Solar Entertainment's lousy Olympics coverage

I'll have to agree with one blogger that Solar Entertainment completely screwed their coverage of the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. There were just too many commercial breaks that made the experience less than enjoyable. Don't get me wrong. I normally don't mind commercials but too much of a thing can be annoying. Haven't they heard of the law of diminishing marginal utility?

In fact, I got so peeved especially during the parade of athletes into the stadium where commercials stepped up to 7-8 minutes of ads per 3 minutes of broadcast. To make things worse, the ads were run on top of the live broadcast such that we never even got to see majority of the countries. I eventually switched to a foreign cable channel showing the opening ceremonies but with lesser ads (1 min per half hour broadcast). Didn't understand a word being said by the commentators but hey, you get to see more! I didn't care either that I wasn't "buying Filipino" so to speak. Besides, why should I if it means patronizing poor quality and service?

A mini disaster

When I arrived at work this morning, I was puzzled to see a number of our administrative staff standing and talking outside in the lobby of our office building. Noting that that the hallway behind them was pitch dark except for light from the back door showing the silhouettes of our utility workers mopping up the floor that appeared to be wet, I immediately thought, not another brownout! So I went up to one of them and inquired what happened. Our secretary started relating something about a pipe bursting in one of the upper floors and office down in the first floor flooding.

It took sometime before I finally comprehended what she was talking about. Yesterday afternoon, a water pipe in one of the lab rooms in the second floor burst sending tons of water out into the lab room. Unfortunately for us, the water not only flooded the lab room there but also somehow seeped through the concrete floor then rained down onto the offices in the first floor. These rooms included the main office of our department, other smaller offices where some administrative staff had their desks and then our reading room! There all papers, documents, books, supplies and equipment (computers, printers, fax machines) got soaked. Some of the water had also seeped under doors and into the offices of some of our faculty members, including mine--but at least none of our things got wet except perhaps for things that were left on the floor like empty boxes and perhaps piles of paper to be recycled.

The damage would have been worse had not one of our junior instructors been working overtime at the office that Sunday afternoon. It was he who noticed water coming out from under the door of the main office and called security as well as our property custodian. (He even risked wading through the water and unplugging surge protectors--he could have been electrocuted because these were quickly going underwater--and equipment from the wall outlets.) They managed to shut down power to the entire building immediately but had difficulty cutting off the water supply to the burst pipe. It was more than two hours before they finally did so. But I still can't imagine what would have happened to all the offices in the first floor if the water had been allowed to flow until somebody showed up Monday morning!

Anyway, the aftermath of all this found us in the department mopping up floors, salvaging documents and equipment in the relative darkness. (The sky was overcast and gloomy all day and they didn't turned back the power on until a few hours later for fear that the electrical wirings were still wet and would cause a short circuit.) Some even joked that we might be able to apply for a calamity loan.

Quite honestly, we will need all the help we can to salvage all the damaged books, periodicals and theses that were kept in our library. The imported books will probably be saved: their glossy pages should be easy to separate once they have dried out. But it is the local books with their newsprint pages that I'm worried about. It will be probably close to impossible to separate the pages without getting them torn.

And then where will our poor students go for references? They who relied mainly on our reading room because the books at the main library are even more woefully outdated.

The battle of all battles

I didn't expect last night's Wimbledon finals between Federer and Nadal to be the epic battle that it turned out to be.

After seeing Federer fall way behind two sets to love, I thought all was lost come the third set and that the five-time champion would lose in straight sets. But I completely underestimated Federer's determination and tenacity. Having fallen asleep while waiting for the first rain delay to end, I woke up more than an hour later to find that the third set had been extended into a tie-break. And, lo and behold! Federer was up 5-2! When he took that set and then the fourth as well, that was the only time I sensed something extraordinary was happening. Aware that there would be no tiebreak in the deciding set, I felt the familiar nervousness creep into my veins: my hands grew cold and clammy and I even had to turn off the electric fan in my room even it was an unusually muggy evening. (It was also just as well that I turned of the fan; I could hear the tv better.)

Actually I found myself curiously calm throughout the first four sets. Although I was naturally rooting for him, I had no qualms about Federer losing this match. He had after all hauled in an incredible total of five Wimbledon crowns in straight years no less!--a super achievement in itself. (Personally, I'd dare Nadal to try and match that record. But I don't think so!) A sixth straight in my opinion would simply be icing on the cake, so to speak.

In any case, that last set was something. There are no words to describe it so I'm not even going to attempt to relate what unfolded during that decisive set.

As for the results I just had to feel sorry for Federer at the end. He did look so disappointed and close to tears; there was a slight droop at the corners of his mouth as he stood there on center courting during the trophy awarding ceremonies hugging his runner's-up trophy. But I felt proud of him more than ever, more than after any of his more impressive victories in the past. He refused to relinquish his crown meekly, never gave up and fought it out until the end, showing what a great champion he is despite this loss.

In fact, I find some articles about the match curiously worded. The title of one reads "Nadal steals Federer's Wimbledon crown." The use of the word "steals" seems to imply that Nadal was a thief, that he took by force what did not or does not belong to him, that Federer is actually the rightful owner of the Wimbledon crown. I wonder if the wording was deliberate, chosen by a reporter who is secretly a Federer fan. And then there is the use of the cliche "third time lucky". In a way, Nadal was lucky. It was difficult to say who would eventually triumph or deserved the title more. Both played superbly well but as matches have to go, somebody has to gain and then win championship point. Although lady luck sided with Nadal this time around, I must say that there were no losers this time around.

Theo Jansen's Strandbeests

It's Labor Day here and what better way to honor the day than to see the results of more than 16 years of labor of one Theo Jansen, a Dutch artist and engineer. He is a modern day Leonardo da Vinci, having created amazing "kinetic sculptures" meant to "live their own lives" on beaches, their movement relying on nothing but wind and water. These lifelike strandbeests remind me so much of people's creations over at Sodaplay but in three dimensions.

I know that this is an old video (ca. 2007) but I for one will always be amazed every time I watch it.

Computer language

Have I mentioned that I can hear my PC at the office communicating with the network and other devices? Strange but true.

It all started several months ago when I had our technician check some wiring in my PC's CPU casing because my PC would start up and then mysteriously shut down after a few seconds. He tinkered with a few things, moving one card to another slot and that seemed to solve the problem because my PC started up fine after that.

But then I began to notice spurts of static noise coming out of my PC speakers every time I print something or whenever my web browser is busy such as while downloading a webpage. It is especially prominent in the latter case when one of the webpages that I have up contains some dynamic content. (It's amusing to hear how often some dynamic content is being refreshed even while I'm not currently viewing the webpage.) I figured that it must be some kind of interference caused by some wiring next to the sound card where I plug in my PC speakers .

At first I found the noise annoying and was about to ask the technician to do something about it. Eventually however I realized that at least I can now tell when my PC is busy or has successfully sent a printing job over to my printer.

A last minute meeting

Late yesterday afternoon while I was relaxing eating a cup of yogurt, I received a frantic phone call from a professor from another department who said that I was wanted at the ongoing meeting among the university's top officials. Our college dean who was attending the meeting had at the last minute decided that she wasn't prepared to present our department's curricular proposals and wanted me to be the one instead to do it. Talk about not doing one's homework!

Naturally I had no choice but to "obey orders". So after depositing my cup of yogurt in the fridge, I retired to my room to wash up and get dressed. Within twenty minutes I was driving to the meeting, fuming mad all the way about my rudely interrupted weekend.

My mood didn't improve when I arrived at the meeting and found out that it wasn't even my turn yet to present our curricular proposals. There were in fact four more items in the agenda to be taken up.

In the end, I had to wait until around 9pm--a good four hours after I arrived--before my turn finally came. Luckily for everybody there I had sufficiently calmed down by then having been appeased by uncommonly good iced lemon tea, free dinner (although the beef was appallingly tough!) and a morbid pleasure in seeing other more ill-prepared and poorly written curricular proposals being shot down by sharp critics in the panel. Better still, my own presentation went smoothly with nary a question nor objection from the panel.

I only realized later as I got back in to my car how much this unexpected call stressed me when I felt my hyperacidity--which had began bothering me earlier in the week--kick in once again. Oh well. One or two Tums should take care of things.

A loooong work day

I literally had a long day at work today. Our director, another colleague and I were supposed to attend a meeting to present our department's curricular proposals and were instructed to wait until it was our turn to present.

Having experienced this last year where I waited until the late afternoon for our turn to present our curricular proposals then, I felt free to go about my work as usual in the morning. Sure enough just before lunchtime, a call came in saying that our proposal would be taken up about 2:30pm. So I had my lunch, met a few students afterwards and attended to a few more things before running off to the venue of the meeting (a five minute walk).

When I entered the room, our college secretary right away saw me and came over to tell me that it took unexpectedly longer than usual to discuss other proposals before ours on the agenda. So could we come back about 4 or 5pm? Back to the office I went. Funnily enough, I met our director back at our department and he himself had just gotten back after being told that it wasn't our turn yet.

Later, I received a message on my cellphone from the college secretary that they weren't done yet with the other proposals and that they might start on ours around 7pm yet. Okay, I thought, nothing new there. I decided to just go on with my work, called home to tell my parents that I would be eating dinner out (to save time and gasoline from going back and forth), drove my car out to the building where the meeting was and walked from there to the fastfood restaurants just outside campus.

I finished dinner a good 20 minutes before 7pm and decided to wait in my car in the meantime. Then just before 7pm, I went up to the meeting room only to find that they were still a good five items away from taking up our proposals. Anyway, I was told to just come on in and wait inside. Our director joined me several minutes after that. As it was almost 8pm and my other colleague had not showed up yet, I sent a test message to him inquiring if he was coming. To my chagrin, he said he was unavailable because he was having dinner at some restaurant. I told this to our director who said that it was alright and that we could take care of answering questions. Although our director didn't mind that setback, I was a little peeved with my colleague because I thought it was his responsibility to defend the proposal which he authored and that therefore this should have priority over social activities that he might have for the evening.

Anyway, we waited and we waited and we waited. I could see that our director was getting impatient at times and was getting tired because he sometimes would close his eyes and lay his head down on the table. Meanwhile I was divided between being irritated and being amused by the remarks of the committee members who seemed rather nit-picky this time around. I also mentally prepared myself to answer to similar comments in case those were likewise brought up when it was our turn to present our proposal.

Finally, at past 10:30pm, it was our turn (we were the last to present) and I took my seat near the laptop which was attached to the LCD projector at the opposite end of the room. The presentation went relatively smoothly; either our proposal was well written (ahem!) or the committee members too were getting tired and couldn't wait to get it all over and done with. At long last, we were done around 11:05pm to everyone's great relief. (So much for taking four or five hours to prepare my slide presentation!) The secretary of the committee joyfully called out the time of adjournment the moment everyone seconded the motion to endorse our curricular proposals and within minutes nearly everyone had left the room.

I stayed behind a little while longer to make a few more clarifications about suggestions made by the committee then gathered my things and went down to my car to drive home. Since I had to give the chair of the committee a ride home--instead of having her call someone to come pick her up--I had to take short detour to drop her off at her house before finally heading home.

And so ended what was probably my longest day at work. (Of course, not counting the other evenings I have spent working at home grading papers, preparing lecture notes, documents, etc.)

A humble practice

I accompanied my father to the vet clinic this afternoon to pick up our pet cat who died during the night while being confined. I thought I'd note here what I found out during the visit because I was very much impressed by the vet's dedication despite her limited resources.

When we arrived there, I wasn't surprised to find it very much different from the spacious veterinary hospital in campus. The clinic itself is rather tiny: barely 7 feet by 12 feet. Across from the glass door entrance is a small desk where the vet talks to her client's owners. To the left of the glass door is a short wooden bench which seats two or three people. Near the desk is a small refrigerator. There are two laminated tables that serve as exam tables next to one of which is a set of plastic drawers which I suppose serves as storage for supplies and some medicines. Next to set of drawers is a metal sink. At the end of the room is a curtained off area where most probably an operating table stands.

The clinic is run by a high schoolmate of mine who apparently loves her job of curing people's pets, having been inspired to become a veterinarian by the famous veterinarian-turned-bestselling author James Herriot. And it is evident in the concern and unselfish care she shows for her patients, not to mention the effort that she puts into her work without the help of an assistant. (She barely got any sleep the night before because she had to watch over our cat and another pet who also was confined, a beagle puppy who was having seizures.)

I could tell that she probably wasn't making much money from her practice based on what I could see in the clinic. It was quite obvious also that she probably couldn't afford to pay another to be her assistant. In fact she only charged us a total of Php1150 (much less than US$30 by today's exchange rate) which is surprisingly cheap considering that that our cat was on intravenous drip and was given some antibiotics. We were even more dismayed when, upon getting back home, we found out that she had not charged us any consultation fee at all nor did she charge us for the blood chemistry analysis she had done at some other clinic in town.

We're now thinking of buying something from Goldilocks to give to her in lieu of at least the consultation fee that she did not charge us.

Working in a "glass house"

Our office building is finally getting a facelift after all these years. Work started early this week. All the moss is being scraped off the concrete juttings which are then given a fresh coat of cream-colored paint.

Although our building looks so much better now I feel rather uncomfortable having people on scaffoldings doing the painting right outside the office windows and being able to look in while we work inside our offices. Since my office windows--which are huge by the way--have neither curtains or blinds I feel like an animal in the zoo. I've taken to turning off the lights and working in semi-darkness or leaving my office to do my work elsewhere.

I also wonder if the people in the upper floors are worried about thieves climbing up the scaffoldings in the evening and breaking into their offices. Their windows, unlike ours here in the ground floor, are not protected by grill bars.

The legacy of a great teacher

I basically spent both Holy Thursday and Good Friday playing my trusty Yamaha P-80 keyboard as accompanist during Holy Week masses and services here at our parish.

As it turned out I found that one of the members of the church choir which sang during those masses was a former member of the glee club of my high school for which I was often asked to be accompanist during my college days. Small world I thought. Compared to the others in that church choir, he was their most accomplished singer and was in effect their leader. Then it struck me that he was like so many others who belonged to the different batches of glee club members I worked with through the years: he had continued nurturing his passion for music long after he had graduated from high school.

And the only explanation for this phenomena that I could find was the training they received at the hands of their music teacher and choir director, Miss L.

Miss L in fact was not my music teacher during my high school days. She only got hired the year after I graduated from high school and I only got to know her when I was asked to be the accompanist of the glee club for a certain choral competition. There was this choral piece by Ryan Cayabyab that the glee club was preparing to learn for the competition and, typical of Cayabyab arrangements, it had a difficult accompaniment. As none of the current glee club members could tackle it, they looked elsewhere. To make a long story short, I was tapped to play for them. Apparently Miss L liked my playing well enough that I eventually became the glee club's accompanist during major choral competitions for a few years.

Anyway--I don't want to ramble on here too much--I must have worked with six different batches of glee club members. But every year was basically the same as I was amazed at how Miss L managed to coax beautiful music out of each of her charges time and again. Looking back, I realize that how fortunate I was then to witness how this average glee club quickly grew into a polished award-winning choral group under Miss L's guidance and inspiration.

There were however a few people who criticized Miss L's technique and approach to teaching music. One of them was the conductor of the very college choir for which I was a regular accompanist at that time. This lady said that it was not appropriate to force high school students to sing like adults and that it was bad practice. They should sing like children and sound like children, she said.

I silently had to disagree with her for such was not the case with Miss L. She didn't force her students to sing. Nor was there a need to coerce the students into rehearsing a piece until they perfected their singing. Miss L's love for music was infectious and through her enthusiasm instilled in her students a similar passion for music. They learned to love singing and what was required to produce beautiful singing and were thrilled with the music they produced as a choir. How often had I seen them, as they relaxed while awaiting their turn at a competition, suddenly bursting into song, harmony and all. And all by themselves without Miss L conducting them. Even other members of competing choirs who were standing around had to smile and be amazed with the group's enthusiasm.

I had never personally known anyone capable of passing on such a love for learning whether it be music or otherwise to her students and to do it so consistently. And I don't think I ever will again.

Sadly Miss L had to leave the high school for greener pastures abroad a couple of years after I myself left to pursue graduate studies abroad. The high school was indeed sorry to let her go and the glee club was never the same after that. All subsequent music teachers they hired could never produce the same results as Miss L did.

It is therefore a fitting testament to Miss L's legacy that this passion for music continued to burn in those whom she had trained, long after they graduated from high school and despite the diverse paths each have taken.

An alumnus went on to study music majoring in voice and is now a professional opera singer in Europe. I also know of several who went on to form their own singing group during their college days and have held concerts at the university's theatre. A couple of them sang during Miss L's wedding a few years ago and I must say they were just as good as the professional singers we see on television. A few are members of the university choir that sings a capella and has competed in a number of international competitions. Some of these same members in fact form a group that regularly sings during one of the weekend masses at our parish. One of my colleagues at work is himself a former glee club member and he heads the music ministry of his church group.

And now here is this fellow who sang the Introit and several chants during Holy Thursday mass--and who by the way holds a doctorate degree in biology. He could read notes, carries a tuning fork and was directing us on how to properly interpret Gregorian chant.

I myself believe that I would not have evolved into the accompanist that I am today had I not had the experience of playing for my high school glee club under Miss L's direction so many years ago. Heck, I even managed to train a small group of people to sing a choral piece during cultural night when I was abroad studying.

All this because of a great teacher.

30-second notes

I've just created a new blog where I intend to post short notes. After all in life the little things also matter. From now on I will be reserving this one for my longer ramblings. :)

A busy beginning to a new decade

Today was my birthday, the beginning of another decade in my life.

I didn't get to enjoy it that much unfortunately with all the meetings, classes and thesis defenses that I had to attend practically all day. Such are the disadvantages of having a birthday in March when the semester is about to end with all the exams to make and grade and thesis advisees to attend to.

Anyway, it began with a birthday greeting via Yahoo! messenger from a friend Joanne so far away in Singapore. It popped up as I logged in. I had a short chat with my sister as well who also greeted me happy birthday.

Then I had my usual 10am-1pm lab class which fortunately ended early around 12:20pm. My students in this class always seem to be in a rush to finish their lab exercises. They obviously want to get their classes for the week over and done with and start the weekend as early as possible.

In my search for lunch, I found myself hopping from one fastfood place to another hoping to find short queues so that I can get some lunch right away but to no avail. There must be a group of students or other tourists visiting the campus today; I've never seen the fastfood restaurants so full on a Friday. Anyway, as much as I don't like their food, I had no choice but to buy a spaghetti-and-pizza meal from the Greenwhich kiosk where the fellow looked forlorn behind a pile of styrofoam containers of the stuff with no customers in sight. I decided then and there that eating sweetish Filipino-style spaghetti and pizza topped with cheddar cheese instead of mozzarella would be one of my sacrifices for the Lenten season.

After stopping by the Mini-stop to buy a bottle of C2 tea and a Gardenia Twiggy--there goes my Lenten sacrifice!--I rushed back to my office to gulp down my lunch before rushing off to my one o'clock meeting at the next building. I was late but I didn't miss much. Fortunately the meeting was brief and I got back to my office with a good ten minutes to spare before attending a long series of thesis defenses for that afternoon.

The thesis defenses turned out to be enjoyable as the student's projects were varied and interesting. It was a long afternoon however and I only managed to escape at 5:45pm--there were still some five students who had yet to present their thesis--to attend to mass.

I was really late for mass. Actually, I completely missed it since I arrived while communion was ending. Sigh. My one consolation though was that I got to go to confession and pray the Stations of the Cross along with the other parishioners who were there. (I got momentarily distracted when one of the readers read a phrase from one of the prayers as "abdominable inflictions" instead of "abominable inflictions".)

Back here at home with my parents, we had ice cream and cake (chocolate cappuccino mousse roll) for dessert.

And now here I am at my laptop dead tired and desperately trying to stay awake to finish typing this entry.

It had been quite a birthday.

FedererExpress van and an idea

Sometime in January just before the Australian Open started, I read about a group of Australians tennis fans who created a mobile "shrine" to their favorite player, Roger Federer, and appropriately called it the FedererExpress. I also found out that this group is the one that hoists the banner that reads "Shhh! Quiet! Genius at work" at virtually every tennis match that the Swiss plays.

I also have my little idea as an avid fan of Roger although of course I have no means of realizing it. It's a small coffee shop or cafe probably called the Federer Cafe. It will serve bagels and breadsticks (wink, wink!) and strong coffee called Federer Espresso.

So there it is. An idea.

My piggy-wiggy on Flickr Explore

Ooooh. I have something to be happy about today.

I've just discovered through my dna on Big Huge Labs that my photo of my piggy-wiggy made it to Flickr's Explore for 26 July 2007.

That's only my third photo to make it to Explore. But the previous ones--the one of our lemoncito shrub and that of the jellyfish over at the Vancouver Aquarium--dropped out while this one is holding steady at number 323. Not bad.

By coincidence, piggy-wiggy was given to me as a farewell gift by Tina who celebrated her birthday a few days ago.

Gameshow greed and crab mentality

The popular US-based tv game show Wheel of Fortune finally made its debut on local television this year.

It replaced another popular gameshow Deal or No Deal that was showing in the evenings at prime time. While I found this gameshow exciting watch, I wasn't really a fan because I became disappointed and disgusted with most contestants' decisions which so obviously showed their greed and total ignorance of probability. Common scenario: Php1M is still on the board along with other amounts smaller than Php1K. The banker offers Php700,000--which is really a huge amount in such a poor country--and yet the contestant decides to ignore that and go for the Php1M even if his chances getting it are just 1 in 6. Invariably contestant ends up not getting the Php1M anyway.

So when this Wheel of Fortune came along, I thought it would be a welcome change and finally showcase the people's better qualities. But nope, was I wrong.

One will probably have observed that a common strategy by Wheel of Fortune contestants in the US is to buy vowels if chances of naming a consonant that is found on the puzzle are small. They know that having a vowel on the board often helps them solve the puzzle even if it cuts down their winnings. But here I have noticed that contestants avoid buying vowels and prefer to continue trying to guess more of the consonants. What an obvious ploy to avoid losing any of their earnings!

And then worse, whenever a contestant spins the wheel, the other contestants clap their hand as others do elsewhere but then--here's the shocking part--jeer at the same time saying, "Lose turn... lose turn!" or "Bankrupt... bankrupt!" Such crab mentality. How sad.

On Federer's recent first round loss

My favorite tennis player, Roger Federer, has just lost to young Briton Andy Murray in three sets in the first round of the Barclay's Dubai Tennis Championships. This is probably the first time he has lost in the first round of a tournament for a fair number of years.

He had previously lost in the semifinals of the Australian Open to world number three Novak Djokovic and had back-to-back losses to long-time nemesis David Nalbandian late last season.
To many this string of recent losses is shocking. But to me, it's just another blip as any other loss is. Of course, it's always sad to hear about the champion getting upset by so-and-so player. But what choice do we have? He's the number one tennis player in the world right now and any loss to any other player--who are all (surprise!) ranked lower than he is--will always be an upset.

At the same time, I am also very much aware that we can't expect him to win every match he plays. The fact that Federer had been virtually winning every tournament he played these past four years or so is already in itself an incredible achievement. The great Pete Sampras himself couldn't do that! My mind however cannot fathom how he can continue playing at such a high level for several years so should be unrealistic for me to expect him to win everything.

In fact a loss here and there is normal for a tennis player or any athlete for that matter. It just so happens that this is Roger Federer who has demonstrated that he is capable of raising the bar impossibly high--call it "creating a monster" if you will. Even his so-called "mediocre" 68-9 win-loss record for 2007 was the best compared to everybody else's in the tour. It's just not as good compared to his own jaw-dropping records in the years previously: 74-6, 81-4 and 92-5. And that in three consecutive years no less!

So I'm not sitting here stunned and staring into space nor losing any sleep tonight. After all, Federer has nowhere else to go from this "slump" except upwards.
Photo by: Julian Finney/Getty Images

A homemade birthday e-card for Tina

Tomorrow is a good friend's birthday and I'm sending her this e-card.

I thought of sending her the usual birthday e-card from the Hallmark website. But then I thought I'd make my own when I realized that my photo of the March ceramic angel would make a good graphic for a birthday card--at least for someone born in the month of March. After all, my mother gave the angel to me as a birthday gift some twenty years ago.

Anyway, I adapted some happy birthday verses I found on the Internet and also had fun experimenting with Adobe Photoshop to blend layers and apply some lighting effects. By the way, I found the rich damask background at the Inspiration Gallery.

I hope Tina likes it. :)

The mystery of the "Happy Birthday" variations

Another "mystery" has been solved for me.

A loooong long time ago when I was still in grade school I begun to listen to the only classical music radio station here in the country. I always had a blank cassette tape ready in our radio-cassette player because whenever I found a music piece currently playing to my liking I would rush to record it onto the cassette tape. One of the intriguing pieces of music I recorded was a series of very clever variations on "Happy Birthday" arranged for the piano and done in the style of some of Beethoven's "greatest hits" : Fur Elise, Minuet in G, and the first movements of his Moonlight Sonata, Pathetique Sonata and Fifth Symphony. Unfortunately, I didn't catch the name of either the composer or the performer. This left me wondering all these years about the identities of both.

Then while in Ames, Iowa for my graduate studies, I came across some CD albums of a pianist named John Bayless and discovered his penchant for improvising on themes of popular classical composers. When I found out that he had recorded an album called "Happy Birthday, Bach", I thought that I had finally solved the mystery of the happy birthday variations. But since I could never find recordings by Bayless that included the Beethoven happy birthday variations I simply believed that they were no longer available.

I totally forgot all about those happy birthday variations for at least another ten years ... until last night when I thought that I'd search the Internet one more time for even a bit of information. That's when my search on "happy birthday beethoven variations" using Google on brought up a website that mentioned a set of happy birthday variations called "Happy Birthday, dear Ludwig" arranged by Leonid Hambro on a number of works by Beethoven. When I saw the list of Beethoven works I began to sense that this might be the answer to my long search. The website included links to midi files prepared by the website's author/owner and I clicked on those to listen to the recordings. To my great delight, except for some differences in interpretation they tallied with what I heard over the radio all those years ago! At the moment, I realized that at last, at last, I had solved the mystery of the happy birthday variations.

Although I don't know who had performed the "Happy Birthday, dear Ludwig" that I heard over the radio (I strongly suspect that it was Leonid Hambro himself) at least I know that I can move onto the other "musical mysteries" from my childhood: another piano piece my father had recorded from one of my grandmother's long-playing records and some baroque-sounding music used for a KLM commercial ...

The "new" face of Bach

A news article by Reuters reports that, "Experts have digitally rebuilt the face of 18th century German composer Johann Sebastian Bach ... ." The article is accompanied by a graphic showing the digital reconstruction of the face of the great composer and claims that "the results [of the reconstruction] may surprise his fans."

But to me this "new" face doesn't look that much different from that on the well-known portrait of Bach painted by Elias G. Haussman in 1746. Except for the wig, of course. So nothing new there--only perhaps that the reconstruction is simply proof of the skill of Haussman as a portraitist.

It would be wonderful though if someone discovered Mozart's long-lost grave. Now that's one face I'd like to see scientists and artists reconstruct!
Photo credit: REUTERS/Centre for Anatomy & Human Identification, University Dundee/Bachhaus Eisenach/Handout

How odd ... #1

This morning I was working at my PC editing the questionnaire of one the exams I'm giving tomorrow, there was a voltage fluctuation. To my surprise, the monitor of my PC just went blank. Then I noticed that the LED light on the casing of my PC had stopped flickering. My PC had shut down!

This was highly unexpected because my PC is plugged into a uninterrupted power supply unit. Normally, if there was a power outage, the UPS battery would kick in and provide backup power for at least 15 minutes. This is sufficient time for me to close all applications and shut down my PC properly. But that didn't happen at all this time around. It must be that the battery needs changing or something. How odd.

I'll have to consult our technician within the next week or so. I can't risk losing documents after working on them for a long time. Thankfully most word processing software have this feature that recovers unsaved documents.

Getting cheated while watching the Oscars

Today the country is celebrating the anniversary of the EDSA revolution of 1986 and so Malacanang declared that today is a non-working holiday at the last minute (just last week). And luckily so--for me at least. That's because I got to stay home and watch the Academy Awards ceremony.

Unfortunately, this latest of holidays didn't start out too well. There was supposed to be telecast "live" of the Oscar awards this morning at 9:30am according to ABS-CBN. But I was disappointed this morning when I turned on the tv to tune in just past 9:35am and found a cartoon show on instead. I frantically surfed through other channels to see if the awards were being shown elsewhere but to no avail. At last around 9:45am, the telecast started. Ah, I thought, how typical.

Who else observes "Filipino time" better than ABS-CBN? They apparently don't have a programming schedule at all--or at least aren't disciplined enough to follow one--and simply advertise that so-and-so tv show will be shown after this other tv show and not starting at a specific time. This practice makes it virtually impossible for people to program their VCRs or DVD recorders in order to record a certain show. I should know. I spent two months the other year recording local telenovelas for my mom who was then abroad. It was such a nightmare having to wait for a show to start instead of simply turning on the tv and the VCR at the appointed time. But I digress...

I was complaining about the late start of the so-called "live" telecast of the Oscars. Now, isn't this late start basis for false advertisement as well? The ceremonies were supposed to be shown live and yet while chatting with my sister in Canada, I found that the ceremonies had started right on time at 9:30am and that three awards had already been given out by that time. Thus this was no live telecast at all but a delayed telecast. In fact, I was not surprised when there were unusually long commercial breaks (I know commercial breaks in the US are comparatively short) and there was some obvious editing done. For example, just after one award was given the telecast would cut, without showing the exit of the previous winner, to the next presenter in the middle of delivering his lines. Sure enough after going through the list of winners on the Internet I realized that the awarding of best documentary short film, best animated short film and best make-up--and who knows what other features or program numbers--were omitted from the telecast.

Ah well. At least Ratatouille won this year's best animated feature film.

Wonderful weather and weird behavior

We've been having wonderful weather these past few weeks. What I mean by "wonderful weather" is relatively cool weather for this country: temperatures hovering around the mid- and lower- 20s (celsius) rather in the upper-20s to low-30s.

And I'm saying it's wonderful also because I'm really enjoying this. It's just so refreshing not to sweat for a change after a brisk walk to outside campus to buy lunch. Then here at home I no longer have to strain my ears while listening to tv dialogue while the fan buzzes in the background. And then at work, I don't have to turn on my air-conditioning unit; I just open the windows and set-up a fan next to them to blow in the cool fresh air. The university should be thankful that I'm saving them hundreds of pesos on its electric bill!

Most other people here on the other hand are suffering from the sudden cold spell. I notice that many of my students and colleagues at work have started wearing long-sleeved shirts, jackets, sweaters--and even scarves! Boy, do I feel lucky that I went through four numbing winters while pursuing graduate studies abroad. I still can go about the house wearing my tank top and shorts and don't need to pile on layers to walk outside. I do wear my pajamas though instead of my nightgown when I go to bed as I tend to wake up shivering during the wee hours of the morning when temperatures really drop.

Unfortunately, I have observed some weird behavior at the same time. For instance, staff workers at the main office of my department insist on turning on their air-conditioning unit in their room--and at full blast, too! They end up having to wear sweaters and jackets indoors. I even had one student show up at class and request that I turn up the air-conditioning in the classroom because he was feeling warm. (We still turn on the air-conditioning in our classrooms since the room can get unbearably stuff with all the windows sealed closed.) I looked at him and observed that he was wearing a heavy dark blue-grey jacket over a simple white t-shirt. So I simply told him, "Tanggalin mo na lang ang jacket mo!" (Why don't you just take off your jacket?)

The one thing I don't like about the cold weather is that it's been unusually gloomy because of overcast skies and occasional showers. Sigh! We had a bit of sun this morning but that was short-lived. Ah well. I still prefer this to hot humid weather.

Little ceramic angel from the Amana colonies

I've just discovered another good spot here at home for taking pictures: the small desk with a laminated top that I use for my laptop. I had just clamped on my old IKEA lamp a few months ago and use it as my only light source while working at my laptop. Now I've found that it's a good light source for macro photos. He-he.

Here's a photo that I took of the ceramic/bisque angel that was given to me by my mom so many years ago after she visited the Amana colonies in Iowa. I was looking around for something to take picture of this weekend--like I said I'm shutter happy nowadays--and decided to give the figurine a try. I just didn't to dust it off well enough before shooting away so that one can clearly see individual dust particles in the original image. Ugh! I'm glad only smaller versions are displayed on Flickr!

My St. Valentine's Day rose

Last Thursday, the fourteenth of February, I was surprised by some students belonging to a student organization when they presented me with a single white rose.

I quickly put it in an empty tumbler that I had filled with just enough water. I brought it home that same evening and where I finally found it a proper home in one of our glass vases. Since I am going through my shutter-happy phase, I also took a couple of photos under florescent lights.

I wasn't satisfied with these first few photos since the artificial lighting coming from overhead combined with a plain white background (actually the side of our fridge) made for a rather flat image. So I decided to take more photos yesterday morning downstairs in the basement bedroom where sunlight filters in beautifully through the south-facing windows "a la Vermeer".

It took several trials with different angles and lighting to come up with a shot that I at least thought looked good enough to post on my Flickr account. I must say, that even if the flower was already slightly wilted I'm delighted with the way its white/cream color stood out nicely against the blue bedspread. He-he.

Mini cassava cakes

I was busy preparing teaching materials in my office this afternoon when somebody knocked at my office door. As I called out for whoever it was to come on in, the door opened and one of our younger instructors entered holding two large flat boxes with his left hand. He came over to where I was seated at my PC and lowered one of the boxes which had no top so that I could what was inside. Looking in I saw that there were several quaint golden-brown cupcake-like food stuffs inside! The instructor told me he was treating everyone at the office for the New Year and to help myself to a few. Thinking that there was just enough for each one of us at the office to have one each, I got one cupcake. Seeing that, the instructor cried out, "Kulang pa yan! Kuha pa ho kayo ng isa pa." (That's not enough! Go ahead and get another one.) So I got one more and said thank you.

I brought both home to show and share with my parents. They turned out to be mini cassava cakes. And they were gooey-ly yummy! Too bad I didn't get to take a picture of the cakes before we gobbled them up.

A man and his pig

Late this morning I left my office to move my car from the far end of the parking lot to a spot closer to my office building (the lot was practically empty anyway). As I walked to the car, I saw in the distance an elderly man jogging along the bridge farther down the road. A few feet behind him was a fat black short-legged dog trying to keep up with his master. I could hear the man chanting something as he jogged and it sounded like he was urging on his dog. As they came closer, I saw that the dog wasn't a dog at all: It was a young pot-bellied pig! The few people who were walking about must have come to the same realization because they all suddenly stopped, stared and smiled at this unusual sight of a man jogging with his pet piglet.

The new year's first day of classes (sort of)

Today being the first day classes resume at university, I got up early with the intention of arriving at my office early. I wanted to make some last minute changes on the lecture slides I would be using for my 8am lecture.

I was however puzzled to find the parking lot near my office building nearly deserted as I drove up around 7:40am. The jeepneys that usually wait for passengers were not around and there were just two other cars one of which I recognized as belonging to our director who is always early at work. I also noticed that there were no cars parked either at nearby buildings. I couldn't see any students or other instructors milling around or walking through the building's corridors either.

Dismissing this as due to the early hour and it being the very first day of classes of the new year, I walked over to the building carrying my bags after parking my car at the far end of the parking lot under some trees. As I entered the first floor lobby I met a colleague (owner of the other car I saw parked at the parking lot) whom I immediately greeted happy new year.

He likewise hello then asked, "Alam mo ba na walang klase ngayon?" (Do you know that there are no classes today?) I was stunned and managed to asked, "What?!" It turns out that the university chancellor had declared on the last day of classes last year that there would be no classes today to give students more time to travel back to town! My colleague who has his own 7am lecture class on Wednesdays wasn't aware of that announcement either. He was informed about it by the college dean only that very morning through a text message. No wonder there weren't any students around at all! There may have been no official memo but this kind of news spreads like wildfire among students. But I wish some kind of official announcement had been posted on the university's website to at least let the rest of us know about it.

Anyway, after having a good laugh over our situation I excused myself and walked on to my office room. As I settled down to work, I realized that my lecture/lab schedule has been messed up a bit once again because of having to miss today's lectures. I was however slightly relieved that I at least now had the entire day to edit my lecture slides and other teaching materials as well as catch up a bit on other work that I had set aside to thoroughly enjoy my Christmas vacation. There was just a small glitch though later when I discovered that our Internet connection was down. While that meant that there will be less to distract me from my work, I was bereft of my main source for teaching materials. So I wasn't able to do as much work as I hoped to.

But the main good thing about not having classes today was that I had at least a day to adjust from vacation mode back to working mode.

New Year celebrations

It's another new year!

New Year's eve was spent practically at the church were I once again had to provide accompaniment at the keyboard during the "midnight" mass at 8pm. As usual I had to be at the church at least ecrackers has finally convinced more people to resort to safer ways to make noise to greet the new year. In fact, I didn't hear too many firecrackers going off during the previous weeks and this morning has itself remained unusually quiet up to this late hour--which could also be due to people remaining in bed after staying up late.

In any case, I don't think one needs to raise hell to celebrate the coming of a New Year. The tradition of setting off firecrackers after all has its origins in Chinese culture where noise is made to scare off the bad spirits. While many Filipinos believe in all those bad spirits and feng shui, I myself don't believe in such superstitious stuff. (Hey, I'm after all a Christian, a Roman Catholic, so why should I?) Besides, I generally can't stand loud noise or music. (It makes me wonder how our neighbor's son can stand sitting in that pick-up of his with all that music pounding into his ear drums.)

We here at home haven't touched a single firecracker for long time. The last time we had a firecracker was something like twenty years ago when my father bought one of those cone thingies that, when lit, gives off a fountain of sparks for one or two minutes--which wasn't even a real firecracker if you think about it. Before that, we had sparklers for one or two years when my sister and I were still in grade school. Nowadays, I feel we're simply too old for such things. There are other anyway lots of other things one can do to celebrate and not get hurt at the same time. Like eating! He-he.