Fuel Woes

Almost thirty years ago, a guy named Ariel Ureta said on TV "Sa ikauunlad ng bayan, bisikleta ang kailangan." (For the improvement of the country, we need bicycles) It was a lame wordplay on the new regime's "Disiplina ang kailangan" (we need disicpline) motto. The unfunny motherfucker was sentenced to riding the bike around Camp Crame for a week, probably because people back then were less tolerant of shitty puns. I'm not even sure how Jimmy Santos lived through that era.

In any case, 30 years hence, Ariel Ureta's words is starting to make sense. With the skyrocketing fuel prices, and increasing transportation costs, people are starting to look for transportation alternatives, like, well, bicycles, and for people looking for compact versions - unicycles. Car companies, you just gotta look into this.

pictured: Toyota's new compact,
2009 model 1wheeldrive Zykleta

Why not right? If you're not that far from where you work, an hour on a bike running at 10kmph will give you 10km - that's the distance between Cavite and Parañaque already. Sure, you'll be a sweaty bastard when you arrive at your destination, but that's why we have deodorant, a commodity whose price doesn't appreciate 50centavos per litre every weekend. And there are actually some girls that like their guys sweaty. Don't ask. Let's end it there.

Oh yeah, about water cars. Somebody's bound to suggest that. Unless somebody learns how to separate H2 from O without using electrolysis, it just wont work. More power is spent splitting the atoms than is generated from setting fire to the H2 component. In other words, Mr. Flintstone gets more mileage in his foot-powered car than you will using a water car. The sooner you quit dreaming, the faster we can move on.

In the interest of preservation, we can also harvest other things that we're pretty abundant in. Among these are the following:

- Methane in closed spaces like elevators and LRT cabins. Harvest those farts. Arrest anybody who tries to steal this resource by inhaling our precious natural gas!
- Journalists from inquirer.net who don't know the difference between your and you're. If you add their works to the mix, all that dryness will make a good burn.
- Grease from taong grasa. I'm not really sure if those things are flammable, but we can always try right? If this is feasible, we'd be solving abject poverty and our power crisis at the same time.
- Smuggery. We'll never run out of those. The next time somebody tells you they're saving Mother Earth by drinking Starbucks in recycled cups, you can toss them inside an engine that runs on smuggery. I bet the mileage for that kind of machine will be real high.
- Oil from Shakey's food. We should really start consider drilling for oil in those Bunch-of-Lunch plates. Just eating one will make you think there's enough oil there to turn you into the Shah of Iran.
- Or how about gunpowder? Rocket-assisted transportation sounds awesome, and it just might help boost our ailing life Insurance industry.

If I don't post anything again in the next two days, either my plan of attaching baby rockets to my office chair has succeeded in sending me to Boracay or I'm dead.

Or both.

In any case, I'm doing my part.