Wednesday, February 29, 2012

50 Book Pledge #6: Philip Pullman — The Golden Compass


Having seen and quickly forgotten the decent 2007 adaptation of this book, I never got around to its source material, which is a shame because I would have treasured this as a teenager. An accessible fantasy book warning against religion, The Golden Compass could have helped my rough transition into atheism by giving me a storytelling backup, not merely the boring den of facts. And I must say, it's a fantastically swift read, even taking into account I'm an adult and this book can be easily read by children. The narrative momentum never falters in this first installment, and I more or less plunged headlong into the next installment the second I finished.

Round 2: 11 Questions Tag

CYP from A Book-a-licious Story tagged me for the 11 Questions! Since the questions are different, I thought I would do them again :) Check it out!

1. Who's your favorite fictional hottie?
This is such a hard question. I don't have just one favorite. Do I have to pick? *crickets* Okay, I guess I can kind of narrow it down. First is Dimitri from Vampire Academy. He's my go-to fictional guy whenever someone asks me that question. Second would probably be Peeta from The Hunger Games. I took a quiz one time and he turned out to be my fictional boyfriend. Nice :) I like me some baked goodies.



2. What is your favorite book that has made quite an impact on you?
I just finished reading the last book in The Hunger Games and I must say that it is this trilogy that had the most impact. Not only is it amazing, but the story was so vivid, I felt like I really was in the dystopian world with Katniss, Peeta, and Gale.


3. What are your top 3 dreams or aspirations?
#1: Become a successful actress
#2: Save the world one day at a time
#3: Make the world just a little bit more beautiful with the color pink

4. How long have you been blogging for?
11 months!!! My blogoversary is in FOUR DAYS!!!

5. What's your favorite color?
PINK. 'Nuff said.

6. Who's your favorite author?
-Suzanne Collins
-Richelle Mead
-Rachel Caine
-Alyson Noel
-DeeAnne Gist
-Nora Roberts
-Liz Reinhardt
-Lisa Kessler
-the list can go on and on



7. Favorite social networking site.
Is Blogger a networking site? :) I love Twitter. I feel like it's so impersonal. Click the picture if you want to follow me ;)


8. If you could meet one author, who would it be?
Do I really need to pick? I want to meet every author I read!

9. Favorite mythical creature.
I had to Google this one... *be right back*
I like mermaids and fairies :)


10. Morning bird or night owl?
NIGHT OWL! I'm a zombie in the morning. I'm practically a vampire without the blood and strength.

11. What time is it where you are?
When I did this post, it is 2:51pm.

Now, onto CYP's questions! :) Some of her questions were the same as above so I omitted them.

1. Which character would you most love to be?
Oh, this is hard. Let's see. I always wanted to be Rose from the Vampire Academy. She's strong and brave. But after reading The Hunger Games, I wouldn't mind being Katniss either, despite all the struggles she'd been through.

2. Which character and author do you most want to meet?
I'll just stick to Katniss and Suzanne Collins for this one :)


3. Which is your favorite publisher?
Haha, I don't really know.

4. Favorite myth?
I'm not really aware of many myths so I don't think I can answer this one.

5. Most hated character?
Hmm, I'm sure I have one, I just have to think about it... *thinks* It's hard but for now I'll say Linda from the Bride Quartet series. She is the mother of one of the quartet. She is just evil and selfish. I also disliked President Snow from the Hunger Games. He really freaked me out with the blood and roses.

6. Favorite movie or novel-adapted film?
It's hard to say what my favorite movie is. I can't pick. As for novel-adapted, I'd say Dear John by Nicholas Sparks was great. And even though it hasn't come out yet, I'm sure I'd love the Hunger Games, too ;)


7. What's your dream job?
Acting alongside the Vampire Diaries cast :D


8. What is your dream home like?
Oh boy, this is hard. I want it to be classy and chic but with the hint of history - like Victorian or Elizabethan. One of those styles.
I also wanted to add that if those things I mentioned doesn't happen, I would mind having AT LEAST my room to resemble Elle Fowler's bedroom at the moment :)

9. Favorite blogger?
Haha, I refuse to answer this question ;)

Again, Thank you CYP for tagging me! Everyone, go visit her blog!

World Champion Yohan Blake leads off 2012 adidas Grand Prix lineup

From Anthony Turner - IMAGES Media LLC

NEW YORK (Feb. 29, 2012)—World Champion Yohan Blake of Jamaica, ranked No. 1 in the world at 100 meters, kicks off a scintillating lineup of superstars expected at the 2012 adidas Grand Prix in a preview of the action later this summer in London.

Blake 22, joins a long list of sprint champions who have thrilled fans at the adidas Grand Prix in the past, including Maurice Greene, Tyson Gay, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Allyson Felix and, of course, Usain Bolt, who in 2008 set his first 100-meter World Record here to kick off his history-making Olympic campaign.

"The Gibson Relays last weekend were a great start for my 2012 season," said Blake, of the event at National Stadium in Kingston on Feb. 25 in which he came from behind to anchor his 4x400-meter and 4x100-meter teams to victory. "I am already looking forward to that fast track in New York City on June 9th."

Last summer in Daegu, South Korea, Blake became the youngest 100-meter gold medalist at the World Championships since it began in 1983. "I would like to be a legend," he said before capping off his historic week by running the third leg and handing off to his training partner, Bolt, on the 4x100-meter relay team that broke its own World Record.

This is not the first time Blake has competed at the adidas Grand Prix. The youngster made his debut here way back in 2007 when he anchored his St. Jago team to victory in the boys' 4x400-meter high school relay, and competed over 100 meters in 2009 and 2010.More athlete announcements for the 2012 event are expected soon.

The eighth-annual adidas Grand Prix, one of the premier track-and-field events in the world, is the sixth stop on the international Samsung Diamond League circuit, and the third stop on the Visa Championship Series. It will begin at 1 p.m. on June 9 at Icahn Stadium on Randall's Island.

Homestretch tickets for the event, set for June 9, are now on sale at 877-849-8722.

For more information, visit the event website at adidasgrandprix.com and follow the adidas Grand Prix on Facebook and Twitter. When tweeting, use #agpny.

Sent from my BlackBerry® device from Digicel

The Vow: My Review

On Friday, my husband took me to see "The Vow" and I went into the movie with low expectations since it had poor reviews. To my surprise the theater was packed with every seat taken.
We barely got a good seat as well.


Also, let me remind you that I don't cry at movies. Honestly! I didn't cry watching "The Notebook", "Titanic", " Marley & Me" and the list goes on. I've just never been the type to cry at movies.

I hate to admit this but I cried like a little baby watching this flick.
TRUST ME .... I was trying my hardest to hold back the tears.

What made me cry?

I think it's the fact that I'm a newlywed. Also, because the story is TRUE!! In 1993 the real life couple, were only married a few weeks when they both got into a severe car accident. This left the wife with no recollection of meeting, falling in love with or marrying her husband. It was heartbreaking to watch.

Mr. & Mrs. Carpenter
The Actors & The Carpenters

I'm not sitting here to tell you it's Oscar worthy.
I just think it was a good flick to watch and to feel for this real life couple.

Let me know what you think!

mr blue is expecting a baby!!!!!!

mr blue is expecting a baby from her long time gal friend wahida mohamed.nyumbani kwetu blog is wishing u goodluck (picha from teen news)

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Flowery Polka Dots

I'm not really sure what to call these. But I like them. I got the idea for these from this blog. Hard to tell, since mine only vaguely resemble the awesomeness that is the original design. *sigh*

I thought a shimmery metallic grey would look cooler than black. Not sure now... Still love the color!

Added some white dots with a dot maker. I need to practice a bit more...

My best dots!

Took a day off before adding the flowers - and chipped a nail. So I changed it to red. Boom.

Last step - drawing some flowers. Since I'm not a pro, mine are gigantic.



Did anyone else notice how gigantic my thumb looks? I hope it's just the camera angle adding 20 pounds...

Brian De Palma: Redacted

The mainstream view of Brian De Palma's 2000s output is anything but flattering, with all four of his films made in the new millennium bowing to intense critical pans and commercial indifference. However, I've found his contemporary work to rank among his best. Mission to Mars captures the boundless enthusiasm (and unabashed cheesiness) of old Disney space adventures, shot to favor near-poetry over scientific accuracy and all the better for it. Femme Fatale threw people with its narrative mulligan, but it made the strongest case to date for the director's actual feelings for women, which are far more complex than the lazy accusations of misogyny that have dogged him for so long. The Black Dahlia is, if anything, the only one of De Palma's films that can even stand with Carlito's Way in terms of sheer aesthetic and Romantic beauty. Its sloppy elements and awkward acting choices only add to its deliberate, yet gentle, attack on Hollywood. It may also be the most neatly contextualized of De Palma's films in his strange canon, fitting neatly with the more formal, big-budget experiments and the uncompromising anti-mainstream tone of his '70s and '80s work.

Then there's Redacted. In 1989, De Palma made Casualties of War, one of his most sincere films and perhaps the only one to lack any postmodern flourishes. Redacted seeks to rectify this: it swaps Vietnam for Iraq and swaps the classical filmmaking of Casualties for a collage of styles and media. De Palma constructs his film as a hodgepodge of footage sources. The intent is clear: by stylistically and narratively repurposing Casulaties' true story of a rape and massacre being arduously brought to light, Redacted uses its own dramatization of real events to demonstrate that, in a war that can now be documented by anyone with a cell phone, truth has never been further from the public's grasp. If Casualties of War found worth, even moral victory in doing the right thing, Redacted nihilistically sees no point in even trying.

For that very reason, all the incisive ideas percolating through Redacted's slim running time cannot prevent it from being one of the most abysmal, unbearable movies De Palma ever made, ranking among the dregs with Bonfire of the Vanities and Wise Guys. It's a shame, too, for Redacted occasionally flirts with greatness, suggesting a vicious assault on oblivious American mindsets since the "Be Black, Baby" segment of Hi, Mom! But from the first moments, one can tell that Redacted will be a miserable chore, not a galvanizing screed.

The film follows a company of soldiers stationed in Iraq, where they already chafe under the hot desert sun and tense relations with the indigenous population. One soldier, Angel Salazar (Izzy Diaz), decides to film life on the base, believing that his work will get him into film school when he goes home. There's a grim irony to this thought process, the home videos a young Steven Spielberg used to make where he and his friends reenacted war now replaced by a taping of a real one. But his journal reveals the first, and deadliest, flaw of the movie: Salazar, and his comrades, could not be more simplistically written or agonizingly two-dimensional. To a T, they make casually racist comments about Iraqis and show no remorse for their lethal screw-ups. A green soldier ends up killing a woman at a checkpoint when her car speeds through, and not only does he not struggle with it, he brags into Salazar's camera.


Only Salazar and another soldier, Lawyer McCoy (Rob Devaney), ever even hint at a basic humanity, and they are no more nuanced than their rapacious brethren. They are moral simply because the script calls for someone to be at least partially decent, and their protests to increasingly horrific behavior have all the conviction of a bored high-schooler forced to read a play aloud in class and doing so with a flat, get-it-over-with monotone. The squad leads a raid on a local home that they suspect contains intel, where they arrest a man for no reason as a reporter for an Al-Jazeera-like news organization asks the soldiers what they are doing. Later, some of the soldiers decide to return to have their way with a 15-year-old girl they saw in the house, killing her and her family in the process. Salazar is forced to witness it, and a protesting McCoy is thrown out by his comrades at gunpoint.

That's the basic gist of the story, but De Palma tries to dress it up with his use of multiple styles. Unfortunately, the result is an interminable mess. De Palma's asides with a group of French documentarians parody stuffy, emptily moralistic war docs, the camera slowly zooming in and out on soldiers' faces as the orchestral arrangement of "Sarabande" from Barry Lyndon plays. At least, I assume it's a parody; these segments are so tedious that De Palma must be making fun of such films, but his target is unclear. Likewise, we see various YouTube clips of terrorists sneaking bombs under the clueless eyes of the Americans, or of newscasts showing angry Iraqis swearing vengeance for what has happened to them. Everyone knows what the Americans are doing, but no one will listen.

It might be an compelling array of conflicting, yet harmonious, elements were the transitions not so jarring, the morals not so disgustingly black-and-white, and the judgment not so haughty. Casualties of War grounded its characters' sadism in an understanding for their predicament. It vigorously condemned the actions of the soldiers, but it could also at least see how they were driven to the point of feral madness. Redacted feels like an old man's rant about "kids these days," only the kids here murder a family in cold blood and set fire to a teenager after raping her. It just accepts the horror of the soldiers' actions as a foregone conclusion. Salazar blanches at the atrocity, but he also wants to reveal the truth in a way that will make his film project a hit; better to get back home and piece together a dynamite cut than get justice now. And all McCoy can do is feel bad, even up to his last moment on-screen, which openly mocks him.

War is unpleasant, and the Iraq War more unpleasant than most, given its falsified justification and mismanagement. But De Palma's usual talent for immersion in seediness fails him here. He does not capture the repulsion of war; he only makes a repulsive film. As if to ward off the pointlessness of the exercise, De Palma has his characters occasionally spout aesthetic maxims. When Salazar jokingly tells McCoy that his camera doesn't lie, McCoy replies, "That's bullshit because that's all that camera ever does." Later, Salazar more insistently urges, "Just because you watch it doesn't mean you're not a part of it." Naturally, both of these utterances are key positions of De Palma's entire approach and philosophy, but so hear them said aloud here cheapens them. Especially the latter quote; De Palma is a master of implicating his audience, up there with Alfred Hitchcock and Michael Haneke. But this film does not implicate anyone because it is so morally rigid. Casualties of War shows a situation slowly spiraling off its axis until the breaking point isn't visible. These men broke before they even left home. What, then, can we learn of them?

And why is the movie so unsparing? As with the Incident on Hill 192, the real-life Mahmudiyah killings were punished. In fact, they were punished far more severely than the incident that spawned Casualties of War. The soldiers who raped the Vietnamese girl and destroyed her village had their sentences drastically reduced, and in some cases dropped entirely. The three soldiers involved in Mahmudiyah, however, have received multiple life sentences. To end the film on an uncertain note is just bullshit posturing, an offensive recalibration of reality to fit a tidy, repellent premise. The problem with this film is that De Palma, though still a provocateur, cannot now conjure the same anarchist energy of his earliest days. When he inserts an embarrassing YouTube rant by a single-minded teenage liberal, he does not broaden the scope of his critique of contemporary culture. He merely chucks in one more stereotype to be lazily jabbed, nothing more than the wink of a shock comic grown too old.


There are so many good ideas in Redacted. The fat soldier's first raid through the house borders on the Orwellian as he seizes documents he cannot read for evidence so that he can give them to a translator to determine if they are actually evidence. The blood stains left by the dead recall those thick lines of permanent marker blacking out sensitive information, erasing the full detail of the person who was there while still leaving an unmistakable trace of malfeasance. The cross-format collage of video sources presages Film Socialisme in a Derridean attempt to chase truth through the multitude of options now available to us and coming up shorter than ever. But the lapse of De Palma's subtlety results in a film that feels like a repository for every charge ever leveled against him, from misogyny to cheap cynicism to hollow rip-offs (the music lift from Barry Lyndon and a recreation of the scorpion and ants shot from The Wild Bunch add nothing). Many of De Palma's films have vile traits, but they are usually intentionally added, well-illustrated travesties cleverly dismantled by De Palma, who can be in the thick of it and above it all at once. This, however, is the only one of his films I've ever found truly disgusting, and I hope that he gets back to work soon to erase the memory of it.

Carnival 2012


                                                      got to love them girlssss

                                                      Hii mikono huku pembeni..mhhhhh
                                                    Doctor at work....
                                                                  Hizi ni swaga tuuuuu
                                                               The Twins.....
                                                                  Doctor
                                                                Happy girls....

my best dressed at the oscar's night

jennifer lopez

stacy keibler

angelina jolie


penelope cruz 













mpasuo wa angelina jolie umewapagawisha fans wake



angelina jolie aliibuka kwenye 84th  annual academy awards kavaa gauni lenye mpasuo mrefu ambao uliweza kuonesha mguu na paja lake ipasavyo kwa kitanzania ni mpasuo unaoitwa "siogopi mama wala baba" yani this woman stole the show kisawa sawa mpaka wamemtunga jina wanamwita leggy lady for me its shocking as i dnt see the reason of people kuzungumzia huo mpasuo kwenye all sourcess of media

Blogoversary Countdown: Jen Ryland's Guest Post

5 more days before my first blogoversary! I'm excited :) I'm still not quite sure what I would do on the actual day, but I'm sure I'll figure it out somehow. For my countdowns, I asked some of my good blogger/twitter friends to write a blog post about me :) Check out what Jen R. has to say below! Don't forget to visit her blog afterwards! Jen Ryland/YA Romantics


Happy Blog Birthday Arianne!

I was so honored that Arianne asked me to write a guest post in honor of her blog's birthday.

I've never met Arianne in person, but I still think I know a lot about her through her blog.

Here are Three Things I Know About Arianne...

#1 Arianne wants the world to be a nicer, more beautiful place

When Arianne first started reading my blog, she noticed something missing. And what I love is that she didn't snark behind my back on Twitter about clueless newbie bloggers.   She's nice that way. 

She was like, "Uh, Jen. You can actually stick a picture or two in the middle of all those words in your posts." 

Me: "Oh? Huh."  

Arianne, "Jen, you know you can make your Google Docs different colors. It's really easy. I think you can do it." 

Me: "Oh? Wow."

In fact, I suspect she will probably put a picture right here>>>

Yes, you can laugh ;)
Also, she reviews beauty products. Which I love because I go crazy in the beauty aisle and end up with a bunch of stuff I don't like.

#2 Arianne speaks her mind

If you read her blog, you know that she really doesn't like: word verification, bad grammar, and rude people



And she does like: quotes, Gossip Girl, chocolate, Vampire Diaries, chocolate, and the color pink



#3 Arianne is the luckiest person I know

Seriously. She wins so many online giveaways that it's crazy!  I need to meet her so some of that amazing luck can rub off on me. Like that Lindsay Lohan movie where the girl has really good luck and the guy is a walking disaster of bad luck and their luck gets switched and ... 


... oh, wait. No. That would mean I take away her good luck, and I don't want to do that, because she absolutely deserves all that luckiness.

Happy Blog Birthday! Hope you're blogging -- or at least making the world more beautiful -- for many years to come!