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It’s never too late to finish your dissertation! From the BBC: Queen star hands in Ph.D.
Queen guitarist Brian May has handed in his astronomy PhD thesis – 36 years after abandoning it to join the band. May recently carried out observational work in Tenerife, where he studied the formation of “zodiacal dust clouds”. The subject forms the basis of a 48,000-word thesis for Imperial College, London, where 60-year-old May studied before becoming a rock star. “It’s been the longest gap year ever,” May said. “It was a tough decision back then to leave my studies for music.”

But the star said that at the time, his “passion for music was stronger”.

“I’m so proud to be here today,” he told BBC London. “Astronomy has always interested me. I used to love sitting at home and watching Sir Patrick Moore on the Sky at Night.” May handed in the thesis, called Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud, to Imperial’s head of astrophysics Professor Paul Nandra.

The guitarist is scheduled to discuss his thesis with the examining board on 23 August, his spokesman said. The results should be known some time shortly after that date. “If I fail I will fail big time,” May said. “It will be a very public failure with all this press.”

The rock star is also preparing a concert to mark the inauguration of a telescope at the Observatory of the Roque de Los Muchachos in La Palma in the Canary Islands, where he completed his studies last month.

“I have no doubt that Brian May would have had a brilliant career in science had he completed his PhD in 1971,” said astrophysicist Dr Garik Israelian, who worked with May in La Palma. “Nevertheless, as a fan of Queen, I am glad that he left science temporarily,” he added.

In the dream I am in a large, newly-painted, sparsely-furnished apartment, talking to Roger Federer. We are having a very serious discussion about why he still hasn’t won the French Open. Rather, I am angry and frustrated, and he is detached and cheerful. There is no reason you can’t win on clay, I tell him, so what’s the damn problem? Throughout our talk, people keep walking in and out of the room—sports journalists, tournament officials, Federer’s girlfriend Mirka—but no one interrupts us.

In the middle of our discussion, I remember that Federer’s Wimbledon singles final against Rafael Nadal is about to start. I turn on the television so we can watch it. Before the match begins, there is a celebrity scavenger hunt featuring the two finalists.

The game show ends—I don’t remember who won—and the singles final is about to begin. The audience at Wimbledon is waiting for the players to step onto center court. Suddenly it occurs to me that if Federer is sitting next to me on the couch, how can he play in the final? That’s when I realize that I’m dreaming, and seconds later I wake up.

What does the dream mean?

P.S. When you post a comment, please don’t call me “Ate”. I feel like you’re asking for the day off.

I once punched a guy in a movie theatre. I’d always thought that when I got in a fight I would feel heroic and proud, but all I felt afterwards was embarrassment. The occasion was an advance screening of Brian De Palma’s Snake Eyes. That in itself should’ve been a warning: the word “Crap” should’ve blazed on the marquee.

My friend and I sat in the front row, center. Scarcely had the movie begun when I felt a tug on my hair. The troglodyte behind me had put his feet up against the back of my chair, and was stepping on my ponytail. I was furious, but I tried to be polite. I turned around, looked him in the eye, and said, “Please don’t step on the chair. Pakibaba ang paa ninyo, wag nyong aapakan ang silya.” He stared at me as if he did not understand what I had said, so I repeated it. He went on chewing his popcorn with his mouth open, but put his feet down.

Only to put them up again twenty minutes later. Again, I turned around and told him to remove his feet from the back of my chair. I said it louder, in case he had a hearing impediment. I could hear my voice echoing inside his skull. His mouth was half-open, as if to catch any stray sources of protein such as flies and cockroaches. Or maybe he lacked the chromosome that controls the open and shut mechanism of his yap. He did not reply to me, but he put his feet down.

The next time it happened, I realized that no amount of civility would work. Clearly it was subhuman. It did not occur to me to transfer to another seat—I wanted to sit front row, center, and this moron was not going to make me change my habits. I should’ve walked out right there and spared myself from that godawful stupid movie, but for some reason I stayed. I sat up very straight, my spine not touching the seat.

When the movie ended I addressed the troglodyte. I asked him why, despite my repeated requests, he kept stepping on my hair. His reply confirmed my diagnosis. He said, “Ha?” So I punched him in the face. Really put my shoulder into it. A direct hit. He said, “Bakit mo ko sinuntok!” and tried to slap me, but his hand only caught the edge of my glasses, which fell to the floor but didn’t break. Then I started calling for the guard, which must’ve triggered some genetic memory because the troglodyte fled. True, I hit him first, but I was provoked. Besides, whose side would the guard take—the open-mouthed subhuman, or the articulate female?

I slunk home in an agony of shame.

“. . .the sheer volume of spam grows exponentially every year, and so, it would appear, do the sophisticated methods used to send it. Nearly two million e-mails are dispatched every second, a hundred and seventy-one billion messages a day. …Spam’s growth has been metastatic, both in raw numbers and as a percentage of all mail. In 2001, spam accounted for about five per cent of the traffic on the Internet; by 2004, that figure had risen to more than seventy per cent. This year, in some regions, it has edged above ninety per cent—more than a hundred billion unsolicited messages clogging the arterial passages of the world’s computer networks every day.” Damn Spam: Losing the war on junk mail.

I suppose I’m lucky: my spam blocker usually stops the penile enlargement ads, so all I get are these congratulations for winning lotteries I never joined, and letters from alleged deposed dictators offering to share their loot if I’m stupid enough to give them my bank details. A lot of well-to-do older Pinoys are actually taken in by these scams (Shouldn’t our constant exposure to phony get-rich-quick schemes work as a sort of homeopathy and make us scam-proof by now?). I think it’s a mixture of gullibility, greed, wanting something for nothing and losing everything in the process. The real visionaries are the Monty Python guys, because they wrote a song about spam back when it was all canned.

The other day I found myself in Blanco Center on Leviste Street, where I lived in the early 90s. The name of the street has been changed—it used to be called Alfaro—but everything looks exactly the way it did in 1991: gray, gloomy, institutional, reminiscent of Soviet architecture. The minute I walked in, my feet automatically made for the elevator, and my finger hit 9—if I hadn’t snapped out of it, I would’ve knocked on 914 and demanded to know what those people were doing in my apartment. It was the first apartment I ever had; I shared it with two roommates, corporate types (they’re rich now) who only turned up at sleeping time, so it was mostly mine. If anyone out there wants to do a remake of David Lynch’s Eraserhead, this is your location; bring your own goat parts.

At the time I had a column called Womenagerie, which appeared in a weekly women’s magazine. One time I wrote about my apartment—its dimly-lit corridors, the identical studio units, the ambience of a Stalin-era asylum. I thought it was funny and affectionate—I actually loved the place—but my landlord was not amused. Clearly he did not like irony, because he raised my rent substantially. How did he know that I was referring to his building? I suppose it was a compliment to my descriptive abilities, but when you’re just starting out on your own, you prefer lower rent to a compliment. As far as I know the landlord was not a reader of Woman Today, so I figure some rat fink tenant squealed on me.

When I got the bill I didn’t suspect anything; I thought all the tenants had to pay more rent. But my furious roommate came home one day with a photocopy of my article, and I learned that it was my fault. So I sought a meeting with the landlord. Who gave me a long lecture about conformity, obligations, and how, as I grew older, I would realize that I have to consider what other people think, etcetera etcetera.

That was an important meeting. My entire career is founded on not following that advice. As for the building, someone told me that it will be torn down in December to make room for a new condominium development. I miss it already.

Did you ever live in Blanco, or know someone who lived there? I’m compiling apartment stories.

The horror!, originally uploaded by 160507.

Alright! I believe you! You had a horrible day! Everyone who posted their tale of misery and woe before Saturday, August 4, 10pm Manila time gets a book. To claim your free (um, not exactly—you bought it with your aggravation) book, email zeus.books@gmail.com. Give your real name if you want to have the book signed. By the way I don’t know what book you’re going to get—could be a novel, a treatise on Phoenician textile dyes, or an old calculus textbook, it’ll be a surprise! Because life is chaotic and full of seemingly random events, and if you hit rock bottom hard enough, you bounce.

P.S. Triangle 30, since you’ve brought cheer to so many, I’m going to throw in a DVD of The Departed in the hope that someday you will be able to watch it without reliving your trauma.