Charming in my dictionary

Many girls of many age goes goo goo ga ga at Robert Pattinson, I on the other hand think that he is just not charming enough to be Edward Cullen. After reading the Twilight saga, I think there are better choices for this character compared to him. For instance I think Chace Crawford is really charming, more handsome and definitely hotter than Robert.

A picture speaks a thousand words:

Chace Crawford

Robert Pattinson

Robert definitely has messier hair and he likes it, I feel that his face shape is more on the edgier side which makes his cheek sunk in, almost like a drug addict to me. Chace on the hand has a good style with his hair, a sharp face shape. Anyway I feel that Chace also has a more gentleman look and Robert has a more bad boy look. Edward Cullen to me is definitely a gentleman since he was born during those times where men always wear suits. Vampires are definitely charmers so that they can lure/seduce their victims.

In conclusion, you can tell I just don't like Robert Pattinson :P. I like how Chace Crawford looks but there are also better choices that him.

The Host

Melanie Stryder has lived a life of running and hiding ever since the invasion happened. Many years she has been caring for her brother, stealing food to survive. Life was tough until she met Jared, the love of her life. Together life became easier as Jared is very reliable. An incident happened where Melanie makes her way into the city where the aliens are highly populated, she needs to search for her relative and go back together.

Melanie was caught and soon her body taken over, humans were made as host for "souls". Wanderer could hear Melanie all the time, her rebellious thoughts, her hate for Wanderer's kind. If Melanie was strong enough, she could take back her body, but Wanderer is determine to stay in Earth and to experience a new life. A Seeker is always pestering Wanderer for more information from Melanie, her memories whether there are more humans out there. Soon Wanderer was to give up and move to another body, while she travel to meet her Healer , Melanie convinced her to find her relatives, a hiding sanctuary that was mentions by Melanie's Uncle Jeb.

The story continues with Wanderer's adventure where she was found by humans, brought to the hiding place and live with them. There are man secrets as to how the place was built, how in the bare desert this place was found. There are many survivors and they all hate the "souls" calling them parasites. Wanderer tries to live on without being kill and found that Melanie's love for her brother and Jared are also hers.



Ever imagine what would it feel having to share your body with another person, hearing another person's thoughts in your head. Not having the control over your body or using all of your will just to move a finger or two.

"The Host" by Stephenie Meyer (the twilight saga author) is one of the most interesting books I have ever read. In my opinion, this novel is way better than twilight saga because it is more mature and the characters aren't high school kids which are crazy in love . In this book, the main character is Wanderer, how she lives with human, how she learns to love them and be loved in the end.

There is a lot of love in the story, not the kind of selfish love you read from Bella and Edward but a more sacrificing love. One thing about Stephenie's writing, there is always a triangle love but in the end the characters who are in the outs of the triangle will still end up with someone. For example, Jacob was in love with Bella but Bella chooses Edward and vice versa, in the end Jacob found the love of his life which is Bella's daughter. So in "The Host" Jared loves Melanie, Wanderer loves Jared but Jared can't be with Melanie unless Wanderer gives up the body.

There is also an interesting change in the hearts of human, you can never perceive people with your first impression. Ian who seemed like he will kill Wanderer will soon sympathise and want to be friends. Many humans learn to like Wanderer and be friends, she is one of a kind afterall.

What I like about this book is the concept of aliens taking over Earth to maintain peace. Those "souls" feel that we humans have too much hate, anger and violence, therefore to save the human race they invade us. They take over our bodies and lives life just as it is without all those violence. There are a kind which does not have much emotions and doesn't succumb to emotions controlling our actions. They need not pay for anything therefore there is no need for money. One thing's for sure, they are very united and all have the same goals.

I think it sounds good to have world peace with everyone having a same goal and not having any rankings in terms of wealth because no money system. Sadly the idea of an alien taking over my body is just plain scary. In the book, not many are as strong as Melanie to survive, most humans are just lost (which is dead) and they can never return anymore.

Another thing I like about the book is the romance developing from characters and also the change in human hearts even though they can hate something enough to kill, there can always be a change of heart. How the characters change are interesting in the book.I also like the title of each chapter, where a single word is used, it is enough to describe the chapter. Stephenie Meyer has a really good imagination and for me it outdid the saga series.

Things I love when I was a kid......

Chip...chip...chip n Dale, rescue rangers! I was addicted to the TV most of my childhood days, watching cartoons and TVB dramas with my grandma. Cartoons were how I learned English, I used to watch a few hours of TV whenever possible. The cartoons that I loved watching was Chip n Dale Rescue Rangers, Tail Spin, Gummy Bears, CareBears, Smurf, Jem, Transformers, My Little Pony, Dungeons and Dragons, Thundercats, Looney Tunes and many more.

These cartoons are all unique and you don't see their stories overlapping or repetative at all. Children nowadays don't have cartoons like those times, now we have Ben 10, Teen Titans and many that I don't know. Most of it are action cartoons and children have also shifted their attention to Japanese animation.

When we watched Gummy bears, Smurf and Care bears we learn about community, living in a big family, helping each other. Those were the values being portraited, everyone working together towards a common goal and having a common enemy.

Besides cartoons being shown on TV, animation that are movies was also a favorite of mine. We have The Nutcracker Prince, Swan Princess, Anastasia, Cinderella, Snow White, Quest for Camelot, Beauty and the Beast and many more. If you ask the children about the old Disney movies they may know a few due to the Disney Princess having merchandisers sold worldwide. But I'm sure many would not know the stories they came, yes the name but not the whole story.

One thing that I find about those movies is that they have a great soundtrack, most of it always have very good love songs. In this new 21st century I can't remember any movies that like the ones that I used to watch, most of it are either 3D comedy, family related or action packed, I miss the good old love stories where the couple in the story always have a duet.

Below are pictures of the mentioned cartoons and also youtube video links of the wonderful songs:

• Quest for Camelot
• Swan Princess
• Thumbelina
• Anastasia

24 already....

Time really flies, just like that I've been in this world for 24 years already, if counting the 9 months in my mother's womb then it would be 24 yrs and 9 months :P. According to my mother I was suppose to come into the world on the 2nd of November, but I was two days late. As she planned for my sister to have to same birthday, she too was late by two days, coming into the world on the 6th.

If I was asked to remember my childhood days, I really can't bring anything up. Even if I looked at my baby pictures, I still can't recall. One thing for sure it has been a good 24 years, I think I've have been born into a wonderful family. But sometimes I can't help but wonder what if, what if I was born into a different family, what if I was born as a boy, what if......

These many what if make me look back at my primary years and secondary years, I've always wondered if I had a different personality would it have shaped a different future for me. If I weren't to study IT what other path would it be for me? All along IT was my secondary choice, I've always wanted to be a writer, if not an editor for books or magazines. I wanted to take journalism but I was put off by my father as he states it's not a good career in this country.

Voicing out your thoughts and opinions are difficult here, we have to be careful in what we say. Even if it's the truth, many reluctant to hear and many more think those are lies. With less freedom of speech given, there isn't much you can write to share. It is true that in books and magazine, we seldom have local writers.

I have always read books in english that are written by people who are from USA, England, Australia. Even when I read Cleo magazine I often note that the article writer have a foreign name. It is common that those articles are taken from past issues of Cleo magazines from other countries.

I really love to express my thoughts and imagination in articles, stories and if possible a book. The thought of having another person picking up your materials, reading it and having an impact in their lives, that gives me enjoyment. One day I hope I can improve and really have written something worth reading.

The Magician's Apprentice

From the writer of "The Black Magician Trilogy", Trudi Canavan, comes a new epic story that happened hundreds of years before Sonea, "The Magician's Apprentice".

The new book from Trudi Canavan talks about what happened in the past where there is no Magician's guild yet and black magic was considered as high magic which was practiced everywhere. The story revolves around one main character, Tessia who loves healing but can't be a proper one because she is a woman. She assists her father as he is a legimate healer for a country ley. One day her world changes where she used magic naturally and was taken in by Lord Dakon as an apprentice. Lord Dakon also has an apprentice, Jayan who is near to completing his learning and will become a higher magician too. Jayan don't quite like Tessia and she could feel it, so she doesn't ask too many questions when Jayan is around in her training.

Her adventure begins where she travels to the city Imardin following Lord Dakon. While she is there she met new people and see how the city works. She was also introduced to the king as Lord Dakon's apprentice. Something terrible happened when they were away from home, the ley was attacked by neighbouring country , Sachaka. Tessia's journey continues on where she lost her home and follows Lord Dakon and many other magicians to chase the Sachakans magicians away.

The book also changes perspective to other character such as Hanara, a sachakan slave and Stara, a woman who is used to Elyne but brought back to Arvice (main city of Sachaka) by her father for a reason. These two people have a story of their own which connects to the main story. This writer loves to put female as main characters which I enjoy a lot. In the "Black Magician Trilogy", Sonea was the main character. In the "The Age of Five Trilogy", Auraya is the main character. All these character are strong women and have their minds set on healing most of the time. Often fantasy books have warriors, thieves, hunters and demons but Trudi Canavan prefers to write about women magicians/healers. I truly enjoy her writing and can't wait for more new novels from her.

The "delights" of Facebook

The most famous social networking site around, "Facebook". Some joined facebook to connect with their friends and families that around the world. You get to see pictures, share videos on the site. Others joined facebook for the "delights" that I'm bout to write. There are many flash games offered by facebook and it attracted people to join, it keeps people interested. Look what happened to friendster, it got boring.

When I first joined facebook, the games available were very static. It had games such as mafia, vampires, where you do jobs, level up and more options are unlocked. Those games had no flash, just pictures as descriptions of items, words, links and virtual money used to do buy/sell like Utopia the online game on the internet.

Slowly, more developers joined in developing applications either for making money or for interest which bring birth to flash games. I started with playing "Pet Society", "Who has the biggest brain?" which was owned by Playfish games. Then more games started to come and compete with them which brought Zynga's "Farmville", "CafeWorld", "Roller Coaster Kingdom" and many more from both.

Pet Society was about you having a pet, you earn money by racing and visiting other people, you use the money to buy clothes, food, furniture. Earning money was hard but it was fun to buy stuff, sort of like a Sims 3 game but in a much smaller scale.


Then the fun "Restaurant City" from playfish games became the hype, most of my friends were playing it. The game is about you owning a restaurant and serving customers a variety of dishes based on the ingredients you have. Everyday you'll get ingredient and there is also a quiz that gives an ingredient as a reward. Ingredients given are totally random so it's hard to upgrade your dish cause a few are needed for one dish. Serving those dishes to the customers (AI ones) increases your level in the game which unlock more space or more staff. Money is used where yo can buy furniture to decorate the restaurant and change the clothing of your staff.




Competing with Playfish games was Zynga. The first game I played from this group is "Farmville" where you own farm and you plant vegetables, you can have an orchard. All those grow in different timing. You also have farm animals to produce goods for you to sell.



After this game came out, Playfish games introduced "Country Story", in comparison, "Country Story" was drawn better but less vegetables are available for harvesting, but it had quest for you to complete that rewards points and food to level up and many items for decorating the farm.



Zynga has "Roller Coaster Kingdom" which reminded me of Rollercoaster Tycoon. Basically you own a theme park, you level up by having customers visit your park, you add more features by the money you earn. In terms of graphics, it is much better than "Farmville".



The current game that most of my friends are playing now is "Cafe World", the concept is similar to "Restaurant City" where you sell food and earn money to decorate. But one thing different is you get to prepare the dishes, there is a time limit on how long it takes to cook it, therefore you are not serving the same thing in your restaurant.




While some surf Facebook to check out on their friends and look at pictures, many of us indulge in the games that are available to spend our time using the internet. Facebook certainly changes the concept of Social Networking sites compared to Friendster, with this they remain interesting for all ages.

Twitter

I first heard of this application last year in Tech Ed SEA 2008, to me it was a new way of communication. Twitter was slightly famous in the US, but not many people have heard of it locally. Then 2009 came and more people started using it, even movie stars, singers uses it. The success of twitter finally came, because it was widely used by famous people like Ryan Seacrest, Ashton Kutcher, and John Mayer.

Now it has become such a hype that websites uses it, such as Engadget, Eonline, Wired.com, all to keep people updated from time to time. Twitter is a great way to market yourself to the public, for movie stars it's a way for them to let people know what they're doing, their thoughts, fans feel closer to them. One thing goo about twitter is that you can update it with your mobile easily, it's like sending an sms.

Unlike Facebook, you have to log in to change your status message, where else twitter is on the go, which is why it is widely used in the US because sending in a new tweet is just cheap. Unfortunately for people in other parts of the world, it will cost us a bundle. I like reading tweets from movie stars, they constantly update all the time. People I follow are like Ryan Seacrest, Ellen DeGeneres, Greg Grunberg (Heroes), Dane Cook. I do follow a few of my friends too, but we here in Malaysia are still a bit converse, we don't tweet about everything and anything. Sometimes we still like to keep our lives private :p.

This time is the right time to join twitter, learn to express yourself to the world through a simple application. You can always be creative and update it with special messages. You can follow my twitter account at : www.twitter.com/LiZan_Hiu. I don't update daily but from today onwards I'll try to be creative and update everyday :)

Can you keep a secret?

Shh...Let me tell you a secret....can you keep it? You must promise not to tell another soul, okay I'll take your word for it. I actually saw my neighbour kissing another woman and I took a picture of it. Actually I have more to share, I feed my neighbour's cat chilli because it always shits in my garden. I once put salt in my manager's coffee and blamed it on someone else....I think I've talked too much. That's how the story is for Emma.

Emma has plenty of secrets, none that she can tell even to her best friend. Unfortunately she spilled it all out to a stranger that she met on a plane. She panicked as the plane had some turbulence and she could not control the things that kept coming out of her mouth. She thought all would be well because it was a stranger and then when she got back to work, the stranger is there. He is the founder of the company she is working for, big big disaster for Emma. She tries hard to avoid but he calls out to her most of the time for work.

This is a chick lit book that has much comedy like the other Sophie Kinsella books. Much mystery lies with out main male character. Emma has a wonderful best friend who is always there, a handsome boyfriend who everyones thinks they are the perfect match. But somewhere iside Emma she doesn't feel like she is in love with him, instead she notices her boss more. There is fun in wanting to know how the ending will turn up and how this typical story can be not typical at the end.