December 26, 2005

Beautiful christmas

This Christmas was so silent, so still, and so lonely...

It was beautiful.

No sound but my thoughts, no motion but my mind, no company except myself.

Next year will be different. A lot will change.

But for now I can't thank the Lord enough for the blessings in my life, for the painful lessons, for the people who touched my life.

The coming New Year will surely be filled with sound, dancing, and people -- things I'm not used to, but beautiful nonetheless.

December 19, 2005

Freeze!

It takes me ten times the willpower to get out of bed these days, and twice the time to snap into full consciousness. Leaving the warm blanket and moving around the chilly apartment doesn't appeal much to me lately.

But yesterday morning I craved for rice and fried eggs, so half-awake I lumbered to the kitchen, prepared the rice for boiling and heated some corn oil in the frying pan while I look for the eggs.

I found them in the vegetable crisper compartment of the refrigerator. Took two out and, without thinking, cracked one on the edge of the frying pan.

Thack! *sound effect*

The egg was hard as a candy, the edge of the iron pan creating just a tiny crack. At first I thought it was a bad egg, the ones with extra thick sacs which egg dealers consider unfit for selling, but nevertheless edible.

I was not going to give up on that egg, so I pried the shell off until the whole content, albumen and yolk, came off cleanly and fell into the frying pan with a tiny thunk.

It was frozen solid.

We must have accidentaly set the refrigerator to coldest. Almost everything outside the freezer compartment -- butter, drinking water, coke, some energy drinks, leftover gin, and beer (nooooo!) -- were frozen solid.

Got my rice and fried eggs (it was weird rolling them around the frying pan to melt), but it was almost noon when I got my coke.

December 05, 2005

Bad and good

Remember how it felt watching Onyok Velasco lose to the Bulgarian boxer at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics? Bad, right? For days people moaned and groaned about how Onyok's score refused to move despite him landing blow after blow of crisp punches to the Bulgarian's face, about how we were robbed of the gold medal.

Well, I remember.

And I sympathize with some of the athletes and their supporters at the SEA Games because they definitely feel that way right now -- they were robbed of their gold medals.

There's no question about the integrity of results in events that involved objective accuracy such as races, ballgames, and most athletics. But when it comes to subjective scoring, I cringe at the blatant "inaccuracy" in some of the scoring.

Image hosted by Photobucket.comThe wushu Nanchan event is one example.

Joan and I have been watching the wushu competitions whenever we can, and even watched the replays on TV, up to its last day.

We've seen true winners who simply blew the competition away at their first few moves. We've seen tight situations where victories were secured because of a slight wobble here, or a weak shout there. And we've seen athletes ending up in second place despite flawless performances, and the gold going to one who, even to the untrained eye, obviously gave a lesser performance.

But heck, I bet amassing gold is just one of the perks for hosting the Games. I just content and try to assure myself that most of golds we've won are well-deserved.

I do not blame the Thai for suspecting fraud in the scoring system -- some events deserved that comment. Anyway, it will be them under the spotlight come 2007.

Also, maybe PGMA needs yet another diversion to veer our attention from Garci.

Just the same, cheers to all SEAG athletes for a job well done!

I want these back

I can't recall the last time I doodled, and out of nowhere, this came out today during our flag ceremony. Okay, maybe not ou...