behind the curve

i suppose it's better late than never, but i do tend to be behind the curve on admittedly many matters that can preoccupy the group at work as a whole.

...such as, say, the heroes television series.

there are many reasons for the, well, unwillingness to indulge, not the least of which is i almost never take the time; preferentially just surfing, staring blankly into space (not necessarily the night sky), attempting hopelessly to clean out the junk in my cubicle...

of course there is the amount of work that i periodically find myself inundated in -- which is not a bad thing, just stressful in the most powerful sense of the word.

which can lead to situations that peak, as it did last week, at having 4 22-minute projects to churn out of edit (on a machine with precious little drive space for a feat of that magnitude). there was, naturally, murphy's law to contend with too.

but somehow in all that, there was a little spark, a little time to take a peek, give in to some temptation. during the hours of rendering video in final cut pro, i finally decided to watch the miniseries of the reimagined battlestar galactica.

there is another reason why i shy from the vicarious involvement with serial media -- it affects me. Not the least of which my blood pressure.

so, watching the galactica miniseries was difficult at first, as the dire situation unfolded; whatever empathy i can muster was drained full force by the show's end. and yet, the show was a revelation. attempting to show real people in a sci-fi end-of-world milieu television serial was actually quite gutsy (especially given that the show's re-creator was originally of the star trek franchise -- the home of sci-fi cosmic resets), and compelling.

still difficult to watch, but i'm persevering.

now just starting on episode 6 of the first season... it's been wow! all the way so far.

once that's done, maybe there's something to that heroes thing. next stop.

cold spell and electrified water

it has been cold of late.

intriguingly, metro manila and tagaytay have low temperatures separated only by one degree these days. imagine that. tagaytay ridge temperatures right here in the metro (both in makati and here in las pinas), add wind chill and it gets even colder.

therefore: get a plug-in drop-in-bucket type water heater. i had not paid close attention to these gadgets, having gotten a red one (deep well type) at the start of the stay in the las pinas apartment. after a while, i had taken it to makati, and had always wondered if it really took 20 or so minutes to boil 3 liters of water...

and now the cold spell, and a need for heated water in the mornings here in las pinas. so, another red one was purchased, and the effect was, well, electrifying.

not that i got myself electrified or anything like that, but the way the device worked was worth some description. either that or the particular unit i purchased, within the bounds of manufacturing variability, was more different, somehow.

instructions for use: plug in, and then dip in water-filled bucket.

plug in: it began to hum. eh? i didn't recall that of the first red one.

dip in bucket: the entire bucket began to hum deeply, kind of like the noise made by those large-ish transformers that metalworking shops use to power arc welders. ?!

add to that, crackling, popping noises within the device itself, and a readily apparent flow of heated water.

hmm. and a bucket of boiling water in 6 minutes. well, about 3 liters worth of water in a bucket.

interesting.

now to try and see whether the "nawasa" type will do a similar water electrification act in makati.