Read this one only in the daylight

[WARNING: this entry may contain possible spoilers for the novel and the film Let the Right One In.]

title: Låt den rätte komma in
author: John Ajvide Lindqvist. His debut novel.

But first, before the review, have a listen to the song that's extensively quoted throughout the book: "Let the Right One Slip In" by Morrissey. [Yes, THAT Morrissey.]



There is a bit of vampire lore that does not quite get remembered as often as the whole bloodsucking/infection/undead thing: vampires need to be invited to enter a place.

If you've read the Artemis Fowl books you know that this concept has also applied to fairies. Only fitting, in a way....

Anyway. Over the weekend I treated myself to a new book: a copy of Let the Right One In. My edition has the cover that also says "The inspiration behind Let Me In" - which is the 2010 American remake of the 2008 Swedish film.

I read the novel in three big gulps over the weekend and let me tell you, this is one of the best vampire novels out there. It really is. The whole atmosphere is cold and forbidding, the characters are all too human and weak [yes, that includes Eli], and the whole idea is of this strange and twisted love that forms between a boy and an androgynous bloodsucker.

[If you prefer to have your characters STAY the gender they're introduced as, you're SOL with Eli, as the pronouns referring to the character actually change from paragraph to paragraph.]

Oskar, the main character, comes off as someone really believable, and it's on him that the narrative of the book is centered, even though there are several POV characters and their stories intertwine throughout the pages. If you cannot stomach/believe/accept the terrible experiences he goes through, you'll have a hard time understanding the relationship he eventually forms with Eli, the character that the title refers to.


A famous still from the 2008 movie shows a bloody Eli. I think I now know which part of the book this comes from.

Have I mentioned that this novel is scary? And only partly because of Eli, believe it or not. One of the important things to note in this novel is that some of the human characters are portrayed as being even more monstrous than the obviously undead ones - and it's really one of the major sources of the horror. You've met them, or I hope you haven't: the bully, the pedophile, the druggie, the shut-in, the isolated, the serial killer groupie. Each character is beautifully and frighteningly described.

[Guess which one of those is the actual PROTAGONIST. Yes, even Oskar has major flaws.]

In short: READ THIS WITH THE LIGHTS ON.

Team Chocobo shenanigans

In the previous post I had to use stock photos of my newly-acquired chocobos because I hadn't yet gotten around to pinning them down for a proper photoshoot.

So today I have a bunch of lovely chocobo pics for you to look at. Chocobo picspam attack!

My nuker Chocobo. "Kweh?" *casts Thundaga* "Kweh!"

My healer Chocobo. "Kweh!" *casts Cure* "Kweh?"

Team Chocobo Mages, ready to rock.

Healer: Kweh? Wanna fight?

Nuker: Kweh! This means war!

PJ: Okay, guys, take three steps away from each other and turn around and cast - on my signal....

And now I've got these two cuties guarding my workstation at the office, which reminds me that I will probably want to take my camera to a shift one of these days in order to get a proper picture and give you an idea of where I work. [I happen to be pretty happy with my desktop wallpaper at the office, too.]

Yay for loot!

It's been a long time since I've done anything that could be considered as absolutely nerdy/geeky/otaku-ish.

So let me tell you, it is with no small amount of pride that I report my Saturday acquisitions.

My partner and I went to a shopping location called Greenhills to meet my family for dinner and drinks yesterday. We got to the area a bit early, though, and decided to kill some time by loitering around a series of boutiques in Shoppesville.

Now, one of the corridors in Shoppesville is devoted to toy and hobby shops. Star Wars memorabilia, die-cast cars, all sorts of collectibles.

As I was about to leave the last shop, I happened to look down at a box full of plushes near a display of table tennis gear.

And what should I find in the box but THESE:

Chocobo Black Mage, from the game Chocobo's Dungeon.

Chocobo White Mage, from the game Chocobo's Dungeon.

Chocobos are the iconic mascots of the Final Fantasy franchise. I had wanted a plush forever. And now, I'd found TWO.

I asked the salespeople for the prices - they quoted me a figure which they claimed was already a discount - I sighed, and smiled, and said, "I'll take them."

I think I'll buy these two adorable birdies some protective armor and then proudly display them at the office!

A Hitch and a Holmes: The Return of Reading in my Sleep

After a beautiful Sunday out, I tweeted the following:

New books! New books! Hitchens's Hitch-22 and the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Fangirling. Love to my partner. :3

And I told myself that I needed to blog the books, so here they are:


My copy of the hardbound edition of Christopher Hitchens's Hitch-22: A Memoir. It really does look as battered as it seems because for some reason I was able to obtain the last copy in stock at the Fully Booked branch in Bonifacio High Street.

[There were that many people interested in Hitchens in the Philippines? Shock!]

This is an advanced birthday present to me from my partner, hence the last part of the tweet quoted above.

I've already burned through three chapters and I'm looking forward to working through the rest.


This is a lovely little hardbound edition of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, published under the "Collector's Library" imprint.

I found this while snooping through the classics collection at the same bookstore mentioned above; after I'd finished drooling at a lavishly annotated edition of Bram Stoker's Dracula, I found an entire cabinet of these little beauties. It's a fair selection of some of the titles in the English literary canon: from Shakespeare to Alcott to Tolstoy to Woolf.


Here's the Holmes, opened to part of "A Case of Identity". My hands are small, but they're tellingly enough to provide scale for this book. If you're looking for an honest-to-goodness pocketbook, then yeah, you could do worse than to pick up some of these Collector's Library editions.

I wonder if I should get A Study in Scarlet next.

A tale of loot pouring from the sky

Sometimes when it really rains the world's sturdiest umbrella won't be enough shelter.

But in a case like this I would really not mind getting drenched.

Here's a round-up of this year's accumulated loot so far.

1. Crafting loot


I hope you remember how happy I have been to complete my battery of crochet hooks.


And just for reference, this was my stash as of yesterday....


And here is my stash now. I think my ship just came in for the time being...that's a whopping ten pounds of yarn piled on top of the container, in shades of natural, black, and dark blue. It's a bit of a gift to me from dear friends of my parents.

You have no idea how my SABLE cup overfloweth right now.

I'm speechless and happy, is what I am right now.

Thank you.

2. Takarazuka Kagekidan loot


You've seen one of the books in this post already, but now it's arranged in the context of its sister purchases. I had a bit of a splurge sometime in April....

Well, that's that for now. I must away and get all my stash catalogued. Since it's a bit of a long weekend for me, I guess that means I'll catch you all on the other side. :D

I can has crochet hooks? Plus 2010 to-do list

Yes, yes I can.

Profound and groveling thanks must go to Jonette, the crafter/kitchener blogger of The Hobby Horse, for giving me a set of three jumbo crochet hooks for Christmas, AND for taking me to the new location of Dreams Yarnshoppe [at Glorietta 5 in Ayala Center Makati]. Thank you, my dear friend, thank you so much.

I also must post a shout-out to Lilli de Leon, the owner of Dreams, as well as to her friends and staff, for welcoming me so warmly to the circle of local crocheters.

It's apparently called SABLE.

SABLE: A crafting term peculiar to knitters and crocheters, standing for "Stash Above and Beyond Life Expectancy". A label for the condition wherein one accumulates more yarn than one can possibly use in a single lifetime. More on it here [WARNING, seriously: TVTropes link!]

Guilty, guilty, guilty. I mean, just look at this picture right here.


That's my hoard of yarn as of the writing of this entry. And with an impending trip to an entire STREET of yarn stores next week, this stash WILL grow before the year's out!

I mean, I already know what it's like to be an otaku for certain sorts of stuff. I own or have owned the following:
- Japanese-language books,
- cookbooks, the more vintage the better
- anime soundtrack CDs, which I begged and borrowed and traded for
- certain types of Magic: The Gathering cards, those that were appropriate for that pet Sliver deck my BF and I built during Time Spiral block

Now the stash of yarn and hooks for crochet is ALREADY starting to overrun a box and I may need a large plastic crate soon - and I only decided to get into crochet after November!

This is going to be so much fun!

What are you thankful for this 2009? // Crochet hooks get!

This year has been an amazing one for me in terms of learning new things. I've started to learn new techniques and things that I could use at work. [And even beyond it.] I opened this pop-culture-and-geeky-Pinay blog. [And am enjoying the experience immensely, even on those days when I sometimes have to look for something to write about.] I wrote a novel! [And I WILL edit it into a proper manuscript in January or die trying!] And now I am coming back to an old crafting love, crochet, so I'm set to learn a lot more in terms of making things that make people happy. [And I have to remember to take care of my hands in the process.]

I have also been grateful for the opportunities given to help and support others. I didn't do much in the wake of Typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng, but was able to send money to the Philippine National Red Cross as a way of reaching out to everyone who was affected. I'm not saying my donations did any great works or marvels. I'm just grateful as it is that we were not affected and that we were able to help those who were in some little way.

I'm also very, very grateful that I've spent the best ten years of my life so far with my significant other. For his support and kindness and the challenges he presents to me, but most of all for his sense of humor and his unending light and love, I am very, very thankful indeed.

There's no such thing as having too many pens

Writing arsenal, minus my moleskine-type notebook.

You're likely to think me a dork, and an old-fashioned one at that. "There she goes writing in her blog and all, but it's a post full of PENS! And they're not even those multi-purpose types that take dictation/have a laser pointer/contain flash storage!"

So this photo and this post constitute an ode to my pen collection. You've already met the three pens on top; so I'll talk about the pack of ten (yes, there are ten pens) on the bottom.

Ever since the whole idea of gel pens in an amazing rainbow of colors was introduced to the Philippines around ten years ago (OMG THAT LONG?), they've become near-ubiquitous. And why shouldn't they be? The good brands don't clog and don't leak, write very well even on rough types of paper, and look cool. People color-code notes with them and even create calligraphy and artwork using their bright, vivid inks.

I bought this set shortly after my birthday this year. Since my first introduction to gel pens consisted of sitting in on a focus group discussion about whether the Dong-A brand would even sell well in the country (guess what: it did), I've had a marked preference for these Korean pens. Funnily enough, I use them at work, color-coding my to-do list. Since I mainly use them on 3x5 index cards and on short bond paper I can't complain about the quality of the ink, since the ones at the office are made of relatively good-quality paper stuffs.

I know that it DOES look odd that I'm still thinking about pens but, well, I guess that's what being a kid of the '80s and '90s does to me: I'll lust after techy stuff all right, but acquisitions of pens and papers and notebooks will really make me swoon, since that was what I had when I was in school.

Just about the only thing this collection of pens can't do is fix my wonky handwriting.

Oct-Dec Loot Post: Things that make me happy

In the previous entry I mentioned I'd finally get around to putting up some pictures of the things I've bought in the past couple of months. These are purchases that really, REALLY made me happy, the sort of happy that Dollfie owners would reserve for new daughters and nendoroid/figma types for new gets.

13 October: "HAMSTER" GET



Once again, here is my dear Hamster, acquired on a Friday the 13th.

Technically, this is Hamster the Second, since the first unit I bought turned out to have had a bit of a problem with its keyboard. (The entire upper-left-hand corner was not secured or "nailed down" properly to the rest of the netbook.) So I simply took it back to the retailer that same weekend and had the whole unit replaced. All's well that ends well.

Hamster has served me faithfully; I used him a lot during the NaNoWriMo weekends. He comes in pretty handy at the office too, when I need another computer unit to complete a series of tasks that my main desktop cannot handle because it's already working on something else.

I think I'll go ahead and put a few stickers on his lid now that I've got some neat ones to use.

5 December: PEN HEAVEN



Fellow stationery geeks unite!

You're already familiar with my trusty moleskine-type fandom notebook, which was also a handy accomplice during my first NaNoWriMo experience. I wrote several bits of plot and character details in it, and even used it to keep track of which version of the document was most active on any one of the computers I was using to write the novel.

What's new, then? Answer: the black pen on the left. That is my brand-new fountain pen. Like its white companion, it, too, is a cartridge-loading type. My collection of good-quality Parker pens is growing, and that makes me happy. Also, it makes me smile to know that this particular pen is the first one that I bought with my own money. (The other fountain pen, as well as my two Parker ballpoints, were gifts to me from generous friends.)

I hope that the next loot I get will be a proper set of crochet hooks in different sizes. It's very strange indeed to find out that my local crafting shop stocks only one size of steel crochet hooks, which are used for fine work, but several types, weights, and colors of yarn in both wool and cotton.

Oh, well. Once I get the hook set, I'll start stocking up on yarn and get to the crochet work, something I'm really looking forward to. I've already decided on plans for items to make for family and friends.

Now all I need to do is convince the significant other to let me design a scarf or something for him. :D

Cosplay Mania 2009 Loot

[related blog post: The After-Action Report from Cosplay Mania 2009]

Going into Cosplay Mania 2009 I promised myself I'd come home with something: toys, clothes, or otherwise some sort of knick-knack to remind me of the event. You see, my birthday's on 28 September; I thought that I might as well treat myself to something at the con since there was likely to be something there that would catch my eye.

I arrived very early at the venue, early enough to watch several of the retailers set up their booths and look over what everyone had for sale. After purchasing a few cute keychains I got very, very lucky: of the booths there selling Figma and Nendoroids there was one that was selling the nekomimi Nendoroid version of Izumi Konata from Lucky Star. Luckily for me, the price of PHP550 (JPY1039, USD11.41) was right.


My very first Nendoroid Puchi GET. Here I've partly unboxed her at home. Eventually I'll start traveling around with her, show her my office and everything....

Edited to add: Have just found out that my Nendoroid Konata is a bootleg version. Oh well. I guess it will take me quite a while to find a real one yet.

I was already in seventh heaven following the acquisition of Konata, but it seemed that fate had a couple more treats in store for me. Several stalls were selling all manner of stuffed toys, both anime-related and not. One had several bins open in a corner and after a quick rummage, I found not one but two purely cute Totoro plushies:


My food is here and Blue Totoro wants to dig in!


Gray Totoro joins me at dinner, after Cosplay Mania 2009. Spoon provided for perspective.

And now I am the proud owner of two lovely plush Totoro toys! Total cost, an unbelievably cheap PHP110 (JPY208, USD2.28)!

Happy birthday to myself! I promise to look after all three very well.....