Wednesday, February 21, 2007

worst-case scenario

Before I go home: I was just pondering how utterly utterly hideously bad it was that Bush Jr. was elected ahead of Gore in 2000. I'm not assuming Gore would necessarily have been brilliant but he surely would have been immeasurably better than Bush. For one thing, he would've ratified the Kyoto Protocol and actually done something about climate change. This line of thought was prompted by the announcement yesterday by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). This from The Times:

It is the first time that the AAAS, which represents 262 societies and scientific academies, has published a statement of consensus on climate change. It was issued on Sunday during a conference where a series of studies added weight to the body of evidence of human impact on the climate and environment.

In the statement the association said: “The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society.


I know it's an old lament, but think what even a fraction of the billions of dollars wasted on Iraq could have done for climate change research and mitigation efforts. Or pick your worthy cause of choice.

If I was responsible for picking national leaders (if only...), picking Dubya would be absolutely completely the exact wrong choice. Shitloads of money spent on the wrong shit.

Fuck.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

arty

I've said this before: when it comes to photography, B + W = A. If you're too bloody ignorant to know what that means, I'll spell it out:

Black and White = ART.

It's a simple equation people, tried and true. Henri Cartier-Bresson knew it, and so do I. You didn't see HCB fiddling with saturation and hues on Photoshop. With this in mind, I've set the digital point-and-shoot to B&W and I'm gettin' all arted up.

These shots are taken on the road an hour or so east of LB.







Friday, February 09, 2007

an incident that happened at the supermarket yesterday; or: how i made my millions

WARNING: this is a lot of reading for possibly very little reward. But I spent way too long writing it to not post it.

So, before heading home last night I popped into Souths, the supermarket near work. It was close to closing time so I RUSHED, all business-like, to and fro through the aisles and grabbed what I needed – chiefly lemons, for a grain mustard, honey, olive oil and lemon juice salad dressing, if you must know. But I also got razor blades (to SHAVE MY MANLY STUBBLE), milk, juice (varieties thereof), yoghurt, pumpkin, a capsicum (red), toothpaste and dental floss. This will be covered in the exam.

On getting to the cashiers, I discovered something I should’ve predicted: long queues of people with overflowing shopping trolleys (which, given the propensity for sachet marketing in the Philippines, means Avogadro’s number of items per trolley). There were but 3 lanes (out of about 15) open. The 10-items-or-less-fewer lane was staffed but the checkout chick (they’re ALL chicks in the Philippines – I’ve never once seen a bloke on checkout) had her little ‘closed’ sign up anyway. An Inadequate number of open checkouts is infuriating any time, but particularly so here, where supermarkets – businesses in general – employ what people back home would consider a ridiculously and unnecessarily large staff. The low cost of labor is obviously a major reason – but why managers choose to have 10 shelf-stacker boys to every customer and the reverse ratio for checkout chicks is a mystery to me.

Being an overbearing westerner, I thought I’d make a probably-futile but polite point. I asked the girl in the 10-items-or-less-fewer lane if she could ask her manager to open another lane. She apologised and informed me that there were only three lanes open. I declined to say that, yes, that was the point. But I did ask where her manager was, and went and (politely) asked if she could open another lane. When she saw I only had a basket, she said I could go through the 10-items-or-less-fewer lane. This was a surprising victory (myriad rules and laws are flagrantly ignored here; taking more than 10 items through the 10-items-or-less-fewer lane is not one of them).

I happily slipped back to the 10-items-or-less-fewer lane and the checkout chick started ringing up my stuff.

When she was almost finished, a man came up with a meager two items. The girl informed him I was the last customer and he needed to join the back of the big, ugly queues. Being an INCREDIBLY MAGNANIMOUS person (and thinking it was idiotic to make the poor bloke line up for 20 minutes for two items with a combined cost of about a dollar), I said he could put them through with my stuff and just pay me. His English wasn’t great and he didn’t really understand, so I told the girl to put them through. She asked if I was sure and I said yes (I didn’t see much potential for any great loss on my part).

So she rung them up and the guy, still not quite getting it, thrust his 50 pesos (around US$1) at her. She took it and gave it to me. He looked a bit worried about this but didn’t say anything. I checked the price of the guy’s stuff (actually closer to 60 pesos) to make sure I didn’t owe him any change. Checkout girl then had to go and swipe my card at the machine half-way down the other end of the supermarket.

While she was gone, I handed the guy his things, expecting a thanks (nothing else – just a quick ta mate, goodonya) and, possibly, an offer to pay the extra few pesos to me (which I intended to refuse) before he departed. But he just stood there looking away from me. After 30 seconds or so I asked if everything was OK. He didn’t respond, so I asked again and he muttered “OK.” I was sort of pissed off by now – I didn’t want a medal, but I just saved the guy 20 minutes in a queue and gave him a discount; a thanks wasn’t too much to hope for.

I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt for the time-being, thinking maybe he needed the receipt and was just a bit shy with a big funny-lookin’ foreigner who didn’t speak his language.

Checkout girl finally arrived back. I signed the credit card slip and she gave me the receipt. Then, at last, my man spoke – asking (in Tagalog, but even I could understand it) how much his stuff cost. I told him, 60 pesos. He suddenly smiled and looked a bit awkward and started digging around in his pocket for change. I told him it was OK and he eventually muttered something that I think was a genuine (if shy) thankyou. Then he left.

He was right to be suspicious though: I’ve made my millions by skimming a few pesos off unsuspecting supermarket shoppers in the Philippines.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

WHY?



In case you can't read all of that (taken way back in 2005, in Sabang, Mindoro, I think), it says:

RED COAST
FORMERLY GOLD COAST

Why did they change it? WHY??

And how many former patrons would have come over all baffled and disappointed upon discovering the new version?

"Oh. Gold Coast isn't here anymore. They must have knocked it down. And built Red Coast on the same site. Red Coast is clearly an entirely different type of establishment. I guess we'll just take our business elsewhere. Bugger."

And if Gold Coast was good enough that they want to remind people that Red Coast was once a bit closer to the shorter-wavelength end of the visible spectrum, why change at all. Unless legally obliged to do so. Maybe the Gold Coast council in Queensland thought people would get confused.