From Paperback Designs...

YES! You heard it right.

Win a website design package worth of $450:

- Custom Layout
- Matching Favicon
- Menu Headers (sidebar)
- Matching Site Button (125 x 125px)
- 2 Major Revisions (before or during installation)
- 24 Hours Repair Guarantee (after installation)
- Design Installation (domain name and webhost account not included)



…plus six months premium advertising to i-Love Boutiques worth $80!


Here’s what you will need to do:


1. Write a short review about Paperback Designs on your blog, website or even your social networking site with links to this contest and Paperback Designs' homepage.

2. Become a fan on Faceboook: facebook.com/pages/Paperback-Designs/98961399960

3. Follow on Twitter: twitter.com/pbdesigns - When you follow on Twitter, reply to @pbdesigns with the hashtag #winpbdesigns

Sample Tweet:

RT @pbdesigns I just joined #winpbdesigns here's the link: http://paperbackdesigns.com/pages/contest.php

4. Subscribe to the mailing list: paperbackdesigns.com/pages/mailinglist.php

5. Make a CREATIVE RESPONSE to the contest! It can be a video, photo or any crazy thing you could think of. It must show the title Paperback Designs and why you deserve to win the contest. Best response will be featured on Paperback Designs homepage! - paste the link to your creative response on the guest book or email the link to Paperback Designs.

PRIZES:

1 Grandprize Winner: Website Design & Adspace

3 Blogger Makeover Winners (worth $25 each)

5 Premium Adspace Winners (6 months each)

Deadline of entries is on September 25, 2009 (PST). REMEMBER: Entries should follow steps 1-5 to be qualified! Sign in the guest book (link at sidebar: http://paperbackdesigns.com) to let me know you've entered. Don't forget to fill in the email address so I could contact you.

PSSTTT... Special Secret Judges for the contest will pick the WINNERS! Yay! Watch out for their Twitters, you may find a hint. Go ahead... Bribe them!!!

Winners will be announced on September 27, 2009 (PST).

The Host

Stephenie Meyer has done it again with her new book, The Host. It's a sci-fi book for non-sci-fi readers and is the complete opposite of Twilight, her earlier book. Unlike Twilight, the story takes place at an underground desert cave, rain rarely happens and the antagonists, the entire alien race are pleasant creatures (except for the Seekers).

It would be cool to take a trip to Stephenie Meyer's mind to see what she's up to! The story is unbelievably original... alright, maybe not THAT original, but with a twist. A very good twist, if I may add.


The Host:

Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away.

Our world has been invaded by an unseen enemy. Humans become hosts for these invaders, their minds taken over while their bodies remain intact and continue their lives apparently unchanged. Most of humanity has succumbed.

When Melanie, one of the few remaining "wild" humans is captured, she is certain it is her end. Wanderer, the invading "soul" who has been given Melanie's body, was warned about the challenges of living inside a human: the overwhelming emotions, the glut of senses, the too vivid memories. But there was one difficulty Wanderer didn't expect: the former tenant of her body refusing to relinquish possession of her mind.

Wanderer probes Melanie's thoughts, hoping to discover the whereabouts of the remaining human resistance. Instead, Melanie fills Wanderer's mind with visions of the man Melanie loves—Jared, a human who still lives in hiding. Unable to separate herself from her body's desires, Wanderer begins to yearn for a man she has been tasked with exposing. When outside forces make Wanderer and Melanie unwilling allies, they set off on a dangerous and uncertain search for the man they both love.

Apparently, the book is going to be a series. Meyer said that the next titles would be "The Soul" and "The Seeker". Honestly, I hope that she works on Midnight Sun. I'd rather hear Edward's thoughts. It's going to be great novel for sure. *sigh... This is one of the times when I wish I could just hop to the future and buy myself a copy of the published Midnight Sun...

The Family Chef

The last thing that would probably happen in this lifetime is for me to perfect my cooking skills... that is if I even have one. My mother forbids my presence in the kitchen, and I cannot blame her. She have good reasons to do so. You haven't seen me fry a burnt hotdog before, good thing for you. I swear, it's not a pretty sight! So my mom is crafty when keeping me out of the kitchen, like shoving a book under my nose to keep me busy or just threatening to whack me with a skillet if I come 10 mile radius within the stove. Okay, I am exaggerating a little... about my mom whacking me with a skillet. But overall, I'm a really bad cook!

Good thing that I don't have to worry about getting hungry because believe it or not, I came from a family of wonderful cooks! My mom is the best! And I'm not saying that just because she's my mother, but because she's the best. I also have a younger cousin (from my mom's side), Kim who is soon to make headlines because of her superb cooking. Okay, I am just sucking up but to be fair, it's not far from reality. Hahaha!

Kim is an HRM (Hotel and Restaurant Management) student and she gets to cook a lot. Her first willing guinea pig for her project is none other than me, of course. She cooked "Chicken A La Salsa" for her project and I got to eat it! It was a fun experience since I got to watch her cook. Her next willing guinea pig for her second project is... yeah, it's me again! Am I the only glutton in the family? Hahaha! But I love it! She cooked "Lemon Chicken Milanese".

Lemon Chicken Milanese. Delicious!

I was the one taking the pictures and video, then editing it on my computer so she could pass it to her teachers. I'm really happy that my cousin never gets tired of asking me to help with her cooking projects. It's one request I wouldn't dream of refusing. So happy!

Thanks, Kim. You rock!

Amazon Kindle

First of all, I just want to say OH-MY-GOSH! I just got to have this beyond coolness gadget.

New Amazon Kindle eBook Reader

Slim: Just over 1/3 of an inch, as thin as most magazines
Lightweight: At 10.2 ounces, lighter than a typical paperback
Wireless: 3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle, anytime, anywhere; no monthly fees, service plans, or hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots
Improved Display: Reads like real paper; now boasts 16 shades of gray for clear text and even crisper images
Longer Battery Life: 25% longer battery life; read for days without recharging
More Storage: Take your library with you; holds over 1,500 books
Faster Page Turns: 20% faster page turns
Read-to-Me: With the new Text-to-Speech feature, Kindle can read every book, blog, magazine, and newspaper out loud to you


It's perfect for reading all of my ebooks! Geekiness has never been this sexy before. Hail! Amazon Kindle.

Can You Keep a Secret?

Yeah, I know... Another book to blog. When am I gonna stop boring you to death? But you're still alive right? So I guess there's no harm done! LOL

ANYWAY, so I am really into chicklits right now (forgive my temporary girlieness) and I've read Sophie Kinsella's Can You Keep a Secret? novel. Read on...


Can You Keep a Secret:

Meet Emma Corrigan, a young woman with a huge heart, an irrepressible spirit, and a few little secrets:

Secrets from her mother:
I lost my virginity in the spare bedroom with Danny Nussbaum while Mum and Dad were downstairs watching Ben-Hur.
Sammy the goldfish in my parents’ kitchen is not the same goldfish that Mum gave me to look after when she and Dad were in Egypt.

Secrets from her boyfriend:
I weigh one hundred and twenty-eight pounds. Not one eighteen, like Connor thinks.
I’ve always thought Connor looks a bit like Ken. As in Barbie and Ken.

From her colleagues:
When Artemis really annoys me, I feed her plant orange juice. (Which is pretty much every day.) It was me who jammed the copier that time. In fact, all the times.

Secrets she wouldn’t share with anyone in the world:
My G-string is hurting me.
I have no idea what NATO stands for. Or even what it is.

Until she spills them all to a handsome stranger on a plane. At least, she thought he was a stranger.

But come Monday morning, Emma’s office is abuzz about the arrival of Jack Harper, the company’s elusive CEO. Suddenly Emma is face-to-face with the stranger from
the plane, a man who knows every single humiliating detail about her. Things couldn’t possibly get worse—Until they do.

The main character Emma is really hilarious. She's crazy and I can relate to that. ;-) I literally laughed and cried and laughed some more while reading the book. I want to strangle the characters that's making her life miserable. I already love Emma! She's an easy-to-relate-to character and she's as real as she can get. Most books I've read lack that characteristic in their characters. It's easy to put myself in Emma's shoes.


The thing is, it seems that Sophie Kinsella (author) put so much work on Emma that most characters in the book are not as interesting as Emma. The guy, Jack Harper is an awkward character for me... and he's Emma's love interest! Maybe because the book's narrated on Emma's point-of-view. But wait! Twilight's narrated on Bella's point-of-view, but Edward's not that awkward for me. Maybe it's because Emma's way to independent.


The supposed-to-be main conflict, Jack's betrayal... well, there's not enough suspense for me to grip my chair and pray that they're still gonna be together. I mean, c'mon! The book puts the capital P in Predictable! Silly, funny, not-so-rich girl spills all her secret to a stranger then poof! The stranger happens to be her boss and a multi-millionaire too. I used to read stories with plots similar to that when I was in high school.

So overall, the main character is fantastic, the love interest is a little awkward, and most of the characters are okay. The plot is predictable, the lines are quick, witty and funny. There's a balance in the book and it's an easy read.

Are you an author? Do you want me to murder... er... review your book here? Send me an electronic copy (ebook) via email: paperbackdesigns@gmail.com and I'll blog about it!

Oh! The Irony!

Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia would be the er... fear of long words.


Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.
(thank you copy and paste)


Am I scaring you right now?

I Want

I want this fabulous, juvenile series by Cara Lockwood....




Wuthering High:

Welcome to Bard Academy, where a group of supposedly troubled teens are about to get scared straight. When Miranda, a slightly spoiled but spirited fifteen-year-old from Chicago, smashes up her father's car and goes to town with her stepmother's credit cards, she's shipped off to Bard Academy, a boarding school where she's supposed to learn to behave. Gothic and boring and strict, it's everything you'd expect of a reform school. But all is not what it seems at Bard.... For starters, Miranda's having horrific nightmares and the nearby woods are eerily impossible to navigate. The students' lives also start to mirror the classics they're reading -- tragic novels like Dracula, Wuthering Heights, and Jane Eyre. So Miranda begins to suspect that Bard is haunted -- by famous writers who took their own lives -- and she senses that not all of them are happy. Complicating things even more is the fact that Ryan Kent -- a cute, smart, funny basketball player who went to Miranda's old high school -- landed himself in Bard, too. And the attention he's showing Miranda is making some of the other girls white as ghosts. Something ghoulish is definitely brewing at Bard, and Miranda seems to be at the center of ominous events, but whether it's typical high school b.s. or otherworldly danger remains to be seen.

The Bard Academy #2: Scarlet Letterman:

Miranda Tate and her closest friends have been let in on a powerful secret: their teachers are famous dead writers. After a heroic first semester, Miranda's got Bard Academy's ghost faculty in her debt, a new boyfriend in hot basketball player Ryan Kent.

The Bard Academy: Moby Clique:

Some literary classics have been around for centuries. Miranda Tate's just hoping to survive junior year....Her summer reading assignment is Moby-Dick, but Miranda's vacation hasn't exactly been smooth sailing. Between working at her stepmother's hideous all-pink boutique, and having broken up with her basketball champ boyfriend Ryan, not to mention snoozing her way through one of literature's heaviest tomes, she's almost looking forward to returning to Bard Academy. That was before her kid sister Lindsay smashed up their dad's Land Rover and got shipped off to Bard herself. Is the punishment Lindsay's -- or Miranda's?A private school staffed by the ghosts of famous dead writers is hard enough to navigate without a freshman kid sister in tow, but now Miranda's trying to sort out her feelings for her brooding friend Heathcliff, who happens to be a fictional character, while keeping Bard's secrets from her nosy sister. And when her nemesis Parker handpicks gullible Lindsay to be a Parker clone, Miranda knows a storm is brewing. Then, Lindsay disappears in the woods...and a frantic search sends Ryan, Miranda, and Heathcliff to Whale Cove, a spot rumored to hide a sunken pirate's ship. But something -- or someone -- even more ominous and terrifying lurks there. Can Miranda stay the course and save her sister?

I want them... Is that too much to ask? So anybody who want to buy me a Valentine present or an advance Christmas present or a super advance birthday present, here's your chance! I would appreciate any form of these books, whether in paperback or in electronic form (ebook). Please? ahhh.... I'm begging you?