Pineapple Cake

Last Friday, I published a post on one of my other blogs, about my adventures with baking banana cake (AKA banana bread) using 3rd class flour. The banana cake turned out so well that I decided to try making a pineapple cake.

The photo is above.

I'll be making this again. We all enjoyed it, and it's quick and easy.

The recipe is essentially the same as a banana cake with a few minor changes. Of course, the bananas are substituted with crushed pineapple. I use white sugar instead of brown, and I completely leave out the vanilla and cinnamon.

Living Room Ceiling - Day One.

It's been quite a long time since I last posted anything about the work being done on the house. In this post, I'll be publishing some photos of the recent work on the living room ceiling.

We're hoping to completely finish the entire ceiling (including dining room and kitchen) soon. There will be more photos to follow.

Fun With GIMP

Music Most Lame

For the first time in his fifty eight year career, Bob Dylan has finally charted a number hit on Billboard with a 17 minute "song" entitled Murder Most Foul.

I was tempted to refer to it as Music Most Foul after my attempt to listen to it, but that changed to Music Most Boring until finally deciding on the title of this post, Music Most Lame.

 I couldn't force myself to listen to the entire song, although I was able to scan over the lyrics found online.

Dylan was 22 when JFK was assassinated - I was 11 - and he's still processing it's meaning today. For many years, when I was growing up, no one spoke any ill of President Kennedy. We were convinced that he had been a saint. My generation came to hate the Vietnam War and the U.S. Presidents involved in the war - particularly Johnson and Nixon, but we were ignorant for the most part, of Kennedy's role in the war.

Being currently trapped at home during this covid19 pandemic I've been spending a good deal of my time watching Netflix. As I write this, I've just finished watching two episodes of Ken Burn's documentary of the Vietnam war and my opinion of JFK has fallen. Kennedy's reputation had suffered in my view years ago when I first learned of his extramarital affairs and now it's at rock bottom.

Little wonder that he was so admired by Bill Clinton.

No Via Crucis in 2020

Today is Good Friday, and normally in Philippines we'd be participating in a massive Via Crucis procession. This is my fifth Good Friday in Sibulan, and I've been looking forward to joining the procession again this year. This was to be my sixth Via Crucis in a row, and my seventh total. The first one I attended was during our visit in 2007.

Unfortunately, this year's Via Crucis was canceled due the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) brought about in response to the covid19 pandemic.

To my understanding, this is the first time the Via Crucis has been canceled nation wide. I don't know if even an isolated, local procession has ever been canceled, for that matter.

No Palm Sunday Masses; no Maundy Thursday observance. It's not been a typical Holy Week in Philippines.

Unless extended by the provincial Governor, the ECQ is scheduled to be over by the end of next week. It's unfortunate that the 14 days that the authorities believed was needed to stem the advance of the virus had to include Holy Week.

Let's hope life returns to normal soon, and we have a wonderful Holy Week in 2021.

An Update

As I've mentioned a number of times, I recently attempted to post a link from this blog onto my Facebook page. Although I had done so in the past, I was no longer allowed to do so because this blog now goes against Facebook's Community Standards.

I've continued to try and post links from this blog with no success. I have tried to contact Facebook to find out why this has happened, also with no success.

The only possible explanation to my mind is that someone must have flagged one of my posts as inappropriate, though for the life of me, I can't imagine which of the posts I've written could've offended anyone.

A few months ago, I got into a row of sorts with someone here in Dumaguete. Because of our disagreement, I unfriended that person on Facebook. It's quite possible that in an act of revenge, this person complained to Facebook about a blog post - not because of anything inappropriate I might have written, but purely from spite.

Of course, I have no way of proving this, but it seems to me to be the only logical explanation.

As I'm no longer friends with this individual, I'm sure this person is unaware of my new blog. Hopefully, it won't have a problem on Facebook.

Redirect

In order for my new blog to eventually qualify for Goole Adsense, I'm told I need to have unique content published on the blog. Of course, that's a relatively simple matter, but I'd also like to maintain some readers here as well.

I don't want to simply post the exact content onto both blogs. I can, however direct the readers here to the other blog by way of a link.

Today, I published a piece entitled Camus During COVID19 Days.

Here's hoping this will lead folks there.

Sorry, Not Sorry

When I created my new blog a few days ago, the plan was to phase out this older blog, Sorry, All The Clever Names Are Taken. As I explained earlier, the older blog suffered under a name that was difficult to pass on to other folks by word of mouth. I had also experienced a problem with Facebook, which had inexplicably banned the older blog for going against Facebook's "community standards". I have absolutely no idea why that was done. Like a certain Captain Beefheart LP, this blog is safe as milk.

However, I've decided to delay the ending of this blog for the time being. I'll do my best to keep up this blog, the new one, and the Dumaguete Website blog, which I have shamefully neglected.

My two older blogs feature Google ads, and naturally I wanted this for the new blog. Unfortunately, it appears that I may have to wait, possibly two weeks before Google allows ads to be featured on the new blog.

So, for the time being, I will continue all three blogs.

My New Blog

I've been blogging since 2006. I've started, and finished a number of blogs, but the one I've used most consistently over the years is Sorry, All The Clever Names Are Taken.

I've been thinking that the name of that blog was just a bit too clever. It works with using a link, but it's cumbersome when telling the name to someone and expecting them to remember it. I've been lazy, and in spite of wanting to create a new blog with a easier name, I've been putting it off.

Circumstances have pushed me to finally follow through on the plan to create that new blog.

Due to the COVID19 causing havoc around the globe, the area where I'm living in Philippines has been placed under Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) and I wanted to begin writing about the situation and my experiences living under the ECQ. I wrote that post this morning, (ECQ Day One ) and attempted to put a link to that post onto my Facebook page.

Unfortunately, I was unable to post the link. Facebook said the blog was banned due it's not following community standards. I couldn't understand how or why that happened. I put the same post onto another of my blogs, and the link was accepted on Facebook. With all that, I've decided the time was right to create a new blog under an easier name to get across - hence, robertsimms.blogspot.com. Perhaps, one day, if the url is available, I'll use my name with a dot com or dot net.

This will mark the first post on the new blog. It will also be simultaneously posted on Sorry, All The Clever Names Are Taken.

ECQ Day One

Today is the first day of what we've been told will be a two week Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) in an attempt by the Provincial Governor of Negros Oriental to stem the tide of the corona virus here.

We've been pretty much on a lock down status for a few weeks, but this will be Quarantine on Steroids.

Students and seniors, 65 and older had been ordered to stay at home a while back, and that rule remains in effect. We've all been under a 9:00PM to 5:00 AM curfew for weeks, however now the restrictions on everyone else in the province have gotten tighter.

Only one person from a household will be allowed outside the home, and that person is severely limited as to where and when he can go out. Each household has been issued a quarantine pass which must be presented at checkpoints. I've been told that the person going out must surrender his ID at the checkpoint and must return home through the same checkpoint within a certain time frame in order to retrieve the ID.

I'm pretty much a homebody, so the quarantine hasn't been a burden for me, although now it will be a little more complicated getting my money from the bank. That is my main complain now.

This call for an ECQ apparently comes a recent event at a port in Sibulan, Negros Oriental. The borders of the Province had been closed, with only cargo being allowed to enter. Out of humanitarian concerns, a passenger ferry was allowed to bring home stranded residents of Negros from Cebu island. Photos of the arriving passengers were posted onto social media. These photos showed that these passengers were not practicing "social distancing" and most were not wearing masks. None of these arriving passengers underwent any medical exam, we're told that the passengers were not instructed to self quarantine.

These photos sent the local medical community into a frenzy; generating a petition from front liners to the Governor demanding an ECQ.

I suspect this move by the Governor is based more on politics than on anything else.

The powers that be in our area are notorious for not enforcing laws and regulations. It remains to be seen how this will work out.