It’s so hot! It’s summer Too early

After church, my girls and I decided to have early dinner at the local Thai restaurant. We had the staple street food, not the ones we order in restaurants in Bangkok that required reservation.

It’s not as spicy as normal—it’s adapted to local palette but they left you options like if you want your Pad Kra Pao to be spicy, you have the red bird’s eye chili on the side and it’s up to you to mash it with the Thai holy basil mixture. Normally, you mix garlic, chilis, and shallots, make a paste by using mortar and pestle. In this case, the ground beef was stir-fried with the garlic-shallot combo (as you normally do with Southeast Asian cooking) and not as a paste. I asked to take home the dipping sauce for the chicken as I could use it for pork chops the next day.

Let me rest for a bit for my gouache trial tonight.

---

I now know why animators and illustrators use gouache for their art. Its opacity allows elements to pop out.

I want a studio so I could spread out. It’s hard to paint with my huge gouache tray eating too much table real estate; I had to hold my ceramic plate (as mixing plate) the entire time I was painting. It gets tiring.

Weather is lovely; not too hot. Compared to Sikatuna, which is 26 degrees right now, I’m in an enviable position.

I just finished the tedious car registration renewal yesterday afternoon…you would really wonder why we Filipinos can’t have nice things in life. It took quite a while to finish the process because the IT stystem was down again. I overheard the lady said STRADCOM was down so they couldn’t finish the pending registration of other applicants.

I messaged my transport reporter friend and asked him why the hell STRADCOM still in business with LTO? I thought their contract has ended and this is exactly what I had been ranting about two years ago on TV (when another journo friend interviewed me about this) and on Twitter.

He said some IT services are still with STRADCOM. That company held hostage LTO’s database for a long time…

I wrote a series of Tweets about this and an FB post in 2022. This is what you get for letting corruption flourish.

Ah, let me sleep this anger first. I will have to drive my girls to Ayala Vertis North later today to celebrate the birthday of their friend.

---

Since my girls were with their friends, I had the entire afternoon for myself. I was able to finish an analytical piece, complete with graphics that I rendered on Excel. I’m quite satisfied with myself.

I realized that this mall doesn’t have much in terms of retail stores but it is compensated by the number of restaurants and cafes, gyms, and other lifestyle outlets. Like what my Manila reporter and I wrote years ago in an analytical piece, before the pandemic, malls in Metro Manila were allocating 30% (or more) of their gross floor area to restaurants and lifestyle centers. Malls in Metro Manila have become substitute to parks (which are sorely lacking in this metro) and other public places due to poor urban planning. My bosses are surprised that we have clinics, spas, and even churches (Catholic and Protestant) inside malls. Malls are also places where people stay until traffic has eased. At the same time, retail has slowed down a bit because of ecommerce but it’s not as bad as in the US. Filipinos still like buying in person—whatever the traffic situation may be.

Meanwhile, I snagged a complete set of Jane Austen from one second-hand bookstore kiosk at Ayala Vertis.

Let’s see if I could finish this this coming Holy Week.

And oh, I finally caved in. I bought a huge tray of gouache. It’s like playing with acrylic.

And by the way, this is me:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by jess baird (@wordsofajay)

My sister and I checked the local maar lake after work so we can gauge whether this is a better option than the resort much father from our home. Well this is just 20 mins away and much better in terms of activities offered (kayaking, crossing the lake on a raft, volleyball on the other side of the lake, glamping, archery, rappelling, ziplining, climbing, etc.) and the hot spring pools are really hot—as hot as the artificially heated pools in Lasema in Makati. I had to ask the caretaker if they have in-room massages and yes, they do! This strengthens my observation that water along the lake/s here are hotter than on the other side of the national highway/on the mountainside.

Since this is already under the protection of the national government, the pollution of this lake was halted when aquaculture became banned 40 years ago. It also helped that the land surrounding the lake are already privately owned, hence, no one could disturb the area.

It’s really peaceful here.

Now the problem is when to go here. Weekdays are perfect because no one is here, like today. However, the kids are in school on weekdays. The coming Chinese New Year long weekend guarantees that this area will be teeming with people. Relaxation is impossible.

Because I was called away from home until 6 pm, I didn’t have time to cook dinner. I just brought my girls to a Tex-Mex resto and stuffed our faces with these:

I interviewed one exec of a Cambodian conglomerate the other day and I already know this person from way back. Anyway, we reconnected and I told him that I plan to visit Phnom Penh and Siem Reap so I can interview more people and establish contacts there, which I initially planned to do in Myanmar before the coup as I have already established contacts, one is of them is the CFO of a big conglomerate there, and some advisors. He said they have a hotel in Siem Reap and in Phnom Penh and he said just let them know when so they can make arrangements. Well, I don’t expect them to host me (because their hotel in Siem Reap is really pricey); assistance in setting up transportation from Phnom Penh to Angkor Wat would be great though. I also had established contact with another Cambodian conglomerate through the son of the owner who runs the group now.

Now if the company considers this a non-priority market, then so be it. I will be doing this on my own dime and time.

I just wonder when I can actually do this when I’m flying to HK and work there for a week in March; April in Singapore; May or June we will be going to Bohol (which is still being debated because my sister wants Boracay for convenience whereas my girls want to dive). But I really want to go to Camiguin Island but getting there is a major hassle because flights are not frequent.

When can I have my me-time???

Try, I did. Controller worked well with Worms but I always get killed in death matches because I’m rusty as hell.

My mini-PC held up well, but then this is not a graphics-intensive game.

I tried Lord of the Rings Online.

This game doesn’t use controllers so I have to contend with my keyboard and mouse and risk getting carpal tunnel syndrome again.

My head was already pounding after playing for two hours. Got eye strain.

That didn’t go well, did it?

Meanwhile, the kitties are doing well. All five of them. Got a ginger tabby, two black tabbies, a void, and a tuxedo.

We have to make sure that mama cat is well fed and hydrated. Poor mama cat is always feeding, cleaning, and warming her litter. She’s so exhausted.

And then there’s a very well-fed feline down the stairs. As my mom said, my indoor cats are very spoiled.

It’s around 23 degrees C today and there are nights I don’t even turn on the electric fan. This is cooler than my normal airconditioner setting.

I finished one article today and it took me weeks to finally start it. I don’t know why I have a hard time starting a draft for this story. At least it’s done; one less thing to worry about.

I need to finish two more tomorrow.

---

READ: Statement of ABS-CBN News regarding ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC) operations after Sky Cable's broadcast sign-off on February 26, 2024. pic.twitter.com/bacQesZEzE

— ABS-CBN News Channel (@ANCALERTS) January 29, 2024

It’s kinda sad that this is the only thing left with the Lopez family—from ABS-CBN that had been a kingmaker for a long time.

Duterte-Marcos was successful in killing the broadcast giant, the owner of which openly defied Marcos Sr so he (Geny Lopez) got incarcerated during Martial Law. After the Marcoses were ousted, the Lopezes built ABS-CBN again from the ashes.

Another Marcos regime, another death for ABS-CBN.

The question remains whether billionaire Manny V. Pangilinan will allocate a slot for ANC on Cignal, PLDT’s payTV subsidiary, as ABS-CBN’s Metro Channel is currently part of Cignal’s programming. ANC has been exclusively airing on SkyCable.

Bilyonaryo.com

I remember receiving a call from the head of ANC while I was still in the hospital after giving birth to my twins. He wanted me to write for ANC and vet news because of my experience in business. While I did think about it for a day, I decided later on that broadcast isn’t really my thing. I didn’t want to write for TV although I know I could. TV is just too confining for me.

After that, there was some kind of power struggle inside after ANC recruited back their former anchor from CNBC and CCTV Hong Kong. The head resigned and moved on to print—to an international publication. Then he tried to recruit me again but I said I’m doing well with my current newswire so that is that. Later that publication had to be collapsed because again, the business model was not right for the kind of publication it was. The editor moved on to become the head of an influential business group and I think he is thriving there. That’s his crowd—the alta.

Business models for news media are a hit and miss thing with the fast-changing technology. Now we are confronted by AI, which has elminated entry-level jobs like news aggregation and rewriting of press releases to be dressed up as news. It’s ever-changing. But one thing remains…news is a product that you need to sell. It’s a commodity that needed to be traded to feed the beast.

1) Marcoses and Dutertes openly declaring war with each other.

Because both are power hungry demons.

It’s common knowledge that Marcos financed Duterte, who ushered back the Marcoses to power. The agreement was Duterte will give way. However, Duterte (the whole family) is a greedy crook with no morals whatsoever, so didn’t want to relinquish whatever power he had and went head to head with the Marcoses via Inday the daughter. Now they’re slugging it out in public, exposing each other’s shit.

Meanwhile, we in the Pink Movement are eating our popcorns while watching them destroy the country. We are going down in flames while China breathes down our neck.

2). CNN Philippines has closed down.

As I said during my talk at the journ dept of my college (for the curriculum review), the revenue model of traditional media is no longer working. It has been that way for quite some time now, really. I told the department that the curriculum should go beyond producing graduates geared toward traditional media. Data is king = the department should think of ways how graduates can be more attuned to the changing times, so that they can feed the hungry beast. Journalism is not free and you have to find ways how to pay your journalists.

Ironically, ANC will also follow the way of the dodo. They will also be shut down soon, my friends told me last Friday when we were at the central bank. The country’s only business channel will be gone. Once upon a time, they were the first thing I listen/watch in the morning when I have my breakfast and while preparing to leave for the day’s coverage.

So sad.

So it’s just GMA and TV5.

So far it’s only the subscription model that works these days. That’s how my company makes money ever since. That’s how news wires survive…but it seems like Rupert Murdoch is fucking it up = collapsing Dow Jones and merging it with Wall Street Journal. DJ has closed down its local bureaus in Southeast Asia and concentrated everything in Singapore.

Even “content creators” and social media influencers (not sure if these terms can be interchanged) discovered that advertising from FB and Google will not sustain them. They need advertising/product collaborations with brands to sustain their fulltime content creation jobs = marketing. Some have launched Patreon accounts, which is basically follows a subscription model. Or the content creators themselves sell their own creations, in the case of artists, it’s their paintings, prints, stickers, what-have-you.

News is content, it is a commodity that you need to sell. There must be some way to monetize news. In our case, it’s proprietary info and data catering to a very niche market.

For the kind of news that keep the spirit of democracy, freedom, and justice alive, grants are the way to go. Being backed by corporations (in the case of TV5, it’s First Pacific through PLDT) and political entities (GMA = Marcoses) is equal to getting into bed with the Nazis. You have too many compromises.

I told the journ dept, I started this career with several broadsheets out on display on newsstands. Nowadays, you would be hard-pressed to find hard copies of formerly revered broadsheets.

Times are a-changing. We’re struggling to keep up.

3) Mommy cat Ampon has five babies She’s doing well but exhausted. I keep feeding her and treating her to chicken meat and bones. The kitties are alive and seem to be healthy and suckling.

I just ordered an insulated cat house from Lazada this afternoon. I will also get a large box from the supermarket later after work today to contain the very mobile kitties.