Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliaphobia = Fear of long words
I had a fit when I heard what this weird word meant, its so funny! :D Manga Queen
Sunday 22 April 2012
404 not found...
Manga Queen
10 Keys to Success...
A great poster, if only they could count...
Manga Queen
Manga Queen
10 Keys to Success Hosted by Imbecile Entertainment
Albino Alligator
Random Fact: Albino Alligators are incredibly rare and cannot be found in the wild. Their survival rates are extremely low as their white skin (which I think is awesome) make them vulnerable to the sun and predators.
Manga Queen :D
Manga Queen :D
Albino Alligator Hosted by Imbecile Entertainment
Injustice: A common among this generation...
What's wrong with this planet???
Manga Queen
Kim Schmitz vs Miguel Carano vs Frank Wuterich Hosted by Imbecile Entertainment
Manga Queen
Kim Schmitz vs Miguel Carano vs Frank Wuterich Hosted by Imbecile Entertainment
Monday 16 April 2012
Tuesday 3 April 2012
Help Stop Global Warming
Help stop global warming! I know that I am writing this on a laptop but my screen's brightness is at an all time low. And I know this really doesn't cut it but there are other ways to help you save the earth!
1. How many men does it take to switch a light bulb? Well you won't have to switch your light bulb regularly if you switch right now to a CFL (compact fluorescent light bulb). CFL's use 60% less energy than a normal light bulb. This save around 300 pounds of carbon dioxide a year!!! :o
2. Take a shower instead of a bath. I know its a cliché (the next one is too) but you can save loads of time and water and money. Yep, now I bet you're interested.
3. Wash the dishes! Instead of using the dishwasher try to wash the dishes whenever you can! Seriously you can save gallons by doing this.
4. Plant a tree! If you have a garden or there's a local park near you plant one (but always ask permission first!). A single tree will absorb an entire ton of carbon dioxide through out its whole life. Trees also provide shade and make your garden look cool (you can't deny it!).
5. Buy locally grown and produced food. Buying locally saves a lot of fuel and helps support your community! Try to avoid buying frozen food as it takes 10 times more energy to produce than fresh food!
6. Support the farmers! Farmers lose a lot of money and energy by transporting their food nationally and overseas. Try to go to a farmer's marker or even a fish market and help support them!
7. Eat less meat! Let the fluffy sheep live! Seriously though, try not to eat to much meat as the methane they produce is bad for the environment. Cows are the one of the worst animals as it produces masses of methane and takes up a lot of water. They drink about 20 - 50 gallons a day! They also eat grass which also uses water to grow which adds up to the water consumption of cows.
8. Be healthy! Being healthy will help the environment. Try walking, biking or even public transport as it uses less carbon emissions a year.
9. Reuse! Try to reuse as much as possible. If you have an old coat why not give it to a friend's sister? She doesn't have to waste money and fuel to buy a new one. Or a painting you never really liked? Give it to a charity shop so its cheaper to others and they don't have to but one from overseas.
10. Use the "Off" Switch! Save electricity and reduce global warming by turning off lights when you leave a room, and using only as much light as you need. And remember to turn off your television, video player, stereo and computer when you're not using them.
It's also a good idea to turn off the water when you're not using it. While brushing your teeth, shampooing the dog or washing your car, turn off the water until you actually need it for rinsing. You'll reduce your water bill and help to conserve a vital resource.
11. And finally, help by clicking a button. Yep, as easy as that. Click a button a day and each time you click you generate donations from the websites sponsors. Its easy and fast and it goes to protecting the environment. Just go to:
Manga Queen
Thursday 29 March 2012
Wednesday 28 March 2012
A trip to Caffe Nero...
By the way, we went to the Caffe Nero on Regent Street, and sat on the second floor. It was very nice but the windows were open and it was quite cold. Also, the toilets were gross but most coffee stores are.
But, if you ever are on Regent Street and see Caffe Nero, there's a Pret on the adjacent street. It looks quite small by actually has two floors... :)
Manga Queen
P.S. Never go to Starbucks its overpriced!!!
Monday 26 March 2012
Review on Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
As I mentioned before in one of my earlier posts, I have written a review on Rebecca, one of the greatest Gothic novels of all time. Written by Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca
is one of the most popular books today and includes elements of horror,
romance, mystery, and is one of the first major Gothic books ever written. It
starts with its famous opening line ‘I dreamt I was in Manderley again.’
The heroine, who
remains nameless throughout the whole book, marries Maxim de Winter and becomes
his second wife. But as the story advances she finds out that Maxim’s first
wife, Rebecca, drowned in an accident near the house, Manderley. The
housekeeper, the sinister Mrs Danvers is devoted to Rebecca but shows nothing
but repulsion and disgust towards the new wife. The heroine struggles with life
in Manderley; she feels as though she will never compare to Rebecca, who was
beautiful, generous, talented and feels jealous towards her and believes that
Maxim still loves Rebecca. The heroine is later prompted by Mrs Danvers to
commit suicide but stops herself at the last minute. A short time later a ship
passing by is marooned, and when divers investigate they find something
perplexing: Rebecca’s body inside a boat wreckage. This discovery encourages
Maxim to tell the heroine the truth: Rebecca was a malicious woman who led many
affairs including one with her own cousin, Jack Favell. Maxim determined a
divorce, but she refused and told him she was pregnant with another man’s
child. Enraged, he shot Rebecca and disposed of her body in a sunken boat.
Knowing this, the heroine becomes much more comfortable in Manderley. However,
the court holds a trial on Rebecca’s death but the verdict is suicide, so Maxim
is deemed innocent. But soon Favell accuses Maxim of murdering Rebecca and it
is revealed that Rebecca was dying from cancer, and could not be pregnant. Her
illness provides a motive for her ‘suicide’ and Maxim is once again made
innocent. On their way back to Manderley Maxim and the heroine can see flames
and find out that the housekeeper, Mrs Danvers set fire to it.
As a reader I
found Rebecca an extremely emotional
but pleasurable book. I felt sympathy towards the heroine throughout the whole
book as coming from a poor background the challenge of ordering the servants
and giving opinions was extremely difficult for her. The heroine was very young
and inexperienced which made her an effortless target of ridicule and shame. ‘Why don't you go? None of us want you. He doesn't want you, he never did. He
can't forget her. He wants to be alone in the house again, with her. It's you
that ought to be lying there in the church crypt, not her. It's you who ought
to be dead, not Mrs De Winter.’ Mrs Danvers pg. 246 The heroine’s challenge of life in Manderley can relate to
real life such as fitting in and fulfilling your expectations. I was also very
horrified by many of the actions of Mrs Danvers and wanted to find out why she
was acting so cruelly towards the heroine, or what the heroine had done to
deserve this. I was also very curious Rebecca’s life and her death, as it was
very strange and mystifying. I was also extremely eager to find out the ending
as the book was so captivating, and it was by all means, superb.
There are many key
themes in this book, ones we deal with in everyday life, and ones that we can
relate to. The heroine’s jealousy of Rebecca pervades the majority of the
novel. Because she is in her youth and is insecure, the heroine does not
understand why Maxim chose to marry her. As she learns more and more about
Rebecca, she begins to compare herself to Maxim’s first wife, who seemed to be
far more beautiful, elegant, and sophisticated than she could ever hope to be.
Jealousy also appears with Maxim and Rebecca along with her many lovers. Maxim
confronts Rebecca in the boathouse and ultimately kills her because she
manipulates his jealousy into a tool for her own destruction. In both cases,
jealousy is a destructive force that has the ability to destroy both Maxim and
the narrator if they let it. Another key theme of Rebecca revolves around Maxim and his hard efforts to escape his
past. He was distressed by the memory of Rebecca and his murder of her. The
heroine is also haunted by her through Mrs Danvers and her thought provoking
words. The final key theme I found in Rebecca, was finding who you are, your
real identity and where you belong. From the beginning the heroine is unnamed
and gives a sense of her being less than Rebecca, as she is not even
significant enough to be named. As soon as she marries Maxim, the heroine is
given a new identity as Mrs de Winter, but does not feel comfortable with this.
Overtime she gets used to her new identity and being at Manderley especially
when she finds about the truth of Rebecca.
Through the book Daphne
du Maurier plays with the different ideas of good and evil in the way that she develops
the character’s personalities. From a general perspective, it is clear that the
heroine and Maxim are on the righteous side, while Rebecca and Mrs Danvers are
on the evil side. However, Daphne du Maurier adds intricacy and elaboration to
each character so that all sense of good and evil becomes purely opinionated.
For example, Maxim is the heroine’s love and is shown as a protagonist of the
novel, yet Maxim is a murderer who shot Rebecca in a fit of rage, an act that
is inappropriate for a protagonist. Similarly, Mrs Danvers is shown as the
antagonist of the novel who aims to undermine the heroine, she is also an
individual who is overwhelmed with grief at the loss of her friend and
mistress. By blending the concepts of righteousness and evil, Daphne du Maurier
creates a set of characters that are truly ‘human’ in their complexity and
motivations. Some of the predominant motivations for most of the characters are
love and hate. In
most cases, characters use their love or hate to justify their actions in the
novel. For the majority of the book, Maxim is motivated by his love for the
heroine and his home, as well as his hatred for Rebecca and her memory.
To
conclude, I
would recommend it to anyone who loves romance, mystery, horror or gothic
fiction. The character personalities, the realistic features and themes, the
excellent description and emotion, all the right ingredients for a marvellous
book, and that is exactly what Rebecca
is.
Manga Queen
Writers block...
By the way, if you want me to make a Keep Calm And Carry On poster, just ask.
Please include:
Words on line 1
Words on line 2
Words on line 3
Words on line 4
Words on line 5
Your email address
Picture (at the top)
Background Colour
Word Colour (I suggest white)
Manga Queen
Fabergé Egg Hunt
The Fabergé Big Egg Hunt is now underway in London! It started on 21 February 2012 and will end on 3 April 2012.
During this time, the streets of central London will host the largest and most interactive egg hunt the city has ever seen. There are more than 200 eggs, each around 2½ foot tall and designed and decorated by designers and artists, and are hidden all around central London! Each egg holds a plaque with a unique code word which, when texted to the number provided via SMS, provides one entry to win the prize, the Diamond Jubilee Egg by Fabergé (on display at the Fabergé store at 14A Grafton Street, W1S 4ET). Each additional code word submitted gives another entry, increasing the chances of winning the Diamond Jubilee Egg !!! (Charges apply to each text message, with the net proceeds going to the two charities. The first SMS is £3 plus applicable network rates, and any subsequent texts are 25p plus applicable network rates.)I went Fabergé Egg Hunting and it was great! There are maps to help you:
http://www.thebigegghunt.co.uk/join-the-hunt/zone-maps
But if you're really rubbish (like me) then go to this awesome cheat sheet...(don't worry, desperate times call for desperate measures):
http://www.thebigegghunt.co.uk/cheatsheet
By the way, the Where's Wally egg is the most exciting one to find. Unlike all the other eggs, it gets moved around everyday so its increasingly difficult. I found it in Canary Wharf today in front of Waitrose (wahoo!).
Manga Queen
http://www.thebigegghunt.co.uk/join-the-hunt/zone-maps
But if you're really rubbish (like me) then go to this awesome cheat sheet...(don't worry, desperate times call for desperate measures):http://www.thebigegghunt.co.uk/cheatsheet
By the way, the Where's Wally egg is the most exciting one to find. Unlike all the other eggs, it gets moved around everyday so its increasingly difficult. I found it in Canary Wharf today in front of Waitrose (wahoo!).
Manga Queen
Awesome pic...
Here is a cool Death Note Wallpaper I found (and I love it sooooooo much!)...
Manga Queen
Death Note: L Wallpaper
Being a L fan I made this wallpaper because he's awesome! :)
P.S. Might make some more wallpapers if I feel like it.
P.P.S. Not very likely then.
Manga Queen
Death Note Review
The main character of Death Note is Light Yagami, the most intellectual high school student of his age, but he's bored. Being unchallenged his life is boring to him but one day at school he picks up a small black notebook; the Death Note. It belonged to a god of death, Ryuk. Ryuk writes instructions inside it saying that the owner of the Death Note (now Light) can write any human's name inside it and they will die. Light dreams of creating a better world, and decides to try and rid the world of evil and carries the largest murder of criminals ever seen. As criminals everywhere die, the police are determined to catch the killer, who they call 'Kira'. For Light, the police are easy to fool, but one man stands in his way from becoming God; L. L is the world's best detective and can solve any case, and tries to catch Kira before his word becomes law.
When talking to others about Death Note, they don't like the fact that the two main characters are utterly flawless. Well, it is true, Light and L get 100% score on an high school entry test (something I could never get even for my spelling tests). They are also both extremely good tennis players and Light is even a national champion. But, despite what most people say, I think this adds to the plot and makes it even better. It is quite fun to see how such 'geniuses' react to different situations and it also quicker to read, without the characters in a panic mode for several hundred chapters and nothing happens... Ahhh! I hate it when this happens in a manga/anime, but it can't be helped. By the way, don't get me wrong, Death Note has its fair share of unnecessary moments and long winded explanations that you eventually don't understand (don't worry it only happens once or twice though it does make you seem really stupid, but just blame it on their weird logic or something...). Saying this, Death Note has some epic moments where everything is so fast paced and there's loads of action and you're eventually so hooked on it you don't realise you haven't done any homework, you should have been in bed an hour ago, and you have a crush on L which doesn't really help.Other than that, its perfect! (By the way, there aren't many volume's, only 12, so not many late nights!!!).
I really enjoyed this manga, and have actually seen some similarities between it and some classics, such as Rebecca. In Rebecca, the protagonist's husband kills a woman but is thought of as innocent (read my book review and you'll probably understand it a bit better...), but Mrs Danvers is looked at as wicked as she bullies and humiliates the protagonist bit has suffered her whole life and looses her closest friend. Now, back to Death Note. In Death Note, Light seems like a good guy; he wants a perfect world, no criminals, no bad guys, peace. Last time I checked that's good. But as the manga develops his true colours show, and wants to become God of his new world and stuff... Yep, I bet he sound like a bad guy now right? This is one of the main things I loved about Death Note (not that he's a bad guy, actually, kind of, ah just go away...), Light seems like such a good person and with such heroic intentions, but the gradual decline in sanity is so small, you just don't know where things went wrong for him (Volume 9, Chp 13, pg 21, jokes, I don't think that chapter even exists...).
Another thing I love about Death Note, is its dramatic and nail biting irony. Light, works along with the police and even lives in the same house with them, looking for the killer, looking for him. L and his team (a.k.a. the police) suspect Light but without evidence they cannot do anything, and Lights not the kind of person to confess.
At first, Death Note may seem all about some crazy maniac (a.k.a. Light)who wants to kill people, but as soon as he meets L (his enemy) things really spice up. I think L is one of the key reasons why Death Note is so awesome. Everybody loves weird detectives (Cue Sherlock fans...) and with his messy hair, panda eyes (he doesn't sleep often), bare feet and his habit of eating cake and drinking tea, L is the only person to suspect Light from the beginning of the Death Note chapters, and he is someone just as interesting as Light.
All in all, I highly recommend this manga to you, as it is something original, brainy and really makes you think (something I have not done for ages).
Wanna read? Don't have the book? Read online! (but try and support the writers by buying the books too!) http://read.mangashare.com/Death-Note Manga Queen :)
Sunday 25 March 2012
Murder On The Orient Express
Murder on
the Orient Express, Plot Summary
Poirot, a
retired private detective boards the Orient Express with a friend, M. Bouc and
11 other passengers. He is forced to reside in a second-class cabin as the
train is unusually full. A man named Ratchett, recognising Poirot as a famous
detective, asks for his help. He says that he received threatening letters and
fears someone will murder him. Poirot says no as he ‘does not like the look of
his face.’
The next night Mrs Hubbard (a passenger) claims
there was a man in her room. The next day, Poirot is informed that Ratchett has
been murdered. Poirot decides to investigate and examines the body, but instead
of being stabbed once, Ratchett is stabbed twelve times. Baffled, Poirot finds
a charred paper with the name Armstrong written on it. The piece of paper
with the word Armstrong on it helps Poirot figure out who Ratchett really is. A
few years ago a man named Cassetti kidnapped a three-year old girl, Daisy
Armstrong. Cassetti collected a ransom from the wealthy Armstrong family, but still
murdered the child. Poirot thinks that Ratchett is Cassetti.
Poirot interviews each passenger starting with
McQueen and then Mrs Hubbard, who claims that the murderer was in her cabin.
All of the passengers give Poirot suitable alibis during their interviews,
although there are a few suspicious factors such as many passengers observed a
woman in a red kimono walking down the hallway the night of the murder, but no
one admits they have a kimono. Mrs Hubbard tells Poirot she asked Greta Ohlsson
(another passenger) to lock the communicating door between herself and
Ratchett. Hildegarde Schmidt bumped into a stranger wearing a Wagon Lit jacket,
but no conductors match her description. Poirot decides to checks each
passenger’s luggage, and notices that
a Wagon Lit uniform is found in Hildegarde Schmidt's bag and
that the red kimono is found in Poirot's own luggage.
After the luggage check, Poirot, Dr Constantine and M. Bouc review
the facts of the case and develop a list of questions. With the evidence and
questions in mind, Poirot sits and thinks about the case. After thinking hard, Poirot finally understands
the case and calls for several people and reveals their true identities. Poirot
discovers Countess Andrenyi is Helena Goldenberg the aunt of Daisy Armstrong
and Mary Debenham was Daisy's governess, Antonio Foscanelli was the Armstrong's
chaffer, Masterman the valet, and Greta Ohlsson was Daisy Armstrong's nurse.
Poirot gathers all of the passengers together and reveals the solution
to the case. All of the passengers aboard the Orient Express were involved with
the murder. He argues that twelve passengers, all close to the Armstrong case,
killed Ratchett to avenge the murder of Daisy Armstrong. Mrs Hubbard admits
that the Poirot is correct. But, full of sympathy for the Armstrong family, and
feeling disgust for the victim, Poirot decides to not turn them into the
police. Dr Constantine and M. Bouc agree and will edit the report of the body
to fit with the new solution.
Manga Queen
Manga Queen
Wednesday 14 March 2012
Word of the Month
borborygmus: [bawr-buh-rig-muhs]
a rumbling or gurgling sound caused by the movement of gas in the intestines
A freakishly awesome word! Not the best meaning but you know...
Manga Queen
a rumbling or gurgling sound caused by the movement of gas in the intestines
A freakishly awesome word! Not the best meaning but you know...
Manga Queen
Saturday 10 March 2012
Missing Missy
http://theneave.com/david-thorne-missing-missy/
Manga Queen
Keep calm!
Manga Queen
Thursday 1 March 2012
Things to do when you're bored
2. Play the game.
METHOD:
To win the game, is to not think about the game. Once you've thought of the game you say 'I lost the game' (just to confuse your friends or make them lose the game) :)
3. Read my blog because your bored or you like my blog, (most likely the latter!).
Manga Queen
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