attacks happen. When the pain first came up (when I was still in high school), the doctor said if the pain recurred, my knee might need surgery. I was naturally scared; hence, I haven't gone back to the doctor with that complaint. Many years later: recurring pain, especially when the weather goes cold. The right foot, on the other hand, started becoming painful after I fell down a flight of stairs in 1997. Since then, whenever I walk or run more than 1 km or play an extra long game of badminton, there's pain on the mid-foot, on the same side as the big toe. This pain gets worse with the cold weather, so I wear socks to bed and I walk with a sli...

Just as we were arriving home from the media noche  at Lola Estay's, people in Lola Bats' house in Paranaque were up and about, rushing to the Emergency Room.   Lola Bats was rushed to the Medical Center Paranaque before dawn on January 1 by Tita Ising and Tito Sibing. It was fortunate that they were with her when she fell ill because Tita Ising is an MD. Lola's blood pressure shot up to 220/100 and had atrial fibrillation, according to Tita Ising. That means that her heart couldn't pump blood properly because it has an abnormal rhythm. As of yesterday afternoon, Tita Ising said that her blood pressure had gone lower while in the hospital. Lola Bats, perhaps feeling much better, was already raring to go back home. Despite being critically ill at 94 years old, Lola Bats' comic timing was present when Tita Tessie and Ate Maddie visited her in the intensive care unit. That's a good sign. Get well soon, Lola Bats!

Part 2 of our New Year's party was spent with my paternal aunts, uncle, cousins, and nephew in Paranaque.  Miggy has further expanded his song repertoire, we found out, when he began singing " bawing-bawing, bawing-bawing... " as he played with Tita Tess' sliding doors during dinner. The tune of the song sounded familiar. We aunts were discussing why the tune rang a bell. Then it hit us. Miggy was singing his approximation of the instrumentals of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" (aka "Wimoweh"), a song popularised by The Tokens in the 1960s and performed famously in the 2000s by Pierre Coffin's Pat and Stanley  (the hippo and the dog). Just as we thought that it was the only new song, he started chanting " O-o-o-oooh, o-o-o-oooh, ha! O-o-o-oooh, o-o-o-oooh, ha! " with Kuya Mitchie. Another familiar tune, we thought, trying to place this second song. It turns out to be from "Kung Fu Fighting" from the OST of Kung Fu Panda!...

New Year 2011 is a happy occasion because Tita Babie and her family were with us (sans Donnell), as well as Biboy. They all flew into the Philippines specially to celebrate the holidays with the Philippine-based clan.  The New Year in Sta Cruz is chaotic, as always; fireworks and firecrackers along the national highway made it risky to travel starting at 10PM. The roads have taken the feel of war zones with the frequent bangs and reports, the smoke-filled air, and the sound of fire trucks and ambulances echoing in the night.  Electricity was cut off close to midnight as self-propelled sky rockets ( kwitis ) flew dangerously close to power lines.  Some faulty sky rockets even flew low trajectories, hitting a roof, a door, and exploded right in front of a moving car! On the ground, pedestrians faced the risk of getting their limbs mangled by exploding Sawa (Python-like string of thousands of rounds of firecrackers). But did we heed the dangers? No. Even the risk of gettin...