Pounding The Keyboard

     My Facebook News Feed has been abuzz with posts about the apocalyptic Netflix movie Bird Box so I felt obliged to immediately watch it (I am usually not really excited regarding Netflix-made movies). Bird Box is about invincible evil creatures that once seen will make an individual go insane and suicidal. They say it’s a A Quiet Place rip off, and that accusation is not without basis (although the book Bird Box is based on a 2014 book and A Quiet Place was released in 2018, so it’s possible that A Quiet Place ripped off the Bird Box book. Lol). The movie The Happening (2008) also comes to mind.      But still, rip off or not, Bird Box is quite suspenseful, terrifying, and enjoyable. Some people found it so scary that they watched it blindfolded. Lol. Sandra Bullock, as usual is fine, and John Malkovich, a first-rate actor, is always a delight to watch and the two children are really good.      But the ending… the ending sucked the stars out of my review, it

     While inside the mall, I snuck inside a bookstore and walked straight to the customer service and asked if they got a copy of Neil Gaiman’s latest book, Norse Mythology. A sales clerk went in front of the computer and looked, then shook her head. “Out of stock,” she said. “But we have Greek Mythology.”      I suppressed a laugh,   but then, come to think of it, Greek Mythology, I think,   is more popular than Norse Mythology, although there is no Greek god that is as popular as Thor or Loki now (because of the Marvel superhero movies.) Mr. Gaiman should have probably retold or reimagined Greek Mythology instead.      “Do you have other Neil Gaiman books?” I asked the clerk, who promptly looked at the monitor again.      “We have Trigger Warning. ”      “Nope,” I shook my head.      “We have Fragile Things, ” she said.      “Is it hardbound?” I asked.      “Yes, she answered.      “May I take a look?”      She left and returned with the

       A few weeks ago, my sister and her husband had dinner in a restaurant and she noticed something different in their drinking water—deliciously different. The water was obviously infused with something. “Pandan leaves,” the waiter answered when she asked about it. Apparently, it’s an old trick; pandan leaves are not  exclusive to buko and sinaing.        And now, we’ve been drinking refreshing and delicious (and a bit healthier) water in our house—pandan-infused water. Just wash some pandan leaves thoroughly and put in your drinking water and after two days, you’d taste its (mild, not too intrusive) flavor. You can also simmer the leaves in water, and afterwards, take the leaves out, let the water chill and enjoy. We’ve tried lemon water before but we’d probably stick with pandan water for the meantime. Not everyone enjoys the taste of lemon in water every day and pandan leaves last longer in the water.        Remember, make sure you’re always hydrated.

And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes I'll see you on the dark side of the moon...                            Pink Floyd, “Brain Damage”      They’ve already made a movie about Freddie Mercury and Queen, so when is Hollywood really going to make a movie about the greatest rock band of all time, Pink Floyd? There were talks then that Johnny Depp had been raring to make a movie about Syd Barrett but it didn’t materialize; also, I had read once that a Pink Floyd movie was already in the works then with Leonardo DiCaprio being tapped to play as David Gilmour and Aston Kutcher as Roger Waters, but it also went pfft, turning out to be just a product of some fans’ fertile imagination. Some were saying that the band members themselves were against making a movie about them. Syd’s life, no doubt, was as colorful as Freddie’s. He founded Pink Floyd and wrote their early songs. But on their way to superstardom, Syd went off the rails—he had schizophrenia

           When I was in third year high school,   a newcomer in our school became our classmate and befriended our group ( I remembered this because I happened to have a fellow UV express passenger yesterday who resembled this newcomer—stocky, full mustache and an aura of arrogance.      In no time, we realized that mustached newcomer was a bully and the one that caught his unsavory attention was this classmate of us who came from the Visayas and had an accent which was funny to Mustached Guy. He enjoyed insulting and making fun of Visayan Guy (who according to Mustached Guy looked like a stevedore) until the Visayan Guy had enough and challenged him to a fistfight—which the Mustached Guy, smelling a mismatch, gleefully accepted. Why not, he was five foot six and stout and his challenger,though stocky, too,  stood only at five feet two inches.      So we went to a vacant lot not far from school to hold the grudge match.      And the moment Visayan Guy took a legiti