Roosters

When I was interviewed recently by vlogger Vern Dahnke, we spoke briefly about the racket raised by so many roosters in the area. I also mentioned that one of my neighbors raised roosters for fighting.

Cockfighting is a popular sport in Philippines where there are legal and illegal fights. There are legal cockpits in many municipal areas, but there are also "illegal" fights held in rural areas.These private cockfights may be illegal, but like most laws and regulations here, the law against private cockfighting is rarely enforced.

I've never been to the authorized fights held in the arenas, but I've seen a few bouts on television as well as a few of the private cockfights held by neighbors. Contrary to what the aspca would have us believe, the cockfights here are not necessarily "to the death". Of course, an occasional rooster may be killed, but it isn't the intention of those holding the fight to have a rooster die.

While out on my morning walk recently, I took a few detours in order to get photographs. I came upon two of what I'd call rooster farms - not sure what they're actually called - and I took photos which I'm posting here.

Rugby?

One of the sports networks available on cable in Philippines - and not available in the U.S. - and quickly becoming one of my favorites is Setanta Sports. The network broadcasts Rugby football matches - both Rugby league and Rugby union. Until coming across this network, I had no understanding of Rugby. Not only did I not know the rules of the game, but I had no idea that there were two versions of the game. Not being able to watch College Football from the U.S., Rugby has become my favorite form of football - it's far and away better than soccer.

Now that I'm beginning to appreciate the game, I find that I prefer Rugby union over Rugby league. Although the rules of the game as followed by the two codes are very similar, I have noticed differences concerning tackling and the Scrum. The Scrum in Rugby union is a bit more rough and tumble than Rugby league Scrum. These additional rough and tumble aspects lead me to choose union over league matches, if given an option.

Saturday on the Setanta network is the day for Super Rugby - the largest rugby union competition in the southern hemisphere, consisting of teams from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

In addition to the Setanta network, Rugby matches are also shown on other European based cable channels in Philippines. I've been able to watch northern hemisphere matches between French teams as well as teams from Great Britain and Ireland.  My friends in the U.S. don't know what they're missing.

Game Seven

After the Cleveland Indians won game 4 of the World Series - putting them ahead of the Chicago Cubs 3 games to one - I really expected the Indians to win the series. After all, at that point, they needed only one more win while Chicago needed all three of the remaining games. I absolutely did not expect the series to go to the full seven games. It never crossed my mind at the beginning that the seventh game would go into 10 innings.

The only downside to watching the games on Philippine time is that if the game is played on a school day, I'll have to fetch my son from school for lunch before the game is over. I always have to leave the apartment during either the 8th or 9th inning. Today, I left the apartment at the top of the ninth while the score was still tied 6-6.

I was plesantly surprised when we arrived from school to find that there was a 10th inning rain dely. The game resumed while we were there. Sadly, I was home when the Cubs took 2 runs in the 10th. I had to take my son back to school before the Indians had their 10th inning.

When I returned from school the 2nd time the game was finally over. I'd wanted the Indians to win. Even though they lost the final game, it was something that they were able to bring it down to a one run win.

Games 3 and 4

Due to major time zone differences, Saturday morning here was when Game 3 of the 2016 World Series was shown live on Fox Sports 2. During Game 1, I started out as a neutral observer but was quickly impressed with the Cleveland Indians performance. Upon learning that Hillary Clinton was reported to be a fan of the Chicago Cubs, I decided to go all out for Cleveland.

Naturally, I was disappointed with Game 2, but I wasn't about to switch teams.

Saturday morning here, my son had to be at his school; I took him and my wife there just after the game started and due to a few SNAFU, I had to drive to the school a couple of times before the game ended. I had to pick them up and bring them home during the bottom of the ninth inning. I was confident that the Cubs wouldn't score in there final inning, but I wish I could have seen the end. A one run lead is a nail biter.

It would be Sunday morning here for Game 4. Not wanting to miss Mass, I went to the vigil Mass Saturday night.

Needless to say, I enjoyed this game more than I had Games 2 and 3. Two didn't go my way, and 3 was too close for comfort.

Monday morning's game (AKA Sunday night in US) will be the final game in Chicago. I'm hoping it will also be the final game in the 2016 World Series. The Cubs haven't won a World Series since 1908 and I'm sure many Cubs fans will be devastated to see their team lose all three of their games at home, but as Tom Hanks so aptly told us, there's no crying in baseball.

Game Two

In yesterday's post [World Series 2016 Game One] I mentioned that, because I had no emotional involvement with either the Cubs nor the Indians, it made little difference to me which team wins the 2016 World Series. In the aftermath of yesterday's game, my view towards the teams changed slightly.

I was much more impressed with Cleveland's performance in game one, and when I learned that Hillary Clinton claimed to be a Cubs fan, it was much easier for me to root for the Indians. Today's game was very much different from the first. It was as if two different teams were playing. To say that I was disappointed in Cleveland's game would be an under statement.

Also, yesterday, I wrote that I "suspected" that Cleveland would win the World Series this year. I may have spoken too soon, but the odds still appear in their favor. Home team, won first game. That's a good sign. AL teams have won the series more often - another good sign. Lastly, even though Cleveland hasn't won the World Series since 1948, the Cubs were in a 40 year slump then - which they've yet to pull out of.

Again, I'd rather see the Cleveland Indians win this year, but if the Chicago Cubs win, I won't shed any tears.

The next three games will be Saturday, Sunday and Monday mornings Philippines time. Looks like I'll need to find something else to blog on until then.

World Series 2016 Game One.

Now that I'm retired and living outside the U.S., I try to watch Major League Baseball when ever I can. There are a number of reasons for that. One, because I don't have to sent my time to a work schedule, I don't have to worry about games interfering with a job. Secondly, it is nice to be a part of something going on in the United States. Unfortunately, I'm unable to watch college football here - no SEC - but Fox Sports 2 does show MLB regularly. I'm not anal about the sport. I don't have to follow the games obsessively, but I do enjoy the opportunity to watch a game fairly regularly.

I've been looking forward to watching this year's World Series. I'm not emotionally involved with either Chicago or Cleveland. It doesn't really matter a great deal to me which team wins - as long as the games are played well.

Due to the time difference, the first game of the series began at 8:00 AM today - Philippine time. I'd have plenty of time to take my son to school and return home to watch the game. The only drawback is that I need to fetch my son around 11:30 AM for lunch, which means with the 10 to 15 minute drive time to his school, I have to leave before the bottom of the eight inning. After Chicago missed their chance in the 7th and 8th innings, I was confident that Cleveland would win the game while I was on my way to pick my son, but I was surprised when I returned and discovered - via the Internet - that Cleveland doubled their score in the eight.

It was announced during the game that tomorrow's game will be moved ahead one hour due to the possibility of bad weather in Cleveland. That means the game will begin at 7:00 AM Philippine time and I should be able to watch the entire game before time to fetch my son for lunch.

Three hours before the game, Dana Perino was asked by one of her co-anchors on The Five which team she believed would win the World Series. I'm not sure why her prediction would be any better or worse than anyone else. She said she'd wait until after she watched the first game before predicting the final winner. I have no inside information, but I suspect Perino will pick the Cleveland Indians. If she does, I suspect she'll be correct.

Paul Simon Can't Save this Election

I'm hardly the first person to compare the 2016 election for POTUS to the 1968 slugfest. Racial tensions, violent demonstrations through out the country and, not one, but two Nixonian candidates. The Baby Boomers, who were coming of age politically in 1968, and who haven't elected one of their own since 2004, appear to be on the receiving end of political Karma this election cycle.

With the election of Barack Obama, many believed that George W. Bush and Bill Clinton would be the last Baby Boomers to serve as POTUS. Sadly, with Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Gary Johnson and Jill Stein in the race, it looks like the boomers will get at least one more shot.

We here in Philippines are 12 hours ahead of the Eastern Time zone in the U.S.. This morning, I had plans to watch a live, Major League Baseball game on television. When my only option for that turned out to be the Kansas City Royals versus the Los Angeles Angels, I decided to  waste  spend my time instead watching some of the Democrat convention coverage.

Changing the TV, I was just in time to see my least favorite politician - Al Franken - and my 2nd least favorite comedian (after Al Franken), Sarah Silverman try to convince Bernie Sanders supporters to fall in line behind Hillary.

I actually stuck around to see if Silverman would get booed for her betrayal to the Bern man.

Before leaving the stage, Silverman and Franken introduced singer/songwriter Paul Simon, who sang "A Bridge Over Troubled Water" in what some might call an attempt to bring about unity within the Democrat Party.

In 1968, I was a huge fan of Paul Simon and his partner, Art Garfunkel. In 1968, a political endorsement from Paul Simon would have impressed me and could have actually swayed my decision (had I been able to vote in 1968). Today, Paul Simon could never convince me to vote for anyone, not even for old time's sake.

Naturally, RollingStone.com and Breitbart.com have contrary views on Simon's performance. RollingStone said Simon's singing was "spirited" while Breitbart said a "Hoarse Paul Simon Croaks Out 'Bridge Over Troubled Water.' ". As much as I hate writing this, I have to agree with Breitbart.

Simon's singing was pitiful. Simon was never a strong singer, but it was always pleasant enough. Not now. I was embarrassed for the soon to be 75 year old. I was also embarrassed for the hand holding, side to side swaying Democrats in attendance.

Can the up and coming, young Bernie Sanders Democrats relate to Paul Simon? In 1968, Frank Sinatra was twenty years younger that Paul Simon is today. I can't imagine anyone in 1968 expecting to win over young voters with Frank Sinatra.

I really don't enjoy knocking Paul Simon. He was, at one time, one of my musical heroes. I wish, however, he would stay away from political endorsements and for the sake of our memories, retire from singing.

The Dumbbells

It's not unusual for me to push myself beyond the limits. That's usually a good thing......it's how I learned to play guitar and how I approach creativity in general.

Going full tilt isn't always a good thing, however. Pushing myself full blast was how I hurt my shoulder recently, while weight training. The situation had gotten to the point where the pain was getting too much and I had no other choice than to stop lifting weights for a bit and let my shoulder recuperate. I didn't give up exercising completely, of course. My son and I still went out 6 mornings a week for a daily walk. After letting my shoulder rest, I was able to continue the yoga sun salutation asanas before my walk.

Now that my shoulder feels back to normal, I've decided that, rather than return to the gym, I'd buy dumbbells to do the weight training at home.

I had been looking at a set of dumbbells in the sporting dept. at Lee's Plaza. In the U.S. the dumbbells would be sold boxed up; here, the dumbbell bar is loaded with assorted plates, put together unboxed. That would work fine for me. There would be plenty of plates to allow me to adjust the weight how I liked. Each dumbbell bar came with 8 plates - 4 plates on each side. I purchased two sets in order to balance my weight training. Some exercises can be done with only one dumbbell, but there are some which work better with two dumbbells, one for each hand.

Rather than carry the two dumbbell sets to my car, I had two (younger) Lee's Plaza employees to help. One young man took the sets apart and boxed the two sets. It was when I arrived home and unboxed the sets that I noticed something odd.

One set included the following plates 2@ 2.5 kg each. 2@ 2kg each, 2@1.25kg each and 2@1kg each. Total weight: 13.5 kilos (29.76241 lbs).
Strangely enough, the other set was slightly different. 2@ 2.5 kg each. 2@ 2kg each, 2@1.5kg each and 2@0.75kg each. Total weight: 13.5 kilos (29.76241 lbs).

The total weight for each dumbbell set was the same, but the plates were not. I suppose that actually works out better because of the added flexibility in loading the dumbbells, but it strikes me as odd that it turned out that way.

Sepak Takraw

As I mentioned in a post from March, we get more than 120 TV channels with our cable TV package, quite a few of those being sports networks.

Unfortunately, American college football is unavailable. The nearest we get to football is rugby, which I suppose is very popular in Australia. Occasionally, I can watch American Major League Baseball. Basketball seems to be the most popular sport on TV here, but I actually prefer volleyball.

In was in that post from March that I mentioned seeing televised camel racing. In that post, I was wondering how the the promoters could be certain that the camels would continue to run around the track without a jockey guiding them and pushing them in the right direction. A friend living in U.A.E. told me that the camel were chasing something mechanical much like greyhounds do when they're racing.

Channel surfing last night, I came upon another sport that was new to me - Sepak takraw. Basically, the game is volleyball played with one's feet. In the game, the players use a rattan ball and are only allowed to use their feet, knee, chest and head to touch the ball.

I came upon a match between Vietnam and Thailand. The jpg is a shot of the TV. Just to give an idea how the game is played, I videoed a minute or so of the game. It isn't the highest quality video, but it gets the point across.

For those interested, Thailand, in red, won the match in all three sets.

Camel Racing

In our barangay (Cangmating, Sibulan), when it comes to cable television, we have only one choice regarding which company we can access - Fil Products. When we were living in barangay Poblacion we had Sky Cable; they're not available here. I'm not complaining, just giving the facts.

With our cable, we have 120 television stations, not all of those stations, of course are Filipino stations. We have local networks, but we also have News, Sports, Educational and Entertainment channels from all over the world. We have stations from the U.S., Australia, Europe and Asia. We get stations broadcasting in nearly every language imaginable; Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, French, German...yeah, and even English, Tagalog and Visayan.

One of the Sports channels available to us is an Arabic language channel from Qatar, Al-Kass Sports.

Last night, while channel surfing, I came upon camel racing on Al-Kass. Several questions came to my mind, regarding this camel race, which went unanswered due to my not being able to understand anything being said.

For one thing, as one can see from the photo I took of my television screen, there were no riders on the camels. This contradicts photos found on the wikipedia article covering the subject.

Why are the camels riderless? How can the promoters be certain the camels will continue to run without a jockey guiding them and pushing them in the right direction?

Mayweather - Pacquiao Rematch? Let's Hope Not.

According to Rappler.com, Mayweather says he’ll fight Pacquiao again in a year.

In spite of being promoted as history in the making, the recent Mayweather - Pacquiao love-fest did not come close to living up to the hype.

Will I put down good money see a rematch? Not likely. In my view, both "boxers" stole the money paid out.

In the future, I'd rather watch this -

Casey at the Bat.

From the poem by Ernest Thayer.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville — mighty Casey has struck out.

Filipinos Urged to Conserve Electricity During Pacquiao-Mayweather Fight.

I feel like I should state, from the beginning, that the source for this story is not Internet News Network (I.N.N.) . I confess, I've been guilty, in the past of posting links to satirical web stories, like Dead Beatles Reincarnate and Al Gore Sues Sun's Owner Over Global Warming, as a way of getting a few laughs, but I came upon this story on the Al Jazeera website, and as far as I can tell, the story is absolutely true.

According to Al Jazeera,

An energy official in the Philippines on Friday urged households to disconnect major appliances — but keep their televisions turned on — to avoid a mass blackout during Saturday night’s long-awaited bout between boxing champs Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather.

Rante Ramos, secretary for the Palawan Electric Cooperative, said turning off refrigerators in 15,000 households could reduce electricity use by 2 megawatts, enough to compensate for the heavy demand television viewers will place on electricity grids when they tune in to see fellow countryman Pacquiao take on Mayweather, an American.

Ramos said air conditioners, washing machines and electric pots also consume a lot of electricity and should be turned off.

Big power consumers – including malls, department stores and hotels – have agreed to disconnect from the grid and use their own power generators from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Sunday to also help reduce the load.

It will be Sunday morning, here in Philippines when the fight is televised live from the U.S.. We were not able to purchase pay-per-view via our cable company. We're hoping, however that we will be able to attend at one of the local venues in Dumaguete where it might be available.

We'll attend the vigil Mass Saturday evening so we should be able to see the fight. If, as I hope, we'll be able to see the pay-per-view at Lee Plaza Sunday AM, I will do my part and turn off the AC in the apartment before heading into town. Sorry, but the refrigerator stays plugged in.

If we're unable to watch the live pay-per-view, there's no way I'll sit in this apartment without air conditioning. We'll just have to risk the brown out.

Super Bowl Sunday in Seattle.

I'm going to resist the urge to be snarky with this post.

Last Sunday was, as we all know, "Super-bowl Sunday" in the United States. At Mass in one of the parishes in Seattle, the Priest held his own particular type of service.

As reported by Church Militant.TV.



Catholic blogger, Mark Shea lives in Washington State and is a self proclaimed Seattle Seahawks fan so we can be certain that he is aware of this.

I've been looking for a comment on this Mass on Mr. Shea's blog, but I haven't seen one.

I sent an email to him asking for a comment. As I said, I've resisted the urge to be snarky. I simply sent a link to the above video with the question, "Any comment on this?"

We'll see.

Update:

I've received a reply to my email to Mr Shea. His blog "Adheres to the Welborn Protocol", so in this case, I will as well.

Where would Church Militant be without something to gin up rage about every week?

Re: the sanctuary. It was stupid. My guess is the priest has already heard from Abp Sartain about it. I'm told his rationale is that the community is still recovering from a school shooting that happened at Marysville High last October. I tend to never attribute to malice what can be sufficiently explained by stupidity. Voris' tendency is to latch on to even completely innocent people and use them as human punching bags for the delectation of his cult of personality. Anger porn is porn.
 
Mark

Lee Predicts Crimson Tide Victory.

In an email today, Daily Events writer Tony Lee gives his prediction on tonight's Alabama vs LSU game tonight.

After admitting his "Alabama biases" he predicts Alabama 31, LSU 13.

I don't see that. In their last outing, LSU beat Alabama by 3 points. As much as I'd love to see LSU win this one as well, I admit that there's always the possibility that Alabama could win this time. However, the 31 to 13 score doesn't appear realistic to me.

I know...... folks outside the South have little interest in this game. That could be why we won't find the game telecast on the regular networks tonight.

Will Oklahoma City OK the LFL?

OK, I admit it; I am not a fan of professional football. I have no interest in watching millionaires play ball.

I will, on occasion, watch college football - particularly if I think there's a chance I can see Alabama getting beat.

Being unfamiliar with "the Super Bowl halftime alternative television special called the Lingerie Bowl" , I was totally unaware of the Lingerie Football League (LFL) until I came across a news story telling how Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett was against the idea of the league bringing a franchise to his city. Now,in typical political fashion, Cornett says, “I just said I was against it. I never said that I wouldn't allow it.”

The league hopes to expand to Oklahoma City in time for the 2011 season.

LFL spokesman Stephon McMillen said, "We find it interesting that satanic worship at the Civic Center and cheerleaders wearing far less than our athletes is moral, but LFL is not.”

After a bit of web searching, I found a few clips of LFL games on MTV2 . I've always felt that my post are more interesting with visuals, so I'm including a screenshot from one of the videos; it wasn't easy deciding which screenshot to use.

Sure, the game was interesting....I just can't remember the final score or which team won.