Bradley's Old Fashioned Weblog

Recent updates

  • The PNB Financial Center

    When we moved to the Philippines, one of our cat carriers was damaged during the flight.  After quite a bit of e-mailing back and forth I convinced Philippine Airlines to cover the cost of the carrier.  The catch was that I had to go all the way to the PNB Financial Center which is near the Mall of Asia in Manila.  It takes about two and a half to three hours to get there from where I’m staying in Antipolo.  It might be a quicker trip if I had a personal vehicle, but I was and still am relying on public transportation, for now.

    The building was a lot more impressive than I thought it would be.  I expected to walk into a standard office building with a lobby and some elevators and then go up to some musty offices.  The building had musty offices alright, but the architecture was really amazing.  The eery part is that the place was mostly deserted.  It’s not surprising, considering how it’s in such an out of the way place, but at one point it must have been a bustling center of activity.  Maybe before the advent of ATMs?

    PNB Financial Center, Manila

    PNB Financial Center, Manila

    There is a huge room with a semi-circle of counters that at one time must have served as teller stations for people making over-the-counter transactions at the bank.  The mezzanine has rows of offices, which is where the PAL cashiers are.

    PNB Financial Center, Manila

    PNB Financial Center, Manila

    The balcony and courtyard areas of the building were closed off, but I could look through the windows and see statues and benches.  It would have been nice if I’d been able to look around out there.

    Relief Carving at PNB Financial Center, Manila

    On the way out of the building, I noticed the relief carvings mounted on the walls of the lobby.  They each had a different scene.  If I remember right they depicted different periods of Philippines history.  I should have taken photos of the other ones, but I was worried the guard would stop me and then make me delete the photos I’d already taken.  I have no idea if photos are allowed in there.

    The building has the quiet, empty feeling of a tomb, but has potential.  I think it’d make a great building for a museum, art gallery, or exhibition hall for small events.

    My wife mentioned that at one point that area had all been part of a bay and had been modified for use through land reclamation.  It’s no wonder Manila floods.  Part of it is below sea level and the other part is barely above it, as reclaimed land.  Land reclamation is still an impressive thing, though.

  • Why Cats Are Awesome

    Source unknown.  Not my work.  Funny and true though!

  • Unbelievably Bad Taxi Driver in Manila

    Have you ever had one of those moments where you’re about 99.9% sure something very unfortunate and painful is about to happen to you and your mouth is flushed with a weird metallic taste?

    On our way home from Manila a few days ago, we happened to take a taxi from Makati to Galleria where we were planning on getting an FX to Antipolo.  Well, Galleria was supposed to be our destination, but we didn’t quite make it there.

    Makati is one of those weird places in Manila where it’s hard to get a ride.  I don’t mind using a Jeepney or an FX for transportation.  It can be dangerous, but sometimes it’s fun and it’s definitely an affordable alternative until I can pick up a personal vehicle.  However, none were available, at least not going the way we wanted them to.  It has to do with the work shifts in Makati.  FXs and Jeepney’s heading to residential areas don’t leave until certain times.  Outside of those hours you’re mostly out of luck.  The only option is to take a taxi or a bus and my wife isn’t too fond of the buses.  The buses in the Philippines aren’t city owned and operated like in most places.  Every bus is a private operator, or perhaps part of a small group of private operators.  It can be really dangerous to get on those because it’s packed full of people, every one of which could potentially have a gun and bad intentions.  At least on the smaller vehicles you can see everyone to size them up and you’ll notice it if they’re acting weird.

    So, we flagged down a taxi and got in.  We were immediately assaulted by an odor of stale sweat, mold and that weird smell that your car can get if you smoke in it while it’s raining.  It was enough to dry my throat and make me want to sniff my armpit for relief.  Then I noticed that the guy was texting while driving.  That’s not the brightest idea in any situation, but doing it in Manila traffic is like playing Russian roulette.  He also didn’t seem to care for what he was receiving in reply to his messages.  He started to get irate, and his driving became worse than it already was.

    Typical Manila traffic is ugly.  People edge in and see if the car next to them will yield the lane.  People ride the lines dividing lanes until they figure out which lane is moving faster.  People will use the shoulder or the sidewalk.  Sometimes there are people in the highway.  Don’t know why.  There just are.  That can all lead to some seriously bad traffic and an upsetting experience, but our driver seemed to have a death wish.

    What person in their right mind tries to take on a bus with a taxi?  He didn’t do it once, or even twice, but probably 5 times.  The last time, a bus was riding the line to our right and another bus was riding the line to the left.  The bus on the left began to merge into the lane we were in, ahead of us, but the taxi driver decided he didn’t like that and gunned the engine and wedged the taxi in between the two buses.  At the last moment the bus pulled back and started honking its horn.

    That’s when I saw my own potential death and got that weird metallic taste in my mouth.  We told the driver to take us to Megamall instead, since it was a lot closer and we didn’t want to be in the cab anymore.  He started arguing that he couldn’t drop us off at Megamall, that it wasn’t allowed.  I don’t know what he was thinking, that we were stupid or something probably, but after that, we just got out of the cab at the next red light, threw a few pesos at him and left him there yelling after us like an idiot.  The driver was playing with our lives and then acted offended and tried to trick us into staying in the cab to get more money from us.  Something I find quite often is that people in the Philippines will try to lie to you when money is involved, even if all they can come up with is a lie that a 10 year old could see through.

    Riding a taxi can sometimes be the only way to get around in the Philippines, but unlike most countries, there seem to be no standards enforced in terms of safe driving.  Or common sense in this case.  We could and probably will call the number on the side of the cab, but I doubt anything will actually happen to the guy because of it.  He’ll likely continue driving until he has either killed himself, or his passengers, or both.  I’ve heard some bad stories about taxi drivers in New York City, but I don’t remember hearing any where the driver was trying to muscle buses out of their lanes or about drivers almost hitting barricades while trying to take an off ramp at the last moment.

    Keep that in mind if you plan on taking a taxi in Manila.  The only good ones I’ve found are the airport taxis, and even they try to rip you off if you’re from overseas, regardless of what the sign at the airport taxi queue says.

    If you’re going to be in Manila for any length of time, it’s probably best to get your own vehicle.  Used ones can be purchased at reasonable prices and then resold when (or if) you decide to leave.

  • Typhoon Conson Not So Bad, But Meralco Dropped the Ball

    I just finished (sort of) my first experience with typhoons, and my first typhoon in the Philippines.  It has been, and is continuing to be, an interesting few days.  I don’t have any interesting photos to share, because there wasn’t really anything interesting to take photos of.  Honestly, this typhoon was no worse than the average hurricane I experienced in Georgia.  There were branches laying around, lots of leaves that needed sweeping up and on the ridges some of the smaller trees (3 – 5 inch diameter trunks) had snapped off from the high winds.  There wasn’t a lot of rain.  No more than an average storm anyway.  I was underwhelmed.  That was my experience in the Antipolo area, which is east of Metro Manila.  Being up in the mountains, it seems to be shielded from the brunt of bad weather.  It didn’t flood here during Ondoy either, from what my in-laws tell me.  Unfortunately, after finally having a chance today to look at the news online, it seems like other people weren’t so lucky.  It’s a bit hard for me to find sympathy for the fishermen who didn’t come ashore when they knew a typhoon was coming, or for the guy that drowned while trying to save a herd of pigs in a lake, though I think I can understand his reasoning.  I do feel bad for the other people that died though.  I have a feeling most of them live in houses that aren’t built very well, and then there were the accidents like the carpenters that had a concrete wall collapse on top of them.  So, don’t take this the wrong way.  I’m not downplaying their deaths.  I’m just relating my own experience during this event.

    With the storm being so relatively mundane (compared to Ondoy), I can’t help but wonder why the power went out for so long!?  Really, what’s going on with you guys Meralco?  The night the typhoon hit the greater Manila area, the power began to flicker.  I wasn’t too surprised about that, since the power lines are on poles here.  I also wasn’t too surprised when the power went out entirely at around 1 AM.  In fact, we were watching a zombie movie called Dead Snow on my laptop at the time.  It’s supposedly one of the greatest zombie movies ever, and what better time to watch it than on a dark, stormy night?

    We went to bed around 3 AM, with the sounds of the wind howling and the rain sheeting down to rock us to sleep.  When morning came two and a half hours later, the sky was a little overcast, but it was clear.  There was still no electricity but I was cool with that.  I’d figured the work crews wouldn’t head out until morning.  There was no running water.  That was disappointing.  So, we went back to sleep.

    Later that day we got up and went to my brother-in-law’s shop to have a light lunch.  Still no electricity.

    We sat around all afternoon, chatting, reading, getting in some of that quality bonding time, but there was still no electricity when the sun started to go down.

    When it got too dark to see, we brought out candles. By then my laptop battery was almost completely drained and I wanted to conserve the battery on my iPhone, just in case.  So, there was nothing to do but sleep.  We used the last of the water we’d stocked up on to wash up and then at 7:30 PM we went to bed.

    Around 1 AM we got up and checked, but there was still no electricity.

    At 5 AM this morning we were up again, because we had to be in Eastwood by 9 AM.  Still no electricity.

    By then, the fact that there was no electricity was really working my nerves.  We’d found out from family and friends that the power had been off all yesterday in Pasig and in Mandaluyong as well.  Why was there such a widespread outage for such a low key storm?  A friend told us that even after Ondoy, the power was up and running after just 3 or 4 hours.  It seems absurd that the power outage would last that long with such a relatively light storm.

    The power being up 3 to 4 hours after Ondoy could be misinformation, but on our way to Eastwood we passed a news stand and one of the papers had a front page article showing a housewife trying to prepare a meal by candle light.  The title said something like, “Welcome back to the Dark Ages”.  Given how sarcastic the title was, I think our sentiments about the power situation were shared by quite a few people.

    While in Eastwood I ran my iPhone battery all the way down while reading a book on the iBooks application.  My other cell phone was almost dead too by the time we headed home.  So was my wife’s phone.  We’re job hunting, so that’s not a good thing.  It sucked to think about heading home to a house with no electricity, no water, and nothing to do once it got dark.

    So, on the way back from Eastwood we kept an eye on storefronts and house windows, to see if we could see light.  Things were looking good but we were still holding our breath for what we might see in our own neighborhood, which is a little ways outside Antipolo.  And… there was light!  When we crested the last ridge before our neighborhood (which sits in a valley), we could see house lights everywhere and we breathed a sigh of relief.  At least we could recharge our gear and have some entertainment.

    Fortunately, we hadn’t restocked our fridge yet.  There wasn’t much of anything in it to go bad, except for some milk.  Maybe the eggs are bad now too.  I don’t know.  Unfortunately, I think we may have just lost a month’s profit on business related foodstuffs we had in our freezer.  Things that are supposed to remain frozen don’t do too well in the Philippines heat when the power is out for 30 to 40 hours.  I don’t know what time the electricity came back on today, but it wasn’t soon enough.

    Meralco… you disappoint.

  • The Dancing Jollibee Mascot

    Jollibee is a fast food chain in the Philippines that’s reminiscent of McDonald’s.  It’s a burger joint, but it also serves a lot of traditional Filipino foods.  I’ll go more into that later.  What I wanted to show in this blog post is the mascot dancing.  I don’t remember ever seeing something like this in another country, but apparently Jollibee (the mascot) likes to dance at birthday parties and do ‘dance-offs’ with other mascots.  I don’t mean cheesy dancing either.  Here are two examples:

    I used to wonder why people seemed so excited to have their kids’ birthday parties at a Jollibee, but I guess this explains it.  I bet your average Ronald McDonald can’t pull off those moves!

    There are also a few Jollibee franchises in the US in California and I think New York, due to there being a lot of Filipinos in those areas.  I don’t know if the Jollibee mascots there dance like this though.  This might be a uniquely Filipino thing.

  • Hello Kitty Pizza Bites

    Hello Kitty Pizza Bites
    Hello Kitty Pizza Bites. Image © LoveBones (Flickr)

    Check these out!  This is a lot more creative and fun than your run of the mill pizza bites!  I bet these things are delicious and they’re giving me a serious craving for microwaveable Bagel Bites mini-pizzas, which I haven’t had in quite a few years now.  I swear I used to live off those things.  I’d go through two or three boxes a week.

    Ovens weren’t common in homes in Singapore, but they’re available here and this is getting me interested in putting on my apron and breaking out the oven mitts.

    Be sure to visit the Flickr user’s photo stream for other cool stuff like Hello Kitty Bento Boxes.

    via TokyoMango

  • Religious Procession Through The Town Center

    Sometimes interesting things cross your path, in this case literally, which is why I’m glad I almost always have my camera with me!

    We had just been dropped off in town by the tricycle so we could walk down the street and do a little shopping when we heard a bunch of loud bangs and then saw hordes of people with candles walking down the road we were supposed to cross.  When we got closer, we could see it was a procession coming from the Antipolo Cathedral and going down the main road.  I had no idea what was going on, but I figured it was a good time to take photos.

    DSC05249

    DSC05250

    DSC05251

    DSC05252

    DSC05253

    DSC05254

    After getting my pictures I asked my wife if she knew what the procession was for.  I’d seen her asking someone what was going on, but she wasn’t sure what the guy was talking about.  He had said, “It’s the last procession of the month!”  That doesn’t make sense though, because these photos were taken just a day or two ago, at the beginning of July.  If there’s more than one procession a month, which his answer implies, then the last one wouldn’t be at the beginning of the month.

    Regardless, it was an interesting sight and it was very lively with the fireworks going off just above us.  They weren’t the kind that make patterns or lights, just loud noises, or I’d have taken photos of those too.

    This also reminded me of a segment of the Filipino history book I’m reading.  When the Spaniards first started imposing their way of life on the natives here in the Philippines, Catholic missionaries would try to lure in the more stubborn people by holding frequent festivals in the towns.  The festivals and religious ceremonies and events were purposely gaudy and exciting as a way to entice Filipinos to come, enjoy and then hopefully convert, and after converting start paying tithes of course.

    Since we’re talking about tithes, I also read that back then if you were a member of the church and didn’t pay your tithe, you were publicly humiliated for it during the sermon in front of all of the people from your town.  My wife says this practice still occurs in some churches in the Philippines, most notably the Iglesia ni Cristos, which is a Christian sect in the Philippines.

  • Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 in Real Life

    338037420_b740ce3bf4

    I don’t know how many of you have read this book, but it was required reading for me in high school.  Luckily, it was a book that I actually enjoyed, unlike quite a few Emily Bronte novels that I’d have happily thrown on Guy’s stack for burning.

    The basic premise of Fahrenheit 451 is that, in the near future, books are illegal.  Firemen, once used to put out fires (though that’s not known to the general public) are now used to start fires, specifically at the homes of people who are found to be harboring books illegally.

    The story goes into a lot of detail about the breakdown of the fabric of society, the slow disintegration of the bonds between family members that keep the world functioning.  It talks about ignorance and doing things just because that’s how they’ve ‘always’ been done.  Then it talks about hope and enlightenment, in the form of Guy realizing that things don’t have to stay the same and he can and should make a change.

    I won’t ruin the book for you, but if you haven’t read it, you should.

    I was flipping through articles in my RSS reader and I hit on two posts, nearly back-to-back from The Next Web that sounded like they were pages from the book.

    The first article is titled: “This Could Be Massive: Interactive TV…”

    So, why did this stand out to me?  Well, one of the future technologies in Fahrenheit 451 is a television system that is installed in place of walls in the living room.  The television programs are completely 3D, completely immersive and completely interactive to the point that the show can not progress unless the viewer moves it along by saying the proper things at the proper times and interacting with what is known as “the family”.  The flaw that the author was trying to express here is that these fake people, this fake “family”, draws so much attention away from real life and real family that it causes a breakdown between people.  It’s almost like what’s happening now with so many women complaining that men spend more time with their computers and video game consoles than with them, but on a grander scale.  TNW’s article went on to detail what could be the first step towards the four-walled TV “family” that Bradbury imagined.  It’s both exciting and frightening, if you believe the potential consequences that Bradbury laid out in his book.

    Just after that I saw another one of their articles titled “Love to read? Too busy? Brain Shots can help.”

    The article goes on to discuss how Brain Shots has condensed books down to 10k words and they can be read via computer, e-reader and some mobile phones.  Some have even gone extra simple and are available as audio books.  In one part of Fahrenheit 451, when Guy starts questioning the established order and his Fire Chief figures out what’s going on in his head, the Chief tries to ‘save’ him by explaining to him how things became the way they were.  Long story short, he said that people did it to themselves.  People couldn’t be satisfied with reading real literature, books and stories with real value, or messages that explained deeper emotions and feelings.  He said that eventually people started reading things in digests, then as blurbs and snippets, and eventually as 30 second blasts over the four-walled TVs.  He asked how you could condense a classic work of literature into a 30 second blast and still retain it’s true meaning?  Everything became dumbed down to keep everyone happy.  To keep things exciting!  I think Twitter is sort of a first step towards what Bradbury had imagined.  How many of you that use Twitter know a Twitter wannabe pundit that tries to condense the feeling and emotion of a whole work of literature into 140 characters?  And then, of course, there’s this article talking about Brain Shots, which is literally taking a page from Bradbury’s book.  I wouldn’t be surprised if his book was their inspiration.

    Technology is a beautiful thing, but I hope we keep using it wisely and effectively and don’t reduce our culture and our whole body of world literature into meaningless blasts of drivel that lose their true meaning.  Bradbury’s book may have been written half a century ago, but it’s becoming more and more meaningful as time goes on.

    A few interesting quotes from the book:

    “Remember the firemen are rarely necessary. The public stopped reading of its own accord. You firemen provide a circus now and then at which buildings are set off and crowds gather for the pretty blaze, but its a small sideshow indeed, and hardly necessary to keep things in line. So few want to be rebels anymore. And out of those few, most, like myself, scare easily. Can you dance faster than the White Clown, shout louder than ‘Mr. Gimmick’ and the parlor ‘families’? If you can, you’ll win your way, Montag. In any event, you’re a fool. People are having fun.”

    “It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals.”

    This is definitely one of my favorite books.

  • Doraemon Curtains!

    I haven’t talked much about my personal life on this blog, but just for the sake of making this more understandable, I recently moved to the Philippines and am staying at my in-law’s house until my wife and I find work in Manila.  At some time or another, most of the members of her family have lived in this house, so there are of course leftovers.  I don’t mean food leftovers.  I mean the things that get left behind, things that they say they’ll come back for later, but sort of never do.  We’ve been sorting through things and temporarily appropriating what’s usable.  One of the things we were able to find was a curtain which happened to have a big Doraemon scene on it.

    DSC05264

    I’m not a Doraemon fan.  I’ve never even seen the show.  I’m pretty sure this curtain belong’s to my brother-in-law who has two small kids, but it does sort of suit my interests.  I figured, why not hang it on our bedroom window so that when I see it I’ll be inspired to study Japanese?

    Also, on a side note, my wife is interested in anime almost as much as I am.  Right now she’s hooked on watching Jigoku Shoujo with me.  Cool, right?  So, she was more excited than I was to put it on the curtain rod and “liven up” the room a bit.

  • Sony is trying to claim my content on YouTube violates their copyright!

    I opened my e-mail this evening and found this message waiting for me:

     
    YouTube                                           help center | e-mail options | report spam

    Dear BradleyF81,

    Your video, Flexy Girls Performing on Orchard Road, may have content that is owned or licensed by Sony Music Entertainment.

    No action is required on your part; however, if you are interested in learning how this affects your video, please visit the Content ID Matches section of your account for more information.

    Sincerely,
    – The YouTube Team

    © 2010 YouTube, LLC
    901 Cherry Ave, San Bruno, CA 94066

    I’ve heard a lot of stories about the music industry trying to claim that people’s home videos contain their copyrighted content for the most bizarre things, like bits of music played in the background, but I never expected it to happen to one of my videos.

    Luckily, the video hasn’t actually been pulled.  It has, however, been blocked from playing in Germany, as I found out by following up on the second link, which by the way should direct you to your own YouTube account’s copyright info so you can see if any of your videos have been blocked.  Anyhow, when I clicked the link, this is what I saw:

    CopyrightBullshit

    I’ve watched it again just to be sure, but I can’t see that anything here belongs to Sony, other than the fact that it was recorded with a Sony camera, but that doesn’t transfer ownership to them.  Does the tinny Chinese music belong to Sony?  Maybe someone knows better than I do?  And if it does, does this video constitute ‘fair use’ under US Copyright Law?  Should I take the time to dispute it, or is their claim legit?

    Here’s the video, of two girls doing an acrobatics performance on Orchard Road in Singapore: