Rating: 1/5
Month: April 2007
It looks like E10 is not as green as it should be. Because in the US and Mexico ethanol is derived from corn which is a food staple for both livestock and people, it has caused higher demand for corn which in turn has led to a drastic increase in the prices of corn and meat products.
But meanwhile, sugarcane-based ethanol producing countries won’t be as much affected since sugarcane derived foods are not really food staples. In fact, sugar is not even fashionable these days.
This should be a temporary situation as the corn growers ramp up their production to meet demand from food producers and fuel manufacturers. At that time, prices should stabilize. But this is a window of opportunity to export sugarcane-based ethanol.
Getting there is a small adventure in itself. From Commonwealth Ave., turn right towards Batasan Complex. At the Batasan Complex, turn right to the Batasan-San Mateo Road. At the end of the road, turn left to the Marikina-San Mateo Road. Keep going until you see a Total gasoline station to your right. Take the first left towards the Eastwood Greenview Subdivision. You will enter a rotonda. Exit the rotonda after the subdivision gate and follow the dirt road till you see the Avilon Zoo sign.
Parking is spacious and free. Entrance is P200 per person. You have the option to hire a guide for your group for an extra P350. This is recommended since the zoo is laid out in a rather convoluted manner. The guided tour takes about 2 hrs and takes you through areas designated for reptiles, mammals, birds, snakes, spiders, and arapaimas. Arapaimas are one of the zoo’s highlights. They are supposedly the world’s largest freshwater fishes. The small ones gobble chicken heads whole while the big ones eat bangus whole.
There is a rest, food, refreshment, and souvenir area at the entrance as well as at the halfway point. At the entrance, you can also choose to take a boat into the lagoon where scary big arapaimas lurk. Since the tour involves a lot of walking, it is recommended that you take advantage of these two areas.
While at the laundry, I took notice of some roadwork that was blocking the storefront. It’s because it is election time, the staff commented. I’ve never given it much thought before but I realized the truth to what she said. But why do politicians fix roads often when elections are close? Conventional wisdom say that they do it to ensure that the voters remember their names and vote for them come elections. Is this how short our memories are? Would you really blame the politicians if they to take advantage of this fact? Taking this a step further, the politicians are really just responding to how the people act. Thus, our politicians are really our products. Before we bemoan our politicians, shouldn’t we look at ourselves first?
The first reason is the feature set: it has just too many higher-end DSLR features to pass up. In fact, you could mistake it for a higher-end camera if not for the 6 megapixel resolution.
This approach of putting higher-end features to a lower-end camera also applies to its bigger brother, the Pentax K10D, which I almost considered. Unfortunately, though it is a bargain by itself, it was just too pricey for my intended use.
The second reason is I was turned off by the local Nikon distributor’s representative who was all impatient and arrogant when I made inquiries. They may have their reasons and they may be makings tons of money selling Nikons but they sure won’t be making it from yours truly.
I’ve been playing around with my K100D for the past few days and I must say I’m quite happy so far. It’s very intuitive: I figured out most of the functions without reading the manual. And, of course, it takes great pictures. They could be a lot better in terms of composition, lighting, etc but in terms of image capture it’s pretty much spot on. More here as I get to know the camera better.