benc's blog

[Or, a simple view of what's wrong with our country]

Last night, a woman was held up by two men in a taxi she was riding in Makati. The first goon was the cab driver. His assistant hid in the trunk and came out when the driver stopped the cab to announce the stickup. They drove the victim around Makati for some time before finally letting the poor woman out.

I was hearing the news fresh through my car radio. It disturbed me to realize that events of these types have become normal for us.

I'm leaving for Australia tomorrow to attend Boyong and Lani's wedding. Then I go to New Zealand for a much needed vacation which the doctor has been telling me to take but I couldn't because there's been too much work blahblah excuses. Anyhow, the NZ trip has been at the back of my mind since two years ago, but i always encountered glitches. I felt that Mordor was meddling with this affair. This time, as soon as I got the Australian visa, I applied for the NZ visa.

It was Emmy time again and I was invited to talk about the 56th Emmys at Breakfast on Studio 23 (my second time). I like talking to the Breakfast gang -- they're a smart lot. We discussed what's different in this year's Emmys. One notable change is in the way they nominate: instead of voting for the usual top 5 shows per member, they were asked to vote for the top 10. The Emmy organizers have been concerned about the lower ratings on the Emmy awards night. Tradition proved to be the Emmys weakness: years of repeated wins by Frasier, The West Wing, etc have made the awards predictable (read: boring).