I was wondering aloud (lately, the only way I know how) yesterday about the different street names given to firecrackers in the Philippines. The watusi probably gets its name from the fact that the small harmless pyrotechnic is thrown about -- dances around -- at random before it extinguishes, although my friends and I have managed to make a pillbox out of small pieces of crushed watusis.

The five-star, and at one time there was a dud called the one-star, appears to have gotten its name from a ratings scale akin to the Richter, where the five-star is 5 times louder than the one-star. I tend to believe that they made the five-star first, and made a weaker version to complete the scale. Quite a marketing achievement if you think about it.

The "bawang" gets its name from its shape and packaging. Indeed, it looks like a bulb of garlic but at one time I actually thought it was designed to smell like garlic when it exploded. I never liked the packaging myself, because, if you take the time to analyze it, it's all meant to disguise the fact that it's just paper with very little explosive in it.

My favorite of course is the "pla-pla" so named because it resembles the shape of the saltwater fish with the same name. This sucker can bust a hole in a 10-gauge galvanized iron barrel, I know. And it gives off one heck of a bang (not as strong as a homemade calburo cannon fashioned from an old iron septic pipe). I like the power it gives you when you hold it in your hand, there it is, P 80.00 of pure thunder.

The Superlolo, which by far has the funniest name, is one old man that packs a punch: it has about the same amount of powder as a "kwitis" and it's tightly packed into a small convenient package. Could it be it's name comes from the whole "wala ka sa Lolo ko!" drivel? I don't know. (I know somewhere out there someone's painted the triangle-shaped "Superlolo" purple and called it Viagra.)

Kwitis and baby rockets (bottle rockets here) are seldom fooled around with anymore, unless you line them up across a piece of wire by the dozen and light them up with a flaming roll of newspaper. There's plenty of joy seeing them all race up to the sky in a streak of lightning. Run for cover though because the spent rockets hurtle back to earth just as fast.

The "pailaw" I could never get (it doesn't really explode, it just disassembles into a few more pieces) but the concept of the Kwiton -- a truly mighty rocket -- I do get. It's P 120.00 of pure testosterone on a bamboo stick. You can feel the ground vibrate as it takes off, and in fact it takes off like the Saturn rocket: split seconds of bursting flames and smoke, the rocket shimmies and shakes before thrust cancels weight and gravity and, in a blink of an eye, the Kwiton is aloft. Proud to finally fulfill it's designers purpose: to leave earth with a payload enough to blow up a small home. When it finally does deliver its awesome firepower, the explosion is immense and the timbre deep.

What puzzles me the most is "Og". Has anyone heard of this firecracker? It's slightly larger than a 5-star but smaller than a Superlolo. What puzzles me is how it got its name. If anyone out there knows, please post a comment. Otherwise, I'll be wondering aloud again.