Holy Week and TV

When I was younger, Holy week TV was practically non-existent.  The only thing you can watch would be Father Peyton's Rosary and the Stations of the Cross series.  And that would not show Jesus's face.  Of course there would be the biblical movies in theaters, and on some TV spots.  Movies like "The Robe", "Samson and Delilah", "Ten Commandments", etc.  Nowadays, there's series marathons.  Admittedly, I got caught up in one of the marathons. And "7th Heaven" is addictive, it makes sense and a whole lot more fun to watch end to end.

 

There was a time my family filleted and dried their own daing for Holy Week.  That was something.  Specially considering that in those days, samaral (barangan) was a low priority buy and not very popular fish in the 70's.  There was even that one time when we dried fish roe (samaral) for Holy Week.  I can't remember when was the last time I had dried fish eggs.

 

There was also one other thing which we did before, and that was to go to one church and pray upon the Stations of the Cross.  Sometime back this changed with a lot of families.  There was more mobility, people wanted to be away from home, in a way, and still be in the Holy Week mode, those with cars started visiting churches, as much as possible, it became a sort of church pilgrimage running around town and the nearest provinces going to twelve churches.  Twelve churches?!!  I find it hard to understand as the concept and tradition of Visita Iglesia loses meaning when you spend more time driving and travelling than praying.  Just my take on the matter.  If some people think that way, that's their problem.

 

Times have really changed.

--andoy

21 March 2008 

Recruiting Freshmen

This past Saturday, my son Kenneth took an entrance exam for BS Computer Science at a school in the university belt.  I've heard of developments within the school and how it has practically spun out the Computer Science program to a new college, complete with a new building and other facilities.  In fact, the new college is quite aggressive in asserting it's position as a serious place for training future IT professionals.

I was surprised that the entrance exam was free.  Surprised because the university has an entrance exam fee for its other courses.  That's okay, by me.  There were other surprises:  the exam is done through a PC, results to be given out after an orientation and tour of facilities.  There was even a free lunch for the examinees (and their parents/guardians who were waiting for the exams to finish.) 

I didn't take part in the tour of facilities and laboratories as I was at an internet shop coordinating to fix a problem at a client site.  (One tech guy going from one client branch to another, three of them in fact, and another one by phone support; and another guy at the Makati office updating the data on client/server software.  While also on the line with the client PM to fix the GPRS connection with their provider.)  But that's a different story I would rather not go into.

Like most of the new IT schools, the college is a collaboration between IT companies and the (older) university.  Though I don't really buy the definition of courses that they gave (which is the same definition of courses a lot of the other colleges and universities have given):  BS Computer Science is for the traditional course heavy on theory and languages, whereas BS Information Technology focuses on "new" technology, specially web-based or internet technology.  All in all, this is one aggressive school.  I just don't know if Kenneth would choose this and the course.


--andoy
17 March 2008

A Rant: Globe's Patchy Service

I cannot take it any more.  This is a rant.

For the past few days, I have been having problems with Globe Telecom's SMS service.  Admittedly, I am one of millions of Globe Pre-paid phone subscribers who use the UNLITXT service.  For me, it is less a matter of the all-day unlimited texting, but more about not worrying of the cost per SMS message sent.  I subscribe so that I don't worry about the cost, even if it might be more expensive that way.  I send the registration, a confirmation is sent back to me informing me of the service start and for how long, and I use the service.  Five days worry free for me.  Worry free that is, until the that point where suddenly the service stops for one reason or another, or a message note appears as "message not sent."  This is ridiculous.  No network advisory beforehand, just the "message not sent" warning after you try to send a message. 

Me, I'm a casual user.  No problem.  But I do know of a whole barangay of dried fish vendors who are dependent on SMS for sales to their middlemen.  They receive the message, the dried fish gets packed and sent by bus, and the transaction gets paid by GCash.  And a day without a text message is a day without sales or collection.  Walang kita!  The vendors would be dependent on the roadside buyers.  Imagine a thousand peso transaction per text message.  These people earn more from their deliveries.  That is how powerful text messaging has become.  Patchy service is not acceptable.

End of rant.


--andoy
17 March 2008