After three water-less days, water returned to run through the pipes and out of the faucets in our Makati apartment last Monday evening. Water service was cut-off last Saturday morning by Manila Water due to unpaid bills (not by the tenants but by our landlord probably). An entire weekend without water was crazy. As a rather stout fellow (as one of our expats referred to me once), it was hell as I was used to having at least a couple of showers a day.
When water did not leak out of the faucets by Sunday and there was no friendly neighbor willing to share their tap, my wife and my daughter, along with my in-laws and Ikai's yaya migrated to Pasig temporarily where my sis-in-law lived with an unlimited supply of fresh, NAWASA-filtered, Manila Water-distributed ... errr .. water. They stayed at Pasig until water service returned. On the other hand, due to circumstances that necessitated it, I was forced to remain in our water-less apartment to endure the heat.
In fact, come Monday morning I had to take a bath using half a bucket of drinking water. Our expense for drinking water ballooned last weekend, something like 300%, because that was the only way for us to get hold of water. No public pump nearby for the usual igib.
So, imagine the joy when the water service returned. That Monday night, I treated myself to an hour-long bath.
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zeus runneth anew
After a little more tweaking and a complete re-install, I got my Zeus: Master of Olympus PC game running again on my Windows XP after almost half-a-year sorting out its problem. All it needed was the installation of a patch that made it possible for you to run the game as compatible to Windows 2000.
Nevermind the thought that I now have to re-do the scenarios. The fun in Zeus is making your city work and learning from your previous runs. Thus, I think I managed to finish the first adventure, Zeus and Europa, quite easily and I've just started playing the Second Adventure: Perseus and Medussa.
It's a great way to have fun and a great diversion from a monotonous project I'm working on.
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dean alfar calls for spec fic works
Foremost speculative fiction author, Dean Alfar (www.deanalfar.blogspot.com), has recently announced that he's now accepting entries for the third anthology on speculative fiction. Here's the entry about it from his blog, copy-pasted ...
Call for Submissions: Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol.3
Monday, April 23, 2007
I am now accepting submissions of short fiction pieces for consideration for the anthology "Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol.3".
Speculative fiction is the literature of wonder that spans the genres of fantasy, science fiction, horror and magic realism or falls into the cracks in-between.
1. Only works of speculative fiction will be considered for publication. As works of the imagination, the theme is open and free.
2. Stories must cater to an adult sensibility. However, if you have a Young Adult story that is particularly well-written, send it in.
3. Stories must be written in English.
4. Stories must be authored by Filipinos or those of Philippine ancestry.
5. Preference will be given to original unpublished stories, but previously published stories will also be considered. In the case of previously published material, kindly include the title of the publishing entity and the publication date. Kindly state also in your cover letter that you have the permission, if necessary, from the original publishing entity to republish your work.
6. First time authors are welcome to submit. In the first two volumes, there was a good mix of established and new authors. Good stories trump literary credentials anytime.
7. No multiple submissions. Each author may submit only one story for consideration.
8. Each story’s word count must be no fewer than 2,500 words and no more than 5,000 words.
9. All submissions must be in Rich Text Format (.rtf – save the document as .rft on your word processor) and attached to an email to this address: dean@kestrelimc.com. Submissions received in any other format will be deleted, unread.
10. The subject of your email must read: PSF3 Submission: (title) (word count); where (title) is replaced by the title of your short story, without the parentheses, and (word count) is the word count of your story, without the parentheses. For example - PSF 3 Submission: How My Uncle Brought Home A Diwata 4500.
11. All submissions must be accompanied by a cover letter that includes your name, brief bio, contact information, previous publications (if any).
12. Deadline for submissions is September 15, 2007. After that date, final choices will be made and letters of acceptance or regret sent out via email.
13. Target publishing date is December 2007/January 2008.14. Compensation for selected stories will be 2 contributor’s copies of the published anthology as well as a share in aggregrate royalties.
(http://deanalfar.blogspot.com/2007/04/call-for-submissions-philippine.html)
Now, I really need to make sure I submit one this time. I already have a couple of stories in mind and I do hope to find the time to write them down in time for submission amidst all the work that needs to be done both officially and unofficially.
