Archive for September, 2005
Looking for a dive light? Underwater Kinetics has been making some of the best torches on the market for recreational divers. Two models stand out head and shoulders above the rest: the Sunlight C8 eLED and the Light Cannon.
The Light Cannon has long been touted as the brightest, whitest HID torch on the market (within a reasonable price range). When I first started night diving with the Light Cannon, a whole new world opened up. Instead of fumbling around in the dark, trying to get a glimpse at anything more than that yellowy glow your traditional dive light can offer, the Light Cannon blasts a huge swath of ultra-white light that penetrates all but the worst visibility. Its as if you took a Xenon headlamp out of a car and strapped it to 8 C cell batteries and made it submersible. This is truly one of the brightest lights available and does an amazing job of illuminating even the darkest depths. Fish and other animals are paralyzed into a stupor when confronted with its fiery photons and will sometimes literally lay there as if dead, even as you approach to within inches of them.
Continue Reading September 27th, 2005
I’ve just added a new underwater gallery of the Philippines. These photos, late in coming, compliment my earlier articles about diving the Visayas and acquiring a Night Diver specialty certification from PADI. The PI ranks top on my list of dive destinations offering great value for your money. To put things in perspective: a 2-tank boat dive off of the Hawaiian island of Maui can run you upwards of $120, whereas unlimited diving costs $50 per day from Moalboal, Cebu. Did I mention that this includes Nitrox and your own personal divemaster? That’s right, 4 divers on the boat = 4 divemasters to guide you to your laundry-list of photo subjects. This is key when your stay is over the period of a week and your guide knows exactly what you’ve seen and haven’t seen yet.
Continue Reading September 21st, 2005
This season’s Survivor takes place in Guatemala. It was great seeing contestants slog through the jungle and mud in an area I actually spent some time. I do have to admit though that it made all the previous episodes a lot less credible in terms of the harshness of the environment. What I mean is, they must have spent weeks on end finding animals, including crocodiles (that apparently live in every body of water, even puddles), monkeys, tarantulas, etc. With the camera angles and music they make the Guatemalan forest seem to be a terribly dangerous place with “deadly snakes around every corner”. In actuality it is quite a pleasant place to be, and you have to tip-toe around in order to see most animals because they usually run from humans (not to mention full film crews). Nonetheless, this season of Survivor looks to be a good one. Right off the bat they were puking, getting cramps and feeling a great deal of pain in general. I had started to lose my taste for the show over the past few seasons when they would get a gourmet meal after each challenge. Lets get back to what this show is all about: pain and suffering for average people with challenges that skirt the limits of will, all for the love of money.
Continue Reading September 16th, 2005
I’m starting to think that there are just way too many strange organisms in this world today. I came across this disturbing article that details an insect that attaches itself to a fish’s tongue, eats away at it until there’s hardly anything left, then proceeds to hang on and to actually become the fish’s tongue for all intensive purposes. This reminded me of the movie Alien, when the alien would open its mouth to eat you and another smaller mouth would pop out.
Continue Reading September 15th, 2005
I’m starting to like my Stiletto even more, and it has nothing to do with how it performs. Here’s why: Even before I bought my Zeagle, I knew that Zeagle owners are not just divers who own BCDs, they are BCD owners who dive. So fervent about their Zeagles, they will defend them to the death, as they recently did in response to my Stiletto review. This almost cult-like following reminds me of another subset of users, to which I proudly belong…….Macintosh users. Any group who cares this dearly for their gear has to result in, or be the result of, a company that pushes the boundaries of its product line at any cost, solely to satisfy the ferocious appetite for quality of its user base. I’m starting to come around guys!
Continue Reading September 15th, 2005
So, as you might’ve noticed, this site is rather new. I scrapped most of the elements of my previous site that annoyed me, and one of the greatest moves was to a new hosting provider, Dreamhost. I’m happy with just about everything Dreamhost provides save one aspect, the statistics monitoring. I was complaining about that the other day when my buddy Mike offered a solution: Mint.
Continue Reading September 14th, 2005
Ipod Nano – this thing is really, really, tiny. Its even smaller than it seems on the Apple site. Totally weightless, it feels like you could easily forget it in your pocket and send it through the wash.
They were practically flying off the shelves at the Apple Store, but luckily I had a buddy there who held one for me. Sound quality is great, similar to other iPod models, though it seems like it can go a bit higher in overall volume.
Continue Reading September 8th, 2005
