Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Book Review: Dirty Little Secrets by C.J. Omololu

Title: Dirty Little Secrets
Author: C.J. Omololu
Pages: 212
Publication: February 2, 2010
Publisher: Walker Books for Young Readers
Summary taken from goodreads:
Everyone has a secret. But Lucy’s is bigger and dirtier than most. It’s one she’s been hiding for years—that her mom’s out-of-control hoarding has turned their lives into a world of garbage and shame. She’s managed to keep her home life hidden from her best friend and her crush, knowing they’d be disgusted by the truth. So, when her mom dies suddenly in their home, Lucy hesitates to call 911 because revealing their way of life would make her future unbearable—and she begins her two-day plan to set her life right.With details that are as fascinating as they are disturbing, C. J. Omololu weaves an hour-by-hour account of Lucy’s desperate attempt at normalcy. Her fear and isolation are palpable as readers are pulled down a path from which there is no return, and the impact of hoarding on one teen’s life will have readers completely hooked.
3 STARS - I LIKED IT

MY REVIEW:

I wanted to read this book mainly because every time my best friend sees my piles of TBR books lying around my room, she jokingly calls me a hoarder. Basically, I was interested in reading about what it's like living with a real hoarder. And it was interesting.

Lucy is just your average kid, trying to fit in and be normal, desperately doing everything that she can to hide her family secret. I didn't really warm up to her until 50 pages in the book, and I still don't like the fact that she never told anyone the family secret, but I can understand why she couldn't do it. No one wants to be completely vulnerable and exposed.

Anyway, the ending was kind of unexpected. I wished that there was an epilogue because I would love to see how she had to act and react to what had happened. I mean, she would still have to lie about the situation and after a while, how would she handle the guilt?

Overall, Dirty Little Secret is a good read.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

In My Mailbox (43)

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren.


Bought:
Beautiful by Amy Reed
Forgive My Fins by Tera Lynn Childs
Desires of the Dead by Kimberly Derting
Tiger's Voyage by Collen Hock (Signed! :D)
Supernaturally by Kiersten White
Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel
Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-Moore
The Absolute Value of -1 by Steve Brezenoff

Library:
Union Spark by Andy Marino
Ashfall by Mike Mullin


It's Thanksgiving Break! You know what that means... I have time to read! :D 

But I won't have any time to read today until later at night. Last Thursday, I somehow agreed to have a Twilight movie marathon at my house today since I had never watched any of the movies after the first one... I'm not sure how I'll take it. :P

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Nerdy Pick-Up Lines

My friend showed me this page that's full of nerdy pick-up lines a while ago. I thought I'd show you my favorites. :D

  • You’re like an exothermic reaction, you spread your hotness everywhere!
  • I wish I was your derivative so I could lie tangent to your curves.
  • You’re like a dictionary, you add meaning to my life!
  • If I was an enzyme, I’d be helicase so I could unzip your genes.
  • Baby, you overclock my processor.
  • Be my queen and mate me with your knight moves.
  • Baby, you make my floppy disk turn into a hard drive
  • Do you think we can make it a step more serious and disable network sharing?
  • You must be auxin, cause you are causing me to have rapid stem elongation.
  • I don’t have a library card, but do you mind if I check you out?
  • I think my heart just lagged.
  • I wish I were your second derivative so I could fill your concavities.
  • Did you just combust?? Because you’re HOT!
  • Baby, if you were words on a page, you’d be what they call FINE PRINT!
  • What do you say we go back to my room and do some math: Add a bed, subtract our clothes, divide your legs, and multiply
  • Baby, you’re a 9.999999999…but you’d be a 10 if you were with me.
  • Baby, every time I see you, my cardiovascular system gets all worked up
  • I wish I were adenine because then I could get paired with U.
  • What’s your sine? It must be pi/2 because you’re the 1
  • If my right leg was Christmas and my left was Easter, would you like to spend some time between the holidays?
  • You have nicer legs than an Isosceles right triangle.
  • If I was sin^2 and you were cos^2 together we would be 1
  • Your name is Leslie? Look, I can spell your name on my calculator!
  • If I was an endoplasmic reticulum, how would you want me: smooth or rough?
  • I wish I was an Ion so I could form an exothermic bond with you.
  • If my right leg is the cell wall and my left the membrane, do you want to be the cytoplasm?
  • Our love is like dividing by zero…. you cannot define it
  • Let’s get together and test the spring potential of my mattress
  • Let’s discover our coefficient of friction
  • I less than three you….. (i < 3 you)
  • I heard you're sin because you're always on top when we make tangent

And a lot of people in the comments had great pick-up lines, too!

  • I've been sent from the future to get you pregnant so our son can save the world. (And by the way, the history books didn’t say anything about me sticking around afterwards).
  • Hey, babe, how about I add some RAM to your motherboard?
  • I’d like to intercept your slope.
  • Baby, life without you would be like a broken pencil. Pointless.
  • Let’s fuck, just the 10 of us. What, you don’t understand binary?!
  • That dress would look much better accelerating towards my bedroom floor at 9.8ms-2
  • You’re so hot you denature my proteins.
  • What charge are you? Because you’re lookin pretty attractive.

I can't believe that I understand all of these... XD

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Mini Reviews: Iron Man 2, Ironclad, Killer Elite

Title: Iron Man 2
Running time: 124 min
Release date: May 7, 2010
Rated: PG-13
Summary taken from imdb:
With the world now aware of his dual life as the armored superhero Iron Man, billionaire inventor Tony Stark faces pressure from the government, the press, and the public to share his technology with the military. Unwilling to let go of his invention, Stark, along with Pepper Potts, and James "Rhodey" Rhodes at his side, must forge new alliances - and confront powerful enemies.
4 STARS - I REALLY LIKED IT

MY REVIEW:

Iron Man 2 was just as highly entertaining as the first movie. Great action scenes, funny one-liners, good plot, and humorous characters.

 is a cocky asshole who you usually hate, but his charisma and wit lets him get away with everything. And, you know, his intelligence helps, too. That is why he has a logical reasoning behind his crazy eccentric behavior in the movie, which makes him seem all the more real.

Anyway, a great blockbuster movie that will entertain you for two hours.


Is anyone else excited for The Avengers? I'm not a huge Marvel fan and still need to watch Captain America: The First Avenger and The Incredible Hulk, but I can already tell from the cast of characters that the movie's going to be epic. :D






Title: Ironclad
Running time: 121 min
Release date: July 26, 2011
Rating: R
Summary taken from imdb: 
It is the year 1215 and the rebel barons of England have forced their despised King John to put his royal seal to the Magna Carta, a noble, seminal document that upheld the rights of free-men. Yet within months of pledging himself to the great charter, the King reneged on his word and assembled a mercenary army on the south coast of England with the intention of bringing the barons and the country back under his tyrannical rule. Barring his way stood the mighty Rochester castle, a place that would become the symbol of the rebel's momentous struggle for justice and freedom.
3 STARS - I LIKED IT

MY REVIEW: 

I'm not sure how much of the movie was historically accurate, but it looked and felt correct to me.

The torture methods made the movie more gory than I expected, which isn't bad, but was still a little shocking watching the scenes. Everyone was so brutal in the movie, it made me wonder how I would have handled living in a time period like that.

The romance made me cringe every time the woman kept on coming after the Templar. I just wanted to shake her! I mean, he's trying to help protect everyone from being killed and you have to seek him out and distract so many times?! I don't know if all of those times were to build up a tension between them, because all I could do was cringe.

But the fight scenes were great, full of brutal killings and strategic planning. The plot was solid and the characters were diverse. I hated the king so much, that greedy, self-righteous, cruel person. I can understand his reasoning for his actions, but I could never agree with what he did.

If you like historical or war movies, I would definitely recommend this movie.






Title: Killer Elite
Running time: 116 min
Release date: September 23, 2011
Rating: R
Summary taken from imdb: 
Based on a true story, Killer Elite pits two of the worlds' most elite operatives - Danny, an ex-special ops agent (Jason Statham) and Hunter, his longtime mentor (Robert De Niro) - against the cunning leader of a secret military society ('Clive Owen' ). Covering the globe from Australia to Paris, London and the Middle East, Danny and Hunter are plunged into a highly dangerous game of cat and mouse - where the predators become the prey.
2.5 STARS - IT WAS OKAY ENOUGH

MY REVIEW:

I'm giving it 2.5 stars because I don't think that Killer Elite is my type of movie. You know, the one where the lone wolf main character has to go on a mission in order to save someone. Okay, well, normally, I like plots like that, but I felt like this movie didn't have enough of something to keep me that entertained.

For me, it's one of those movies where you watch it once and never again.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Top Ten Tuesdays: Top Ten Books That Have Been On My Shelf For The Longest But I've Never Read

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by the Broke and Bookish.

Surprisingly, I've managed to read a lot of old books that I had bought a year or two ago earlier this year because of a reading challenge that I'm participating in. Unfortunately, I still have a bunch of books that I still need to read since I can't seem to stop buying so many books... -__-"

Books that Have Been On My Shelf For The Longest But I've Never Read:

1. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
This book has been sitting in my immediate TBR pile for the past year. It's at the bottom of the stack, so I think that's the main reason why I keep on forgetting to pick it up...


2. Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta
Heard great things about the author, so I decided to buy this book since it was relatively cheap and because it was a fantasy, a genre that I was really into a while back. Then I found out that it was part of an ongoing series, and that made my immediate need to read it lessen since I knew that I'd have to wait forever for the next volume to come out. Since the sequel finally came out, I guess I'll try to read it some time soon.


3. The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting
Like Finnikin of the Rock, The Body Finder is the first in a series, and you know how I am about waiting for sequels. :P


4. Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson
Also a first in a series. Didn't realize until now, but the waiting period for this series seems to be a book being released every two years... Yep, this book will probably still be on the back-burner for a while.


5. A Mango-Shaped Space by Wendy Mass
I was really interested in reading this book once I received it, but I guess other books pushed reading this book back, and I just eventually forgot about it.


6. Blood Ninja by Nick Lake
Also the first in a series, although I was really excited to read this book in the beginning when I read the summary online since it involved ninjas, a pretty rare subject in YA books. But I think I accidentally read a spoiler of the book, so I wanted to wait a while to partially forget about it before I read it.


7. The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey
I won this book and it's sequel in a contest, but I was never in the mood to read something gothic even though my best friend keeps on telling me to read it. :P


8. Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
Again, a first in a series -- well, trilogy. I don't really know why I haven't read this book yet since I'm a fan of the author's books. The last book was released a few months ago, so I think I'll try to squeeze this trilogy into my immediate TBR pile as soon as it shrinks a bit. :D


9. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
It's such a small book, and I basically already know what happens in it... I guess that's why I've never felt the need to read it? -__-" But, because of AP Lit, I would rather not read any more classics for a while. :P


10. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
Honestly, I'm not the type of person to willingly read classics for no reason, especially when I have so many more modern YA books to interest me in, so that's the main reason why I still haven't read this book and Romeo and Juliet yet.

Monday, November 14, 2011

THE HUNGER GAMES TRAILER & NEWS :D

I AM SPAZZING. THE TRAILER IS AWESOME. My doubts about the casting has pretty much evaporated. :D I'm even more excited about the movie now! XD

WATCH.


It's better than I expected for sure. 

And I read that the movie must make at least $100 million to make the rest of the sequels over at Fandango. If there are as many fans as I think there are, I'm pretty sure this can easily happen. But, we shall see. :P

Anyway, I've got to do my calc homework... after I open the box I received from Barns & Nobles! :D

Ta!


pointy.star

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Tumblr Pics 17

Seth texted me earlier and apparently, there's a little Harry Potter movie marathon on today! Not sure which movie is on right now, but I'm about to start watching it after I post this. :D

I was planning on watching them earlier, but I watched Law Abiding Citizen with my little bro instead. We were planning on catching up on this season's episodes of The Walking Dead, but things didn't work out on the Xbox, so we ended up watching Law Abiding Citzen on Netflix instead.

A little update on what happened yesterday: 

Originally, Shelle and I had plans to go watch Warrior at the dollar theater last night, but she couldn't make it, so I went to go watch Killer Elite with Seth and Shanice. Since one of my uncles came home early yesterday, I didn't have to babysit until 8 like usual, so we went to the 7 o'clock showing, and I didn't tell my mom about it since she wasn't home and I assumed that I would be home before she was since she was over at my aunt's house. That, and I didn't really think that she would care...

So yeah, we watched the movie and then went to Taco Bell to eat dinner afterwards and goofed off there for a while. I had left my phone on silent, so I didn't realize that my mom had called me until half an hour later, and I didn't want to go home yet, so I never called her back, using the excuse that my phone was on silent the whole time so I never heard her. That, and the fact that she knows that I forget to answer my phone half of the time. 

I eventually came home around 10, and my mom was talking on her cell in the kitchen, so I just quietly went up to my room wondering if I would get in trouble. She called up to me later asking how come I didn't call and tell her that I was going out and that Daddy was really mad finding out about this. I'm not sure if she was lying about Daddy, cuz she always says that Daddy will be mad at whatever wrong thing that we do, but since this was the first time that any of us (my siblings and I) had done something like this and gotten caught, I wasn't sure if Daddy really was mad since he wasn't even home. But my parents call each other all of the time, so I'm pretty sure he heard about this...

Anyway, I told her that I didn't call her because I thought that I would have been home before her, which, now that I think about it, wasn't such a smart thing to say. Luckily, her cell rang, so she completely forgot about grilling me afterwards. 

But still, I should have just called her yesterday to get permission. She usually says yes whenever I ask to go out to watch movies, but now she actually has a reason to doubt me and say no to future requests as punishment. :(

I am a bad child. :P We shall see if this little error will blow over. [I somehow doubt it...]

In the mean time, check out the pics! It's quite an odd assortment, lol. 















Friday, November 11, 2011

Well. Today was interesting.

It was an interesting day. 

For instance, I woke up around 8, which was five minutes before my parents barged into my room to turn on my lights to see if I needed some more lightbulbs. o__O I know, my parents are odd. They definitely woke me up for sure, lol.

Then, as they're about to leave, my I get a text, and my mom was so confused reading it since it said "Fluffy Charmander [Daughter]" as my contact, lol. She had texted me saying that she didn't feel good. Like, she felt like she was going to puke, which was really not good since I was coughing like crazy as soon as I woke up. I wasn't sure if today would have been able to go on if a third of the people were sick, lol. But she was fine and could make it in the end.


Seth and Shanice came over around 11 as planned, and Shanice went to work making her ramen and having fail moments, which was entertaining. Since Seth had already made his pasta at home, and I was pretty much finished baking cookies, we just sat around and talked while we waited for Meethu and Jackie to come. 

Jackie ended up not being able to go, which was a disappointment since Seth really wanted some Kool-Aid, and I wanted some fried chicken, lol. And Meethu didn't come over until around 1, and she had made plans to go on a date with Zack at 2, so we sent him a text asking him if they could meet up at Bare Bulb around 3 instead, and he agreed with it, so things were all good for a bit, even though Meethu was rushing around trying to quickly cook her curry, lol.

Our meal! I forgot about the fried rice until later, which is why the table looks even more empty than what we had expected, lol.


Definitely interesting. I fed my cousins fried rice since it was already 1, and my friends and I finally started eating around 1:30 or something near there. It was really fun. Since earlier, when Seth and I tried Shanice's ramen, Shanice and I were making fun of him since he couldn't use chopsticks, he dared us to use chopsticks to eat pasta later, so for revenge, we made everyone eat lunch using only chopsticks. Even though Meethu hardly ever used chopsticks, she could use them fine, so it was entertaining watching Seth try to spear the pasta with a chopstick in the beginning before attempting to actually use them. 


After we put all of the dishes in the dishwasher, we went to Wal-Greens because Shaince told us that they had a 2 for a dollar sale on Arizona Tea. Since Meethu and Seth had never had them, we had to go buy some for them to try.

Since it was close to 3, we hung out in Shanice's car for a bit, waiting so that we could drop Meethu off at Bare Bulb closer to her date time. But we didn't expect to see Zack at the parking lot later, lol. 

We left Wal-Green's parking lot when it was a few minutes until 3, going across the street to Bare Bulb, and we were parked nearer to the furthest cars in the parking lot, waiting for Zack to show up since we didn't want Meethu to be there so early since she was always the one initiating things with Zack, and then, what do you know, Zack pulls up and PASSES Shanice's car, totally glancing over at us and seeing Seth for sure. AND MEETHU WAS ON THAT SIDE, TOO. Luckily, her back was to the window, so we're not sure if he saw her since he never stopped by Shanice's car after he got out. 

Anyway, Meethu finally got out of the car, almost nauseous with nerves, and we wished her luck. And joked with her while she tried to stop hyperventilating, lol.

Then we went back to my house, eventually going back up to my room where Seth kept on trying to get on my computer. I was pretty sure that he was going to try to rearrange my bazillion tabs so that his OCD-ness would be satisfied, lol, which is why I pretty much denied him access to my account. But I finally logged on for him, and he deleted a bunch of useless cookies and temporary files that I didn't need. 

Then Shanice left around four since she had plans to go see Immortals with Josh and some other friends, and Seth couldn't go because he didn't have any money, and I couldn't go since I had to babysit. So we stayed at my place and talked and joked around. Eventually, Seth went back to his house to get his laptop and expensive headphones that worked a lot better than mine.


While he was gone, Zack dropped Meethu off, and she told me that there wasn't a spark after all, like I pretty much predicted. Earlier, while she was worrying about how terrible she looked (she looked pretty as usual :P), I asked her if she really did like him because I couldn't see it. To me, it seemed more like she liked him because she knew that he used to like her and because she could never live without crushing on someone, and Zack just happened to her current crush since she hadn't liked anyone else yet. 

And she told me that there wasn't a spark during their date at all, which sucked, but I'm glad that she can finally get over him. I mean, I like Zack and all, but I can't really imagine them together. And I'm not sure why either. I mean, they looked cute together during Homecoming, but I dunno. I'm not sure why I was so against her dating him after a while. :\

So yeah, Seth came back over, bringing his laptop but forgetting his headphones, we chilled in my room for a while until Meethu's mom came over to pick her up. Then Seth and I were on our laptops, showing each other random pics and stuff until I heard my mom downstairs.

Then realization of the situation sunk in. Seth and I were upstairs, alone in my room. A boy and a girl. It didn't matter that Seth was gay or not. My mom didn't know yet. And then I heard my dad downstairs. O__O

I had to take my cousins back over to their house to feed them, so I made Seth leave, too. So there we were, walking down the stairs, getting our stuff together, and my mom asks Seth if he wanted the rest of his pasta or not, which he didn't, so while she was putting the pasta in a bowl and washing the pot for him, she told me in Vietnamese that I couldn't be alone in a room with a boy. 

I started laughing because I knew that nothing would ever happen with Seth, and I told her that he was gay. She just said that she knew, but that I still couldn't be having boys upstairs in my room since other people wouldn't know and think that I was up to something, and that she wasn't going to tell my dad, who was outside, about this because who knew what he would do.

I was just laughing. I think it was partly out of relief because I wasn't sure if she was going to be mad that I had a boy in my room or because I didn't know how she would react to me being friends with a gay guy since we never brought up the topic of homosexuality in my family, so I didn't know how they felt about it. 

Anyway, when we were eating dinner, my mom asked me if Seth was really gay, and I told her yes, he was. That an acquaintance of ours that was a boy had a crush on him and that it was really funny. She told me that she didn't know if she could believe me when I first told her because I was laughing, which made me laugh some more. 

Then my dad asked me if he had any other siblings, and I told him that he did, and my dad just laughed at that. Still not sure why, but yeah... Then I told them that he wanted to be a computer software engineer and that he was fixing my computer earlier, so I think that that helped him get in their good graces, especially since my dad said that I should of had him look at the new GPS that they had bought to program it, lol.

But yeah, I left out some stuff about him that I was pretty sure would ruin the nice image my parents already had of him. :P

Then, I asked them if it was okay if he came over and they said that it was fine, which was good, since he's been coming over a lot lately, whether they knew about it or not, lol. I told them that he doesn't like to be lonely, so he goes over to his friends' houses a lot just to prepare them, and they didn't say anything, so I guess they're fine with it. I'm just not sure if I still can only have him downstairs in plain sight...

But yeah, Seth wants to get adopted in my family, so we're going to see if it could work. I mean, everyone other friend of Shelle's and mine's that became adopted in the family (Krista, Teyana, Emily) were accepted because they came over a whole bunch, so if Seth was over a lot, like he has been and plans on doing, I think my parents will be fine with it. But I'm not totally sure since he's still a boy and whatnot. :P

And yeah, that's how my day's been so far. :P

I just started reading The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkins (Ugh! Why do I keep on reading super thick books?! It's not like I have the time to finish them quickly! D:). I have super high expectations for this book. I hope it doesn't let me down. :P But I don't feel like reading right now, so I think I'm going to watch a movie or something...

Later~


pointy.star