His works also enabled man to imagine what he and his future technologies could achieve somewhere in the future.

Space travel, man’s footsteps on the Moon, submarines, airplanes and a host of other magical feats without the incantations, all these were dreamed about and put into writing by Verne. In a way, Verne is almost a benign version of Nostradamus, who through no fault of his own became associated with catastrophic predictions coming true.

After Verne, the Japanese are the ones I admire most when it comes to art works moonlighting as omens predicting what future technologies would look like. Look at some of the anime works and it would be like looking at some of Verne’s works re-imagined. Space fighters that transform into fighting robots, or robots into automobiles, not yet inducted into the realm of classic arts, but certainly on their way there.

But aside from blessed with an art form that is capable of presaging what the future may hold for us, Japan is actually enjoying at the here and now some benefits or scourge as the case maybe of technologies. Take, for example, the popularity of fragrance- releasing silver devices. These gadgets, which emit different smells based on their users’ moods, have been around in Japan since 2005.

Recently, however, NTT Communications developed and introduced a method that enables consumers to control their fragrance devices using their mobile phones. Adding a scent-manipulating feature on mobile phones, most people would agree, is a neat idea.

Making mobile phones capable of determining the smells prevailing in the immediate surroundings of the parties with whom subscribers are having a celfone conversation would be definitely a lot better and more of a killer application.

Imagine knowing with the aid of that mobile contraption that one’s husband is right smack in a place reeking of perfumes worn by certain ladies who help broken-hearted men forget about their loneliness. And that husband had the temerity to claims he is caught up in the office doing overtime. Would that not be one killer application?

Now that my family and I have finally settled down in our new home somewhere in Quezon City, which a former officemate of mine referred to as the quietest and most peaceful portion of Project 2, I finally have the time and energy to finally take in our immediate surrounding. My home street is one rather dusty piece of suburban real estate due mainly to the road improvement project of the city government.

One detail forced its way into my senses, however, almost barging in without any pretention of being courteous or well-mannered. After about a couple of mornings and some late afternoons walking along our street and the two other roads crossing its path, I noticed with horror that everyone trudging on must do so at his or her own peril.

Seems like the whole neighborhood is a virtual minefield, which, although not as lethal as those found in the world’s war-torn areas and regions, is nevertheless equally unsettling and fear-inducing (My apologies to peace activists who might find the last line as trivializing of the travails of people living with real landmines.).

I am referring to the uncomfortably huge number of dogs’ droppings that litter the streets near my new home. Spread on the ground as if dropped by cluster bomb-spewing planes, these canine excrements are either a symbol of Filipinos’ untiring efforts to fertilize their land or a sign that indeed we as a people have crossed that point of no return on our way to being a damaged culture.

And where there is a biblical multitude of dog sh*t piles there must be celestial throngs of loose canines. This theorem, for which I make no claims of being the originator, is once again proven true as anyone who would spend at least a minute or two in that corner of the world where I live would concur. Indeed, dogs on the loose are playing, frolicking around like hounds of hell unleashed on the unsuspecting residents.

Has anybody from city hall ever heard of rabies? It is a four-letter word by the way. If not in form, at least in matter.

That’s all for the meantime, folks. Join me again next time as we keep on watching IT, and some other things.