tolitz.com

God, I love this series.

I have known about this TV series for a long time yet I never considered it seriously… I was thinking, “how could a series where each episode constitutes an hour in a person’s life be interesting?” Boy, was I wrong.

This series stars Keifer Sutherland, and as I mentioned, the series is a day in the life of an agent of CTU (Counter Terrorist Unit). The whole series revolves around a 24-hour period, meaning 24 episodes. My misgivings about what they could concoct in order to make one hour in a man’s life interesting enough to watch and follow every week were dispelled after two episodes into it… I rented the series from Netflix.Com because I was curious as to why people liked it a lot, and I was glad I did.

The first season revolved around the day of the presidential primary, where Senator David Palmer, set to become the first black president of the United States, has an assasination plot against him, and Keifer Sutherland is tapped to prevent it in the next 24 hours, amid his own domestic problems and the hidden agendas behind the attempt at the senator’s life.

The thing I liked most about the first season was that it didn’t have a happy or uplifting ending – a ballsy move by the writers for a television series, and one that is rarely attempted in such a popular series.

I am now midway into the second season, where the conflict revolves around a terrorist attack on the United States – in the form of a nuclear bomb set to detonate in Los Angeles within 24 hours. And Keifer Sutherland is again thrown into another of his long days.

So far, the second season is more riveting because of the magnitude of the threat, as well as the turns and twists in the plot… I can’t wait to finish it next week … hopefully I can do a review on the DVDs afterwards.

If you haven’t tried watching this series yet, I suggest you do now. It’s action television at its best…

Technorati: 24, series

Today as I was reading our college Yahoogroups, my friend Mok mentioned a unique Filipino invention – a water-powered car invented by Mr. Daniel Dingel. His patent is pending, but his invention has been around since 1969. I was intrigued that an idea that is both cheap and environment-friendly has not been seriously adopted bu automobile makers. This is not to say that other car companies have not considered other technologies that did not make use of fossil fuel. The Toyota Prius is a prime example, a hybrid electric/gasoline car that can go 55 miles to a gallon, and is only going for $20,000.

After googling a bit, I found this site, which contained a Quicktime movie of Dingel demonstrating his water-powered car, albeit vaguely and not going into much detail. The “hydro car” is said to be able to use tap water or even seawater, and can function for one hour per one liter of water. Naturally, I tried to look into the logistics and feasibility of such a project – I mean, surely there must be a reason why the technology has not been adopted, barring the petroleum taxes that motivated government officials to ignore the idea for their own selfish reasons.

There are some detractors and unconvinced pundits as to whether the technology would actually work in a production environment. There are some observations that the amount of water is not sufficient to generate the needed current to power the car, and that the fuel is actually nitrogen hydroxide created by the action of low pressure/vacuum on hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen (from the air) … and since it’s a nitrogen-based compound, it “is” highly explosive, although Dingel doesn’t explain how he gets around it – one of his trade secrets, apparently…

Dingel has mentioned that he had suggested his invention to presidents as early as the Marcos regime, then the Aquino period, and so on… the Philippine government always said “Ah, that’s a great invention!” but failed to organize the movement to make the water car project achieve fruition. A few countries have approached Dingel about his invention, most notably Japan, who had suggested an agreement that he did not like. Naturally, the inventor wants credit for his invention and share the profits – Japan, on the other hand, wants to buy it and develop it in their name.

In any case, Dingel says that his priority is the Philippine government, and that he wants his invention to be an authentic Philippine product. But with the current state of Philippine politics, not to mention the amount of national debt and the continuing mis-allocation of national budget, it is almost impossible for the Philippines to finance a possible multi-billion dollar endeavor – not to mention the lack of resources to undertake further R&D on the engine, which still raises eyebrows among skeptics in the international scientific and automotive communities.

If you are interested in the development of this environment-friendly invention, there is a Yahoogroups for it.
Check it out at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/watercar/.

Technorati: car, daniel, dingel, powered, water

Wolfgang

The other day, while I was surfing for some random shit, I discovered that my favorite Filipino band, Wolfgang, had disbanded November last year … last year! And I’ve been waiting for their latest album because of how much I loved their last one, Black Mantra. I hinted at it earlier this year in the Wolfgang Yahoogroups I frequent (well, frequented until November, apparently), when someone asked if the band will have a reunion concert. A reunion concert! I was like “Errr, what the fuck is going on here!”

After a quick search at Google for keywords “wolfgang” “band” and “disbanded”, I got the links that confirmed it … Wolf Gemora (the drummer) has a new band called Lokomotiv here in Southern Cal (may have to check them out soon), Basti Artadi (the vocalist) has his own band, Kitaan, in San Francisco. Manuel Legarda (the guitarist) has formed his own band named Dirt in Manila, while Mon Legaspi (the bassist) has taken over the bass duties for an old favorite band of mine, The Dawn, back in the Philippines.

It’s almost embarrassing – finding out a significant event in your favorite band’s career exactly a year after it happened. Guess I’m not such a diehard fan at all, hehe … anyway, it’s a pity – they were a really great band and one of the few local bands I really loved to listen to …

I currently have seven albums of theirs (I’m still lacking the one before Black Mantra, entitled Serve in Silence, which is now very hard to find in the Philippines). The first album set the tone of what would be the “hardest” hard rock group in the Philippines, and the next albums only cemented their reputation. Unlike most Pinoy rock bands which exuded a certain “cheapness” and went for “radio friendly” songs, Wolfgang showed that they wrote songs for themselves, and the love for the craft shows. I’ve only been to one Wolfgang concert – and that was more than eight years ago, when they only had two albums out … and what a concert it was (I still have a scar to show for it, hehe).

Anyway, it was great knowing the band. As one of their songs go, “but if there’s something you can count on in life, the only thing that’s permanent is change” … this journal entry isn’t exactly a swan song for Wolfgang, but it’s near enough … maybe the bands they have now will kick as much ass…

Technorati: disbanded, wolfgang

What the fuck, I’m back … again … once more …. for the umpteenth time … uhm, yeah.

Anyway, I got a bunch of things I’m gonna write this week, but while I try to extricate myself from the bowels of sloth and try to rub away all the cobwebs on my journal, lemme just inform you that I have updated my photo gallery to include my favorite cars! Well, the cars that I wish I had, and most of them I could never have unless my girlfriend wins the lotto and becomes my sugar momma…