Daily Oil Blog

The much anticipated dark knight release has been on my mind ever since I watched the film.It seems that now even batman theme  has a philosophy dealing with our world with a book I saw somewhere in a bookstore.

This sequel starring  Christian bale and the departed heath ledger has a plot that seems to be lacking in the depth that was in the first batman beginning.Even good acting cannot really spark the much interest needed from the audience in the cinema and add to that,it is running on a longer duration.

Ok to sum up the storyline, it’s about Batman who wants to quit the hero business and get back to life as a billionaire chairman of wayne enterprises. Harvey played the White knight who supposed to clean up Gotham for good and marry Bruce childhood sweetheart.But psychopath Joker spoilt everything and you get the idea from there.

Maybe we should take a cue from joker”Why so serious?” afterall it’s just a film .Just spent the weekend afternoon and be entertained

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The sequel to the hulk movie is better than the first directed by Lee Ang starring eric bana as the green giant.This time Edward norton played the role of the freak incident that turn him into a unlikely green muscled hero.

Some scenes were shot in Brazil slums, one can see the disparity of wealth in that country and also the environmental degradation formed by the unstructured dwellings the underclass live.Ed norton having that frail look seems to suit the role better than banna and also the plot seems more palatable than the first that relied more on CGI .

Overall I would give this 3.5 out of 5 due to the sequel lack of continuity from the first.It scored in the subtle view that give us a look at how the problems in developing latin countries would somehow catch up with the developed world like the US if one would disconnect the hulk movie from the favelas scene.

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Yesterday, I catched the opening premiere of 10,000BC in my country.Sad to say the acting and the plot failed to live up the hype.It pales compared to stargate with heavy weight actors like Kurt Russell.A real pity because ficticious tale should have more credit.

One saving grace of the film is the breathtaking landscape and the mammoths graphics.Wonder why the sabre tooth does not look as vivid compared to the mammoths?With a stronger cast and better plot, this film can really pass with flying colors.Modernites always wonder how their ancestors at the end of ice age lived and hunted,we can indeed learn much from them in regards of communal tribal life as fossil age pass us.

The plot showcase about how a young hunter found his manhood through the rescue of his sweetheart and tribal folks from the hands of barbaric slave traders building pyramids for the Gods.Throughout the journey, his mentor who’s a friend of his father guided him.

I give the film 2 out of 5 stars, sad because they can do much better.

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After watching this movie ,it strike a chord on how the plot reflected post 911 and peak oil,bird flu scenerio. The new cure for cancer turned disease outbreak that killed off most of the populace in New York city backdrop filled with silence leaving survivor Will smith and his german shepherd roaming the City for food and the infected undead for experimental vaccine leave the viewer feeling a sense of helpessness.

Isolation sets in as Will smith who played a Military officer virologist  have flashbacks about the emergency prior to the massive outbreak of the virus with his wife and child leaving the city seems to replay the terror plot during 911 with mass evacuation amidst police and military forces.

And the following year Smith who seems to be immune and his canine pal Sam sets off on a perilous search for vaccine and survivors reminds one of the bird flu outbreak that caused much hysteria at the height worldwide.

Lack of energy supply surely will be the end of the plot if vaccine was not found though the movie did not show this part of the crisis.With people dead and survivors living in fear and lack of skilled and experienced engineers and other oil personnel, who;’s going to drill and shipped the oil and provide the much needed energy..

This movie is a slow one but ends off with a bang as smith fights off the infected night seekers  , it’s much more than an action film but a timely reminder of the dangerous world we’re living in

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I was watching a documentary last nite about the evolution of man, called Story of us.Yea, spending the whole day at home during xmas sucks but that’s not the story.It shows our human weakness in our evolved form and scientists are researching our past present and future.

So here we are coming to the end of 2007 and homosapiens are still the same , in physical form I mean, scientists decided to go into the weakness of our present human structure such as weak backbones make worse in our modern day sedentary lifestyle compared to our hunting/farming forefathers.

Genetic engineering will grow leaps and bounds in the next decade giving us the opportuntity to even change our physical structure.Teeth regrowth at the age 60 and a stronger backbone serving us into our twilight years will give the elderly nursing homes a run for their money, maybe they will change it to elderly fun clubs instead with senior citizens running and jumping around like they are in their prime.

But behind all that bright prospects in biotechnology lurks a darker aspects….Man will completely altered their skeletal structure…a long and big tail for stronger back giving rise to hunchback species and wider jaw bones for tooth replacement.

A complete departure of the present Adamic structure from physical and even psychological level to me seems unthinkable.It will not happen overnight of course, the kind of experiments will be relegated to dark science and will be met with strong opposition in religous and political field.Already the present cloning technology we can see this unease of which humanity is going.

A Newman that is able to run faster and longer, jump higher , consume less food maybe just one meal per day instead of 3 now looks tempting in our post peak oil world but tampering with our Human DNA is even more dangerous that unlocking the secrets of atomic energy.It is dabbling with unknown sphere that can send shockwaves into our ecosystem and once we embark on this, there’s no turning back into the garden of eden.

All the variables and repurcussions of a society that even make X-men movie look tame .Man may be smarter now but I can’t say much about the wisdom too.

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I watched this film show on TV last nite and realise there’s some connection in our petro world with our elite schooling.But first let me summarise this film:

A history teacher was imparting virtues and principles in St Benedict college for the all boys school in the hope they will all leave school with something more than just book knowledge.In comes a rebellious teenager from a privillege background who seems to get on his nerves by breaking school rules.

He entered a contest with othe pupils and seem to be doing fine till the teacher caught him cheating .Years later he become a successful CEO and invited the teacher back to a county club to reopen the contest about roman history.Again he was caught cheating and lost the contest but the teacher did not expose his deeds.He even wants to run for senator after the contest.

The ex pupil even rebuked his teacher after the contest “Who care, really who even cares, our world is all bout lying and cheating and as long as I get what I want..I live in the real world…”

If one realise that most of our business leaders and polticians are from so called elite schools, we’ve have to understand the mentality of this students.Not all are cheats of course..many are pillars of our society, but what I want stress is not the schools our leaders went through that matters, but the character mould by their teachers and family that truly determine their place in the society…not money, power or trophies that our material society so valued.

The petro cabal unfortunately are filled with elite schoolboys who much wanted to preserve the status quo at the expense of the mass publc interest..look beyond the exterior of one’s leaders

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Recently I have a chance to go thru a book The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century by Mr Howard Kunstler regarding peak oil effects.This book is not for the timid folks out there as it deals with the energy descent questions square on.I’m hoping more readers will get their hands on this book here in Singapore given the lack of knowledge of peak oil of the general public.

The thesis of kunstler started off with the Malthus theory that cheap oil has created a century long “artificial bubble of plentitude” generating a hosts of problems related to this
prolonged energy spending spree.The problems are agricultural ,climate changes and relocation of living spaces into unsustainable suburbia.

This books sets it apart from other oil crisis books as it sweeps thru and integrated economics, science ,technology and international politics with a peek into the orb of a post oil age mirred with chaos.

Kunstler too touched on alternative energy with less enthusiam shared by techno hopefuls.He is critical about this resources and lay out the reasons why one should not based too much hope on those.This is a classic (ERoEI) Energy returned over energy invested problem

This book attempt to unravel how the use of energy by human beings got us where we are now.100 years of cheap oil have constructed a global trading and financial system that cannot be sustained by the eventual decline of fossil power.

I do not find much fault with this book but rather the author did not provide the readers more solutions but perhaps there is not really much he can provide us.Get your book at Amazon or head down to your local bookstore to get one.This book will be a serious read during weekend.

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