China must be the only country that still circulates paper fractional currency. Called the jiao, it is 1/10th of a yuan.

This particular payphone model would have been a familiar sight to Pinoys of a certain age. Before I forget, a Happy New Year to you and yours!

Haha, I was just advised by the LRA eSerbisyo portal help desk to use a Windows machine and a non-Safari browser to access it.

It's a good thing that some government websites are now requiring users to TOTP-based 2FA to completely access its resources. It's a bad thing, however, for them not to implement a backup method should that one fail.

There’s a two-part documentary on Henry Kissinger, part of its American Experience series, that you may want to watch on @pbs.org

I'm surprised that some government offices still continue to deliver online services to the public from private, ie. not gov.ph, domains.

Church cat.

Eighty years ago today, Imperial Japanese Army general Tomoyuki Yamashita formally surrendered the remaining Japanese forces in the Philippines to the Allies. He and his men were captured the day before, in Kiangan, Ifugao.

A pair of cats hanging out on the Melchior Hall steps.

This moderation comment by Bluesky on a reposted Far Side cartoon is worthy of one in itself.

I haven’t been as excited with digital cameras of late as I have with the new Fujifilm X half. #xhalf

A Shanghai doggo guarding an art supplies store on Fuzhou Road.

Awesome news! More #SlowHorses seasons #AppleTV+ 9to5mac.com/2025/07/0…

Are you going to travel by air within or out of China now? Chinese airport security agents will confiscate powerbanks that aren't granted a China Compulsory Certificate (CCC) and aren't labeled with the CCC mark, like so:

Market Market cat.

Protected and unprotected bicycle lanes, Beijing.

The Victoria & Albert Museum @V_and_A identifies this 1914 autochrome photo as of a building in India. This image, however, strongly resembles that of the Manila Cathedral. collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O144374...

Goldens of Beijing.

Corgis of Beijing.

Interesting that Cardinal Tagle, a popular papal prospect, never figured as one in the voting that mattered.

Cats sleeping in tandem.

Pilates studio corgi.

Pilates exercises look deceptively easy.

This was the only time I got to see Pope Francis in the flesh, purely by chance and not long after he was elected by the papal conclave of 2013.

The Cat Distribution System at work. Say hello to our seventh cat.

It looks like BBC Sounds - the app that delivers BBC national and regional radio services to audiences worldwide - will be limited to listeners in the UK this year.

We are now home to seven cats, up from the five at the beginning of the year. The latest kitten - a tuxedo - sneaked its way in Thursday night.

Which brings me to ask: has anyone challenged the OMB's expansive definition of what "optical media" is?

I just found out that the import of USB security keys require a permit from the Optical Media Board because it probably thinks they are mass storage devices that are covered by the term "optical media" in RA 9239.

"Gigil" and 41 other borrowed, untranslatable words made it to the Oxford English Dictionary. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/27/s...

I made it to Bonnie's Tailoring today and I hope I get a well-fitting suit in the end.

It looks like the VOA TV app is back online.

Notwithstanding last year's closure of the Baguio Midland Courier, it seems other papers are alive and well in that highland city.

The Voice of America transmitter site in Tinang, Concepcion, Tarlac is visble even at night from the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway, thanks to its tower anti-collision lights.

Typewriters for sale, a couple of Olympias and an electric Smith-Corona.

The closure of the Voice of America will also mean the closure of its transmitters in the Philippines. I know of two, one in Tinang, Concepcion, Tarlac. The other is in Poro Point, San Fernando, La Union.

Wolf Hall is free to stream again on PBS @pbs.org.

It's going to be chilly up there in The Hague tomorrow. Mr. Weatherman says expect highs of 7 °C and lows of 3 °C.

Today marks the 80th anniversary of the Tokyo Great Air Raid of 1945. US bombers, striking at low altitude, unleashed a hail of incendiary weapons on this city, killing at least 100,000 residents, injuring hundreds of thousands more, and destroying 41 square kilometers of Tokyo.

Meisic Street grocery cat.

I have no idea why this food stall is named like so.

What's the baseball bat in the background for, to keep unruly litigants at bay?

Novotel Araneta City cat.

An example of DVD disk rot: pinprick holes that pierce the data-bearing media.

It's Munich 1938 all over again.

Yesterday afternoon at the Quezon Memorial Circle park.

What's the point of a lingerie store at an airport transit hall and other life mysteries.

2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Manila. The Memorare-Manila 1945 monument, located at the Plazuela de Santa Isabela in Intramuros, Manila commemorates the hundreds of thousands of known and unknown Manileños killed by Imperial Japanese forces as they defended the city.

The Tagalog word for bottle cap, tansan, was derived from a brand of sparkling water that was first introduced in the Philippines in 1902. It was apparently the first product of its kind that used the bottle closure so familiar to us today.