Stupid

For the past two weeks, I have been giving lectures either for a postgraduate course or a medical society. The travel from my house or any place of origin to the lecture venue has been, for choice of a better word, STRESSFUL.


From the Magallanes area, my travel to the Philippine Heart Center took me 2 hrs and 15 mins. From C5 to Tiendesitas, for the Pasig Medical Society's lecture, it also took me 2 hrs. It took longer to traverse EDSA or C5 than a plane ride from Manila to Hong Kong or Davao. The travel time was close to going to Saigon!

If you live in Manila, you need to really extend your patience...and this is a virtue I sorely lack. Believe me when I say that I understand what road rage is all about, but yes, there is no reason for one to drive in Metro Manila if one is hot tempered.

I probably will never understand how government officials in our country think. Perhaps for lack of a more appropriate word, my observations during these long road trips traversing less than 15 km for 2 hours had me deducing that the better, kinder and gentler term to call those responsible for traffic in Metro Manila - STUPID!

1. It's 5 pm and the buses that traverse EDSA are not even half full. I was telling my driver how many buses there are on the right lane and how empty many of them were. All the people are queuing at the MRT stations and the buses are just lazily jockeying for the few passengers. Why can we not reduce the number of buses plying EDSA and put a certain time clock for those going to Monumento or Novaliches or Project 4 or wherever their final destination is? And these passengers are willing to travel 2-3 hours? What the? They have nothing to do with their lives rather than sit in a f*ck*ng bus the whole day and inhaling all that pollution? Dang! There has got to be some order put on the roads. The Philippines is one of the countries in the world with the highest road accidents - both fatal and nonfatal! And our government officials simply lack the balls to implement what is the overall good of the people. They will listen to Claire de la Fuente and her gang of bus owners that the jobs will be lost if they cut down on the buses on EDSA. Diyos mio! What about the lost time and among the greater majority who travel from North to South and vice versa? Vaya con Dios na lang ba?

2. Then you add the several thousands of motorcycles that ride shotgun and gungho along EDSA as well - swerving in and around the cars and our having to avoid them so as not to get into an accident. Once these motorcycles hit your car, they'll run away and you'll never even see their tiny plate numbers (which are not even lighted at night). There goes your car and there you can only curse to high heavens. Whoever allowed these imbeciles to ply the streets of Metro Manila without a care in the world about someone else's vehicle, I will never know. But I only pray and hope that he or she rolls over and dies - now!

3. On my way to Tiendesitas, I noticed that there are several elevated pedestrian walkways along C5. Of course, while there are warnings in the middle of the road that you can eventually die from playing tag with the vehicles on the road, the people that live around the area will somehow take the shorter road - to death. And when you get into an accident, the driver of the vehicle is charged with homicide due to negligence. Negligence my ass! Eh bawal nga tumawid noh!

Why does the local government spend millions of pesos to build an elevated pedestrian lane connecting one squatters area to another squatters area? I really don't see the logic. They are squatters! They're not supposed to even be there in the first place. In the second place, none of them actually pay taxes to the government. They have no contribution whatsoever to the coffers of the government. Why waste taxpayers money to build the elevated pedestrian lane for them? Gosh! It does not take rocket science to realize how stupid these lawmakers think! Spend the money to relocate them! You look out of the palatial homes in Serendra and you will appreciate a perfect view of the squatters community!

I have a better suggestion. In all the practicality of PNoy and whatever his do good attitude is, he should just make a presidential decree that any driver that runs over someone who is jaywalking or who rides a public vehicle in the NO LOADING and UNLOADING zone will get a prize for running over these idiots. Beyond his no wang wangs on the road - like reward us with P100,000 per person that we send to the next world. Let's see if anyone is even willing to violate the law. And those vendors that criss-cross the streets peddling their water, cigarettes, biscuits, red bull or whatever - puhleez - get them out of the road! Someone told me that it would be a violation of human rights to have this decree. What right? Tell me, what right did we violate? The right to life? What about the driver's right to life? While avoiding these idiots who disobey traffic rules and regulations, we end up swerving and hitting our cars somewhere else and injuring ourselves and others. So who is responsible for our loss of life because some lame brained squatter darted from point A to point B and we tried to avoid having to run the idiot over?

While my driver is busy maneuvering the slow drive, I open the newspaper and get to read the column of Mon Tulfo in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. He wrote about Bong and Lilia Pineda, alleged jueteng operators in Pampanga. Of course, Tulfo was defending the husband and wife tandem and saying that according to them, jueteng (an illegal numbers small town lottery) provides jobs to close to 100,000 people and that Bong and Lilia readily provide financial support to many of the poor in need. So my heart bleeds out to them. But this is an idiotic frame of thinking considering that we have people like Tulfo who justify the means to an end that is immoral and a source of corruption! If this is the logic behind Tulfo and the Pinedas or other jueteng operators, well eat my ass - why don't we just make it legal? Let's also justify prostitution, smoking, selling illegal drugs, selling fake DVDs and replicated designer bags and all that crap as legal. After all, they will give the same reason - that it's a source of livelihood. Gosh, you can really smell stupidity a mile away and the fact that the Inquirer even has Tulfo as a columnist who writes something like this is unimaginably debasing for a newspaper of this caliber.

I guess the Filipinos in the Philippines will always be the Banana Republic we deserve to be, considering the idiots that not only work for the government, but the stupid ones who defend what is not only immorally but logically wrong.

There can be no ORDER in CHAOS! And we are heading for a major disaster at the rate we're not handling the situation on the traffic problem.

Only in the Philippines!

[Photo by rewshearer from trekearth.com]

Unwanted

On a Gulf Air flight from Bahrain to Manila, Baby George Francis was found in a trash bin on the plane after he was delivered there by then an unidentified passenger, believed to be a Filipino citizen.

No one wants to be judgmental about the situation but on an overview, it serves as a mirror on the kind of hardship our OFWs go through with life in the Philippines and in seeking greener pastures in another land.

There have been several stories that have come out, including the version of the mother who claims she had been raped in Bahrain and who claims that it is a stigma that she would come home pregnant with child. Any excuse can be given by the mother of Baby George Francis. Science will always find a way to debunk her excuses like how can a primipara give birth spontaneously? What would have happened had she not given birth on the plane? How would she face her family? And so on and so forth.

Added to this was the recent spate of fetuses found in Quiapo Church. Or babies born with various congenital anomalies because the mother had attempted to abort the fetus during early pregnancy. Or even children being raised in abusive homes or being sold in exchange for bread to eat or being forced to work when they should be in school.

The church has condemned the immoral acts of abortion and has prepared a stand reminding people on the sins of abortion that it is tantamount to murder. Yet the glaring fact is that the response, like many responses in the country are reactive than proactive.

Seriously, the Catholic Church is lacking in its guidance to its flock. Sunday services are dire for a more passionate involvement of its flock to the message of the church. Even in our parish, what is more palpable are the various monetary collections for various projects and activities of the church. Some of the sermons do not serve tangible messages to the lives of the church goers. It is very Filipino to wait until events like these occur. And when media has gotten the attention of the church, it's the only time we see some action from the reaction.

This blog today is not a blame game.

I blog about being "unwanted" from the get go, as a reflection to my readers, who probably can help provide a more proactive stand on the matter.

Being unwanted or being unpopular can be devastating to the psychological upbringing and social interaction of an individual. Collectively, people who are unwanted feel a sense of hatred and anger not only towards the people who matter most to them, but to society in general. Studies have shown that people who are "unwanted" are permanently scarred throughout their growing up years and adult lives and majority of them live their lives trying to figure out who and why they even exist. Majority of them engage in risky behavior including drugs, sex, and criminal activities. About 60%, in one study, showed that people who have been unwanted most of their lives have some degree of mental problems which they need to embrace or eventually die from. Most of them do not, so to put it, have a "purpose driven life". Nothing in their lives provide meaning and they live in an escapist world.

While the government, society and the church have augmenting roles to play in our lives, there is a serious need to consider the personal consequences of actions such as these. Has life really been worth a dime a dozen? We need to have some order and consequences for actions like these. Agreeably, there is a need to understand why the mother of Baby George Francis did what she did. Clearly, she is not in the right state of mind. Her actions were based on selfish motives rather than facing the consequences of being a single parent. And her story is as pathetic as it is to be believed. It was not the baby's fault that he was conceived and whatever behavior the mother had gone through is no reason for making Baby George feel unwanted. Whatever reason is provided, it is as sordid as the telenovelas that are churned from our television set.

The irony is that many of us would prefer to find quick but senseless solutions than carry the cross.

Yet as long as we continue to tolerate and think that these individual decisions are personal and that we have no business at what they do with their lives, we go into a vicious cycle of creating a future generation that is unwanted. An unwanted generation has no remorse and is unforgiving to a society that has turned its back on them once upon a time.

Nobody wants to be ugly, pudgy, and poor. Nobody wants to be a loser, a beggar or burdened. People all want to be stars, rich and famous. No stress in life. A job that fits us like a glove.

Nothing wrong with ambition. We all need a goal otherwise, life has actually no purpose.

No one said that everything in life comes in a silver platter. Responsibility is the key to accomplishing our goals and dreams. And we need to take responsibility for our actions - face the music, so to put it. The key to success is perseverance and even if we do persevere, some of us may not get to the end of the rainbow. But getting half way there isn't too bad a journey considering that many of us started from nothing at all.

How many more unwanted children will need to sacrifice because parents were not responsible enough to face the consequences of their actions? It is frightening to see a new generation of people who have no empathy or remorse because we mold them into what they will become tomorrow by making them feel unwanted, today.

[Note: The pictures posted were from ABSCBN.com and Reuters. Someone wrote to me to tell me they are his pictures and requested they be removed. For whatever reason, I am replacing the original post and posting one that was provided as public access.]

Of bachelors, hunks, narcissism and being gay

Over a decade ago, one could not imagine the tabloids and magazines splattered with the crotches of men in the tiniest of underwear showing barely the outline of their family jewels. Or in the lowest of jeans showing a pinch of pubic hair or a shaved crotch.

Sexy advertising (or whatever you may want to name it) used to be a woman's world. In the Philippines, this era was marked over 30 years ago by women simply wearing string bikinis riding on a horse or whatever, to entice men in the sale of liquor. There were posters of women in various states of undress and Tanduay Rhum would give away calendars tagging each of them as Miss January, February, March, and so on.

Today, you see a bolder side of advertisement. I mean, you gotta agree with me when I say that the men are more daring and revealing than the women. Each year the Bench Underwear fashion event has all the ladies and gayness in gaga-land not over what the women wear, but over what the men are not wearing. And CosmoMen, featuring the men with washboard abs and oiled muscled bodies rippling in various explicitly sexually suggestive poses only made me affirm the fact that narcissism has reeled its ugly head.

Don't mistake me for being prude. That is the least I am.

Unfortunately, I don't believe that this is the kind of material that should hog the limelight most especially during prime time television. There is nothing wrong with flaunting a beautiful body. But the media must learn to discern as to when is the proper time to show segments like these. Of course, for the advertising and business world - SEXY SELLS!

And while we're at the topic of hunks galore, a colleague asked me in passing - DO YOU THINK THAT THESE MODELS ARE REALLY STRAIGHT MEN?

I wanted to slap her right there and then, but since I am suffering from lateral epicondylitis (tennis elbow), I decided to spare my right arm the pain.

These women just DO NOT get it! Dang!!! Did I need to give a lecture on how to tell if your man has signs and symptoms of being gay? Shoot me now and call me straight if you still can't distinguish a straight man from being gay.

Over a cup of coffee and some walnut cookies I enumerated the obvious signs and symptoms:
1. He's JUST NOT INTO YOU dearie. When you're in a party he likes to huddle with the boys. Especially the cute ones. When another hunk walks in, observe his head or eyes dart into that direction. Observe his eyes every time you go out. It tells a lot about whether you're with him or he's just physically there but he's not totally there at all!

2. He's 50 and he's still not married. So he's good looking, an achiever, and he's had several women in his life. It's either he's got erectile dysfunction and isn't telling anyone or he's not getting it up because he just doesn't like women. In short, he goes out with you because you're his front act. As to why he can't keep a relationship or get committed to one is not your fault. It's his. He's not into women!

3. His clothes are super neat and his make up is thicker than yours. He just says he's metrosexual (whatever that means). I blogged about this metrosexual concept a few months back and I tell you it's nothing but a campaign by advertisers and business to sell beauty to men. Men being beautiful? Duh? I'm fine with fragrance and clothes, but if he puts on a foundation or eyeliner or curls his lashes or plumps his lips with gloss then you've got someone who'll be carrying a "kikay" kit on your next vacation as well. [And while you're at it, check if he has those really low cut underwear that leaves little to the imagination or perhaps has some tight string bikini which would make your thong blush from what he's packing.] He's pretty obsessed with what he wears and how neat and spick and span he should be. You will not see a crease on his shirt and he's really tidy all over with that fruity citrus smell like he bathed himself with the whole bottle of cologne. Remember, if the guy looks more beautiful than you, you better think twice if he's straight or not!

4. He picks your clothes. Or he's picky when it comes to what you wear. You know the drill. You're going out for a date, then at the door he looks at you from head to foot then makes a stupid comment like, "I love your dress, but your shoes just don't match the color." Shazzam...and when did he become an instant make-over artist or fashion critic?

5. He's a total health buff. I mean really a health buff. I mean extremely a health buff. I mean a really totally extremely health buff. He's conscious with his food. He has gazillion pills laid out on the table when you dine out. He has an extra protein bar in his pocket so that he doesn't binge on food. He's conscious about his abdominal muscles and the weight and poundage that he will add. At a restaurant when you ask him to try your dish, he declines and offers his being conscious of his body as a pathetic excuse. He's a gym rat! In short, there's not a day in the week he's not at the gym lifting those barbells then posing and flexing his pumped body for all the world to see. Be most wary when he tells you that he's late for your dates because he's not yet done pumping his muscles. Several studies show that 50-75% guys who are narcissistic are actually dystonic gay men. Another study reveals that 30-50% of professional bodybuilders have homosexual tendencies and urges. Finally, 30-50% of male models are actually gay (but that's an underestimate because in reality 70-80% actually are).

6. He's not effeminate. Alright so it's a given. Most men that are effeminate are probably gay. But these straight-acting men are more dangerous than the effeminate ones. At least the effeminate ones are already distinguishable, but those that pretend to be straight are deceivingly devious. Why then do they act macho? Well primarily because not all gay men need to have a limp wrist. And that these macho-acting men act that way so that they can bond with other macho/straight guys . You know - hang out with the boys so that he can check their "toys". They're the ones that engage in hardcore body contact with other men, swapping t-shirts and jockstraps and body rubs. And here's the weird side - while most effeminate men may be gay, some of them are straighter than an arrow! So don't get deceived by the fact that the effeminate guy beside you happens to be gay! The world isn't just black OR white!

7. Just because he's got kids doesn't mean he's straight. Well let's just say that while they may have had the desire to sire kids, doesn't make them heterosexual or bisexual either. Jun Encarnacion and Arnel Ignacio for example. There's a long list of men who have kids and love men as well. So much for the "married" status. Some call them late-bloomers, whatever that means. Maybe after years of trying to ditch it they finally come to terms that they want their share of a "lollipop".

8. He's a Diva. I mean sure, while he loves the music of Barbara Streisand or Celine Dion, he does not need to sing it in falsetto mode! The minute you hear him sing in that mode, get out of the relation quick. It's either he just got castrated or he's wearing some really really really tight underwear that's clamping on his balls. Add the fact that he's into beauty pageants. Like if you asked a stupid question - "I wonder how many times has the Philippines won a world beauty pageant" - and he suddenly replies by giving you the exact year, name of winner, place it was held, and the place that the Philippines landed, you should get out of that relationship. If he's not gay then I'm definitely the Queen of England!

9. He is homophobic. There is something in him that makes him abhor openly gay people. He doesn't like them in the work place and enjoys putting them down. He surrounds himself with women and men only. He openly bashes gay people both in private and in public. This tells you that there is something in his past (or in his subconscious) that makes his react this way. It's usually a reflection of what he hates in himself. The gay population is a mirror of what he dislikes in himself. Because he finds this the dirtiest part of him, he does not like seeing them or being with them to the point of hating them.

10. His friends are beautiful men. Now that we're into cyberspace technology you can easily check out if your guy is gay or not. Simply click on his friends and you can tell - majority of his friends are beautiful men (not just men but really beautiful men) whose profile pics show half the torso rippling with muscles or even some of them only in scant underwear or very sexy or revealing poses. Especially if you don't know any of these men at all!

Give each segment in the checklist above 10%. If the guy fulfills 3 of the 10, then that makes 30% probability that he's gay and so on and so forth. If the guy (or hunk) of your dreams happens to fulfill at least 5 of the above criteria, steer away from him. You do not want to end up with a broken heart.

I promise you that you will remain a virgin throughout your life if you get a high score with your lover who happens to fill the criteria.

Technology and D'Pinoy

Someone once told me that if there is one country that happens to be most advanced at technological advances for gadgets, it is the Philippines. And he added that the Filipinos are tech-savvy. Whatever that meant.

I begged to disagree.

Let me be sarcastic about it. We pretend to be tech savvy. We pretend that we are "knowledgeable" and that the incorrigible Pinoy will always find a way to get hold of the latest gadgets and gizmos in order to show the world that he is at par with the major advances in technology.

The operative word is PRETEND.

Let me cite an example. A few weeks ago, I purchased tickets for the upcoming "David Foster and Friends" show at the Araneta Theater on October 23. Obviously, I wanted to get good seats. I went online for Ticketnet and voila - they inform me that they will email me if there are available seats. Duh? Okay. I remind myself that this is the Republic of the Philippines. The Banana Republic. The country that pretends to be high tech!

I remember that when I got tickets for the Broadway show "Wicked" during my New York vacation, I could select the seats in the theater, buy the tickets online with my credit card, an email is then sent back in less than 2 minutes and I can print out the ticket from my home. This was how I got tickets for the Empire State Building entrance as well. Buy online, pay online and print my ticket from my home.

Anyway, the following day, I receive an email from Ticketnet informing me that they have PRESELECTED SEATS for me and that the seat numbers were __ and __. So much for selecting seats. I guess because this is the Philippines, even seats to the show required some form of graft and corruption on the part of Ticketnet. Why am I not surprised? So off I went to one of the Ticketnet outlets. Where else? Shoemart Department Store. When I got to the counter the girl was accommodating, She told me to please wait awhile. They needed to reboot the computer.

Reboot?!?!!?

Yes.

They close it when it's not in use and no one is buying tickets.

You could actually hear the poor computer with its green monitor (something I had in the early 1980s) whirring to a start. The salesgirl taps the sides of the monitor and the lights brighten up (a little).

She then asks me to what show am I purchasing tickets for?

I give her a printout of the email Ticketnet sent me (which indicated the seat and row).

She looked at it and then typed in my last name. Another first name popped on the screen. Then she started pressing one of the function keys and the first names of each person with my last name crawled slowly on the screen...I was tapping my fingers on the top of the desk. 15 minutes had gone by and she was still scrolling the function key, hoping to see my name pop up. Then she stops and says she cannot find it. Stops her work. Squats on the ground so she can pick up the phone to call Ticketnet. What the hell was the phone doing in the lowest part of the shelf?!?!?!

Another 5 minutes had gone by and she asks for instructions. When it's over she goes back to the screen and types my last name and the FIRST LETTER of my first name and then my name appears. She tells me how much the tickets are. I give her my credit card and she tells me it should be cash.

Cash?!?!?!? Who pays with cash nowadays? I ask her nicely, don't you accept credit cards?

She says they do. But the Ticketnet people put a code that the payment was in cash.

I tell myself, how presumptuous of Ticketnet! They wanted the money at once. (Sigurista!)

I told the girl that I would have to go to the ATM to withdraw. She said she could fix it by calling Ticketnet to change the code. Clap clap clap for the SM girl. Slap slap slap for the people at Ticketnet.

The girl then squats again on the floor and calls Ticketnet to change the code. Another 5 minutes had gone by.

After she talks to the Ticketnet person, she stands up again and then TURNS OFF THE COMPUTER! OMG!

My face was aghast.

She smiled at me and said that she needed to reboot again. That was the instruction from Ticketnet. How can you get angry with her? Tell me.

After another 5 minutes and the same process - slaps the monitor a little, types in my last name then the first letter of my first name, she tells me that it's alright now. I can pay with my credit card.

I give her my credit card and another girl replaces Miss Congeniality. I asked - what happened to the other girl?

Apparently, someone else takes charge of payment. Miss Substitute now squats again on the floor and swipes my card. What the hell was the credit card terminal doing on the floor? My eyes rolled up. I was afraid to ask. Maybe Henry Sy has a fungshei about telephones and terminals being on the floor. I can hear Henry Sy chanting "moolah on the floor make me richer"!

After the swipe and the receipt coming out, it was time to print the tickets. It looked like the little gadget that was spewing my tickets was sputtering the letters slowly and another 5 minutes and I was done.

Note that there was NO QUEUE and NO OTHER CUSTOMER AT THE SERVICES AREA of SM Southmall. I was wondering how long it would take had there been at least 5 customers at 3pm! I was done after 35 minutes.

Two tickets. Thrity five minutes. Jeez....Banana republic....we should hang our head in shame.

We don't even need to go to the extent of purchasing tickets for a concert to see how tech retarded the Filipinos are.

Take the SLEX and NLEX. We are the only country in Asia (and perhaps in the world, considering the places that I've been to), that has both the entrance and exit of the expressways with a barrier that slowly goes up when you go through an E-pass lane. Jiminy Cricket...what the hell is that barrier for? And why do all the cars have to come to an almost complete stop so that the Epass can be read? You should try the Skyway during the rush hours. You have a longer queue on the Epass lane than on the cash lane. What the? Welcome to the Philippines...the land of pretentious techies.

I remain skeptical about the prowess of the technological highway in this country. It is, at the very best, pathetic. I know we try, but trying is not good enough if we cannot deliver premium service for the kind of money we pay for.

This country boasts of the highest number of text users in the world. Every Filipino has at least ONE mobile phone. There is a computer in almost every 10 homes in the urban areas and 1 in every 100 homes in the rural areas (as long as the rural area has electricity). You see the youth hangout in the malls and Starbucks with a frappe in one hand and a netbook or iPAD or web browsing-capable phone on the other hand.

Let me be clear. I have nothing against those into gadgets and using technological advancements. Good for them.

What I cannot understand is how we cannot translate this wizardry into better service for the people of the Philippines. The answer to this, is because those that render service are simply cost cutting and would like to be earning more than what they need to spend for premium service. In short, it is all pretentious.

Hysteria and the mosquito

Hell hath no fury as the tiny Aedes aegypti mosquito.

If you read some of the major newspapers, especially those specializing in what I would call sensational journalism, it seems that the Philippines is headed for a major disaster caused by the mosquito that brings the Dengue Virus.

Over the last few weeks, I've been tired. Really really tired. I can puke at how many sick kids I see because the parents are all scared about Dengue. I'm not saying they shouldn't be. Even I am. There's no treatment for it. Once the patients begin to bleed, we just remain helpless and need to monitor the patients afflicted with it.

What I cannot stand is how much hysteria the media has created.

They have unnecessarily sent all the parents into panic mode. With so many kids being brought to the hospital for ONE DAY fever, everyone wants to have a CBC platelet done at the first sign of fever. Some of them even believe the Dengue NS1 test that's being hyped by Hi-Precision laboratory. This test is non-specific and not a sensitive one and should not be recommended at the first day of any febrile illness. I see parents with kids in tow, flashing blood test results on one hand and a bag in tow on the other hand because they're ready for admission to the hospital. Golly gee wow!!!

Where is all this hysteria coming from?

They say that their neighbor's kid died from dengue or that they read in the newspaper that it is already an epidemic or that some doctor friend had told them that they are lucky because he/she just had a patient that died. Crap!

There are more Filipino children dying each day because of hunger or even curable diseases like pneumonia than dengue. Why isn't that getting the much needed media attention? Because hunger does not sell! The Filipino is used to hunger! In the latest survey, more Filipinos have reported that they have suffered from more hunger in the last few months than they did last year! Because some child star does not get afflicted with hunger and will not die of hunger but of Dengue. The child star's story is what sells!

There is scant campaign on prevention. The news is filled with hysterical parents, hysterical news reporters, and hysterical anchor men who broadcast with so much emphasis that you would think he is at war with the mosquitoes. The misinformation does not help. People should be reminded on how to prevent dengue infection. The problem with us is that we are never proactive and always reactive when it comes to crisis management.

The truth of the matter is that since the 1950s when Halstead first identified the arbovirus dengue in the Philippines, we have always been endemic for this disease. In spite of modern times, we have failed to combat this virus because of lack of a political will. We have even been the major exporter of dengue virus to other countries with the larvae of the mosquito breeding in tires which are manufactured in the Philippines and exported to the United States and other countries.

Year in and year out, health officials have reminded the Filipinos that the rainy season brings with it a deadly viral infection transmitted by the mosquito. But we have remained lackadaisical in attitude and practice.

And the kind of news reporting in the country has only created hysteria and panic, with the mosquitoes laughing at how we're all in such a pathetic state.

When will we ever learn?

The death of my MacBookPro

My MacBookPro officially died last night.

In the middle of all the slides for my lectures for the month, I tried desperately to save my files. It was frustrating that I was turning it on and off each time the pixels on the screen would scatter and the cursor would hang. Then the computer would shut down. And I'd have to redo the slides that were half-way saved.

It's been 3 days since the symptoms started. My friend who owns PowerMac told me that it's either the hard drive or the logic board. Most probably the logic board since the power sign kept showing up and the pixels were all scattered already. It would cost me around 30,000p to have the logic board fixed.

All gadgets have a lifespan and my MacBookPro had given me the best 6 years of technological wonder! Since I bought it, it had provided me income through the many slide sets it has produced. It has provided me the window to technological advancement and the highway to much needed information in my work, practice and communication with friends and colleagues.

My partner tells me that material things has no room for sentimental values. While I agreed, something in me disagreed as well. I cannot help but reminisce the times I and my MacBookPro shared the best and worst of times together.

I called the owner of PowerMac to inform her on the urgency of the situation. At 7AM this morning, I woke her to tell ask her to make sure that there was a new unit of the iMac Desktop that I could get at 10AM. I dropped by the store, picked up the new desktop - 3.06GHz Intel Core i3 with 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3 memory, 5.86 GT/s speed on a 21" flat screen with no borders and runs on the fastest Snow Leopard version. Standard optical mouse and optical keypads come with it. The new processor architecture, more powerful graphics, big LED backlit displays, two ways to multi touch is the ultimate all-in-one and is turbocharged.

I got an external hard drive that should allow the transfer of all my files from my MacBookPro. During the last 15 minutes of my old laptop's life - I transferred all the important documents and files to the new sleek hard drive, erased all the contents, wrapped it back in it's original sleeve, and bid goodbye to my friend.

Like all things in life, nothing comes permanent.

It was time to enjoy the company of my new desktop.