Thursday, April 22, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Eyjafjallajökull
some amazing shots of the recent eruption of eyjafjallajökull in iceland, compiled by flickr's yahoo editors. very nice pictures, but of course, this eruption has disrupted air traffic in europe and heavily affecting the local population, and even created rare electrical storms around the area.
drinking
i'm not sure if this is scientifically-proven, but i'm posting it anyway.
Correct timing to take water, will maximize its effectiveness to human body.
Correct timing to take water, will maximize its effectiveness to human body.
- Two (02) glasses of water - After waking up - Help activate internal organs.
- One (01) glass of water - 30 minutes before meal - Helps digestion.
- One (01) glass of water - Before taking a bath - Helps lower blood pressure.
- One (01) glass of water - Before sleep - To avoid stroke or heart attack.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
shelda
saturday was a shelda day. shelda mae is chorvs' alter ego! hehehe!
we went to tagaytay for a three part celebration - mylene's birthday, bianca's (very) late despedida and shelda mae & pare's prenup pictorial. lots of walking, food, pictures, public transpo, food, swimming and i got to try picnic grove's zip line. we also got the now rare chance to spend time with ate mhar. nice way to spend a weekend. thanks to mabel for the pics!
we went to tagaytay for a three part celebration - mylene's birthday, bianca's (very) late despedida and shelda mae & pare's prenup pictorial. lots of walking, food, pictures, public transpo, food, swimming and i got to try picnic grove's zip line. we also got the now rare chance to spend time with ate mhar. nice way to spend a weekend. thanks to mabel for the pics!
right-handed
steve tignor writes about rafa's 6th consecutive win at monte carlo masters.
Rafael Nadal grabbed his match with Fernando Verdasco from the start, winning the first six points and ending the second game with a vintage crosscourt backhand pass from off his shoe tops and outside the doubles alley. It's probably a shot that only a right-handed left-hander could hit. In other words, it's probably a shot that only Nadal could hit.
That’s the shot we’ll remember from his 2010 Monte Carlo win, his sixth in a row. What was most memorable the rest of the time was how routine this title was and how self-assured Nadal was winning it. He didn’t drop a set and, as he has in years past, the anxieties that seemed to plague him through the early part of the year all blew away in the red Monaco dust. There wasn’t a moment all week where Nadal seemed in any kind of doubt about who the tournament’s winner would be. There was more confidence in every part of his game. He had no issues going up the line with his forehand or taking an aggressive cut at his crosscourt topspin backhand, two shots that he gets cautious with when he’s not confident. What I noticed most, though, was how seldom he was forced to hit his slice backhand, which is a shot that can float on him. On hard courts, when he’s pushed back, he’ll resort to this stroke. On clay, with a little more time and his ability to slide, he seems to have no trouble taking the extra step needed to get in position to drive the ball. Nadal has mastered the surface, the subtleties of footwork and court positioning needed to get around on it efficiently, to the point where he appears to believe he can hit any shot from any spot, and that he’s never out of a rally. Must be a nice feeling. A confidence-boosting feeling.
Nadal didn’t beat Federer or Djokovic or Murray or del Potro or Davydenko or Soderling or a bunch of other very good players. It doesn’t matter—do you really believe that he can’t beat those guys on clay? What matters is that he’s found his best form, and that, after the “accidents” in Indian Wells and Key Biscayne, he knows that it’s still good enough to put him on the winner’s stand. But let’s set aside what this means for his future for the moment. The win was Nadal’s 16th Masters title, tying him with Federer and putting him one behind the record-holder, Andre Agassi. It’s extremely unlikely that Nadal will challenge Federer’s Slam record, but he’ll probably retire as the all-time Masters winner, a record indicative of consistent excellence and persistence. His record in Monte Carlo itself is even better; at 23, Nadal has already won six straight titles there. What will he end up with, 10? Whatever it is, it won’t be surpassed any time soon.
I talked recently with Nadal’s former Davis Cup captain, Emilio Sanchez, for an article for Tennis Magazine. He said that he hoped Nadal would find success again soon, because “he’s so emotional, and he suffers so much when he’s not winning.” You could see the truth in those words after match point yesterday, when Nadal fell straight to the ground as if he’d been shot, and ended up crying into his towel on the sideline. You might say that a guy who has won a tournament the previous five years should act like he’s been there before. I say the opposite. Would you rather that Federer, when he won his fifth straight U.S. Open in 2008 after having a tough season, had just flashed a smile of satisfaction, shaken Andy Murray’s hand, and sat down, instead of rolling on the court in berserk joy the way he did? Which would have been the more memorable reaction? Which would have revealed more of the man? Which would have moved us more? The same goes for Nadal’s tears in Monte Carlo. They came after a year of ups and downs for him, of physical and emotional disappointment and pain, and they showed that it isn’t just the majors that need to matter. After every match he wins, wherever it is, Nadal takes the time to celebrate as if the experience is brand new. It’s one reason why he continues to win, and why he can stay motivated at Monte Carlo. Keep acting like you’ve never been there before, Rafa. It's why tennis players keep playing, and it's why tennis watchers keep watching. We want to feel that way, too.
Rafael Nadal grabbed his match with Fernando Verdasco from the start, winning the first six points and ending the second game with a vintage crosscourt backhand pass from off his shoe tops and outside the doubles alley. It's probably a shot that only a right-handed left-hander could hit. In other words, it's probably a shot that only Nadal could hit.
That’s the shot we’ll remember from his 2010 Monte Carlo win, his sixth in a row. What was most memorable the rest of the time was how routine this title was and how self-assured Nadal was winning it. He didn’t drop a set and, as he has in years past, the anxieties that seemed to plague him through the early part of the year all blew away in the red Monaco dust. There wasn’t a moment all week where Nadal seemed in any kind of doubt about who the tournament’s winner would be. There was more confidence in every part of his game. He had no issues going up the line with his forehand or taking an aggressive cut at his crosscourt topspin backhand, two shots that he gets cautious with when he’s not confident. What I noticed most, though, was how seldom he was forced to hit his slice backhand, which is a shot that can float on him. On hard courts, when he’s pushed back, he’ll resort to this stroke. On clay, with a little more time and his ability to slide, he seems to have no trouble taking the extra step needed to get in position to drive the ball. Nadal has mastered the surface, the subtleties of footwork and court positioning needed to get around on it efficiently, to the point where he appears to believe he can hit any shot from any spot, and that he’s never out of a rally. Must be a nice feeling. A confidence-boosting feeling.Nadal didn’t beat Federer or Djokovic or Murray or del Potro or Davydenko or Soderling or a bunch of other very good players. It doesn’t matter—do you really believe that he can’t beat those guys on clay? What matters is that he’s found his best form, and that, after the “accidents” in Indian Wells and Key Biscayne, he knows that it’s still good enough to put him on the winner’s stand. But let’s set aside what this means for his future for the moment. The win was Nadal’s 16th Masters title, tying him with Federer and putting him one behind the record-holder, Andre Agassi. It’s extremely unlikely that Nadal will challenge Federer’s Slam record, but he’ll probably retire as the all-time Masters winner, a record indicative of consistent excellence and persistence. His record in Monte Carlo itself is even better; at 23, Nadal has already won six straight titles there. What will he end up with, 10? Whatever it is, it won’t be surpassed any time soon.
I talked recently with Nadal’s former Davis Cup captain, Emilio Sanchez, for an article for Tennis Magazine. He said that he hoped Nadal would find success again soon, because “he’s so emotional, and he suffers so much when he’s not winning.” You could see the truth in those words after match point yesterday, when Nadal fell straight to the ground as if he’d been shot, and ended up crying into his towel on the sideline. You might say that a guy who has won a tournament the previous five years should act like he’s been there before. I say the opposite. Would you rather that Federer, when he won his fifth straight U.S. Open in 2008 after having a tough season, had just flashed a smile of satisfaction, shaken Andy Murray’s hand, and sat down, instead of rolling on the court in berserk joy the way he did? Which would have been the more memorable reaction? Which would have revealed more of the man? Which would have moved us more? The same goes for Nadal’s tears in Monte Carlo. They came after a year of ups and downs for him, of physical and emotional disappointment and pain, and they showed that it isn’t just the majors that need to matter. After every match he wins, wherever it is, Nadal takes the time to celebrate as if the experience is brand new. It’s one reason why he continues to win, and why he can stay motivated at Monte Carlo. Keep acting like you’ve never been there before, Rafa. It's why tennis players keep playing, and it's why tennis watchers keep watching. We want to feel that way, too.
Monday, April 12, 2010
curing
article from mareng winnie monsod. read on.
Who junked compassion and decency?
By Solita Collas-Monsod
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 20:58:00 04/09/2010
HERE IS A CANDIDATE RUNNING FOR THE highest office in the land, whose entire campaign is based on two themes: the first is that he rose, literally from the gutter, to conquer poverty, and that having done so, he can do the same for his fellow Filipinos. Been there, done that. The second is that his motives for running for the presidency are of the purest—he wants to repay the country for the blessings he has received. In any case, it is definitely not a desire to enrich himself—because if he wanted to make more money, all he needed to do was to just go back to his business, where he has made oodles of it.
TV viewers and radio listeners have heard these messages over and over again, and not unnaturally, the question arose: Is this for real? I say not unnaturally, because his credibility and his integrity had just come into question over road projects—C-5 Extension and Daang Hari among them—that just happened to pass through several of his subdivisions. I had done research on the C-5 Extension controversy, and the results are for anyone interested to see or read, thanks to the Internet, so that it should suffice to say that Sen. Manny Villar didn’t come out too well on that issue. It follows that one would be interested in verifying the basis of the Villar campaign theme as well.
The result of that research came out in this column a couple of weeks ago: documentary evidence—in the form of a death certificate, and a transfer certificate of title, and the senator’s Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth.
The first two documents strongly suggest that, indeed, the Villar family was certainly neither dirt poor nor even poor at all: at the time of his younger brother’s death, his family’s address (information provided by his father) turned out to be a one-and-a-half story house on a 560-sq m lot in the better side of Tondo, or rather Navotas. (My colleague in television, Arnold Clavio, was born and raised in Tondo, and he recalls visiting his “rich” relatives who lived in the same village where the Villars had their home.) It also turns out that little Danny Villar had actually died of leukemia—and even the richest family on earth would not have been able to prevent that death, because at the time (1962) there was no treatment for this illness (there still is none now, although medical advances have been made that would prolong the life of the victim).
The third set of documents shows that Senator Villar’s net worth had increased to more than 13 times its original value from the time he became a congressman in 1992 to 2008, when he was a senator (and became Senate president). Which would strongly suggest that the rise in his fortunes was closely connected to his government service.
The bottom line has to be obvious: Villar’s campaign ads have no basis in truth and in fact.
So now come the reproaches:
One is that the extensive investigation of the details of this episode was in utter disregard of compassion and decency. This reproach was leveled at the Aquino camp, of which I am not a member, but since I did investigate—as any journalist should—then I must also be in utter disregard of compassion and decency. Excuse my dust. But if there was any disregard of compassion and decency, this had to be shown by the person/s who exploited the death of a child in order to gain sympathy and, let’s face it, win votes, not by the ones who did the investigation. Don’t kill the messenger, please. Did the TV ad not include the picture of two young boys, the death of one of whom was attributed to utter poverty?
Another reproach is that the 86/87-year-old (both figures are used) mother of Senator Villar, fondly called “Aling Curing,” must be suffering over the way her family is being portrayed by the camp of the arch-rival of her son. Aling Curing, it is further detailed, used to run a little sari-sari store in Singalong until two years ago, when she had to quit because of her glaucoma. And that she must have suffered immensely from the death of that young boy, so why now rake up all the “sordid details”?
Now if there is anyone in the Villar family that we all have to take our hats off to, it has to be Aling Curing. She is the real heroine in the Villar family. There is no record of what her contribution was to the family coffers, but I can only imagine that it was at least as large as her husband’s government salary, because she was an entrepreneur—a crab and shrimp dealer who would buy the stuff wholesale and then sell them to the market vendors as well as to hotels and restaurants. And all this, while she was bearing and raising nine children, seeing to it that they got the best education she and her husband could afford. It must have been her entrepreneurship that influenced her son Manny to become an entrepreneur as well, and operating a sari-sari store into her mid-80s is testament to her true grit.
Who junked compassion and decency?
By Solita Collas-Monsod
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 20:58:00 04/09/2010
HERE IS A CANDIDATE RUNNING FOR THE highest office in the land, whose entire campaign is based on two themes: the first is that he rose, literally from the gutter, to conquer poverty, and that having done so, he can do the same for his fellow Filipinos. Been there, done that. The second is that his motives for running for the presidency are of the purest—he wants to repay the country for the blessings he has received. In any case, it is definitely not a desire to enrich himself—because if he wanted to make more money, all he needed to do was to just go back to his business, where he has made oodles of it.
TV viewers and radio listeners have heard these messages over and over again, and not unnaturally, the question arose: Is this for real? I say not unnaturally, because his credibility and his integrity had just come into question over road projects—C-5 Extension and Daang Hari among them—that just happened to pass through several of his subdivisions. I had done research on the C-5 Extension controversy, and the results are for anyone interested to see or read, thanks to the Internet, so that it should suffice to say that Sen. Manny Villar didn’t come out too well on that issue. It follows that one would be interested in verifying the basis of the Villar campaign theme as well.The result of that research came out in this column a couple of weeks ago: documentary evidence—in the form of a death certificate, and a transfer certificate of title, and the senator’s Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth.
The first two documents strongly suggest that, indeed, the Villar family was certainly neither dirt poor nor even poor at all: at the time of his younger brother’s death, his family’s address (information provided by his father) turned out to be a one-and-a-half story house on a 560-sq m lot in the better side of Tondo, or rather Navotas. (My colleague in television, Arnold Clavio, was born and raised in Tondo, and he recalls visiting his “rich” relatives who lived in the same village where the Villars had their home.) It also turns out that little Danny Villar had actually died of leukemia—and even the richest family on earth would not have been able to prevent that death, because at the time (1962) there was no treatment for this illness (there still is none now, although medical advances have been made that would prolong the life of the victim).
The third set of documents shows that Senator Villar’s net worth had increased to more than 13 times its original value from the time he became a congressman in 1992 to 2008, when he was a senator (and became Senate president). Which would strongly suggest that the rise in his fortunes was closely connected to his government service.
The bottom line has to be obvious: Villar’s campaign ads have no basis in truth and in fact.
So now come the reproaches:
One is that the extensive investigation of the details of this episode was in utter disregard of compassion and decency. This reproach was leveled at the Aquino camp, of which I am not a member, but since I did investigate—as any journalist should—then I must also be in utter disregard of compassion and decency. Excuse my dust. But if there was any disregard of compassion and decency, this had to be shown by the person/s who exploited the death of a child in order to gain sympathy and, let’s face it, win votes, not by the ones who did the investigation. Don’t kill the messenger, please. Did the TV ad not include the picture of two young boys, the death of one of whom was attributed to utter poverty?
Another reproach is that the 86/87-year-old (both figures are used) mother of Senator Villar, fondly called “Aling Curing,” must be suffering over the way her family is being portrayed by the camp of the arch-rival of her son. Aling Curing, it is further detailed, used to run a little sari-sari store in Singalong until two years ago, when she had to quit because of her glaucoma. And that she must have suffered immensely from the death of that young boy, so why now rake up all the “sordid details”?
Now if there is anyone in the Villar family that we all have to take our hats off to, it has to be Aling Curing. She is the real heroine in the Villar family. There is no record of what her contribution was to the family coffers, but I can only imagine that it was at least as large as her husband’s government salary, because she was an entrepreneur—a crab and shrimp dealer who would buy the stuff wholesale and then sell them to the market vendors as well as to hotels and restaurants. And all this, while she was bearing and raising nine children, seeing to it that they got the best education she and her husband could afford. It must have been her entrepreneurship that influenced her son Manny to become an entrepreneur as well, and operating a sari-sari store into her mid-80s is testament to her true grit.
Yes, Aling Curing must be suffering over the way her family is being portrayed—but by her own son himself. How would you feel if after successfully putting your children through school and putting a comfortable roof over their heads, one of them portrays you as being an economic failure, and impliedly irresponsible, because you brought nine children into poverty, with one of them having to swim in a sea of garbage and another dying because you and your husband couldn’t afford the medical care? Talk of biting the hand that fed him.
She must be very forgiving. I salute her.
She must be very forgiving. I salute her.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
amethyst
i don't know if it's the graduation season last march and early this april or people are just nostalgic due to the summer season, but a lot of my former classmates are uploading a lot of pics from our elementary days.
below is our class picture during grade 5. amethyst was the name of our section. back then, nagkaisang nayon elementary sections were based on natural order of things or categories that are arranged alpabetically. grade 4 had the solar system, so section 1 was mercury, up to pluto, the section 9. grade 5 sections were based on precious stones, so our section was amethyst. grade 6 sections were based on flowers, so the star section was aster. our adviser during grade 5 was mrs. aurora bernal, who also taught us hekasi.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
maundy
it's maundy thursday today.
also, april fools' day.
and enzo francisco's first birthday.
adobo day again for me. didn't go out.
stayed at home. watched tennis.
watched megalodon. watched table tennis.
slept the whole afternoon.
ate my pili hopia from naga.
watched new york millions years ago.
looked at pics. facebooked.
blogged.
and now, about to sleep.
life.
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