The Daily Bluster

I first read Peter De Vries when as a skinny, bespectacled college freshman, I ran across his novels at the library of the old Thomas Jefferson Cultural Center located then in Makati (Philippines). His novels were the funniest I've ever read, even funnier than John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces , which is considered by some to be the funniest novel ever written. By “some,” I mean Americans; by Americans, I mean those good people over at Cracked . Well, Toole’s novel might be funny to them (I tried reading it, but I couldn't finish it), but Mr. De Vries’ novels are so much funnier, so much wittier. Peter De Vries (1910-1993) I remember all those good times I had reading Mr. De Vries' novels. I remember them the way other college freshmen remember the good times they had at all those parties. I’m a geek, in case you still hadn't surmised it yet (but then again, I was Grand Chancellor of the coolest Greek society in our university—for five ass kickin...

If you like happy endings, if you believe that good, honest, decent folks should triumph over adversity, and that evil, sadistic, psychotic, murdering bastards should die horrible deaths, then George R. R. Martin’s saga A Song of Ice and Fire is not for you. Stay away from it, don’t go near it, don’t touch it with a pole of any length. In Martin’s world, acting all honorable and shit will get your head rolling on the ground. Honor will not get you anything, except a knife in the back—the metaphorical kind, and the physically painful kind, the kind that makes you dead. And not only in the back; but also in the front, in your face, or in your neck. Decapitations are a common occurrence in the series. The books (there are five : A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, A Dance with Dragons, with two as yet unpublished) set out providing in depth characterizations of various characters, and when you, the reader, gets to know them, the author kill...

Frustrated at being unable to help Filipinos abroad who are in trouble, Vice President Jejomar Binay of the Philippines proposed to President Noynoy Aquino the formation of a crack team of operatives whose members are expert in all kinds of weaponry and proficient in hand-to-hand combat; a unit that would be capable of extracting Filipinos abroad who are wrongfully imprisoned, Filipinos who are detained by an abusive employer, or being held hostage, in different parts of the world. After consulting with his classmates in Ateneo, President Aquino agreed. Binay then arranged a secret meeting with his fraternity’s Inner Circle and asked them to assist him in looking for candidates. Here are the results of the search. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Binay Babes : Mayumi Dimapilas -Expert in stealth missions, hand-to-hand combat; inhumanly proficient in bladed weapons and firearms. Born in the hinterlands of Mindanao, Mayumi was a lumad princess whose village was destroye...