I picked the complete set of Percy Jackson and the Olympians as one of my wishlist items last Christmas. I was very happy to find out that my parents were very interested in it after they saw the trailer for the upcoming movie (The Lightning Thief) because it meant the chances of them buying me the books became greater. Well, they did want to buy the books. The problem? Apparently, the movie made the books popular and caused the books to be sold out in all the local bookstores. But I'm grateful that my parents are going to buy the complete set (actually, we were already able to buy the 1st, 3rd, and 4th books) because I'll have a copy of the books. Because of the current fame of the books, and because of how great the books are, I thought I'd take this time to create an entry to recommend it to everyone.

For those who don’t know about the series, it is a series written by Rick Riordan where

The gods of Olympus are alive and well in the 21st Century! They still fall in love with mortals and have children who are half-god, half-human, like the heroes of the old Greek myths. Could you be one of those children? Join the adventures of Percy Jackson and his modern demigod friends as they fight mythological monsters and the forces of the titan lord Kronos.

Source: http://www.rickriordan.com/index.php/books-for-children/

There are five books in the series (along with a number of accompanying books to supplement the series) and it’s a wonderful series for children and for the young-at-heart. For those who love fantasy stories and especially those who have always been fascinated by Greek mythology (like me) this is a great series to read. I find it a quick read (but that’s because I read kind of fast) but it’s very entertaining.

The third book Michael Scott's The Secrets of the Immortal Nicolas Flamel series is the Sorceress which picks up where the last book, The Magician, left off. The series is about the famous alchemist Nicolas Flamel and his wife Perenelle, guardians of the codex of Abraham the Mage and seekers of the twins of legend. In comes Sophie and Josh Newman who turn out to be the twins of legend and are now being hunted, along with the codex of Abraham the mage by Dr. John Dee, Flamel's former student who now works for the Dark Elders. The Dark Elders need the twins of legend and the codex of Abraham the Mage to return from the Shadowrealm and reclaim their power over the Earth.

Here is a short introduction to The Sorceress and found on Michael Scott's official website (and as found on the inside sleeve of the hardbound book):

Nicholas Flamel's heart almost broke as he watched his beloved Paris crumble before him. The city was destroyed by Dee and Machiavelli, but Flamel played his own role in the destruction. Sophie and Josh Newman show every sign of being the twins of prophecy, and Flamel had to protect them and the pages from the Dark Elders.

But Nicholas grows weaker with each passing day. Perenelle is still trapped in Alcatraz, and now that Scatty has gone missing, the group is without protection. Except for Clarent-the twin sword to Excalibur. But Clarent's power is unthinkable, its evil making it nearly impossible to use without its darkness seeping into the soul of whoever wields it.

If he hopes to defeat Dee, Nicholas must find an Elder who can teach Josh and Sophie the third elemental magic-Water Magic. The problem? The only one who can do that is Gilgamesh, and he is quite, quite insane.

I haven't finished reading the book, in fact, I'm just on the fifth chapter, but I've loved the last two books, The Alchemyst and The Magician. I've always been an avid reader of fantasy books and I really would recommend this series to those ages 10 and above. The series contains a number of references to different folklore and is a great way to learn more about different myths and legends. The series is composed of six books and the fourth one is set to be released sometime this year.

Hope you have fun reading if you do decide to try and pick up the book. :)

The current J-Drama I'm watching right now is called Liar Game, which was introduced to me by my sister, toekneeduh. It's based on a manga of the same title, written and illustrated by Kaitani Shinobu. It's categorized as a psychological thriller and has bits of comedy and romance (if you squint and really want there to be XD).

Here's the plot, as stated in the Liar Game Wikipedia page:

Nao Kanzaki, an honest and naive college student, receives 100 million yen (about $1,000,000) and an invitation to participate in the "Liar Game Tournament". The aim of the game is to trick the other players out of their hundred million dollars. At the end, the winner gets the hundred million and the loser is a hundred million yen in debt. She discovered her opponent was her elementary school teacher, Mr. Fujisawa. When Nao was easily tricked into giving her opponent the 100 million yen, she asks Shinichi Akiyama, an ex-convict and genius who recently got out of jail, for help. Though Akiyama was reluctant at first, he agrees to help on the condition that he takes half of the 100 million yen as his reward.

Akiyama succeeds in taking all the money and winning the game for Nao. However, Nao and Akiyama's success at the Liar Game is far from over as they get dragged back in the game each time. Though initially unwilling participants, the pair choose to continue in the game in order to discover the true nature of the organization involved and to try and free other participants from the Liar Game.

It's something I recommend to those who are looking for J-Drama's to add to their list of watched J-Drama's and love mystery and a good psychological thriller. I admit the show is kind of old (it was released last 2007) but it's a good watch if you haven't watched it yet. Matsuda Shota, the actor who plays Akiyama Shinichi, was in Hana Yori Dango while Toda Erika, the actress who plays Kanzaki Nao, was in Code Blue and in Nobuta wo Produce. The second season is currently being aired and a movie is set to be released sometime this year.

So, if you haven't watched this series yet, then I really recommend you watch it (as long of course as this is your kind of thing, otherwise, I won't force you). I'm actually going to try and read the manga after I finish watching the series because the plot is so awesome. Anyway, enjoy! :D

5 Behaviors of Manipulative People

Brett Blumenthal of Sheer Balance

Many of us like to think the best of people. We like to think that they shoot straight and are forthright in their intentions. We also like to believe that they will ask for what they want and not resort to crazy tactics to get it. Unfortunately, however, there are times when we come across those who will do whatever it takes to get what they want...including manipulation. Being manipulated never feels good, but the worst part of manipulation is that often, we don’t even realize that it is happening. Here are a few ways to know if someone is trying to manipulate you:

1. Buttering You Up: To get their way, manipulators will often make you feel good so that they can then ask you to do something that they want. The person may first compliment you or tell you what a wonderful job you did on something. Making you feel good will, in their mind, make it difficult for you to say no…after all, you wouldn’t want to disappoint them or give them reason to think you didn’t deserve the compliment in the first place. What you can do: Return the compliments and the niceties before saying no.


2. Guilt: This doesn’t only pertain to Catholics and Jewish Mothers; guilt trips have been a successful manipulation tactic for centuries. The saddest part of this strategy is that the victims of this tactic succumb to the manipulators’ demands because they feel they HAVE to, not because they WANT to. In personal relationships, this sets up a co-dependency that is extremely unhealthy. What you can do: Ask the individual if they want you to do something because you have to or because you want to. If they say they want you to want to do it, tell them that you don’t and that they are trying to force you into something you don’t feel comfortable with.


3. Broken Record: Probably the most obvious of formats is the broken record tactic. If a person asks you enough or pushes their agenda enough…constantly repeating the question or request over and over again…in slightly different ways, the victim will inevitably give in and give them what they want. Oye! What you can do:Ask the individual what they don’t understand about the word “no.” Tell them that asking you over and over again isn’t going to change anything and that they are inappropriately over-stepping boundaries.


4. Selective Memory: This one gets me the most. You swear you have a conversation about a plan and everyone is on the same page, and then one day, the manipulator pretends to remember the conversation completely differently, if at all. What you can do: Record your conversations…seriously! Okay, maybe not. At least have a witness that you can count on to back you up if the person pulls this shenanigan. Call them out on the fact that they conveniently change the game to fit their needs.


5. Bullying: If a person doesn’t get their way, they make you out to look or feel like the bad guy…like you are the wrong one. What you can do: Be firm and tell them that their bullying tactics are inappropriate and unacceptable.

Keep your eyes open for these behaviors and continue to stand your ground to ensure that you aren’t a victim of manipulation. Have you seen any other types of manipulative behavior?

 

Source: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/life/5-behaviors-of-manipulative-people-549848/

10 Thing You Can Do to Strengthen Your Relationships

Relationships grow and change over time—whether friendships, romantic relationships or bonds with family and relatives. It is therefore important for people to constantly nurture relationships to keep them happy and healthy. Bonding is one of the ways to strengthen and nurture our relationships.

Here are things you can do today to bond with your loved ones:

1. Brighten your loved one’s day. You can make a homemade greeting card, send an e-card or a surprise text message just to say “Eat well,” or “Get enough rest.”


2. Find something he or she is interested in, and show a gesture of support. If your friend is interested in photography, for example, treat him to a walking tour of an old city. Or if your daughter loves a certain band, get her a t-shirt or a CD of that band.


3. Send flowers! Don’t wait for an occasion, do it today!


4. Give them a compliment. Praise them for little things, like their new hairstyle or a blouse that looks good on them. But be sincere. A heartfelt compliment will definitely lift anyone’s mood.


5. Say “I love you.” There are many ways and forms to do this. Do it everyday and remember not to stop at saying it, but follow it up with concrete action, too.


6. Listen. When you talk to your friends or relatives today, really listen. Look into their eyes and give that person your undivided attention.


7. Play a game with your loved ones today. It can be a board game, a game of basketball, an online game, among others. Just have a good time.


8. Share a meal with your loved ones. And enjoy the conversation, as much as the food! Don’t turn the TV on, text or take calls during mealtime.


9. Help your children with their homework. Or if your kids are younger, read to them! You can also call a friend and read him or her a poem over the phone.


10. Make tonight a night to remember. You can plan to have dinner with your family or friends, go to a movie, watch a concert or a play, or just take a quiet night time walk.

 

Source: http://www.nestle.com.ph/recipe/nestleclub/default.asp?s=article&t=relationships

1 in 3 laptops die in first three years

Christopher Null: The Working Guy

So your new laptop computer died in inside of a year. "I'll never buy a computer from [insert manufacturer name here] again!" I've heard the protests time and time again.

Yeah, maybe you got a lemon, but no matter which brand you bought, you truly are not alone in this situation: An analysis of 30,000 new laptops from SquareTrade, which provides aftermarket warranty coverage for electronics products, has found that in the first three years of ownership, nearly a third of laptops (31 percent) will fail.

That's actually better than I would have expected based on my experience and observations on how people treat their equipment.

SquareTrade has more detailed information (the full PDF of the company's study is available here) on the research on its website. But here are some highlights about how, why, and which laptops fail:

> 20.4 percent of failures are due to hardware malfunctions. 10.6 percent are due to drops, spills, or other accidental damage.

> Netbooks have a roughly 20 percent higher failure rate due to hardware malfunctions than standard laptops. The more you pay for your laptop, the less likely it is to fail in general (maybe because you're more careful with it?).

> The most reliable companies? A shocker: Toshiba and Asus, both with below a 16 percent failure rate due to hardware malfunction.

> The least reliable brands? Acer, Gateway, and HP. HP's hardware malfunction rate, the worst in SquareTrade's analysis, is a whopping 25.6 percent.

None of the numbers are overly surprising. As SquareTrade notes, "the typical laptop endures more use and abuse than nearly any other consumer electronic device (with the possible exception of cell phones)," so failures are really inevitable.

Want to keep your notebook running for longer than a few years? Ensure your laptop is as drop-proofed as possible (use a padded bag or case, route cords so they won't be tripped on, lock children in another room), and protect it as best you can from heat and dust.

 

Source: http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/154921

Smiles Predict Marriage Success

By Clara Moskowitz, LiveScience Staff Writer

If you want to know whether your marriage will survive, look at your spouse's yearbook photos.

Psychologists have found that how much people smile in old photographs can predict their later success in marriage.

In one test, the researchers looked at people's college yearbook photos, and rated their smile intensity from 1 to 10. None of the people who fell within the top 10 percent of smile strength had divorced, while within the bottom 10 percent of smilers, almost one in four had had a marriage that ended, the researchers say. (Scoring was based on the stretch in two muscles: one that pulls up on the mouth, and one that creates wrinkles around the eyes.)

In a second trial, the research team asked people over age 65 to provide photos from their childhood (the average age in the pictures was 10 years old). The researchers scored each person's smile, and found that only 11 percent of the biggest smilers had been divorced, while 31 percent of the frowners had experienced a broken marriage.

Overall, the results indicate that people who frown in photos are five times more likely to get a divorce than people who smile.

While the connection is striking, the researchers stress that they can't conclude anything about the cause of the correlation.

"Maybe smiling represents a positive disposition towards life," said study leader Matthew Hertenstein, a psychologist at DePauw University in Indiana. "Or maybe smiling people attract other happier people, and the combination may lead to a greater likelihood of a long-lasting marriage. We don’t really know for sure what's causing it."

Hertenstein said he has considered other explanations, such as the possibility that people who smile more often tend to attract more friends, and a larger support network makes it easier to keep a marriage healthy. Or it could be that people who smile when a photographer tells them to are more likely to have obedient personalities, which could make marriage easier.

The results of the study fit into a larger pattern of research that has found many personality characteristics can be determined from very thin slices of behavior. Basically, we often reveal ourselves in the most subtle, simple ways.

And smiling in photographs has been shown to be correlated with a number of traits, including a generally happier disposition.

"I think [our results] go along with a lot of the literature that’s been coming out over the last five to 10 years, which shows that positive emotionality is incredibly important in our lives," Hertenstein told LiveScience. "There are many, many beneficial outcomes to a positive disposition."

The findings are also notable because they found a connection between photos taken when people were young and marriage outcomes that sometimes occurred much later.

"It feeds into this idea that what's occurring earlier in our lives in terms of our present situation and our mental state can predict things that occur decades later," Hertenstein said. "Showing the continuity in who we are is really important."

The study is detailed in the April 5 issue of the journal Motivation and Emotion.

 

Sources:

http://www.livescience.com/culture/090414-smile-marriage.html

http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2009/04/25/smile-if-you-love-your-future-relationships/

Holiday to-do list expanding too fast? Work pressures got you tearing your hair out? No date for the season’s festivities? Regardless of the cause, when we’re stressed we often counterintuitively turn to diet-busting goodies for comfort. Instead of soothing our frayed nerves, many of them ultimately make us feel worse.

Take the classic, curling up with a pint of ice cream. It's a total backfire. Why? Sweets are insidious: After the initial rush, the body's insulin response kicks in, causing a sudden blood-sugar drop that triggers the release of stress hormones. Soon you're feeling more jangled than you were before you inhaled that whole container of Chunky Monkey. And alcohol, of course, is a wolfish stimulant in calm sheep's clothing.

But true comfort foods do exist:

• Berries, any berries. Eat them one by one instead of M&Ms when the pressure's on. For those tough times when tension tightens your jaw, try rolling a frozen berry around in your mouth. And then another, and another. Since the carbs in berries turn to sugar very slowly, you won't have a blood-sugar crash. The bonus: They're a good source of vitamin C, which helps fight a jump in cortisol, a stress hormone.


• Guacamole. If you're craving something creamy, look no further. Avocados are loaded with B vitamins, which stress quickly depletes and which your body needs in order to maintain nerves and brain cells. Plus, their creaminess comes from healthy fat. Scoop up the stuff with whole-grain baked chips -- crunching keeps you from gritting your teeth.


• Mixed nuts. Just an ounce will do. Walnuts help replace those stress-depleted B vitamins, Brazil nuts give you a whopping amount of zinc (which is also drained by high anxiety), and almonds boost your E, which helps fight cellular damage linked to chronic stress. Buy nuts in the shell and think of it as multitasking: With every squeeze of the nutcracker, you're releasing a little tension.


• Oranges. People who take 1,000 milligrams of C before giving a speech have lower levels of cortisol and lower blood pressures than those who don't. So lean back, take a deep breath, and concentrate on peeling a large orange. The 5-minute mindfulness break will ease your mind, and you'll get a bunch of C as well.


• Asparagus. Each tender stalk is a source of folic acid, a natural mood lightener. Dip the spears in fat-free yogurt or sour cream for a hit of calcium with each bite.


• Chai tea. A warm drink is a supersoother, and curling up with a cup of aromatic decaf chai tea (Tazo makes ready-to-brew bags) can make the whole evil day go away.


• Dark chocolate. Okay, there's nothing in it that relieves stress, but when only chocolate will do, reach for the dark, sultry kind that's at least 70% cocoa. You figure if the antioxidant flavonoids in it are potent enough to fight cancer and heart disease, they've got to be able to temper tension's effects.

 

Source: http://www.realage.com/blogs/food-bites/foods-to-calm-you-down-fast

I've always wanted these kind of comfy boots and thanks to Dominique Tiu, I found this site giving away one free Ugg Boots to a lucky winner every month. And for those who want to try and see if the gods of chance and luck will bless them with a pair (which I pray the gods will see fit to bless me) of these lovely boots which are becoming mainstream (not only because they are a trend but because they look so comfortable), then just head on to Whooga: Ugg Boots for the contest details. And it's so easy to join that I bet you'd want to try because it takes only a few minutes of your time. Wish me (or us if you're joining too) luck! :D

By the way, Dominique Tiu also included in her blog a wonderful article about her history with Ugg boots along with pictures of celebrities wearing Ugg boots. So just clickie her name on top and you'll be directed to her article. Have fun browsing her blog. She's one of my style icons. :)

♥ Daal

 The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Could you survive on your own, in the wild, with everyone fighting against you?

Twenty-four are forced to enter. Only the winner survives. In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. Each year, the districts are forced by the Capitol to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the Hunger Games, a brutal and terrifying fight to the death - televised for all of Panem to see.

Survival is second nature for sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who struggles to feed her mother and younger sister by secretly hunting and gathering beyond the fences of District 12. When Katniss steps in to take the place of her sister in the Hunger Games, she knows it may be her death sentence. If she is to survive, she must weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

WINNING WILL MAKE YOU FAMOUS. LOSING MEANS CERTAIN DEATH.

This is the latest book I've read, which I was influenced to read by a book review I read on the internet. It's a wonderful book with a plot that keeps you gripping on to your seats. I swear I couldn't put the book (well, in my case, iPod Touch because I was reading an e-book) down. The story is a bit like Battle Royale in which the children are required to fight to the death as a means of quelling rebellion (I'm not sure about Battle Royale but I'm pretty sure the Battle Royale was also cooked up by the government).

It's a YA book and I really can't recommend it to younger children because of the violence in the book. But the story touches on more than the character's struggles to survive the death match she has been chosen (sort of since she volunteered but with good reason) to participate in. I recommend it to people who love to read and possibly to those who don't since the book is so filled with action that I doubt you'll ever be left bored while reading. I'm going to read the next installment in the series, Catching Fire, after I finish tackling all my academic requirements for this semester. Enjoy.

♥ Daal