The Wheel and Axle

Why hello there, BGC.

At the rate we’re going, I’ll probably lose a hundred pounds in a week.

In two weeks, I’ll be benchpressing a small building.

In a month, I’ll be juggling three SUVs, an angry lion, and a can of rootbeer with my bare hands.

By February, I’ll be able to take down Doomsday with but a single blow.

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Genius.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart will always be my favorite classical musician. He is a genius who started composing at the age of five, and he has created marvelous musical works of various genres: sonatas, concertos, operas, symphonies, and more.

My love for Mozart began sometime in the early 90s when I first saw the 1984 Oscar Best Picture winner Amadeus, a biographical drama that took some liberties with historical facts and utilized some of the more legendary stories surrounding the man.

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Despite the controversies that hounded her in her latter years, Whitney Houston will always be a true icon of music. Hers had been a golden voice that few could ever match. As with Madonna, Prince, and Michael Jackson, Whitney embodied the 80s so much that she was a legend by the time the 90s rolled around.

Her last few years were tumultuous, to say the least. Domestic violence, drug abuse, inability to perform properly during concerts: yes, these happened. Yes, these put her through some truly dark times. And with the circumstances surrounding her death, one cannot help but sometimes wonder if there was anything else that she, or the people around her, or even her fans, could have done to prevent her downward spiral into her untimely demise.

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Photo credits: Rappler

Hidilyn Diaz, Filipina weightlifter from Mindanao, just brought us a silver medal in the Rio Olympics. This is our first medal since 1996 and the first from a woman, the first for someone from Mindanao, and the first for a non-boxer since 1936.

This is what we call #PinoyPride.

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Major spoilers, obv.

Suicide Squad, while not as excellent I was expecting, was great. It was simply pure fun. Dark fun, exciting fun, a refreshing elevation of the darkness of the DCEU into dark humor.

Ignore the “critics” who say otherwise.

The film is based on a DC comic book series of the same name created by Ostrander and Yale in 1987 (not counting the original 1959 more “heroic” incarnation by Kanigher and Andru). In it, the government – through official Amanda Waller – assembles a team of (mostly) metahuman criminals to be Task Force X, a clandestine operative group designed to handle dangerous black ops missions in exchange for clemency and/or commuted prison sentences. They’re “patsies,” as they call themselves, because exposure or getting compromised during such missions leads to the government throwing them under the bus. They also serve as a backup plan in case another “Superman” surfaces, one who might not be as moral as the one who died in BvS.

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… tries to hit on your boyfriend.

… and we all are like this. Don’t even try to deny it.

Recently, a comedian pretending to be a senator and who shall remain nameless is now pretending to be a businessman, too. He filed a bill would require employers to give 14th month pay on top of existing 13th month obligations.

As with anything that this moron does, there is a lack of intellectual thought and foresight in his output. This is not surprising as he learned business and economics in Iskul Bukol.

Yes, as an employee, I would be very happy to get another full month’s pay. In fact, we used to have it as an incentive in one of my former companies until they scrapped it.

The question is: why did they scrap it?

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She’s really deserving of that crown, isn’t she?

It was hard to get a good profile pic in the days of Mahmud I.

I’ve long known that I shared my birthday with the late, great Peter O’Toole as well as Eddie Furlong (yes, kids, you probably have no idea) and, oh all right, Dingdong Dantes.

However, I recently came upon a more comprehensive list, and I must say, I’m in pretty good company.

Mahmud I. 1696. Because one needs to throw royalty into this list. Mahmud was a Sultan of the Ottoman Empire who fought Persia, Austria, and Russia. He also wrote poetry because obviously one needs a soothing distraction from the occasional pillaging.

Constantine I of Greece. 1868. Okay, fine, just one more royal. Even if he was accused of being a German sympathizer during World War I  (officially, he advocated for neutrality).

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