Pet peeves

© Joselito Briones

It's whine time!

I guess by now you already know, no matter how satisfied I am with something, I'd always find a part of it to complain about. Take this apartment for example. As much as I've learned to really like it here, there are still things that annoy me whenever I come into contact with it..

First is the front door lock. Simple - check. Clean - check. Very nice to look at - check. Secure - check. What pisses me off, though, is that the darned thing can't be opened by one hand. Normally, one can use a hand to fish out the key from a pocket, unlock the door, put back the key to the pocket, and then turn the knob with the same hand. This one's different. You'll have to turn the knob with one hand while turning the key with the other. Whenever I come home carrying bags upon bags of grocery, I always end up putting everything down to open the door, pick the things back up, carry them to the kitchen and then go back to the front door to close it. (To put them down again in the entrance hall while closing the door is just too stupid already). So much for German efficiency.

© Joselito Briones

Another one is the shower control. It's nice and simple, fine. Looks clean, perfect. Easy to turn on, check. Problem is, it's just as easy to shut off. Imagine yourself taking a shower in a not-so-spacious cubicle. You spend some time adjusting the water temperature, until you get it perfect, exactly the way you want it (it's very important for me, I'm very sensitive to temperature). Then you shower, soap yourself, wiggle, wiggle. Then invariably, a part of your body bumps into the control and shuts it off, or worse, turns it so that the water becomes freezing cold. Then you end up fumbling for the controls to adjust it again, while soap gets in your eyes. Really annoying.

Okay, that's it for now, I'm sure there'd be more in the future.


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More Fillers

© Joselito Briones

As yesterday, I still don't have anything new to tell you, so here's another flower picture, taken in an empty lot while I was walking about two days ago.

On that same day there was a pottery festival or something, all round the church there were temporary stalls selling all kinds of ceramic things, from useful to kitchy to downright ugly. Too bad the weather wasn't very good, it was raining a bit, there wasn't much people looking around. I saw among the sellers the girl from whom I bought a small pot sometime ago.

© Joselito Briones


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Mozart's 8 1/2

© Joselito Briones

I guess it's not uncommon for any country to be dubious of visiting foreigners' ability to assimilate with local vehicular and pedestrian traffic.

In London, it makes sense that they have "Look Left" and "Look Right" signs on pedestrian crossings, as most foreigners visiting the city would probably come from a country with reversed vehicular traffic directions. The problem is, they put the directional sign on the street pavement, on the side of the street where a pedestrian would be crossing from, inches away from where one would be standing just before he crosses the street. Whoever looks in that direction before crossing? To look there would mean to bend your head so much as to disregard the actual direction and situation of the traffic (not what your instinct would tell you to do). The traffic direction written on the other side of the street is much more visible, that's what one sees before crossing the street. Only, that signage points to the opposite direction. And the letters are upside down from the viewpoint of the pedestrians who could see them, adding to the confusion. Obviously, it's a lot more expensive to put the directional signage where they should be, on a pole, where it would be clearly visible, and visible only from one side, from the other side of the street.

© Joselito Briones

In Germany, they went one step further. They've got a bigger problem in that there is a big probability that not many visiting foreigners understand the German language. So instead of words, they made graphic representations (photo, left). This one says: "This is a street where you can see an average German family. The man, distinguished as so by the fact that he doesn't have long hair and he's not wearing a dress nor a skirt, is playing football with the son, same gender indication as before, only this one's smaller. The wife, invisible from this illustration, is home, in that two-story house, cooking. This family has a car, and it's not one of those enormous gas-guzzling american cars, either. It's parked right on the street because they use their garage for something else. The hockey stick is for the mother's use, to whack some sense into the father and the son if they become too crazy about football."

When I took this photo, there were several tourists standing in front of the sign, looking at it, while someone, presumably the tour guide, was speaking loudly to everyone in a language I didn't recognize. I could imagine her explaining the signage to the group, "This is the place where a man and his son, bonding and playing football, got run over by a car. At first, the authorities thought it was an accident, but after investigation, they found out that the driver of the car is also the resident of the house they were playing in front of. He got annoyed because of all the noise they're making and decided to run them over. The driver's wife watched the carnage from the window of the house."


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P.S.
The German team lost their bid for the World Championship last night, when they lost the match to Italy. I thought they really did a good job though, and I for one will probably be watching more football from now on.


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The Mpemba Affection

© Joselito Briones

I'm sure you've heard of it, the Mpemba effect I mean, smart as you are, but don't you think it odd?

I wonder if it applies to people. I mean, when you're excited about something, your sensors are all hyperactive, any negative input can be easily devastating and put you in the very bottom of depression. If, on the other hand, you're indifferent, preoccupied with something else, any input, negative or otherwise, is more likely to be ignored just as much, and you pretty much stay in the same emotional state. Just a thought.

The photo above has got nothing to do with it, of course. It's just my aluminum chair in the balcony. Except it's the same aluminum chair I was so looking forward to enjoy my ice-cold watermelon drink in during lunch (I've shredded the melon pulp, checked that there's plenty of ice cubes, and made syrup out of water, honey, and vanilla) had the Mpemba effect not decide to intrude.

If it's perfectly OK for these physicists to put hot things in their freezers in the name of science, shouldn't it be alright for me to do the same (put the still warm syrup in the freezer to cool it down faster) for the sake of having the simple pleasure of drinking a home-made version of one of my favorite childhood drinks? What do you think? Oh well.


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trouble in paradise

© Joselito Briones

silence
rain. no, stay.
it's just resentment,
manifesting itself.
i know. you can't stay.
see?
you're ignoring it again.



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A Bleh Day

© Joselito Briones

Yep. Nothing special today. I put up my Interfit 3200W studio halogen light in one corner of the dining area and hang the rescue-mission plant on it. I'm always trimming the plant so much I think it needs rescuing from me now.

For dinner I roasted a whole chicken, with butter, bacon, and thyme stuffing, potatoes on the side. I didn't like it much, I should've baked it on lower temperature and longer. Oh well, next time. At least the leftover should make good chicken stock, bits and all.


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All-American

© Joselito Briones

As the California roadside landscape - some commanding one's full attention, some satisfied on providing a backdrop to one's thoughts, but all beautiful - pan through the car window, I realized something disturbing. Norie's voice was different. Her attitude too. She's more serious, and gone is her usual playfulness. I'd have normally attributed it to (dare I say it?) getting older, but I thought most probably it's caused by her adjusting to her only child, Kevin, moving out (Do moms ever get over it?). It turned out that even as Kevin was a part of it, there was something else. A revelation, to which I made a vow not to repeat to anyone, has been on her mind. It didn't feel right, that I have been sucking all the luck from the people around me. I've had it easy, more or less, on most anything, most of my life. But the things some members of my family are going through, it scares me.

© Joselito Briones

We went to Carmel today. Dave, Norie's husband, drove (as has become the usual when there's a family outing), with Norie next to him (photo, above). Noel and Itay sat at the third row, at the back. We all fitted in the Chevy Tahoe. There was nothing we could do to persuade Kevin Karl (Ate Uding's son) to join us, much as we hated to leave him alone in the house. The other Kevin, Norie's, wasn't even interested at all to venture out of his apartment. Both Kevins were never expected to be in the same city at some length of time, hence their moms thought it OK to give them the same name. Kevin Karl (little Kevin to us), I guess, was expected to stay in the Philippines.

I might have had been a bit selfish throughout the drive. I enjoyed the view from my seat and kept mostly to myself: plains, hills, valleys; the colors - alternating greens and ochres, punctuated by beetroot reds and shades of gold; and objects - bright yellow artesian well in the middle of a field dominated by crouching trees, surrendering total authority to the wind, a car from a few decades back (a "roach", to Norie's Kevin), parked next to massive tractor, and drums upon drums of I don't know what. We reached our destination in less than a couple of hours.

© Joselito Briones

The place was beautiful, albeit not what I expected. I foresaw something more rural, dry, dust blown by the wind. Small town. Their claim to fame, after all, before being beautiful, was having Clint Eastwood as their mayor for several years. Norie and Dave always referred to it as "Mount Carmel", so I was expecting a western town like in the movies. Clint Eastwood movies to be precise. What I saw was a beautifully manicured town, who afforded to provide every nook and any visible crevices the most beautiful blooms that grow in the region. The more accurate name of the place is "Carmel-by-the-Sea". Instead of a mountain, I found myself looking at the Pacific Ocean.

We had lunch at "Flaherty's". The food, save the calamaris, wasn't worth the long wait for a table.

© Joselito Briones

Another All-American classic? Outlet shops. We went to Gilroy Premium Outlets, on the way back from Carmel-by-the-Sea. The place is big, with shops divided into three long buildings. After being spoiled for choices by New York's Century21 though, this place was just not very interesting at all.

To cap the day with yet another All-American classic, we did a drive-through at "In N' Out". Any hot-blooded meat-loving American knows this is the best quickie hamburger there is, no question about it. Too bad it's only available in the west coast. We all had a double-double. I had mine with roasted onions.

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