BRAIN DRAIN

Mary Poppins on Broadway. I suppose it had to happen some time.

The Wii delivers.

I know this because I am now hooked on Wii Sports. Although I haven’t given baseball or golf a swing (pun intended), I am all for the occasional round of boxing. I’m also now positively obsessed with bowling, and am determined to improve my backhand in tennis. All of this on the Wii, and in spite of the fact that I also bought The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, now gathering dust - unopened - in its little corner of my shelf.

And then there is the virtual console, which is nostalgia in a box. With my internet connection, and for anywhere between $6 to $10 a pop, I now have the ability to download games from the NES, SNES, Nintendo64, Sega Genesis and TurboGrafx16 as Nintendo makes them available (of course, in some cases this does require the appropriate controller, but that’s another story). For now there aren’t many games yet, but this has nowhere to go but up. In any event I’m sure that, when the time comes, Mario64 - already downloaded and waiting for me - will keep me well enough busy.

However, there are minor disappointments. Not all the “Wii Channels” promised by Nintendo are as yet available; in particular, the internet browser is still not there. Also, my virtual console copy of Sonic the Hedgehog (all $8 worth of it) seems to be buggy; for lack of a better way to describe it, the frame-rate seems to lag, making it nearly impossible to watch Sonic speed through each stage, let alone play the game. But this might have more to do with the TV than the console. As for the rest, well, at least the functionality is already there.

Besides, the whole point of the Wii is the revolutionary motion-sensitive controller, which from firsthand experience really adds an entirely new dimension to gaming. Will the novelty wear off? Personally, I don’t think so; at least, not completely. The ability to swing one’s arms around and have an avatar onscreen do almost exactly the same is just too good for words; in fact, on more than one occasion have I been prompted to wonder out loud, “Why hasn’t anyone thought of this before?” Really, they probably have, and it’s about time that someone has been able to implement it so masterfully.

But I cannot help but wonder: as consoles such as the Wii increase in sophistication, becoming more and more capable of emulating how we move and act in reality, why will anyone bother escaping into what should be the “unreality” of a video game? Believe me: it is extreme fun to stand (yes, stand!) in front of the TV and take what for all intents and purposes is a “swing” at the ball. But as many times as I’ve done that I must also have asked myself why I don’t do so for real.

I’ve never been the athletic type, and have never otherwise been possessed to take up tennis. Yet here I am, in the comfort of my room, trying to figure out how to perfect my backhand return. Does the appeal lie in mystery behind the enormous amount of effort it takes to develop such complex technology, making it do what can possibly be done much more easily with a real tennis racket and a real tennis ball? Perhaps: just when I figure that I might just be better off with the real thing instead of a video game, the instinctive response kicks in: but this is just too cool.

Surely there will be time enough for me to figure this all out. In the meantime, however, I think my backhand could still use some work.

I’ve never really understood Thanksgiving (the holiday) and all its trappings. The fascination with turkey and stuffing. Or yam. Or cranberry sauce. Besides, I find it difficult, though very appropriate, to have a completely secular celebration around the subject of “giving thanks”, which I usually associate with some form religious expression. After all, what else is there to be thankful for if not blessings?

But since I’m in the States, I guess I’d better act like a Roman. Or something like that.

Happy thankgiving to all.

And all it took was a four-and-quarter hour wait in line!

My iPod Shuffle (the stick, not the stamp) doubles as my flash drive. When I do bring it with me to class I usually keep it in my pencil case. Yesterday, however, when I remembered that it needed charging, I opened the pencil case to find that it wasn’t there.

This set off an episode of momentary panic. After a frenzied search that included emptying the bag and looking everywhere else in the apartment where it could not possibly be, it was clear that the Shuffle was missing. This meant three possibilities: one, that I left it in the economics department’s conference room on one of the public use computers; two, that I left it at the terminal I used in the computer lab the night before; or three, that it was pilfered from my bag on my way home after class.

Of these, I had doubts about the first two. I was pretty sure I hadn’t left it in the conference room because I vaguely recalled having it in hand later that evening. I was less certain about having it on me after class, though I could recall very clearly that the last thing I did before I left the room was to look back at my computer terminal to make sure I hadn’t left anything. That left the the subway scenario. This seemed the most plausible because I’d fallen asleep for most of the trip back to the city. Also, there was an additional item missing from the pencil case: my white eraser, which an unscrupulous individual intent on a quick score might also mistake for an iPod Shuffle, given its size and shape.

Regardless of how it had gotten lost, one thing was for sure: my Shuffle had been missing for at least 21 hours.

That thought didn’t quite console me. After trying to find anyone I knew who might still be in school, the futility of it all began to set in. Then, for no particular reason, I concluded that I’d never be able to live with myself if I didn’t know for sure, so I took off to search for it in school.

First stop: the conference room. No sign of it. The USB hub I’d stuck it in was empty, and there was no indication that anyone might have found it and set it aside.

That left the only other place I might be able to find it: the computer lab. Realistically, this was a crapshoot: given the number of students that use that classroom across levels and disciplines, the likelihood that someone would find it and turn it in as “lost and found” were extremely minimal.

So it was just my luck that, when I got off the elevator to the appropriate floor, there was a janitor closing up the computer room for the evening. Thankfully, he was kind enough to let me have a look inside the room.

There, underneath the keyboard of the terminal I used the night before, was my iPod Shuffle. And my white eraser.

I was beside myself with relief that I think I smiled at each and every person that made eye contact with me on the way back to the apartment. (I must have seemed like such a creep!)

Looking back, this got me thinking: is smaller necessarily better? When it comes to technology, innovation always means “less is more”, and tech companies fall over each other to make their products smaller than the previous model with at least the same functionality. Everything from computers to cellular phones or automobile engines are becoming smaller. Indeed, in many cases the “smallness” of these technologies have become their selling point: as an example, the latest incarnation of the iPod Shuffle is ridiculously small, which is precisely its appeal.

But at the same time, people seem to have an innate predisposition to losing things. On the one hand, people keep misplacing things such as umbrellas or forgetting where they parked their car in a crowded lot, and these are relatively large and hard to miss. On the other hand, we seem to want those things that we do have to become more compact, presumably to save on space. But this is inevitably the same reason they become just that much easier to lose.

Would it be so bad if some of the technologies we like to have with us from day to day - celphones, MP3 players or what have you - were manufactured just a little bit larger? Given the sizes in which they come today, “a little bit larger” can’t be that big a deal (pun intended). While it won’t serve as a guarantee, there must be some ideal balance that can be struck for gadgets such that they’re small enough to remain portable but remain bulky enough that one would notice more easily if they’ve been left behind.

For my part, I wouldn’t mind if my Shuffle were a little bit larger, if for no other reason than to notice whether or not I have it on my person. But I don’t know how I’d feel about lugging around a huge white eraser.

This year’s Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, still a work-in-progress. Hopefully, I’ll get to swing by again to take a snapshot of the finished product before I fly home for the holidays.

Scene: At a subway station, on my way home from class.

As the subway ground to a halt, I spy a group of three waiting on the platform to get into the stopping car (which I happen to be on). Apparently, they all know each other: they’re chatting happily along.

The train stops, the doors open, they get in.

They say goobye to one another.

And then proceed to take separate seats inside the same - practically empty - subway car.

Really: there are just some things I will never understand.

This trailer looks even more boombastic than the previous ones. Can’t wait.

I.

I was checking my email on a public use computer before class when I received a surprise instant message on a pop-up window from my friend, Manny.

The surprise was that this was my first opportunity to see Google Talk in action. I hardly ever check my account via browser (I let my mail client do that for me), and the pop-ups that work on a regular PC aren’t supported on a Mac. Even if I did set up Google Talk on iChat some time ago I could never bring myself to take on yet another IM service.

I think that’s really the crux of the matter. My on and off foray into IM began with the grand-daddy of it all: ICQ. But at some point - I know not when or why - the novelty just wore off on me, and I found that IM in general did less to improve productivity and became one enormous waste of time.

Then I ended up displaced, first in Singapore and then New York. Suddenly, IM became quite useful again. And it also became unwieldy. I needed an AOL Instant Messenger account just to video chat with my parents and my girlfriend via iChat, some of my contacts were locked into MSN Messenger, others were only on Yahoo Messenger, while somewhere in the ether my ICQ account lay dormant. And now there’re my Gmail contacts, some of whom apparently have been trying to get in touch with me via Google Talk for some time now (thank you, Gmail chat history).

Times like these, I wish there was an IM client that would do it all. So far, the closest thing there is to one out there that I know of, at least for Mac users, is Adium. I’ve been resisting the urge to download it partly because it’s still not perfect (it doesn’t allow video or voice chat yet, and file transfer can be a bit dodgy) and partly because the cynic in me is certain that 90% of my chat-addicted contacts are already on two or three of the different IM networks anyway, so I’m bound to run into them online without even trying.

But for the remaining 10% that use only one or another service…why not?

II.

My former student and erstwhile look-alike, Jan Ong, brought to my attention that Google Earth now has a working Mac version. Naturally, after downloading it, I couldn’t help but look up home sweet home.

Whereupon I ended up zooming in on one world-class Philippine traffic jam.

Go figure.

In the “truth is stranger than fiction” category, I have two book recommendations that aren’t really anything new. However, not really knowing much about the events surrounding the first (I was born years after), and being too young to really understand what was going on with respect to the second, I found them thoroughly enjoyable.

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were the journalistic team that broke the Watergate scandal in 1972, and their book All the President’s Men is a memoir of sorts. Chronicling the highs and lows of their efforts at the Washington Post to unmask the cover-up being orchestrated by the White House, there is no doubt that the book is as relevant today as it was when it first came out, and the events no less shocking over thirty years later.

Most write-ups of the book describe it as a political thriller. This is certainly apropros, though it should be noted from the onset that the narrative tends to suffer from the dry tone and meticulous detail characteristic of newspaper reporting. In fact, it is almost as if the book were cobbled together under the assumption that the reader had been following the regular reports filed by the authors at the Post as the story unfolded. Nonetheless, it is hard not to be riveted by Bernstein and Woodward’s account of the reckless abuse of power by the White House. In this regard, the power of the story derives from the fact that these events actually did happen.

There is no doubt that the book will appeal to those keenly interested in history and politics. However, while obviously a vital resource on Watergate, it is as much a story of excellent journalism as it is political reportage. Indeed, I find that what I enjoyed the most from the book (and only by a small margin, mind) was less the blow-by-blow of the White House cover-up and more the behind the scenes account of the lengths to which the reporters had to go in order to get the story. Reading the book, one better appreciates what good journalism is all about: the ethical dilemmas that reporters face in light of the need to get the story, the effort it takes to come up with a story that can stand on its own and be fair, and the skills that good journalists must hone that have nothing to do with writing. Indeed, if the reader will take away nothing but these insights from All the President’s Men, it will have been well worth the time spent reading.

Switching gears, Barbarians at the Gate by Bryan Burroughs and John Helyar depicts the largest corporate takeover in American history: Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co.’s $25 billion leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco. Reporting for the Wall Street Journal at the time, Burroughs and Helyar reconstruct the events surrounding the takeover from in-depth interviews with the key principals and put into perspective how and why events turned out as they did. A thorough and accessible reader into the inner workings of big business, it is no wonder that the book remains on the reading lists of many business and MBA programs.

One might think that the book is but another treatise on the excesses of corporate greed. That would be unfair. Notwithstanding its importance, the book is less about avarice than it is about hubris; specifically what happens when the most competitive creatures on this planet - business executives - pull out all the stops when they decide that losing is not an option (and are still able to keep near everything above board!). Hence, the appeal of the book derives from the authors’ ability to paint the all-too-human follies of those involved, making the man on the street realize that captains of American industry can act like children, too.

From a narrative perspective the book is a gem, precisely because Burroughs and Helyar have gone to every effort to write the book as a story. They succeed marvelously. Spending as much time as they did with the important players, and with the benefit of hindsight, the authors tell a tale that is actually quite stunning. It is grave in some areas, ridiculously humorous in others. It describes the wheeling, dealing and politicking that must be a part of every businessman’s repertoire, as well as the irrationality that sometimes gets the better of otherwise well-educated (and respected) individuals. But above all else, it is a story that - whether by chance or design - is just too crazy not to be true. Had the events in Barbarians not actually transpired, it is inconceivable that anyone could have thought up anything that can quite compare.

Barbarians at the Gate is certainly light reading, but that has more to do with the authors’ skill than the subject matter. In the hands of lesser authors, it is difficult to imagine a piece that can appeal to both the layman and those steeped in the language of business. One need not be particularly interested in business or corporate affairs to enjoy this book, but will learn upon reading it a lot about how business is (and occasionally, should not be) done: mainly, those things that cannot really be taught in a classroom.