Bataan Highway

I have known a couple of streets, avenues and highways here in the Philippines named after the Americans such as the McArthur Highway, Taft Avenue and McKinley St. Some are even named after a place in the United States like the New York St. and Times Square St in Cubao, Quezon City.

I never thought though that there is a road in a US state named after a place in the Philippines - the Bataan Memorial Highway in Indiana. The road commemorates the heroes of the Bataan Death March.

Top 50 Thinkers

There can be as much value in the blink of an eye as in months of rational analysis.
- Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

...I only know of eleven of them. Two are great bloggers - Seth Godin and Scott Adams.

Sunstop Media in association with Skillsoft produced this list of Top 50 Thinkers. The list basically answers the question, "Who is the most influential living management thinker?" The thinkers are chosen by business people, consultants, academics and MBA students throughout the world based on ten criteria. These are originality and practicality of ideas, presentation style, written communication, loyalty of followers, business sense, international outlook, rigors of research, impact of ideas and guru factor.

On Leadership

As I see it, I need to maneuver my partner around the dance floor,
taking care not to bump into anyone or anything, dancing to the music,
spontaneously choreographing a changing and pleasing series of moves,
all the while maintaining light conversation.
- Mr. Data, Startrek

There are few things about leadership that can be learned just from doing the salsa dance. An article from an online dance instructional website where members receive access to thousands online salsa dance videos, and DVDs by mail, Salsa Dance BootCamp tackles about the tips on leading when dancing. Here are some basic points.

1. Lead clearly.
2. Avoid being a literal and metaphorical jerk.
3. Know the difference between smooth and jerky.
4. Use the lightest effective lead. Know the difference between indication and demand.

The tips given are quite interesting since they can be applied to the corporate world, or to any place where leadership is involved. Also, though they are insights presented from the perspective of men, everyone can pluck something out of these. And those are just the basics. A few more scrolling and one will learn about navigation and the philosophy of the dance. Navigation is all about looking around to avoid any collision and to get through tight spots. Understanding the dance philosophy involves the awareness that leaders lead and followers follow. If a partner can't follow, it is because one can't lead.

Lamps and Lights

I was browsing through a site that offers a wide variety of products from ceiling fans to lamps. Under each of the items are arrays of product types. Say the lamps for instance, under the said product are different kinds of lamps, from floor lamps to torchieres. I was reminded somehow of my teacher in Philosophy of Science who once remarked that reading under a yellow light is better than reading under white light. I think what he meant was that reading under an incandescent lamp which usually radiates yellow light is better than reading under the fluorescent one which generally releases white light. This is so because the incandescent bulbs emit continuous light waves while the fuorescent ones produce sporadic waves. While indiscernible to the human eye, fluorescent lights are said to flicker thus straining the eyes and creating the strobe effect.

As to the white and yellow lights, it is said that the yellow light is created in the the absence of the blue color. The blue hue is intense that it stimulates a reaction we call "glare". In fact, the French, knowing of the said "glare", had the blue removed from the output spectrum of their vehicles' front lamps. Besides, since blue has the shortest wavelength and it easily scatters, it makes on-road vision very difficult.

Moreover, a study published five years ago found out that our biological clock is most responsive to narrow band of wavelengths from 466 to 477 nanometers (nm), which are close to the blue of a clear sky. The so-called ganglion cells in our eyes detect the blue hue and send signals to the brain that it is already morning thus ending a sleep or a circadian drift. The downside however is that bluish light is often detected from computer screens which oftentimes sabotages sleep schedules. The blue light reduces the brain's secretion of melatonin. Melatonin is usually brought about by dusk and darkness to help trigger and maintain sleep.

Now here is something that we can use for our advantage. Aside from a freshly brewed coffee or perhaps a couple of cancer sticks, the blue-light therapy can be used to keep ourselves late at night. While the yellow-light therapy is something that we can use when we want to doze off easily.

A Sad Love Story

AirTran Holdings set a $431 million dollar deal for its merger with Midwest Air Group. Despite its two year fight to buy the Milwaukee-based Midwest that it even received the approval of more than half of Midwest’s shareholders, it still lost to another suitor, Nortwest Airlines.

There were some hints that the federal regulators might not approve the sale of Midwest to the winning party, but Northwest Airlines Corp. could eventually end up owning Midwest Air Group Inc., which has agreed to a $450 million buyout offer from private equity firm TPG Capital.

Anyone Can Be A Movie Character: A Quick Review of Ratatouille

I had some reservations about the motion picture Ratatouille, pronounced as rat-a-too-ee, as to how it would really appeal to people especially to kids. The Anton Ego in me was somehow clamoring that a house rat is simply disgusting and it can not be a character in a film. A mouse or a kangaroo rat would have been a more suitable movie character. Good for the Flushed Away of Dreamworks though the main character, a house rat as well, looks quite decent. Firstly because the movie is some kind of a clay-animation which means that the horrid furry look of rats is eliminated. Secondly the rat has had some "decent upbringing" if anything like that applies for a rodent.

On the other hand, Disney's house rat, named Remy, is portrayed like a real life rat, with the horrid furry look and without the "decent upbringing". Take for instance the shot taken when he escapes out of a window with a recipe book. Remy even narrates, "This / is me." There is of course some exaggeration there in the window-smashing part but it illustrates to us a known point that a house rat is simply a pest. I wondered whether Disney ran out of characters already that its people decided to choose a house rat as the protagonist. I wondered how Disney would pull it all off.

But after watching the motion picture, here are some highlights about it.

The first one is the introduction's deductive approach which starts from the general to the specific. It begins with the world until it focuses on Chef Gusteau.

"Although each of the world's countries would like to dispute this fact, we French know the truth. The best food in the world is made in France. The best food in France is made in Paris. And the best food in Paris, some say, is made by Chef Augusto Gusteau."

The significance of this is that it immediately captures the attention of those who watch the movie. It situates and pinpoints them into a particular context.

The second highlight is the acknowledgement of some problems. One would be Anton Ego's negative criticisms. He takes cooking seriously and thinks that not anyone can cook. Another would be Remy's being a rat which simply means that life is hard. And another would be his having a highly developed sense of taste and smell which basically paralells the job of a poison checker in the point of view of his dad. Right there at the beginning, people already know whom and what the lead actors grapple with.

The third highlight are the sound tracks. Listening to each one actually gave me the same sensation that Anton Ego experiences when the taste of the ratatouille dish hit him. The music offered me a little bit of perspective. Le Festin and the Ratatouille Main Theme remind me of certain amusing and inspiring scenes of some European films such as Cinema Paradiso and La Lengua de Mariposa. Somehow, Le Festin and This is Me can be associated with some Korean comedy like the Sassy Girl. The 100 Rat Dash and other upbeat music remind me of the Brandenburg Concertos. Cast of Cooks has a bit of jazz in it typical in old thug-flicks such as for instance the Italian Job where Michael Caine starred in. The Paper Chase can be a soundtrack of the Star Wars. Collete Shows Him Le Ropes and End Creditouilles can be identified with a couple dancing the flamenco or tango. Michael Giacchino did a very good job here.

The fourth highlight is the unpredictability of its plot. My expectations were often the opposite of the outcome. In the film, there are always some twists involved. I was about to be filled with disappointment for instance when watching the scene where Linguini discovers the talent of Remy. I somehow had the thought that Linguini would turn up to be the user type. But as it turns out, he acknowledges Remy as the little chef that he even introduces Remy to Anton Ego. I also thought that Anton Ego would be greatly displeased that a house rat is able to please him with a Ratatouille dish. To the contrary, Anton Ego delivers a great very humane speech. Moreover, I had my doubts if packs of rats would really cook in the video because that would be so gross. I was expecting that Linguini would do everything by himself when his cooks leave him. But as it turns out, the house rats really do cook and I had the same horrified look like Skinner's when he enters the kitchen full of rats cooking. Then in the end of the film, Linguini reinforces this fourth highlight narrating that the only predictable thing about life is its unpredictability.

"Anyone can cook" is the theme of the movie. Which means that even a rat can cook. But I think what the movie is trying to say at least to me is that anyone can be a character of a movie. Even a house rat can be a film character and a great one at that. A Droste Effect is present in the film. The Anton Ego in it is only part of a smaller picture. The bigger picture are people such as myself who had reservation about the movie because the lead actor is a rat. These people are the real Anton Ego.

But just like Anton Ego, these people in the end recognize the worth in the discovery and defense of the new. Truly, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than the criticism designating it so. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere. Or perhaps not everyone can become a great movie character, but a great movie character can come from anywhere.

Perspective

I agree. Because I might want something that isn't on the menu. And because Anton Ego would have wanted a fresh, clear, well-seasoned perspective.

Top Ten People with the Coolest Jobs

My siblings and I were watching Travel and Living when one of us remarked that Tony Bourdain probably has one of the coolest jobs on earth, which is, traveling around the world while searching for the rare and sometimes dangerous foods.


Later, we came up with a list of people who have the coolest jobs. By cool, we mean the one-of-a-kind jobs that only a handful of people are associated to. Since one person is already mentioned, I am proceeding, without any particular order, to the next ones.

2. Andrea Mosconi - He is Cremona's official musical conservationist who basically maintains and preserves string instruments. His work involves the playing of 300-year-old violins made by the Amatis, Guarneris, and Stradivari to keep the instruments fit and sounding their best.


3. Mythbusters - Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman use their skills and expertise to test the validity of various rumors and urban legends in popular culture. Their experiments range from disproving the notion that a duck's quack echos to proving that a wine glass shatters if a person sings at the right tone.


4. Heinz Ketchup Taste Testers - According to the Discovery, there are only eight people who know the secret ingredient of the Heinz Ketchup. About four or five of them taste-test, which means that for a whole day, they take a lick of a sample of each packed ketchup to ascertain that the products meet the standards. And they have done just that for several years already.

5. Top Gear hosts - Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May must be thrilled by the constant need in them for speed. The privilege of being able to drive the crème de la crème cars of the century is sheerly priceless. The Top Gear though has constantly faced criticisms for its preference of performance over fuel efficiency and conservation. But that would be another story.


6. Just for Laughs/Gags Cast - Fooling around with people especially when they are strangers must be in some way pretty gratifying. It is all about the response of those we pull our pranks on that matters. I remember the reaction of a high school classmate when I took him by surprise in a dark hallway. To this day, the memory still makes me laugh. He bravely took the stance of some karate master and shouted in a trembling voice, "Hiya!"

7. US CEOs - Back in 1979, they were paid 55 times more than the average worker. In 2005, they were paid 465 times more.


8. Photographers - As to why, I point you to Gaya's Photography and Photographers.


9. Gondolier - There is a competitive exam that a potential gondolier has to pass before becoming one. And for the first time in the history, Venice seems to be finally considering a female gondolier to ply its famous canals.


10. Bloggers - Because they can produce a list like this and include themselves on it.

Bonus from Gaya:

This good-looking TV host looks cool doing her work.


But then, this guy seems to have the cooler aspect of the job.


Now, who do you think have the coolest jobs? Make your list!

Mailboxes

The motion picture The Lake House has one item, aside from the lakehouse itself, that is significant to the lovers - the mailbox. It is their portal in communicating with each one. But more than being the conduit to make possible the exchange of letters to communicate, with it, they are able to transcend time so that in the end, an unsual love story falls into place.

With today's phenomenon when phones have become the dominant way of communicating, it is quite unconventional for a mailbox to serve as a means to be in touch, more so, a means to manipulate time. Nevertherless, we take a look at how it brings us convenience.

Mailboxes, be it residential mailboxes or commercial mailboxes, can be of benefit to the letter's recipient in two ways. First, if the person is doing some house chores, he'll never have to be bothered, except when a break is needed, by the postman when a missive or a parcel arrives. Second, if the person is out to the office or perhaps to the market or mall, he'll never have to worry about missing his letter.

Mailboxes can be beneficial to the postman as well. Because mailboxes are present, the postman will never have to worry about not delivering the letters just because the recipients are not around. He will never have to wait for the recipient taking time to get interrupted from a house chore.

From a certain perspective, it can be said that the internet has adopted this kind of concept. When a person emails another, he'll never have to go through the hassle of waiting for the receipient to go online. He can send emails anytime even if the recipient is not around. Same with the recipient. He can receive emails through his inbox, which is the mailbox of the internet, anytime without waiting for the other person to go online.

Mailboxes then have introduced us to a convenient way of communicating. And perhaps they actually have introduced us to a way of transcending time as well. With them, the recipient will never have to waste time getting interrupted. And the postman will never have to wait for the preoccupied recipient.

If I Vanished

What would you say when a woman you love asks a silly question like "What if I were to vanish?"

You might answer that there must be a reason, or at least a context of it, like for instance being kidnapped, or being abducted by aliens, or falling down a rabbit hole, or having amnesia. Then she would say that the answer lies in the motion picture Open Range.

You watch the movie and realize at the credits roll that the question didn't pop up. So you don't have the answer.

She then rephrases the question and asks, "What would you do if I vanished?" You would answer that you'd find her in places that she said you wouldn't be able to find her. Then she finally says that the context of her vanishing is her meeting someone else.

You are left wondering if it's her literary way of either giving you a hint that she's breaking up with you or just testing you how much you love her. So you simply answer, "That's a different question."

Read If I Vanished by Stuart Dybek.

Here are some excerpts from the story.

"Characters in American movies are just poor excuses to watch movie stars. Can you remember the name of any of the characters Marilyn Monroe played? They’re all Marilyn Monroe. Charlton Heston isn’t Moses, Moses is Charlton Heston."

"If it were true that Eskimos have a hundred words for snow, there’d be a word meaning snow-that-makes-the-familiar-unrecognizable."

"He hasn’t heard “Pictures” in years, and it occurs to him that sometimes one stops listening to a beloved masterpiece in order to continue to love it."

"...Her face was so lovely to him that he hadn’t yet allowed himself to gaze at her with the full force of recognition. That was true of her nakedness, too; it dazzled him, and he found he could take it in only in glimpses."

"If the myth about a hundred words for snow were true, there’d be a word for snow-erasing-its-own-memory."

On iPhones and Apple Products

I find the following postscript of Brandon McGee's blog entry about KISS (Keep It Simple Silly) in Mobile Banking as the best analogy of owning an iPhone and other Apple products.

"The iPhone does live up to the hype....I can't tell you the number of times...I felt like Batman loading up my utility belt with a personal phone, blackberry, camera, and iPod to head out for the day."

Speaking of which, the iPhone seems to work with the SMART network in the Philippines as this post says.

Meanwhile, the fake Steve Jobs points to the cheaper version of iPhone. And Seth Godin tackles about the sloppiness of Apple in naming its products.

The Stroop Effect

Sometimes, reading can be compared to the soul-sucking dementors. It does not take away the soul of a person of course, but it blurs one's concentration. Take the following image for instance. The goal is to identify and say the color of each word as quickly as possible.

Easy? Not quite.

Psychologists call it the Stroop Effect. Readers are simply hooked to read the words, which makes color identification difficult in the second column.

Best Analogy Of The Day

In my unending calling to tickle my analogical mind (aka Ben Casnocha), if not my blog readers', I've found the best analogy for today.

"The trouble with trophy wives is that they're high maintenance. They make you look like a real player: Rivals are impressed you bagged one, and boy do they look great on your arm. But a few years in and you begin to see that beauty is often skin deep."

Quoted from Bloggingstocks on its review regarding Ford selling its Jaguar and Land Rover.

Lemon Ink

When fate hands you a lemon, make lemonade.

- Dale Carnegie

A friend has a very remarkable blog called the Lemon Ink.

I was quite surprised at first to see that the blog was blank I thought it must be a splog. I tried saying "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good!" but I guess I was just in the illusion that I was looking at the Marauder's Blog. I even tried saying, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" But I realized a blog is not a mirror and even if it is, the blog would only respond "You are" had I been Snow White.

Anyway, it took my low IQ quite a while to figure out that highlighting the blog makes everything appear. I thought my friend must be doing something incorrect so I pointed out to him his error.

But it turned out that I wasn't able to let my ignorance get in the way of expressing my opinion. He pointed me instead to the invisible ink.

Readers may have some difficulties with his blog but it's his. And I think that the invisible ink is quite a clever statement.

Salt Shakers

I previously posted about Seth Godin's terrific nose. As with his post on stinkless durian, I don't quite agree with what he thinks. This is because I still have a durian problem much as I am not a durian eater. Some members of my family though are durian eaters that is why I know the stench of a durian. Perhaps those whom Seth Godin regards as non-consumers must be those who have not heard or seen the durian at all.

Anyway, my tita is very imaginative for tackling the issue on why people only have two nose holes. Nel of Pinoy Big Brother believes that if ever one hole gets clogged, people will still have a spare hole. My tita on the other hand believes that having more than two nose holes would be a disaster because our noses would then look like salt shakers.

Some Valid Issues

A friend is an admirable augur for anticipating a valid issue.

Recently, two of her guy New Yorker friends walked her home past midnight to her place at Makati Avenue. As she watched them leave, one of them hailed goodbye from the cab shouting, "Thanks for the great night!"

Just imagine how that would look like to local and foreigner bystanders. It is almost such a big bowl of wrong when two white gentlemen walk home a friend who is "tan and almost gusgusin girl" and is living at a red light district.

Of course, it is quite unfair as well or even discriminating for those guys if they are not able to exercise their gentlemanly behavior of seeing a friend safe for the night just because of some misperceptions.

What can I say? Il est difficile mais c'est la vie!

Some Lessons on Dieting

There's something to be learned about dieting. And it's not just about an abstruse concept called discipline. It's not even about a nonconcrete idea on endurance.

The point is that any concept or idea should be narrowed down into tangible real stuff. We take for instance endurance. Endurance itself is an intangible thought. Endurance of what? Whose endurance? It's simply something that can't be executed.

But at least not yet.

If we say "My endurance not to eat the delicious ice cream in front of me," then that my friend would be something that we call as tangible real stuff. Something that we can learn from dieting. But it doesn't end there because the most important question about dieting is not just about the word "what" but about the word "how" as well.

Here are some simple things of the "how" part. Thanks to Guy Kawasaki's ideas.

Always create a context where you can provide yourself with options. You may have heard that for those who are having a hard time sleeping, the very first step to be able to sleep is to turn off the lights or tv. It may not help but it lessens any stimulation of the mind that keeps you awake. In short, lessen distractions.

Same with having a diet. For instance, never place an ice cream, or chocolates or junk foods in you refrigerator (or better yet, never place your ref inside your room). Although it may force you to go out of the house to buy some in a convenience store 3 blocks away, at least it gives you the option not to buy.

Employ delaying tactics. Placing yourself in a position to buy ice cream allows you more time to distract yourself with other things. Who knows? By the time you get to the convenience store, you're sleeping soundly already.

Take things step by step. Rome isn't built in one day so they say. Actually dieting isn't as easy as actually writing about dieting. Dieting is not about not eating at all. It's about gradually lessening what you regularly consume. If you regularly consume a whole rice, try having a half rice instead.

And who am I to write about dieting anyway when I've not done any dieting at all?

Oh well, blogging about having diet may be a delaying tactic since I have not touched my now-cold sugar-full coffee, which more or less would force me go to the pantry to get another hot one. Then again, a lot could happen covering a distance of about ten meters.

I may be asleep by the time I get there.

Driving

Have you noticed that anyone driving slower

than you is an idiot and anyone driving faster

than you is a maniac?

- George Carlin, thru Reader's Digest

A comprehensive post on learning the subtleties of driving in a place called Manila.

Crash

"It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something."

It was from the motion picture, Crash. The question is: does it apply to Filipinos as well?

Consider the MRT ordeal. It is not just about a mere people-brushing-past-or-bumping-into-another sort of experience. Here one gets the chance to have an "intimate" sense of others. Who would not have encountered the pungent smell of sweat? Or the horrible look of a pimple (and the more horrible look of a swelling one)? Or the sticky moistness of the skin? And so on.

The chock-full Ayala northbound platform (notice the other side)

I can't help but to explore once in a while on the possible solutions to this congestion predicament. Is building an MRT subway one solution? Or would the solution be about adjusting office hours? Or would it be about strategically putting the business centers in areas that allow heavy commuter traffic to be minimized? Though heavy traffic is good for business, there must be some way of striking balance here. How about giving responsibility to institutions or structures like employer buildings, malls and others, that cause heavy traffic? Perhaps they could help in the mobilization of people. And there is also the question on a good product attracting traffic volume. I will post more details of this exploration later on.

view from the other side - our perfect strategy

Just a side note, my friend blogged about our pleasant MRT experience. It was rush hour so my officemates and I decided to adopt what we call as our perfect strategy - taking a round trip. We were supposedly northbound but we went otherwise. The only problem was that we rode at the tail section of the train so that when it went back north, it became the ladies' section. We ended up taking the next train since the middle and end sections were jam-packed. So much about a perfect plan!

Click here and here for other accounts.

So to continue, other situations that somehow make Filipinos never lose that sense of touch are:
1. jeepney experience
2. wet market, 168 and others
3. religious feast like for instance the Black Nazarene feast in Quiapo, or even the El Shaddai.

And there could be more.

Halo-halo in a Bowl

I was supposed to order a classic chicken mami at Chowking yesterday. But since the weather was hot, I went for the Halo-halo Petit instead.

However, I really find that there's something quaint with a halo-halo placed in a bowl rather than in a usual tall glass.

It wasn't really sweet. Or perhaps it was just lacking of sugar (apparently!). And the ingredients weren't really lavish. (I was thinking I should have ordered the Fiesta.)

Or maybe the shaved ice was just too much.

Anyway, I ended up reordering the chicken mami. Only this time, a spicy one.