Ire of the Morbid Wantoner

By: Wilbert C. Laforteza

Avaricious Ondoy, gambled with Hurricanes of the West…

Boasting he’s the mightiest among them

But went futile, he’s only a tropical storm…not even a typhoon

Dismayed, went to visit the jazz bar of storms…the Pacific Ocean

Gulped wines made of the finest ocean’s sweat and heaven’s moist

Several days of drinking spree…now dizzy drunk

Started his trek homeward, swirling…but managed to carry weapons,

Weapons of abysmal volume, down poured everywhere heavily

Angered from the defeat…now raging, demanding the lost pride.

Ondoy, the treacherous envoy of the grim reaper

Proved his mastery of taking lives…using a nature’s blood

Nature’s blood, enormous water…saber crafted by heaven

Wild, wild rush of your killer sap

Dipped many…drifted many…and took their breath

Poor man, spitted with gloom…wrecked with boons.

Your blow did not toot the trumpets of demolition

But with your killer water-saber rungs the bell to knell

You tore the gentle leaves of dreams

Crashed the frail into a fine pebbles of depression and…

Propagated wrigglers of sorrow and death in your rushing pools.

How I wish you’re just a simple breezing monsoon

Whom we can bear with even in the midst of winter

Now, I realized the truth…a thwarting truth

That you’re really the child of Oriental Storm

And from a family of the most abhorred WANTONERS!

ႏိုဝင္ဘာလ ၂၆ ရက္ (ယေန႕) နံနက္ ဖိလစ္ပိုင္စံေတာ္ခ်ိန္ ၆းဝဝ နာရီတြင္ ဖိလစ္ပိုင္မိုးေလဝသဌာန ထုတ္ျပန္ခ်က္၌ အဆင့္-၅ စူပါတိုင္ဖြန္းမုန္တိုင္း NIDA သည္ ပစိဖိတ္သမုဒၵရာ အေနာက္ပိုင္း ကၽြန္းစုမ်ားျဖစ္ၾကသည့္ Micronesia ႏွင့္  Guam တို႕ကို ျဖတ္ေက်ာ္ၿပီး အေနာက္ေျမာက္ဘက္သို႕ ဆက္လက္ေရြ႕လ်ားေနပါသည္။ မုန္တိုင္း အရြယ္အစားမွာ အခ်င္း ကီလိုမီတာ ၇၄ဝ (မိုင္ ၄၆ဝ ခန္႕) ရွိေနေၾကာင္း သိရပါသည္။

ဖိလစ္ပိုင္ႏိုင္ငံ Bicol ေဒသ၏ အေရွ႕ဘက္ ကီလိုမီတာ ၁၇၈ဝ ခန္႕တြင္ ဗဟိုျပဳေနၿပီး ေလတိုက္ႏွဳန္း တစ္နာရီလွ်င္ ၂၉၅ – ၃၆ဝ ကီလိုမီတာႏွဳန္း (တစ္နာရီ မိုင္ ၁၈ဝ မွ ၂၂၅ မိုင္ႏွဳန္းအထိ) ရွိေနေၾကာင္း၊ သို႕ရာတြင္ လာမည့္ ၅ ရက္အတြက္ ႀကိဳတင္ခန္႕မွန္းခ်က္မ်ားအရ ဖိလစ္ပိုင္ မိုးေလဝသပိုင္နက္ အတြင္းသို႕လည္းေကာင္း၊ ဖိလစ္ပိုင္ႏိုင္ငံကိုလည္းေကာင္း ဝင္ေရာက္တိုက္ခတ္ႏိုင္သည့္ အေနအထား မရွိေၾကာင္း ေၾကျငာထားပါသည္။

ေအာက္ပံုတြင္ TSR မွ ပံုေဖၚထားသည့္အတိုင္း အေနာက္ေျမာက္- ေျမာက္ဘက္သို႕ ေရြ႕လ်ားေနရာမွ လာမည့္ ၄၈ နာရီေနာက္ပိုင္းတြင္ အေရွ႕ဘက္သို႕ လမ္းေၾကာင္းေျပာင္းလိမ့္မည္ဟု ခန္႕မွန္းထားၿပီး၊ ဂ်ပန္ႏိုင္ငံ ေတာင္ဘက္မွ ျဖတ္ေက်ာ္၍ ေရျပင္ ေပၚတြင္သာ ဆက္လက္တည္ရွိေနႏိုင္ေၾကာင္း တြက္ခ်က္ခန္႕မွန္းထားၾကသည္ကို ေလ့လာႏိုင္ပါသည္။

(စူပါတိုင္ဖြန္းမုန္တိုင္း NIDA) ႏိုင္ငံတကာမိုးေလဝသကြန္ပ်ဴတာေမာ္ဒယ္မ်ား၏ လမ္းေၾကာင္းခန္႕မွန္းခ်က္

ယေန႕နံနက္ ျမန္မာစံေတာ္ခ်ိန္ ၉ နာရီ ၄၃ မိနစ္ (03:13 UTC) တြင္ ရရွိသည့္ ၿဂိဳလ္တုေျမပံုတြင္ တိုင္ဖြန္းမုန္တိုင္း NIDA ၏ လက္ရွိအေျခအေနႏွင့္ ေလဖိအားနည္းရပ္ဝန္း 27W တို႕၏ အေျခအေနအား ေအာက္ပါအတိုင္းေတြ႕ျမင္ႏိုင္ပါသည္။

View update sat-picture from WUND

အပူပိုင္းမုန္တိုင္း NIDA သည္ ႏိုဝင္ဘာလ ၂၅ ရက္ 00:00 UTC အခ်ိန္တြင္ မနီလာၿမိဳ႕ အေရွ႕ဘက္ မိုင္ ၁၅ဝဝ ခန္႕ ၊ ထိုင္ဝမ္ကၽြန္း-ထိုင္ေပၿမိဳ႕ အေရွ႕ေတာင္ဘက္ မိုင္ ၁၇ဝဝ ခန္႕ ႏွင့္ ဂ်ပန္ႏိုင္ငံေတာင္ဘက္ မိုင္ ၁၆၆ဝ ခန္႕တြင္ ဆက္လက္တည္ရွိေနပါသည္။ တိုင္ဖြန္းမုန္တိုင္း NIDA သည္ ေျမာက္-အေနာက္ေျမာက္ဘက္သို႕ ဆက္လက္ေရြ႕လ်ားမည္ဟု ခန္႕မွန္းထားၿပီး လာမည့္ ၂၄ နာရီအတြင္း ပိုမိုအားေကာင္းလာကာ အဆင့္-၄ တိုင္ဖြန္းမုန္တိုင္းအျဖစ္ေရာက္ရွိ၍ ဖိလစ္ပိုင္ပင္လယ္သို႕ ဝင္ေရာက္မည္ဟု ခန္႕မွန္းထားပါသည္။

လာမည့္ ၇၂ နာရီ ႏိုဝင္ဘာလ ၂၈ ရက္ 00:00 UTC တြင္ အဆင့္-၃ တိုင္ဖြန္းမုန္တိုင္းအျဖစ္သို႕ ျပန္လည္အားေလ်ာ့လာၿပီး မနီလာၿမိဳ႕ အေရွ႕ဘက္ မိုင္ ၁၁ဝဝ၊ ထိုင္ေပၿမိဳ႕ အေရွ႕ေတာင္ဘက္ မိုင္ ၁၁၅ဝ သို႕ ေရာက္ရွိဗဟိုျပဳႏိုင္မည္ဟု TSR ႏွင့္ JTWC ခန္႕မွန္းခ်က္မ်ားမွ ပံုေဖၚရရွိပါသည္။

လက္ရွိအခ်ိန္တြင္ မုန္တိုင္းဗဟို၌ေလတိုက္ႏွဳန္း တစ္နာရီလွ်င္ ၁၁၅ မိုင္မွ ၁၄၅ မိုင္အထိရွိေၾကာင္း WUND မွ လာမည့္ ၅ ရက္အတြက္ ႀကိဳတင္ခန္႕မွန္းထားသည့္ ပံုတြင္ ေလ့လာႏိုင္ပါသည္။

စကၤာပူႏိုင္ငံအေရွ႕ဘက္ ေတာင္တရုတ္ပင္လယ္အတြင္းျဖစ္ေပၚလွ်က္ရွိသည့္ ေလဖိအားနည္းရပ္ဝန္းသည္ ဆက္လက္တည္ရွိေနၿပီး လာမည့္ ၂၄ နာရီအတြင္း မုန္တိုင္းျဖစ္လာႏိုင္သည့္ သတိေပးခ်က္ Cyclone Formation Alert မွာလည္း ဆက္လက္တည္ရွိေနပါသည္။

ေလဖိအားနည္းရပ္ဝန္း 27W မွာလည္း ဖိလစ္ပိုင္ႏိုင္ငံအေရွ႕ဘက္ကမ္းေျခအနီးတြင္ဆက္လက္တည္ရွိေနဆဲျဖစ္ၿပီး ၄င္းမွာ ေနာက္ ၂၄ နာရီအတြင္း အားေပ်ာ့ပ်က္ပ်ယ္သြားေတာ့မည္ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း JTWC ခန္႕မွန္းခ်က္တြင္ ေဖၚျပထားပါသည္။

The typhoons that struck the Philippines earlier this year were devastating, and so many survivors are having to start life anew, with very little or nothing from their past. The I AM Foundation is teaming with other partners in San Diego (the Lion’s Club and Aero Financial) to gift educational books and school supplies to thousands of  kids, families, and schools in the Philippines.

In addition to books, the groups are also mounting a “Medical, Optical, Dental, Education, Rehabilitation, Nutrition and Other Services (M.O.D.E.R.N.O.) mission to the Philippines” departing January 17, 2010. The San Diego Classic Lions Club Team is scheduled to go to 5 sites in the Philippines: Kalayaan in Laguna, Bayambang in Pangasinan, Tabaco in Albay (where the landslide took place), Abucay in Bataan, Olongapo City in Olongapo and Zambales Province. To donate to the fundraising efforts to collect medicines, eyeglasses, dental supplies, and school supplies, visit the Lions website here.

http://www.alliancegym.com/

http://bayanusa.org/?page_id=252 [BALSA]

http://www.pnoyapparel.com/

http://www.myspace.com/eyeasagemuzikpage

http://www.myspace.com/kiwi

http://www.myspace.com/probrown [geologic]

We, in North America, call typhoons by another name: hurricanes. Most of us have never lived through one, but we probably know someone who has.

This is the story of a new friend of mine in the Philippines: Al Sabado. Here’s how her story starts:

On September 26, 2009, around 8:28 a.m., I was writing a prayer to the Lord Jesus, telling Him about the rains that many people hoped to be less frequent, now that Christmas season is fast approaching. The conversation was interrupted when my eyes caught a glimpse of what appeared to be damage: our neighbor’s roofing badly needed repair. I hoped not to meddle in other people’s business, but I requested the LORD to grant our neighbor the budget for both the repair and renovation of their home. I was clueless that later on, I would be praying for the same thing not only for our family but also for our neighbors, our city, our country, and other neighboring countries that similarly experienced disasters in overwhelming magnitude.

September 26, Ondoy (also called Ketsana) slammed into the Philippines:

• It dumped the highest rainfall amounts in Manila’s history and caused widespread flooding with raging currents that closed major roads.
• Devastating mudslides caused loss of life.
• Power outages lasted for days.
• At least 246 people were killed in the onslaught; 38 went missing.
• Cell phone, land line, and other forms of communication were lost for days.
• Infrastructure and agriculture were devastated.
• The city of Marikina (where Al lives) was submerged in nearly ten feet of water and tons of knee-deep mud.[1]

Here is Al’s daily journal of the event and devastating aftermath—complete with photos of the increasing destruction and of her dog, Shatzie. Al also realizes that God’s faithfulness and strength were with her throughout.

Then on Oct 2, Al wrote:

Typhoon Ondoy has badly affected our city (Marikina); but our village is fortunate to survive the nearly waist-deep flood that entered and destroyed our homes. I just thank God that my neighbors and every member of my family are alive and safe. I am also grateful that Typhoon Pepeng has changed its course, except that another downpour is expected to hit us again sometime tonight. I pray that the weather gets better; we’re really tired cleaning up the huge mess. My hands are sore, so I’ll say ‘bye’ for now. Thank you for keeping us in your prayers. I wish you all well.

During a hurricane and its aftermath, when strength was gone and all she could see was devastation, Al caught a renewed realization that she has a reasonable hope.

“With Jesus Christ I can smile at the storm… / until He takes me home.”

We’ll be okay, Shatzie baby.

.

To Comment, please see link above (beneath title).

.

In Celebration of Christmas and CSI’s thanksgiving for the year’s blessings, we invite you to join us in Celebrating an Early Christmas on December 6, 2009, 3:00 pm at The Pasadena Civic Auditorium.

Hear the sounds of Christmas from a 65-piece orchestra!

Experience Christmas with the sounds, voices and dance performances from Filipino-American artists.

BE THERE AT 3 PM FOR THE PAROL LIGHTING AND PERFORMANCES BY

• an ALL-FILIPINO A CAPELLA CHOIR
• A PROFESSIONALLY-TRAINED DANCE GROUP
• an ETHNIC DANCE GROUP!

It’s a real Christmas treat for you and your family.

For tickets, contact us at 213-487-5059

Voor degene die ondanks de kredietcrisis nog wat te besteden heeft (of gewoon voor de dromers onder ons) vonden we de volgende, unieke aanbieding op Racing Green TVR:

TVR Typhoon T440 of meer!

Jawel, het is een T440! Maar met een verschil! Deze auto kan geheel naar uw specificaties ge-/herbouwd worden – binnen alle redelijkheid.
Hij zou een Racing Green TVR Speed Six 4.0 liter FFF (Finger Follower Free) motor kunnen hebben. Of een supercharged versie hiervan. Wat dacht u van een Quaife sequentiële 6-versnellingsbak, met of zonder elektronische ‘flipperbediening’? Zou u ook prijs stellen op een Quaife Automatic Torque Biasing LSD differentieel? Hij zou kunnen worden afgemaakt in uw eigen kleurstelling en met uw eigen interieur in koolstof, leer en alcantara, op maat gemaakt volgens uw specificaties. Speciale uitlaat? Natuurlijk. Remmen, schokbrekers, wielen, banden? Waarom legt u ons uw voorkeuren niet voor?
Voor meer informatie, neem gerust contact op met Chas of Chris bij Racing Green TVR op 01252 894 795 of mobiel 078 10 50 5059.

(welke kleur zou u kiezen?…)

The government cut PAG-ASA’s budget. Why? Is the budget cut applied to ALL government proposed budget?

I’m just curious…how much will the DND, DPWH, DepEd, DOH, and DOST get?

How much will go to debt servicing?
—
If you slice DOST and PAG-ASA’s budget, how do you expect them to be able to contribute more fully in securing our country from damages and casualties not brought about by overt use of force by individuals and groups?
—
Ah so our neighbors from East Asia are giving us money related to our S&T modernization…
Hmmm…is the budget cut another manifestation of the government retreating from its duties for the nth time?
Just asking…
Kasi if we will have this stand as our official policy (meaning, waiting for our neighbors’ aids), e hindi na tau basta pulubi…
Bakit mo iaasa sa iba ang trabaho mo?
—
Mag-asawa si Pedro’t Petra. May siyam silang anak. Sira na ang payong na pinagkakasyang gamitin ng mga ito. Makulimlim ang kalangitan. Sabi ni Pedro kay Petra, Petra bawasan mo ang ilalaan mong budget sa pagpapaayos ng payong.
Ani Petra, e kailangan na nating palitan ng bago ang payong kasi sira na talaga.
Sagot ni Pedro, e may iba tayo dapat unahin na paggastusan. Antayin mo na lang kung may ipapasa sa ating gamit sina Kim Chi at Wasabi. O kaya, bayaan mong dumiskarte mga anak mo. Teka bakit hindi na lang ikaw ang dumiskarte ng paraan?
—-
The story above is a simplistic (i’m afraid too simplistic) presentation to illustrate my point. Sana pag-isipang mabuti ng pamahalaan ang kanyang mga prayoridad.
At sana, wag isasantabi ang agham at teknolohiyang makakatulong sa bayan.
—

“Gov’t slashes PAGASA funds for next year”

Inquirer.net
Mon, 16 Nov 2009

MANILA, Philippines-Despite the series of deadly storms that battered the country, the national government has cut the budget of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) for 2010.

Lillibeth Gonzales, chief of the agency’s finance, management and planning division, said they submitted a P1.7-billion budget to the Department of Budget and Management. The amount would cover personnel and maintenance expenses including capital outlays for the purchase of new equipment.

“But we were told to stay within the ceiling of P614 million,” Gonzales said.

A big chunk of the budget, she said, is devoted to the salaries of some 900 employees.

The 2010 national budget has been passed by the House of Representatives and is pending in the Senate.

In 2009, PAGASA got a P757-million budget that included an amount for capital outlays, Gonzales said.

Director Prisco Nilo, PAGASA head, said that in 2009, the agency was also able to get a P1.6-billion grant from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and a $3-billion grant from the Korea International Cooperation Agency (Koica) to upgrade PAGASA’s weather forecasting equipment.

JICA also gave another P300 million to upgrade the agency’s flood forecasting system.

Not only does PAGASA need new equipment, it also needs new blood.

Catalino Davis, PAGASA deputy administrator for administration and engineering, told reporters during a recent media seminar in San Manuel, Pangasinan, that 40 percent of the agency’s 900 employees were between the ages of 41 and 50.

On the other hand, only 1.4 percent of employees were between the ages of 21 and 30.

“We are an aging agency. We need new blood and we need to attract new personnel,” Davis said.

It’s hard to keep your head up when you’re born into a family of clinically depressed people (and we have the medical certificates to prove it… as far as you know). Thankfully we have the magic of a Pacquiao pay-per-view fight to give us something to stare at other than the floor every now and then. This last fight was definitely worth every penny (and then some, since I get half-price with my employee discount)–Cotto was one tough cookie, lasting the entire twelve rounds and giving Pacquiao what-for in the first few rounds at least. (Cotto’s wife and son left the arena in tears during Round 10, which I would assume made Cotto lose a good deal of his moxie in he last two rounds and thus gets soundly thrashed by Pacquiao near the end–but that’s a story for another time.)

I cannot believe this guy's only 5 years older than me. Gawd, I feel like such a pussy willow.

Pacquiao’s win had good timing–with the recent calamity of Typhoon Ketsana literally dampening Filipinos’ spirits everywhere, they at least had one good thing to be happy about. But part of me can’t help but think that after the initial euphoria of victory wears out, people will start realizing that they’re still wading waist-deep in their own sewage and start being resentful. “Oh gee, Manny, it’s great that you won and all, but it’s not like your earnings go straight to the typhoon rehab fund, so, you know… Whoop-de-frickin’-doo.” …And I just made myself sad again. I blame genetics.

Anyway. You may have noticed that I, zemzelett, would like to comment about current events just a few days after they were still making headlines. It’s like serving lukewarm soup–it’s not too cold, but not quite deliciously hot anymore. That’s because for one, I don’t have a Twitter account to indulge my ego with, like, say, some people. Secondly, my brain filter doesn’t work fast enough to make a non-offensive article in due time for it to still be very relevant (and even after all that editing it’s still not guaranteed to not be, um, what’s the word… shite). So I created a new category for that on this blog called recently current news. As Arale would say, “Cul!” Aaand that’s all for now.

Part 1 here.

US secretary of state is continuing an Asia trip with two-day visit to Manila… From VOA. Full story

This site may contain information about: malaysia airport. The blog is also related to: travel package.

US secretary of state is continuing an Asia trip with two-day visit to Manila… From VOA. Full story

This site may contain information about: hurricane statistics. For a different topic see ham recipes. The blog is also related to: hurricane felix.

Update as of 12 Nov 2009. 

Storms are known by different names in different parts of the globe. Closer to the Equatorial line they are commonly referred to as Tropical Storms. These are caused by hot humid air building up during the day, and then precipitating into thunderclouds to rain down in a sound, light and water show later in the afternoon. The summers in the United States – especially the Gulf of Mexico region, are famous for its hurricanes. These are low pressure swirls caused by the heat, and since they originate in the sea, they pick up a lot of moisture and as they move into hotter landmass, they drop all the water along the way. Low pressure areas usually create a “vacuum-like” situation which is also commonly called the eye of the storm, which “pull” in winds and everything else that it can pick-up along the way causing turbulent times along the paths approaching the storm eye, while the eye remains calm. Typhoons in Asia are very similar if not the same as hurricanes; while closer home in India, we sometimes use terms like cyclones – which are also exactly the same thing! Note that all these storms emanate in the sea and usually find their way onto the nearest landmass – sometimes islands or archipelagoes along the way bear the brunt. So rough seas, heavy rain, squally winds and general apathy follow. Met offices try their best to warn populace along the storm’s path, but no-one can gauge the fury or even desist it, so preparedness may help, to an extent. Unfortunately for India, our warning systems are woefully inadequate and at times quite erroneous and so we do face disasters when they hit us!

The turbulent weather predicted by some may have dissipated and left much of the Western Coast clear, but D Street got taken in quite gullibly. This morning, when the clouds cleared, the D Boyz thought it would be a fine day, so started out on a positive note, but somewhere in their minds lurked images of rising waves, capsizing boats, rescue missions going awry (all thanks to the amateurish TV News Channels playing jerky videos from their trysts at some beach) – so they lost control of their SENSEX, and went tospy turvy for most of the day. Even the clear blue skies and the good IIP numbers could not convince them to stabilize. They behaved like TV anchors on boats on rough seas and kept losing balance all through – till they were actually rescued by the Closing Bell some 150 points away from the D Street – so the SENSEX slipped down to 16696.

In the buildup to the Bengali New Year, storms usually lash onto Kolkata and other ports on the Hooghly every evening. They are like tropical storms except that this is closer to the Tropic of Cancer than the Equator and I suspect that is where it got its name from – the Nor(th)Wester(n)…… !! Northwest to the Bay of Bengal – and the equator. Any of you ever experienced this storm; please share more insights with me at Norwester.

Cheers….