Here’s a family portrait on the last day of 2004, diving at Escarceo Point near Puerto Galera, Mindoro Island. There’s Mom, Dad, and four brothers: can you guess which one I am?
Photo taken with Dad’s Canon Powershot A70.
VerdeIsland
I’m on Verde Island for four days of scuba diving. See you in 2005!
Tsunami Coverage
International cable news here in Manila is pretty much 24/7 Tsunami News, though I see that one of my primary DC news haunts, NBC4, at the time of this writing, ranks one of the world’s deadliest natural catastrophes ever recorded as less important than flu shots and a church fire. What have you noticed about tsunami coverage on local TV in your area? Are there big red “ASIA TSUNAMI WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE” titles, or has the event been relegated to an international news footnote on how many Americans died?
Update: Well, whatever governs news priority seems to change the headlines every hour or so; I must have caught it at a bad time, because now it’s all tsunami and aid news, whereas my other DC news haunt, WJLA, currently has nothing at all on it. Plus, as Keith points out in comments, these are local news channels.
More coverage of this disaster, including firsthand material:
- Hellmut Issels’ photos from Phuket
- Real video of heavy surge hitting and engulfing Patong Beach (via MeFi)
- “Tsunami” tag on Flickr
- Animated simulation of tsunami’s spread
- Collected LJ tsunami posts
- WaPo writer’s firsthand account (those last three via Kottke)
- Wave of Destruction has a growing collection of tsunami-related media links.
- Before/After satellite photos of tsunami-stricken areas.
- Amateur video from Banda Aceh, Indonesian city hardest hit.
- PunditGuy hosts/links more videos.
- Tsunami Video Hosting Initiative from Mediabloggers.org.
Turo Mo, Tusok Ko
MT 3.14
I’ve installed MT 3.14 to address the potential issue of comment spam and server load. It’s never been a problem for me, most likely thanks to MTCloseComments, which expires comment posting to keep the spammers — as well as Kaanibs and Rubenians — out of my archives. I hope other MT users on this shared server have the good sense to take similar measures.
Post-Christmas Tsunamis
Tsunami spawned by a huge earthquake in Sumatra have battered coastlines in Thailand, Sri Lanka, and India. Thousands dead. I’m looking at pictures on CNN from Phuket in Thailand, and it’s a mess.
We went on a diving/sailing trip to Phuket in 1997, and it’s a popular tourist destination for Americans and Europeans, especially around this time of year. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to be snorkeling or scuba diving there when the surge came. Places I’ve been: Phi Phi (pronounced Pee Pee) Island, home to an idyllic tourist town and five star hotel, devastated; the main street of Patong Beach, half a meter underwater.
The Philippines has been safe from any tsunami so far, since the epicenter of the quake was on the other side of the Indochinese Peninsula.
Update: A WaPo writer’s firsthand account from the beaches of Sri Lanka. We also have a friend in Thailand who captains yachts for delivery, and he was in Bangkok, about to head out to Phuket, when the surge hit. His wife just called in to say they’re fine, and dang lucky too.
And The Word Was God
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
Today we celebrate the mighty God becoming a humble child in a manger. Though it may not have happened exactly on 25 Dec 0 AD, and though the early Christians may have had other reasons for setting that date, it’s nonetheless a fitting symbol that a season of cold and darkness should be marked by that glowing point of festive light. Merry Christmas to all of you, and may you enjoy it with family, with friends, and most importantly, with a heart warmed by the true Light who humbled Himself that he could dwell among us.
Tiangge
Tiangge means “bazaar,” in this case a tight gridwork of crowded stalls peddling discounted clothes, jewelry, accessories, electronics, and handicrafts in the hallways, plazas, parking lots, and other empty spaces between the various sections of Greenhills Shopping Center. Today being the practical tail end of the Christmas rush, the tiangge was a veritable crush of human traffic.
The cellophane-wrapped stars are called parol, a traditional handmade Filipino Christmas ornament.
Virra Mall: The Last Days
The two “home” malls of my childhood were Virra Mall and Shoppesville at Greenhills Shopping Center, a short walk from my house, where I would go for school supplies, video arcade games, computer repairs, art classes, Taekwondo lessons, cheap clothes, haircuts, Chinese noodles, 10 and 20-sided dice for AD&D and Robotech, and of course, “discount” PC software. Virra Mall and Shoppesville have withstood the years mostly untouched by the rapid development sweeping through that part of San Juan. (Just a couple of days after arriving, I went to Iggy’s Barber Shop in Shoppesville, and got my hair cut by Mang Dado, ang barberong kalbo, who has cut my hair since I was a boy. Nothing about the place had changed.)
Sad news, though: the years have caught up with Virra Mall, and I’m hearing that the structure will be demolished renovated to make way for a new SM-Greenhills SM-type mall, starting early next year. (Update: Renovation plans detailed somewhat here.) So I went over there yesterday morning and took a bunch of photos, to document the last days of this old Greenhills establishment. Just for posterity’s sake.
Paalam Kay FPJ
FPJ laid to rest. Just some screenshots of the TV while we watched the burial of Fernando Poe Jr.
