A/H1N1 by the Numbers

All the brouhaha over swine flu has been blown way out of proportion. While no one will dispute that it's good for people to be more conscious about hygiene and health issues, the general reaction to the outbreak-that-sort-of-isn't was overly knee-jerk and impractical. Media coverage helped stoke a sense of paranoia over the issue (especially in these parts), and official government responses to it were only slightly better, if equally useless (again, especially in these parts).

Disagree? This month's issue of Wired Magazine should make a believer out of you. Armed with nothing but cold hard facts, Patrick Di Justo makes it painfully obvious that A/H1N1 is hardly hellfire and brimstone. Hysteria's more like it.

So there. Crisis averted. Let's all just get on with our lives. Ah-choo.

[Apocalypse Not: Behind the Swine Flu Hysteria (Wired)]

Disconnect

If you know me, you've probably come to the conclusion that it's difficult to pigeonhole exactly what I'm like. Unless you hate my bleeding guts, that is -- but that's another story entirely.

Assume for the moment that this blog is really a reflection of what my personality is like. Then what am I about, exactly, considering that I can write about heady stuff -- economics, politics, philosophy and so on -- one moment and completely geek out -- on technology, comics, video games and anything else in between -- the next?

I've always thought being wired a little differently made me (somewhat) interesting, but there was a moment the other day when this "disconnect" really gave me pause.

It was at a bookstore, as I queued up at the register. I had only two things on me:

In one hand, a copy of Alan Beattie's (he of the Financial Times) False Economy: A Surprising Economic History of the World.

In the other, DC Comics' Final Crisis.

I leave it to you to figure out which one I really went to the bookstore for, and which one was the impulse buy.

The First 100 Days

So what's it like to be married?

That question's been flavor of the month lately, and I don't know if there's a satisfactory answer, though my repartee that "I've been domesticated!" does seem to appease most comers. The question's up there with "How do you feel to be a graduate?" or "How does it feel to be [insert age here]?" Impossible questions with equally impossible answers, because one just is.

Perhaps I can answer with a story: sometime back I was with a friend who was also about to tie the knot when he was asked how he thought his life would change after the big day. His reply: it wouldn't. Since he and his fiancee had known each other for a while, he reasoned, and had been making all important personal decisions together for the past year, marriage would be no different. I was skeptical. Logic dictates that it can't be that easy. You get married, you know your life will change, plain and simple.

Turns out that I was right. A hundred days in, and it's a lifetime apart. The more obvious adjustments are minor, of course: the reality of waking up together every morning, the fact that there are chores that have to be done now that either of us didn't have to do before, the nuances behind dealing with our parents and in-laws (on second thought, this is anything but minor), and so on. In more practical terms, the biggest adjustment is in our personal finances, now that every decision has to be made with utmost care and weighed against the uncertainty of tomorrow.

But the real changes lie with the imponderables that come in lockstep with marriage. Do I live up to my vows? Am I doing what I can to meet my obligations as a married person? What else can be done to make this union a thing of beauty? Heavy stuff, to be sure, but that right there is the challenge that is marriage.

At the same time, it so happens that my friend was right, too. The wife and I have gotten to know each other so well throughout our courtship and engagement that the transition from "it's complicated" (kidding) to "married filing jointly" (if you know what I mean) couldn't have been smoother. Thus confronting all that marriage entails -- together -- has been a joy. Spend a decade to get to know the person you'll spend the rest of your life with? Still sounds like a good bet to me.

So what's it like to be married?

It's been great. Challenging. Hard. Exciting. Nothing's changed. Everything's changed. The honeymoon won't last forever, but everyday can still be its own little episode of human bliss.

And did I mention I've been domesticated?

Visa, Get!

Honestly, this last trip overseas nearly didn't happen. It wasn't really planned and hinged entirely on whether the wife could get a US visa. Given the speed with which the gears of bureaucracy turn in the Philippines, we thought that the complication would be getting the necessary documents together as evidence of the wedding and such. Turns out that was the least of our worries.

While I've had my share of issues applying for a visa somewhere or other before, this experience takes the cake. It was almost as if circumstances were conspiring to keep us from getting anywhere. You be the judge.

Saturday, March 14
The wedding. Marriage contract signed this date; parish office will process this and send it to the civil registry.

Monday, March 23
Honeymoon! 'Nuff said.

Tuesday, March 31
Back to reality. Wife works on getting certified copy of marriage contract from civil registry. Result: due for release on Thursday, April 9.

Thursday, April 9
Acquired certified marriage contract. Wife sets visa interview appointment with US Embassy for April 27.

Friday-Sunday, April 10-26
Getting other paperwork in order -- bank statements, itinerary, etc. -- for visa interview. Somewhere in between, parents ask how things are going, so we inform them that the interview is on April 27. Consequently, it is decided that the departure date for the trip be set for May 10.

Monday, April 27
Appointment day at US Embassy. First thing in the morning. Wife is told that everything is in order; however, her passport should also reflect her married status. Consular officer gives wife a copy of Form 221(g), with instructions to mail it in with the new passport so the visa can be issued.

Accordingly, we go to get wife a new passport in the afternoon. After completing the application process, the new passport is slated for expedited release on May 8, making it very unlikely we will be able to obtain the visa in time for the scheduled departure date.

Tuesday, April 28
Trying to pull strings so the passport can be released sooner. No luck.

Wednesday, April 29
Still trying to pull strings. Wife's bag stolen on way to work. Among items in bag: old passport, claim stub for new passport, and form 221(g).

Thursday, April 30
Strings pulled! New passport can be released before May 8. A good thing, too, as it makes sure the cretin who stole the wife's bag can't claim the new passport himself.

Friday, May 1
Holiday (Labor Day). Government offices shut down.

Saturday-Sunday, May 2-3
Weekend. Government offices still shut down.

Monday, May 4
Informed that that passport can be picked up in the afternoon. Wife picks up passport and sends it to US Embassy by courier, indicating my office address as the return address.

Tuesday, May 5
Embassy receives passport sometime before noon. Family decides to push trip back to May 12.

Wednesday-Thursday, May 6-7
No word. Biding Time.

Friday, May 8
Received notice from courier that passport is in transit back to us. Later informed that estimated delivery is the next day between 9-5.

Saturday, May 9
Received notice that passport has been dispatched for delivery, possibly as early as 9am. I report at the office to pick up passport for wife, who has to stays home to attend to other matters. By 2pm still no passport; I call the courier company to find out what's taking so long and learn that there is an error in the street address on the delivery form.

Made arrangements to have delivery agent informed accordingly.

Correction made, passport delivered!

Sunday, May 10
If the trip hadn't been pushed back, we would have left now!

Monday, May 11
Last day before departure...

Tuesday, May 12
And off we go!

In-Flight Entertainment 11

Since the start of the year, hadn't really a chance to catch a movie in theaters -- there was the wedding, then the honeymoon, then having to prepare for the summer trip -- so this time around there were lots of films I could've caught on the plane that I hadn't seen yet. But I decided instead to just catch the few that I did want to see, partly because I wanted to catch up on my sleep and partly because I ended up distracted by a couple of video games:

Bolt. Quite fun, but not nearly as fun as Meet the Robinsons. I loved the whole "the dog doesn't realize it's not real" concept, which I wish had been played up more in the film. Still, it's nice to see that Disney is beginning to put together rather decent CGI films under its own label, even if they benefit from shared resources (the senior management, if not creative pool) with Pixar. The only other thing I'll say about the film is that I'll never look at styrofoam the same way again. Nor at hamsters.

Frost/Nixon. Now this was some kind of wow. It wasn't just the fact that it was a political film that drew me into this one; really, I think the appeal is that it's based on a real set of interviews (which I never knew about, so there was that added novelty for me, too). To my mind, for a film like this everything was flawless: the script, the cinematography, and the cast. Especially the cast. Michael Sheen was a coup because he does resemble a young David Frost. I had heard that Frank Langella was given the role because he played it so well in the stage play, but was skeptical since he looks nothing like Nixon. Yet to see him in the film is astonishing. One moment he portrays Nixon as such a sleazebag that it makes you want to hate him, the next he manages to switch gears and get the audience to empathize with a man who happened to be way in over his head. Powerful, compelling stuff.

Slumdog Millionaire. So everyone rooted for it at the Oscars. Heck, I did too even if I hadn't seen it yet. Now that I have, I think it deserves its acclaim -- but I also think it got away with a lot. The long and the short of it is that it's quite the charmer. Ultimately, the plot is rather thin and the story itself is chock full of sterotypes, clichés and all-too-convenient coincidences. But it'll charm the heck out of you and you won't even realize it until you find yourself rooting -- and I mean really rooting -- for Jamal. On a side note: the dance sequence as the credits roll is awesome.

Watchmen. I never did "get" the comic book -- it just didn't resonate with me -- so you couldn't count me among those who could not contain their excitement at the mere thought that this movie would come out. So what's there for me to say about the film? It is indeed as faithful as it could be to the source material, but to my mind just validates why it didn't strike a chord with me (although in the interests of fair disclosure, I should also point out that I'm none too fond of Alan Moore's work in general, anyway -- let's just say we're on different wavelengths). Would anyone who hadn't read the comic have a compelling reason to go see it? I think not. I will say that the costume designs (especially Night Owl II's) impressed me a lot, as did the action sequences, though they would have been more engaging to watch had they been slowed down just a tad.

First Class

Didn't have a camera on me the first time I had the privilege of experiencing Cathay's new First Class configuration, but I did this time so here's a shot for posterity. What makes First Class first class? The service, to be sure, and the food. But really it's the comfort of the seat you enjoy and the space and amenities that accompany it.

The main seat offers a lot of room for its occupant; I'd say it's really meant for a person and a half (for context, two petite individuals could probably fit in there). There's a massive pull-out table (it's that visible compartment below the orchids in the flower vase) that's quite impressive. Across the seat, you'll find a smaller cushioned area that looks like it's an extension of the footrest but can't possible be since one's legs can't stretch that far. A flight attendant explained to me that it was really a seat in case a First Class passenger wanted to entertain (i.e. sit and chat) with someone else (presumably, another First Class passenger). I have seen that once the table is pulled out, this little guest chair does allow two people to a meal seated across each other. Now that little detail, in my opinion, is ingenious.

Of to the side, there's a pull-out flat LCD screen that's much larger than the already impressive one available in Cubicle Class. The way its constructed, with a supporting arm that allows you to pull it out towards you at an angle, does feel rather flimsy and is probably the first thing the airline will improve upon for their next cabin iteration. Beneath the screen is a small locker for stowage since there aren't any overhead or windowside compartment in which to keep one's things.

The bottomline is that First Class on Cathay Pacific is truly impressive. Now if only I could find away to end up there more often: both times I ended up with an upgrade to First Class it was on the short leg of my travels, and the one time I was bumped up during the long haul it happened to be on a much older plane. We can't always be lucky, but a guy can still hope.

Random Travel Notes 11

So! Just returned from the family's usual summer getaway, care of an invitation from the parents. Yeah, yeah, I know: didn't broadcast this trip at all. But what can I say? You never call, never write...

Kidding aside, this trip to San Francisco and back -- with my folks and the wife, but sans my brother -- seems like a good excuse for another round of Random Travel Notes!

When the upgrade is a downgrade. At the check-in counter in Manila, we learned that both my parents got upgraded to First Class for the short leg of the trip. No trouble there. Right before boarding, I ended up getting an upgrade, too. That was a problem, as they couldn't extend the same courtesy to the wife. So I did the logical thing and passed on my seat to her. Problem solved. Fast forward to right before landing in Hong Kong: a flight attendant came to my seat to tell me that there was a spare seat in First Class and that I could use it now in order to be with the rest of the family when we landed (at my wife's request, of course). So then and there, I collected all my carry-on baggage and made way for my new seat. It must have looked plenty odd to the other passengers, seeing this one guy getting his stuff together and making for the exit even before the plane made its descent. Kudos to the wife for pulling the strings and to the sensible flight attendant who made it happen. Having said that, however, is it too much to ask that Cathay Pacific find a more sensible way to administer seat upgrades so people traveling together don't get split up awkwardly? What, that four of us with the same surnames checked in at the same time and asked for adjacent seats wasn't a dead giveaway?

From the CNN Center in Hong Kong... Just an interesting side note: we were on the same flight as CNN Asia Anchor Andrew Stevens, who'd been in Manila the previous day to cover Manny Pacquiao's belated homecoming celebration.

It wasn't the jet lag that got to me. Directly anyway. What threw my body clock for a loop this time around was being awake in the mornings while everyone was asleep. With no one to talk to, I'd inevitably get sleepy and nap myself. So I suppose one could make the argument that there is a social dimension to jet lag, too. And while on this subject, let me just say that the twelve hour time difference between Manila and New York is so much easier to deal with than the fifteen hour one with San Francisco. In the former case, at least your meal times are still the same. In the latter situation, your stomach has to do some adjusting also. (If I've ranted about this before, let's chalk it up to jet lag.)

Been there. Done that. Will eat there again. In the ten-odd years that the family's been frequenting the San Francisco Bay Area, we've developed a list of places to visit whenever we're in town. Naturally, a good number of these are restaurants that my parents' friends recommend to us. So yes: with the wife joining us for the first time we did the rounds as we usually would. Par for the course, that. I've observed, though, that the number of Filipino restaurants on our list keeps growing. While I appreciate the convenience -- back in the day, it was a chore to get Filipino food when one needed a fix (in New York, it still is) -- it does seem rather odd that we flew so many miles away from home to enjoy good old fashioned home cooking.

Digital Cable 1. Because the US has mandated a switch to digital television by 12 June 2009, it was about time to obtain digital cable boxes for my parents' place in the Bay Area. This much I'll say: I'm rather impressed with the quality of what Comcast has to offer as compared to the digital service I received from Time Warner Cable in NYC. Because I shipped over the old tv from my NY apartment to San Francisco, I got to see the difference firsthand (controlling for the equipment!). The bottomline? Much clearer picture quality -- and I hadn't even signed us up for HD!

Digital Cable 2. Side story: after installing the cable boxes, I had to call Comcast's customer support hotline to activate them. Ended up transferred to a technician with a rather odd accent. Fellow was Filipino! In Manila! It was my surname that prompted him to ask if I happened to be one and thereafter volunteer the information himself. But apart from that, he was very professional: didn't chat me up and continued to speak to me in English. But yeah, his affected American accent was quite terrible. At the very least, I've heard better.

Digital Cable 3. Last one: It's neat how it's now possible to put one's cable subscription on hold and simply reactivate it in real time with a phone call. Such a thing couldn't be done (if memory serves) when we first came onboard with the service about a decade ago. Amazing how market competition works in the US and forces companies to really adopt best industry practices: in the West Coast, at least, it would appear that AT&T is the one keeping Comcast on its toes.

Road Trips: Monterey and Carmel-by-the-Sea; Napa Valley and Sonoma County. Initially, the idea was to spend a night or two elsewhere, but in the end we decided to sightsee at Monterey and Carmel-by-the-Sea (one trip) and later drive up to Napa Valley and Sonoma County (another trip). For Trip A, we just swung by Cannery Row, passed by Pebble Beach and spent a couple of hours in downtown Monterey. For Trip B, we decided to check out the Hess Collection and Domaine Carneros. Between the two, I much preferred the coastal journey (Trip A) to the one up north (Trip B). This might have something to do with the fact that I'd been there when I was much younger, so I already have good memories of where Clint Eastwood was once mayor. Besides, the scenery is breathtaking (the 17-Mile Drive alone takes the cake), and the cool weather was also a definite bonus. But it might have more to do with the fact that I'm not a wine drinker anyway, so the charm of Wine Country is rather lost on me. Besides, once you see one winery, haven't you seen them all?

Off-Broadway. I didn't really have a chance to catch shows on Broadway in New York, partly because I was busy but more because I just didn't want to go watch anything by myself. Where's the fun in that? So I never did get to see Wicked or Spamalot, two shows that I would have otherwise wanted to catch. So imagine my delight upon finding out they were both showing in downtown San Francisco! True enough, we made time to catch both. The verdict? Wicked was amazing -- my favorite was the performance of "Gravity" prior to the end of the first act -- and is perhaps proof that an adaptation can be much better than its source material (personally, I was none too impressed by the book). Spamalot, where "plot" is really just an excuse to pull off as many gags as possible, was certainly one of the most hilariously irreverent and politically incorrect shows I've seen in a while.

Clouds and Dust. Took a lot of pictures this trip, and there are two things I noticed after looking through the photos. First, it would appear that we were out and about on days when there were no clouds or when there was sufficient cloud cover to keep the sky overcast. Second, sometimes dirt on the camera lens isn't too noticeable while viewing pictures from the camera's screen but becomes painfully obvious once the pictures are enlarged. Heck, I think eighty percent of the pictures I took have the same speck of dust in the upper right hand quadrant of the shot!

Epic Fail at Starbucks. Once, after dinner, we repaired to a nearby Starbucks before heading off for home. I ended up with the task of placing our orders, and since I had to order for five people -- my parents, a friend of theirs, myself and the wife -- decided to make sure I could communicate it in as organized a way as possible. While waiting in line, I sorted out mentally what each of us wanted, organizing these in a manner that should have been easy to follow (decaf drinks first, like drinks together). Then my turn came and I placed our order. But the barista was completely lost. As in. Couldn't get the orders straight at all. Worse, after patiently sorting it out the one preparing the drinks wasn't much better, fouling it up just as badly. My guess is that in the US baristas (and restaurant attendants in general) tend to deal with people placing individual orders, as opposed to how in the Philippines they'd have to take orders for much larger groups. Hence, I submit that baristas trained here are probably much better at what they do than the average barista elsewhere in the world. I can imagine that if Philippine-trained baristas had been running the store that night, everything would have gone much smoother. Not to mention we wouldn't have gotten cappuccinos on the cheap, as barista #2 misinterpreted the "C" that barista #1 wrote on the cups because I placed an order for plain brewed coffee.

Stanford Medical. Strictly speaking, one of the reasons we went on this trip was so dad could finally get the executive physical exam he'd planning for quite some time now. A few years back, a friend of his told us that the Stanford University Hospital had comprehensive check-up programs for visiting professionals. Since my dad hadn't had a check-up for some time he was interested, yet we could never quite schedule it on any of our prior trips. So this time around we made sure it would push through. As expected, he got a clean bill of health for someone of his age. Interestingly, it seems to me that the program regimen was exactly what one would have undergone at the better hospitals in Manila. More, since exactly half the nurses that attended to my dad were Filipino, you could make the argument that there's no real advantage to going through such a program. Aside, that is, from the peace of mind that comes from knowing you got a once over from a medical team at Stanford. Thus, in a sense my dad waited all these years and traveled all the way there just to be told to lose weight and get more exercise. I guess it could've been worse. At least they didn't tell him to take two pills and call them in the morning.

On Jeff Smith and the Big Red Cheese

In his introduction to the Jeff Smith's collected Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil, Alex Ross submits that "[t]oday in comics the divide between the whimsy of cartoon entertainment and realistic illustrated fare has never been more separate. Most often it doesn't attempt to bridge the two, keeping the medium a ghettoized environment." It's certainly a fair point, especially for superhero comics. Today, it would seem, the world likes its superheroes just so, with darker, grittier and (occasionally) more realistic stories: Batman is now resting in peace, the Justice League went through an identity crisis, Matt Murdock was outed as Daredevil and the Marvel Universe went through a civil war. Got a problem with any of that? Then there's a copy of Tiny Titans just waiting for you around the corner.

Indeed, a survey of the comic book landscape reveals much more complex and varied stories. Yet rare is the comic that attempts to marry this complexity with the childlike charm comics seemed to possess in bygone days. (Tangent: speaking of marriage, and to emphasize the point, looks like Archie's getting hitched, too!) Of the many creators who could pull this off, one would think that Jeff Smith has a fighting chance. His critically acclaimed series, Bone, is evidence that a comic book can retain its childlike charm while at the same time possessing surprising amounts of depth. So to have him take the reins for a "reboot" of the Captain Marvel series and a retelling of the Big Red Cheese's origins -- a character arguably well suited to capture the interest of young and old alike -- constitutes a recipe seemingly ripe for success.

Is it? For the most part: yes. Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil is by and large a clever re-imagining of the origins of DC's (nee Fawcett Comics') Captain Marvel. Why clever? Because it takes the core elements of Captain Marvel's backstory -- Billy Batson, Mary Marvel, the Wizard Shazam, Dr. Sivana, the Monster Society of Evil -- and casts them in the context of the world at present within a story that unfolds like a comic of yesteryear. The result, in short, is more akin to what one might imagine the first Captain Marvel book might have been like if it were put together with same sensibilities as 1939, albeit updated in the context of the 2000s.

But that itself is also a problem. For in pulling this off, Jeff Smith may inadvertently have demonstrated why it may just be better for the comics medium to remain "ghettoized". Reading a Shazam! story situated in the post-9/11 world, complete with its deliberately campy dialogue and unabashedly cartoonish artwork can be a jarring experience, precisely because it feels like there's a huge disconnect. From this standpoint, therefore, maybe there is a reason why the whimsical and realistic seldom meet in comics: because in the end, perhaps things are better this way.

So yes, Jeff Smith's Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil is a decent Captain Marvel title, and one that does manage to bridge childlike whimsy with present day realism, up to a point. Not your cup of tea? Don't take it too hard. Comic books today have any number of other stories that just might catch your fancy.