Da Dahk Mahk

I'm totally with the Light but you've got to admit being a Death Eater, Lucius sharing his hair products with you, Greyback fetching the paper, Bellatrix teaching you how to bag the man of your dreams and having Voldie as your leader sounds way wicked.

I finally scanned this baby!

6 Mildly Interesting Facts About the Word 'Gab'

☺It basically means 'to jest or to mock' or 'to gape'. Here are some versions of it that I wouldn't want to be my future child's name. Well on second thought, Gabba Felton has a nice ring to it, right?

Old Norse (gabba)

Proto-Germanic (gabbanan)

Proto-Indo-European (ghabh)

North Frisian (gabben)

Middle Dutch (gabben)

Middle Low German (gabben)

☺If you say it with a phlegmy throat, you'd sound like a cross between Frankenstein and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Click here to listen to Frankenegger say gab!

☺I found out while browsing through a Spanish-English dictionary that the word labia pretty much means to have the gift of gab. I labia!

The Gift of Gab, yall

☺There is a 1934 black and white movie entitled Gift of Gab as well as a rapper by the same name!

(c) syque.com

☺The Blarney Stone in Ireland is a block of stone in Blarney Castle that is said to endow whoever kisses it the gift of gab. I don't think kissing it is that hard.

☺Gabby is derived from the word gab, obviously. And it means that if an individual is gabby, the person is inclined to talk too much, especially about trivias.

John Green Awesomeness

I've never been a witness to funny or ironic captchas before so I was quite surprised when I saw this.

It says rephaw but I swear when I first saw it, I thought it said RHAPAW. As in the nickname used by Q for an old vehicle in John Green's amazing book, Paper Towns. RHAPAW is an acronym for Rode Hard And Put Away Wet. Yes, you have now officially started recognizing John Green's awesomeness.* DFTBA!

*By the way, my sister just started  reading Looking For Alaska. So happy for her!

Reeves, Chbosky, Bauby

I went to National Bookstore (practically my second home) today, while my mum was grocery shopping. I was there to buy some school supplies but since my school's a bit different (they don't hand out lists of what to buy, rather, the teachers tell us on the first meeting what color of notebook to buy for their subject), I ended up buying a single notebook for taking down notes on the first day of school. After finding a notebook, I spent almost an hour going gaga over the reeves paintbrushes + the books on sale + different shades of yellow and blue poster paints.

I ended up buying a copy of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby for only P99! The sticker on the back says that it was originally for P505. I seriously think I have some sort of Samus x-ray vision when it comes to books on sale. I also bought The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky since it piqued my interest after reading an article about books written in epistolary form. 

I also bought this...in my dreams ha ha ha. This is just too amazing not to be shared with everyone. I bought one size 10 Reeves nylon paint brush last time we went to the mall and I have paintbrushgasms when I use it so just imagine when I went to the paint brush section earlier and saw a buttload of Reeves paint brushes! I only bought 2 today, a 6 and a 14, since they were quite pricey. Nevertheless, I'm still a happy happy girl.

Lastly, I bought 3 poster paints. 1 Reeves prussian blue, 1 Reeves gold and 1 Colleen yellow! It's not obvious but I love Reeves!

A Raccoon and a Dog in a Tutu

I've always wanted a painting of a raccoon dressed up as a person from the renaissance era. When I found out how expensive it was to ask a professional to paint for you (the ones at the mall), I figured it'd be better to include my face in the painting so the 4000 pesos or more wouldn't be wasted. I dreamed of having a painting of myself dressed in those old and classic gowns from the medieval times with a pet raccoon on my shoulder. But, I've finally realized that I simply cannot and would not be capable of splurging thousands of pesos on a silly painting, that's why I'm gonna start painting raccoons and hopefully I'll be able to paint my dream portrait!

First Attempt!

I came across this funny picture of a dog in a tutu and I just had to try and paint it!

Dog in a tutu without the tutu

Dog in a tutu that looks like a huge udder/brain :(

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

Orphan Hugo Cabret lives in a wall. His secret home is etched out in the crevices of a busy Paris train station. Part-time clock keeper, part-time thief, he leads a life of quiet routine until he gets involved with an eccentric, bookish young girl and an angry old man who runs a toy booth in the station. The Invention of Hugo Cabret unfolds its cryptic, magical story in a format that blends elements of picture book, novel, graphic novel, and film. Caldecott Honor-winning author-illustrator Brian Selznick has fashioned an intricate puzzle story that binds the reader like a mesmerist's spell.

I've seen The Invention of Hugo Cabret lots of times before I got my own copy. When I first saw it, I was simply entranced by the intricacy of the gears on the cover and after flipping through it, the illustrations and the amount of details each had just made me want it more.

I was at National Bookstore, looking for a decent book in the Below 100 Sale bunch when I spotted a hardbound version of The Invention of Hugo Cabret. It seemed to be too good to be true! I was so excited to buy it but my sister pointed out that the price was hardly understandable since it looked like it had been scratched by a chicken or something. It's a good thing that we asked the cashier if it was really for P99 because it turned out it wasn't! It was for around a thousand pesos ($20)! Long story short, I didn't buy it, but I did get lucky and found it on sale while I was out buying a gift for a friend of mine, and this time, I only paid P99 for it. 

It tells the story of a young boy by the name of Hugo Cabret. Hugo is an orphan, clock keeper and thief. He lives a life of secrets and isolation inside a wall in a train station. His involvement with a peculiar girl and the owner of the toy booth from which he has pilfered from makes up the enchanting tale that weaves horology, magic, family and film together.

What can I say about this book? Brian Selznick, the author, always goes off about how it's not a novel, not a graphic novel either but a mixture of words, illustrations and screencaps. Reading it, made me feel like I was in a movie of some sort and it was such a pleasant experience even though it didn't take me long to finish it. Turning one page filled with drawings after another gives the feeling of watching a movie in which you can control the speed to savor and study the scene or whatever.

Personally, I think that Hugo and Isabelle together is what made this book more awesome. Hugo is such a brave and sadly lost kid that has wormed his way in my heart with his sneaky ways. Isabelle on the other hand, is a favorite of mine because of the shallow reason that she reads. The drawings of Isabelle remind me so much of Natalie Portman in Leon: The Professional. Th fact that they're both dreamers, Hugo with his automaton and Isabelle with her photography, is just plain adorable. 

I also loved how a lot of topics were touched and/or scrutinized in this wonderful book. You've got France in the 1930's as the backdrop of the story, a peek inside a horologists lifestyle and how the gears and clockwork can affect someone's thinking, Georges Méliès life, the train accident in Gare Montparnasse and magic. 

A lovely quote from the book:

"I like to imagine that the world is one big machine. You know, machines never have any extra parts. They have the exact number and types of parts they need. So I figure if the entire world is a big machine, I have to be here for some reason, too. " 

-Hugo Cabret, p.378 The Invention of Hugo Cabret

The Invention of Hugo Cabret just had me wrapped around its literary finger from the first page down to the last.

B.I.T.C.H

I had the idea of painting B.I.T.C.H (Batman, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hulk) last night after watching smosh's If Superheroes Were Real. I started with Batman and realized he was a bit big so I decided to just dedicate one page per superhero. But when I got back from the mall earlier, I thought of squeezing Iron Man's face below and The Hulk above! It was seriously fun to sketch/paint Hulk's cloud-like arms. Hopefully, I can finish this before the school year starts!

Edit
I finished it today!

B.I.T.C.H!

Another Edit
I scanned it, plus a bunch of other works in progress!

Ms. Granger

 I was so giddy and excited for the second part of the Deathly Hallows after reading HP7 that I decided to make some sort of fan art in honor of Harry Potter. I googled the Golden Trio but couldn't find a picture that I could draw or paint and, I eventually settled on a screencap of Hermione in HP3.

The Brightest Witch of Our Age!

I probably got the highlighting stuff wrong, but looking at it and seeing that it sorta resembles Hermione's hair and the fact that it's my first decent painting makes me so happy! Now, I'm trying to mix the colors that I ground in the perfect skin tone shade, which is proving to be more difficult than I thought. I think I added too much red because now it looks a bit like Pepto-Bismol. Too bad I haven't got any white paint left :(

Midnight Snacks

These past few days, my sister and I have been trying our luck in the kitchen by making midnight snacks. This interest came from my sister's Martha Stewart-y ways in dealing with boredom this summer. So far, she's made 3 skirts from scratch. 3 skirts! (Plus a bunch of tie-dyed tops) That's how she's been coping, while I've been buried in books and art. The fixation on making midnight snacks is not really strange, especially to our family, since it's sort of like a known fact that whenever we go eat out and have a doggy bag, that doggy bag will most likely be gone in the morning. The only explanation for its absence, the poor slice of pizza or whatever it was became somebody's midnight snack.

However, my sister and I have been putting a lot effort in our midnight snacks and that's what makes it different and cooler, and yummier. I didn't know that cooking could make me sweat! So, it's so fun that we get to whip up a meal, sweat and laugh at our awkward movements in the kitchen, eat like we whipped up something from Hell's Kitchen and wash the dishes. Jsyk, I really love washing the dishes. I just realized that I enjoy getting my hands all wet and sudsy. Before I get carried away and right an entire paragraph on the joys of dish washing, I will tell you all about our first and last Martha Stewart-y midnight snacking experience.

One night, back in our old house, we spent a night taking shots -whoever loses in a game of rock paper scissors or the staring contest has to take a shot - while munching on scrambled eggs (that we cooked!) and rice with lots of knor! It actually started out with my sister finding a bottle of The Bar near our refrigerator, well one thing led to another, and I found myself drinking from one of our medicine measuring cup thingy. When I've had 2 or 3, we looked for 'chasers' or anything to keep us from drinking too much. We couldn't find anything yummy and the house was already practically empty since we were in the process of moving, so we decided to cook the eggs we found inside the refrigerator.

I kinda suck at staring contests

We had scrambled eggs again last night, tuna with the garlic and onions the night before that (we actually burned the first batch of onions and garlic cos the fire was turned up way too high and I ended up sniffling like I just watched a tearjerking chick flick because I got the lovely lovely job of mincing the onions) and we were planning on making deep fried oreos tonight but because we used up the remaining eggs last night, we have none left. Hence, there will be no fried oreos in my tummy tonight.Yes, I'm very sad. That's why I wrote this entry.

ϟ

I've been on a Harry Potter spree since our internet connection became stable. After a weekend of browsing through weheartit and this amazing tumbleblog, I'm glad to tell you that my Harry Potter folder is now very full and most likely can cause pottergasm. I seriously have no idea where I'll get the money to buy the movies on dvd and in order for me not to cry, I will indulge and post lovely lovely pictures of everything about Harry Potter! Beware of extremely adorable Ron Weasleys, mustached Harry Potters, delectable Malfoys and girl-crush-causing Hermione Grangers.

Harry Potter + Misfits = jkdbfhdjbfjhffdbjhfdfdbhj!!!!!

Have a good day!

Shoeses

Since we only got our internet connection fixed, the whole week was spent trying not to sweat, reading, running and drawing lovely lovely shoes.

My poor attempt at making gradients haha

Guess Who This Schmexy Beast Is

The temporary internet connection's been so intermittent. I gave up on it a while ago and decided to mess around on GIMP with some of my drawings. Since it's already late and I can't sleep, let's play a game of Guess Who This Schmexy Beast Is! Winners will get a hearty 'congratulations' from me. Now who would want to miss that?

Moving In

We're finally at our new house! Tonight's the second night here yay. We arrived yesterday at 7 in the morning, bleary-eyed and quite cranky. The house is still not finished though, especially my room since the carpenter that was in charge of building my bookshelf got sick because of the rain that I was talking about in my last entry.

Good news! We went grocery shopping yesterday at Shopwise and while my mum was busy with the actual grocery shopping, my sister and I went to National Bookstore. After checking for Deathly Hallows (they didn't have any), we hung out at the paint and sewing section. She went crazy because of the dyes and I because of the paints and blenders! I ended up buying 2 blenders because I didn't know which size to buy and a 2 1/2 HB pencil. Haha I'm such a geek. My sister bought some Martha Stewart-y stuff, our own copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and a copy of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins! Long story short, I stayed up until 4 in the morning to finish The Hunger Games! I kept on drifting in and out of consciousness because I wasn't used to sleeping with only the electric fan as the source of cool air. I woke up at noon and spent the rest of the day reading Heart on a Chain by Cindy C. Bennett -a book from my light summer reads list. After finishing the book, I got so bored that I fell asleep until dinnertime!

All in all, it's been good here in our new house. It's not creepy and living here doesn't make me feel like I'm in a horror movie, which is obviously a good thing. I can't wait 'til they deliver my bookshelf and finally start unpacking my books! It just doesn't feel like my room without stacks of books all over the place. I know, spoken like a true nerd haha.

Motherhugging Zombies

It's raining buckets right now! This probably is by far the coldest summer day that I have experienced in my whole life. My sister and I are all alone in our house since my parents and our maids are somewhat stranded in our new house because it started flooding. It's a good thing though that it's raining heavily since they got to repair the leaky ceilings in our house so in the future, it wouldn't bother us anymore.

By the way, today's Mother's day! Yay.  I woke up at around 1 in the afternoon because I stayed up last night finishing my mum's present and by the time I went downstairs to eat, my parents were already at 19 East -this bar that's owned by a good friend of my dad's that has the live streaming of Manny Pacquiao's fight. Pacman won; HOORAY 4 THAT!

Anyway, the lot behind our house is already flooding and since we've packed our clothes already, I can't put on a red shirt. Yes, I have a habit of thinking about the worst case scenarios. In this case, I'm thinking of putting on a red shirt just in case the flood reaches us inside the house and we'd be forced to stay on the roof. Red shirts would be seen by rescue teams on helicopters! It's too bad I've already packed my glow in the dark bracelet too :(

The reason why I'm on full survival mode is because I'm having a The Walking Dead marathon right now!

This picture just gave me goosebumps. And it's not because I'm cold!

I absoluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutely love zombies, from their gruesome appearances and even to the horrible sounds that they make, and if this post hasn't convinced you of my back-from-the-dead obsession, maybe this one will. Now that I think about it, I'm just itching to get on with watching The Walking Dead so I'll just explain in full detail

My Totally Wicked and Super Deadly Dream Zombie Killing Machine

I admit the drawing's a bit wonky haha. I've run out of blank index cards and my drawing book's far too small. Plus, the fact that I've already packed most of my art materials such as my papers and sketchbook, didn't help either so I had no choice but to draw on my sister's Math notebook.

1. That's where the 2 bazookas will be perched. I'm not really good with weapons, but the bazookas in my mind are the huge double ended one's that those big guys in action movies put on their shoulders.
2. I'll have two sniper stations on each side of the bus. These sniper stations will be the place wherein, yep, you guessed it, the snipers will position themselves and kill as many zombies as they can.
3. This is where I'll have my super strong wrestler guy that will throw out lit LPGs. I think LPGs are commonly found in filipino kitchens, I'm not sure in other countries. Important thing is that they hold gas which in turn would make them highly flammable.
4. The window that allows my trained shooters to kill zombies with their shotguns and machine guns.

5. This window acts as the bridge. It comes with a collapsible tent-like tube that allows us to break in to any store without facing the zombies outside. It's sort of like those airplane to airplane terminal connectors.
6. These slots on both sides of the bus are aligned with the average person's neck. Any zombie that will come close to the bus will be beheaded by the chainsaws that are sticking out from the said slots.
7. The little V's are actually knives. Knives that are ready to kill any dizzy little zombie that gets in the killing machine's way.

So, there you have it! While other kids my age were daydreaming about princesses and cowboys, I was assembling this totally amazing death bringer. Although, if this invention of mine fails,  I've got dibs on the Knight Bus!