Living in the City

September 27 was supposed to be A "blog against abuse" day. However, my broadband decided not to cooperate. Although quite late, allow me to just tell this story about this growing social and mental menace through this post. Once there was a smart and cute little girl, about 8 years old. She had an aunt who would often ask her to come to their house where she and her husband stayed. They were newly weds and had no children yet. The uncle-in-law seemed to be a real nice man, hugging and cuddling the little girl every time he saw her. No one thought anything about it. The uncle was a much revered new member of the clan. And back then, acts of sexual harassment nor child abuse were ever discussed publicly. And then one day, the aunt asked the little girl to sleep in their house. She would sometimes do this for their "entertainment" purposes sometimes through a song and dance and or a "spelling bee" session. The following morning the little girl was awaken ...

Blog against abuse. " Abuse is the improper use of power by one or several persons to the detriment of another". Other forms of abuse is discussed here, here and here .

Yes, that's how I describe myself following this decision to learn new things despite my advancing age. I must admit I have surrffed the web for sites that gave me a slight idea about HTML , CSS , bonsai. I think I had been successful in learrrrnnnniiiinnnnggg how to do screen shots. Big deal!!! In fact, I was able to get a screenshot of this blog. Another big deal!!! It was a requirement of one of the communities I had wanted to join. But, learning HTML (You see, I wanted to tweak my blogger templates so it would have three columns instead of two which is what I have now; and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), an entirely a different story. Learning this would require additional hours. For the longest time I had wanted also wanted to learn how to do bonsai . From what I heard, bonsai can help you develop serenity of spirit. I understand that bonsai dispenses patience from its practitioners. Annndddd this is what I neeeeedddd right now.

This is more like it. The pic I mean. This is a very old picture of my friend's Mom. Her name - Inocencia B. Ragual. Since five years ago, I believe she has been into this already. That is desperately looking for a way to find her mom at least. She showed me tattered and age-worn "adoption documents" which states the name of the couple who were supposed to be her parents. They come from Pangasinan , a town north of Manila . That's supposed to be 300 or so kilometers from Marikina where my friend and I both live with our families. You see, my friend and I were classmates in high school. But back then she never talked about being adopted. There were just whispers from people who knew her. It never really bothered us. I for one didn't care. She is a friend, period. I thought perhaps, intimate things such as those were best left unspoken. But today mother and all, in her golden years as well, she is at that stage of her life where the past is suddenly crucial to her ...

It's been a month since I have been on the web everyday spending no less than 5 hours posting, visiting, commenting, etc., others. My goal was to do quality posts to make my blogs at the very least more interesting with content useful to others. Aaarrrggghhh. I must admit I am far from achieving these objectives. Today, I have several inactive blogs tackling different subjects -- aspects of my life that is. The truth is I am disappointed. From what I have visited so far, my blog/s feel/s inadequate --- in design, content and relevance. Now that looks like a tall order but I will try to do better. I promise this to myself.

Oh yes! I saw this centipede like crawler(s) resting under the shade of my malunggay tree one afternoon. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that there were two of them -- one on top of the other. And just to be sure and this I am sorry, I had to interrupt whatever it was they were doing. And there were two of them.

Some of the fruit or vegetable bearing plants you will find in my backyard - avocado, kalamansi or our local lemon, bell pepper,and squash. I also have atis, a local sweet fruit with lots of small black seeds, langka (the english name escapes me at the moment, the malunggay (vegetable,fruit and flowers all edible.

To most of us born in the 50's, yes, that's the Beatles song. Here comes the sun, here comes the sun, and I say it's all right Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here Here comes the sun, here comes the sun and I say it's all right Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here Here comes the sun, here comes the sun and I say it's all right Sun, sun, sun, here it comes... Sun, sun, sun, here it comes... Sun, sun, sun, here it comes... Sun, sun, sun, here it comes... Sun, sun, sun, here it comes... Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear Here comes the sun, here comes the sun, and I say it's all right It's all right

Apparently so... The Philippine Daily Inquirer , our local broadsheet carried a news item which talked about a Chinese man dying of exhaustion after playing online games . The news further says that the man from Guangzhou, China , about 30 years old was dead on arrival from the internet cafe where he had been playing for 3 days -- - straight. So all of us beware. Gggaaaasssspppp.

Apparently, this Japanese man aged 112, wants to. According to a Reuter's news item, Tomoji Tanabe, is recognized y the Guinness Book of World Record "as the oldest living male for the year 2006"

"Next time you want to wander the Web, forget about Googling it. Stumble it." --- The Wall Street Journal "Stumbleupon is a brilliant downloadable toolbar that beds into your browser and gives you the chance to surf through thousands of excellent pages that have been stumbled upon by other web-users" --- BBC World

This morning's paper tells about malunggay (leaves, fruits, flowers) a.k.a moringa oliefera lam can increase a man's sperm count. They found out that it is rich in Vitamins A and C, iron, calcium, protein, potassium and possess a good amount of HDL (high density lipoprotein) cholesterol. Now that's what I have been saying all along. I need not be convinced because I am a voracious eater of malunggay. Truth is I have it straight from my garden.

Can you imagine how many candles we'd need to get this kind of light? Amazing!

What if a great big earthquake devastates all of Luzon or a catastrophic event like a regionwide-tsunami occurs in Mindanao or the Visayas... and all the landline connections conk out... cell sites suddenly stop from working? Not likely? Think again... I read somewhere that during a disaster, everything that depends on infrastructure will not work. Forget mobile phones. Forget PDA's or wifis' or accessing ATM's. Only a satellite phone can provide a direct voice to voice communication link during a disaster like Katrina perhaps, or the recent Asian tsunami. The effects of global warming has finally dawned. Watch what's happening to the gulf states of the US. Typhoon signal level 5's occuring one after another in other parts of the world. Is it time to rent a satellite phone ? Satellite phones can call landlines worldwide. It can call other satellite phones or do voice mail, can send SMS, or even make data calls. "Satellite calls are made through space. Earth ...