It’s very stressful, and no amount of life hacking or psychological tricks can significantly reduce the stress the body undergoes when deprived of sleep; you can control your emotions to a fair extent, but its much harder to control the biochemical processes of your body. Despite all of this, I’m feeling quite alright. Just trying to keep healthy and composed, and keep unnecessary stress to a minimum, if whatever that factor is is within my control.

I’m doing all I can right now to get myself righted again, but it doesn’t help that our upstairs neighbor is still treating his unit like it was his own personal nightclub. Pounding house music up until the wee hours of the morning isn’t exactly conducive to sleep. Despite the letter of complaint we’ve sent to the building management, it still continues; it’s either the landlord just doesn’t care, or the neighbors couldn’t care less. Might have to consider the next step we can take regarding that.

Work has been stripped down to the basic comic-making only; website coding stalled once again. Other long-delayed projects, much more so.

Not having left the house much due to current situation, I have grown a beard and have started to talk like a pirate just for kicks. Hurrr.

/brainfart

This is a photo of some of my not-so-distant relatives from Spain. I’ve been processing quite a number of these at the request of my abuela who lives with us here in the Philippines; these will be sent to her siblings in Spain, to be used as a reference for something the town of Ourense is doing to honor their father (my great-grandfather, it would turn out), according to what I have been told.

I am compelled to renew my efforts in getting to know my family on the other side of the world, as well as a return to a more rigid study of the Spanish language (I can converse in a fairly fluent manner, but lack of practical use has made me rusty).

All of this reveals a rich history within our family, from people who have experienced much, including going through the Spanish Civil war, according to my grandmother. It gets more fascinating the more I think about it.

For now, however, I have a bunch of photographs that are more than twice my age to process and send.

A Day In The Life from Harry Nesbitt on Vimeo.

The man also has some wonderful artwork on his personal / portfolio website. I recommend taking a peek.

Please help us find it! If you spot a vehicle going around the city or anywhere at all with the plate ZED 886, please inform the nearest police officer or traffic enforcer that it is a stolen vehicle!

We would greatly appreciate it if you could provide us with ANY information regarding our vehicle. Also, if you could retweet this or replurk this, it would be a great help.

Please keep an eye out for the vehicle if you can! Stolen White Nissan Urvan, ZED 886.

Thanks much.

Addendum: Identifying Marks

1. The van has fog lamps in front and some square lamps at the back
2. The van may also have DILG and DOTC placards displayed in the front windshields (or it may have been stashed or disposed of… but still).
3. The rear door has noticeable dent around the license plate area.
4. The rearmost seats have no head-rests; in fact we have them right here… mementos from our stolen vehicle (how ironic).

Note: I realize all these things can be… worked around, for lack of a better term, by the thieves, but just in case they’ve overlooked these things, they may help in identifying our vehicle.

A sticking point with me was gedit’s inability to edit and save directly to servers. Prior to finding this plugin, I had to use a separate FTP program to upload any new work, and quite frankly, that’s very tedious. So anyway, plugin got.

A tip of the hat to the fellows who came up with this, and I hope that somewhere down the line, this functionality will come right out of the box.

Get the gedit-ftp-browser plugin.

• Click here to see the IMPORTANT PHONE NUMBERS AND HOTLINES
• Click here to see HOW YOU CAN HELP with DONATIONS and RELIEF GOODS

Photo by: Dan Saavedra

UPDATE 5, 6:25AM MONDAY: Some news items of interest:

• Death Toll To Rise to 100 (with slideshows).
• One-fifth of Meralco Subscribers Without Power, No classes until Tuesday this week, MMDA: Number Coding Suspended For The Week.
• Another Typhoon To Hit The Philippines In Three Days?

Information on how to help with donations, and relief goods along with important contact numbers and hotlines after the jump.

UPDATE 3, 10:15AM & UPDATE 4, 10:45AM: Relief/Shelter/Donations:

Some places where you can drop off relief goods such as canned food, blankets, and other basic necessities:

• Sagip Kapamilya Warehouse: No. 13 Examiner St., West Triangle, Quezon City – Look for Ms. Girlie Aragon or Jet. Contact: 413-2667
• NU107: G/F Suite 102, AIC Gold Tower, Emerald Ave, Ortigas Center Pasig City. (via Francis “Brew” Reyes)
• Citizens Disaster Response Center: 72-A Times St., West Triangle, Quezon City
• Tulong Kabataan: Kabataan Partylist Headquarters, 118-B Scout Rallos, Kamuning, Quezon City
• Bayanihan Filipino Community Center (for people in NY):You can send your donations to Bayanihan Filipino Community Center, 40-21 69th St, Woodside NY 11377

Where you can donate (from Manuel L Quezon’s TumbBlog)

You can help update the Online Database of Places to Donate Relief Goods. Red Cross donation through SMS: text REDAMOUNT to 2899 (Globe) or 4483 (Smart). bury me in this dress has a comprehensive list of means to send cash/check donations:

TXTPower.org will forward donations to Red Cross Paypal Smart Money – 5577-5144-1866-7103 G-Cash – 0917-9751092 Red Cross

1. CASH or CHECK Please send cash or check donations to the PNRC National Headquarters in Manila. Checks should be made payable to The Philippine National Red Cross. We can also arrange for donation pick-up.

2. BANK DEPOSIT Account Name: The Phil. Nat’l. Red Cross METROBANK Port Area Branch Peso Acct.: 151-3-041-63122-8 Dollar Acct.: 151-2-151-00218-2 Type of Acct. : SAVINGS Swift Code: MBTC PH MM BANK OF THE PHIL. ISLANDS Port Area Branch Peso Acct.: 4991-0010-99 Type of Account: CURRENT BANK OF THE PHIL. ISLANDS UN Branch Dollar Acct.: 8114-0030-94 Type of Account: SAVINGS Swift Code: BOPI PH MM For your donations to be properly acknowledged, please fax the bank transaction slip at nos. +63.2.527.0575 or +63.2.404.0979 with your name, address and contact number.

Credit Card Please fax the following info to +632.404.09.79 and +632.527.0575: Name of card member, billing address, contact nos. (phone & mobile), credit card no., expiration date, CCV2/ CVC2 (last three digits at the back of the credit card), billing address, amount to be donated. For online donations you may also visit our website at www.redcross.org.ph .

Donations in kind to the Red Cross:

LOCAL Please send in-kind local donations to The Philippine National Red Cross – National Headquarters in Manila. We could also arrange for donation pick-up. INTERNATIONAL 1. Send a letter of intent to donate to the PNRC 2. A letter of acceptance from PNRC shall be sent back to the donor 3. Immediately after shipping the goods, please send the (a) original Deed of Donation, (b) copy of packing list and (c) original Airway Bill for air shipments or Bill of Lading for sea shipments to The Philippine National Red Cross–National Headquarters c/o Secretary General Corazon Alma de Leon, Bonifacio Drive, Port Area, Manila 2803, Philippines. The PNRC does not accept rotten, damaged, expired or decayed goods. Though we appreciate your generosity, the PNRC also discourages donations of old clothes as we have more than enough to go around.

Relief goods for Red Cross (drinking water, baby formula, canned goods, clothing): Red Cross Rizal Chapter operations center 635-0922, 634-7824 needs drinking water, canned goods, clothing for Cainta, Marikina, San Mateo, Pasig. or go to Red Cross QC Chapter, QC Hall Gate 7 along Kalayaan Avenue, tel. 920-3672.

There is a huge, huge, pile of information on MLQ’s Tumblog on who else you can donate to. Click here to check it out (scroll down a bit once you get there).

UPDATE 2, 9:10AM – IMPORTANT PHONE NUMBERS AND HOTLINES:

Red Cross Rubberboats:
0917-8897898
0938-442697

NCRPO HOTLINE
838-3203
838-3354 – for RESCUE REQUESTS

Dump Trucks For Rescue
0917-4426800
0927-6751981

Philippine Coastguard:
527-6136

Police Central Hotline 171

National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC)
911-14-06
734-2118
734-2120

Rizal PDCC
09153767070 and 09278400133

Red Cross
911-18-76
527-00-00
143

PAGASA
927-1541

Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA)
136
896-6000

Meralco
631-1111
16211
0917-5592824
0920-9292824

Maynilad
1626

ABS-CBN HOTLINE
416-36-41

SAGIP KAPAMILYA
413-2667 / 416-0387

Sources: DZMM Teleradyo, ABS-CBN, ABS-CBN news online

UPDATE 1, 8:30AM: Death Toll rises to 50. 90% of Cainta, Taytay flooded (Video). Relief and rescue operations are in high gear. Floods have significantly receded. International and domestic flights have resumed normal operations. Locally, businesses have resumed operations, and aside from the crap that litters the streets, it’s almost as if nothing happened. Business as usual? It may be one way of coping with what just happened.

Newspapers have finally started to arrive at the local News stand, but so far I’ve only seen the Manila Bulletin and one other broadsheet; besides those, it’s quite empty. The local bakery quickly sold out of nearly all breadstuffs! First time I’ve seen it happen this early! But really now, it’s great to see store owners getting quickly back up on their feet. This only shows true spirit and resilience in the face of calamity. Hopefully people in harder-hit areas can also get back up and running quickly as well.

ORIGINAL POST: Well, we just officially went through what is being called “the worst floods in nearly 40 years” that the Philippines has experienced. A month’s worth of rainfall in just six hours. 40 people confirmed dead, damage estimates pouring in, media and government outlets overrun with cries for help. A state of calamity has now been declared in Metro Manila and 25 other locales.

I went through a walk-around of our neighborhood at around 6AM and talked to some people. Edison street became visible at around 12 midnight. This morning, it’s the only passable road in the community. Cars are lined up on both sides of the street, as owners do what they can to fix up whatever damage and stench the floods may have inflicted.

Dian and most other streets leading out of the community are still flooded. Sections of Pasay Road are still submerged. Debris and sludge are scattered all over the streets and the sidewalks. People just want to clean up and get over the whole event.

Several submerged cars have had their car alarms go nuts all through the night and now the owners are trying to sort things out. Traffic is starting to build up, even though it’s just an early Sunday morning; presumably, people are trying to get to their loved ones or get supplies and medical treatment.

This is not the worst we’ve experienced, in terms of damage to property (for our community, at least). The last storm had our neighbor’s roofs flying off. This wasn’t even classed as a super typhoon! The storm only had winds of around 85 km/h, while super typhoons have winds that go upwards of 120 km/h.

Anyway, I’ll be looking around further once the other streets become passable. I tried checking for local weather reports, but PAG-ASA website’s been hammered pretty badly and you can’t connect to it (as of this post).

Related Items:

• Original Post on “Bagyong Ondoy”
• Follow me on TWITTER

UPDATE 3, 7:00AM, Sunday: The aftermath.

UPDATE 2, 4:00PM: Azrael has this good blog post that contains various media from different bloggers that may serve as somewhat of an overview of the current situation. You may want to take note of the following numbers he has posted:

If your area is in danger due to flood, dont hesitate to contact our National Disaster Coordinating Council Emergency Nos.: 912-5668, 911-1406, 912-2665, 911-5061
and Help hotlines: 734-2118, 734-2120

Also contact Meralco to shutdown electricity feed if your area is in high flood water.
mobile : 09175592824 or 09209292824

Click here to read Azrael’s post.

Around here in our area, the flood water has receded by 4 inches or so, so I suppose that the power-shut off scenario has been suspended for the moment. The rain continues, however; by my count, it has been raining for more than 16 hours now.

UPDATE 1, 2:50PM: Building management’s told us to charge whatever we need to charge because they’ll be shutting off the power later on, as the flood water looks to get up as high as the power transformer located on the first floor. I s’pose this means we’ll be going offline as well. Stay safe, everyone – don’t do anything risky unless you really have to!

ORIGINAL POST: It’s been raining for more than 12 hours now, and reports are coming in all over the metro of floods going up as high as the roofs of single-story homes. Lots of people stranded, lots of people to rescue. The military’s mobilizing, and those who have ‘em are breaking out the boats.

Here in our community, floodwater’s chest deep in some streets. Cars are submerged, and water’s already coming into our building’s first floor, right up the steps. More photos after the jump.

I half expect our power to be cut sometime today; in some places, the news reports say that people have been asking to have their power cut for safety reasons. Authorities have been telling people who live neer creeks to move to safer, higher grounds; there’s a creek just a block away from us, but we have reason to believe we’ll be reasonably safe, our apartment unit being on the second floor and all.

We’ll see what happens.

Related Items:

• Bagyong Ondoy Aftermath – After the storm
• Follow me on TWITTER

Food arrives, there’s a good chance they’ll forget the cutlery and napkins. When you ask for the twain it’ll take just as long as the food you ordered to arrive, lest you get up and go to the counter yourself to get it. Used plates and glasses stay on the table long after the people who’ve eaten left. Even when there’s no one at the counter ordering food, not one idle waiter or waitress would bother to go on a quick bus run to collect the plates and take them to the kitchen. They stay there for up to ten minutes even. One table would take around just 30 seconds to clean up. Is that so hard to accomplish?

What’s more shameful is that this Delifrance is located at right between the bridgeway between SM Makati and Glorietta – a very high traffic area – and the fact that their unkempt dining area is exposed to an incredible amount of passersby and potential customers doesn’t seem to be a concern for them.

I don’t know if it’s a problem with the store manager or management at a higher level, but this is just inexcusable. You are not a carinderia on the street that you can simply not care if there’s a pile of used plates on the tables while people are looking to have a seat and order food. You are a respectable chain restaurant in a mall in Makati City.

I will admit that this isn’t exactly going to make me stop eating at Delifrance completely; They have delicious food at reasonable prices (although their coffee is still shit), but having to dine surrounded by empty tables with piles of used plates with leftovers in them is just not right.