A couple of weeks ago I somehow ended up on a Amazon giant rubber duck page (most probably because of some friends from Mr Duck ) and the next I got this funny recommendation from Amazon:

Master spies Seregil and Alec are no strangers to peril. Their assignments, nightrunning for wizards and nobles, have led them into many deadly situations. But sometimes the greatest danger can lurk beneath a Traitor’s Moon. Wounded heroes of a cataclysmic battle, Seregil and Alec have spent the past two years in selfimposed exile, far from their adopted homeland, Skala, and the bitter memories there. But as the war rages on, their time of peace is shattered by a desperate summons from Queen Idrilain, asking them to aid her daughter on a mission to Aurenen, the very land from which Seregil was exiled in his youth. Here, in this fabled realm of magic and honour, he must at last confront the demons of his dark past, even as Alec discovers an unimagined heritage. And caught between Skala’s desperate need and the ancient intrigues of the Aurenfaie, they soon find themselves snared in a growing web of treachery and betrayal.

The first time I read this book I was sorely disappointed; I don’t even actually know why, cause I barely remember reading it. Reading it again almost 7 years later, I was surprised to discover that most scenes felt new, as if I didn’t absorb the book the first time. And on this second read though I really enjoyed it. However, it does feel noticeably different than it’s predecessors ( Luck In The Shadows and Stalking Darkness ), and I think there’s slightly less action in it, which might have caused younger me not to like it that much.

In this book, Seregil and Alec travel to Aurenen to help the diplomats of the Skalan queen. Aurenen and the Aurenfaie are the main focus of this book, and it’s great to finally see more of Seregil’s past and people. The first time around I was I think disappointed by how the Aurenfaie are portrayed; I was expecting them to be more advanced and “polished”. The Aurenfaie are highly spiritual, and their beliefs and politics are so different than what we’ve seen from the Skalans, that it forms an interesting base to the story.

Being back in Aurenen provides Seregil a lot of inner conflict, especially after the loss of Nysander in the previous book. It’s interesting to finally find out how he exactly ended up in Rhiminee doing what he does. For Alec being in Aurenen means learning about a heritage he never knew he had, and I love how this will be carried on in the next book.

Traitor’s Moon is the third book in The Nightrunner Series by Lynn Flewelling – £5.99 on Amazon.co.uk , $7.50 on Amazon.com

One word: pwetty!

Don’t you think these are gorgeous? My favourites are The Odyssey and Alice In Wonderland (pink flamingos!). I still haven’t figured out yet where you can buy all of them. The Penguin website lists a couple of these (each for £12.99), but I’m not sure where you can get the others.

Via Design*sponge

Just a quick post (from out the Apple store) about an event I’m going to tonight. I’ve been invited to the launch of two new flavours from Smirnoff: Green Apple and Lime.

The cool thing is that for this launch they’ve got a 10 meter long ice sculpture of the London skyline at Covent Garden. Awesome, right? If I’m right it should be on the north side of Covent Garden Piazza from around 18:00 on. If you decide to show up and have a look, don’t forget to mention my blog (Miss Geeky) and you’ll be entered into a prize draw to win Smirnoff Green Apple and Lime take away packs.

I’ve gotten access to the sampling area, where I’ll be trying out these two new (hopefully) tasty flavours. I’ll try to blog about them, whatever cocktails they come up with and the massive ice sculpture some time this weekend.

Confucius : The life story of the highly-influential Chinese thinker and philosopher, Confucius, who lived from 551 BC to 479 BC during the Zhou Dynasty in China. It hasn’t picked up yet by a US or Uk distributor, but it’s screening this month in China to mark the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China and Confucius’ 2,560th birthday. Release Date: unknown

Up In The Air : From Jason Reitman, the Oscar nominated director of “Juno,” comes a comedy called “Up in the Air” starring George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, a corporate downsizing expert whose cherished life on the road is threatened just as he is on the cusp of reaching ten million frequent flyer miles and just after he’s met the frequent-traveler woman of his dreams. Release Date: December 2009 (US), January 2010 (UK)

The Princess and The Frog : A teaser trailer came out a while ago, but this is our first full length look at Walt Disney’s The Princess and the Frog, an animated comedy set in the great city of New Orleans. From the creators of The Little Mermaid and Aladdin comes a modern twist on a classic tale, featuring a beautiful girl named Tiana (Anika Noni Rose), a frog prince who desperately wants to be human again, and a fateful kiss that leads them both on a hilarious adventure through the mystical bayous of Louisiana. Release Date: December 2009 (US), February 2010 (UK)

Trick ‘R Treat : Four interwoven tales are set on Halloween night: a high-school principal who moonlights as a vicious serial killer, a young virgin whose quest for that special someone takes a gruesome turn, a group of teens who carries out a cruel prank with disastrous consequences, and a cantankerous old man who battles a mischievous trick-or-treating demon. I’ve been waiting for this film for ages! A trailer was released one and a half year ago, but since then it’s been in distributor hell. Now finally it will be released on DVD; a pity, cause it looks like a great movie. Release Date: October 2009 (US)

Leslie, My Name Is Evil : Perry (Gregory Smith), a sheltered chemical engineer, falls in love with Leslie (Kristen Hager), a former homecoming princess, when he becomes a jury member at her hippie death cult murder trial. A film that explores how the choices Perry and Leslie make reflect upon the moral choices our society has made. Release Date: unknown

I should have blogged about this sooner, but I’ve been so busy lately. I got some great entries on my Find The Hidden Treasure contest last week, that I had to share a couple of them with you.

Zain:

Hidden Gem: Ambala Sweet store. Something about syrupy sweets and a sunshine ky make a miserable me a little happy. Unfortunately, I’m nowhere near the sweet store and the weather is overcast.

Judith Lewis:

my hidden gem: The Chocolate Society Shop on Elizabeth St. If you don’t know about it, you’ll never find it but they have the BEST chocolate cookies I’ve had in a long time and my favourite chocolate brownies. Their chocolates are fab too!

Genevieve Hassan:

My hidden gem in London: If you’re a die-hard meat eater, you’ll never have considered Food For Thought – a small basement vegetarian restaurant in Covent Garden. They serve the best dessert in the world – the “Strawberry Scrunch” – a crunchy biscuit base with fresh cream, bananas and strawberries, plus they give you a HUGE portion! I challenge anyone to find a better dessert.

Emma Persky:

My Hidden Gem:

If I told you then it would no longer be hidden! Oh well, there are lot’s so I’m sure I can reveal one of my favourite to you 🙂 But which one…

Hush. Yes, that’s the name of the restaurant. Why (the name that is)? Because it’s hidden away in a small courtyard at the end of South Molton Street so innocuously that you would never, ever find it, unless you knew it was there. No signposts or glaring neon signs point the way, and that’s jut the way they like it. You know a restaurant (and upstairs bar) must be good when its bursting at the seams even though it receives no footfall traffic.

The cuisine is modern british with a hint of french influence. My favourite dish being the “Gratin of Macaroni Cheese with (or without) Bacon” as a started. Enough to share, but so good you’ll regret that decision.

Oh, and did I mention that they have a wine list to die for!

sheilaellen:

My Hidden Gem in London has to be The Orc’s Nest (6 Earlham Street, WC2H 9RY).  It’s a treasure trove for anyone who’s into games – board, role-playing, cards or otherwise.  Packed full of the essentials to get you started, plus extension packs and ephemera.  And despite the bold yellow and black metal frontage and stunning Orc’s head logo, it’s surprising how many people walk past without ever noticing it’s there.

The winner of the contest was Judith Lewis with her chocolate store gem (I’ve got to visit that shop sometime!), but she couldn’t make it to the event. So the runner-up Emma Persky joined me last Thursday to the Joy Store to do some treasure hunting.

The event was pretty interesting. There were cupcakes and champagne for all the blog writers plus winners, and we got to see a shiny new Ford Ka (I loved the colour! It was almost Miss Geeky red, but slightly nudging a bit more to the pink side). We all had to find 1 Ford Ka miniature in the store, which we could exchange for £60 worth of Joy Store vouchers. Sweet!

Finding the miniatures wasn’t hard at all, so we got to spend 2 hours trying on clothes and picking out what we wanted for free. I ended up with a black zipper dress (still not completely sure about that dress though, the shoulders are a little bit too eighties) and a silver grey dress with gathered sections . I really liked the style of the Joy Store, but almost all the clothes I tried on didn’t fit me. Guess I have a slightly different body type (wide hips, small shoulders and waist) than what they design for.

Still, I had a great time (who wouldn’t with free champagne, free cupcakes and free dresses!). For the rest of September, every Friday every Joy Store in the UK will have miniature Ford Ka’s hidden in their store. If you find one, you can get a £10 voucher, and some of them will even be for a £100 voucher!

I’ve been dreading and putting off writing this preview, but we’re now a day away from the premiere, so I’ve got to say something about it. Anything. But to be honest: I still haven’t gathered all my thoughts about it, and I’m just too scared to even think about this show.

For most of you (I’m guessing practically ALL of you) this will just be another vampire show piggybacking on the hype of Twilight and True Blood. And I’m not disagreeing; that’s definitely the reason why CW picked up this show. For me though this show is much more: the TV adaption of one of my most beloved book series from LJ Smith . I adoooored these books as a teen and can’t begin to tell you how often I’ve read them. While they weren’t my favourite books from LJ Smith (have a look at the Nightworld series, Dark Visions , and the Secret Circle trilogy ), they are the first books I read from her and they’ll always remain “sacred” to me.

When I found out the CW would make a TV show out of this, a part of me was ecstatic, but a larger part of me was just dreading it. You know how it is with book-to-TV/movie adaptions; you’ll never satisfy everyone and there will be some disappointments on the way. Whoever they cast in it, it will never match up 100% with however the characters looked in your mind.

And the more I see and hear about this Vampire Diaries TV show, the more I think that in the end I’m just going to be completely disappointed in it. Maybe it will still be an okay series (I doubt it though), but it won’t be my Vampire Diaries. Here’s one of the trailers:

Eek, there is just so much that is wrong! Some of the things might seem minor, but I don’t understand why they had to change it. For starters, Elena (the main character) is described in the books as a blue-eyed blonde, who starts off the series as a bit of a shallow self centered bitch. Not at all remotely like how they’ve portrayed her in the TV series. Then Bonnie is supposed to be bubbly short redhead, descended from druids and is psychic. Apparently they’ve changed  that in the show to “voodoo princess”. Then the third best friend Meredith is just completely missing from the show! There are more changes like this and I just don’t get most of them. Why base a show on a book if you’re going to change the entire thing?

Besides that though, even if you haven’t read the books, I still think it looks awful. Nothing about it seems compelling enough for me to watch it: the dialogue sounds dreadful, the characters look dull, and the plot laughable. It just seems as if they’re cashing in on the whole Twilight and True Blood buzz (“hey, let’s make our own vampire show!”).

Maybe it will turn out okay, but my gut feeling is telling me this will be utter crap. I’m definitely going to try to see when it comes out, but I’m not hopeful about it at all. My tip: ignore the TV show, buy the books instead ( Amazon UK , Amazon US ).

What do you think of Vampire Diaries ? Will you be watching? Or maybe you had a beloved book that was adapted horribly? Discuss in the comments.

I thought I’d introduce yet another recurring series of posts, this time highlighting the music I’m listening to. To start it off, here’s one of my favourite pieces from Ennio Morricone, the theme song from The Untouchables. I still get goosebumps every time I hear this:

Btw, does anybody have any tips what the best website is to find these type of embeds? YouTube doesn’t really feel right, seeing as it’s only audio.

I heard about the onedotzero Adeventures in Motion festival a couple of weeks ago, and almost forgot it was happening this week. It’s running from tomorrow, Wednesday the 9th of September till Sunday the 13th of September at the BFI Southbank.

The festival is all about showcasing up-and-coming talent alongside leading creatives within the arts of digital animation, motion graphics, experimental shorts and music videos. They’ve got some amazing stuff going on, and I’m hoping to make my way down to the Southbank on at least one of these days.

For starters, there are a couple of movie screenings . On Friday there’s a preview of Pixar’s Up with a Q&A afterwards with director Pete Docter and producer Jonas Rivera. I wish I found out earlier; I’ve been dying to see this movie, but it’s sadly completely sold out. On Saturday though there’s a screening of Mary and Max ; I think I might have posted a trailer of it a while ago, but if you missed it here it is again:

It looks sweet, right? Next to the movie screenings there are also a couple of compilation programmes, showing a selection of short movies with a similar theme. I’m really interested in terrain , featuring 19 shorts:

terrain will take you on a journey traversing arresting moving vistas from directors who hail from a diverse spectrum of disciplines but who all share one common fascination – the myriad environments in which we dwell. from the extreme visual clutter of over-populated cities to the tranquility of rural panoramic plains as well as otherworldly imagined spaces.

Besides that there are also installations and innervisions , which are free to visit. Some of the installations look pretty cool, like an interactive music video lounge , and a huge projection on the National Theatre that lets you interact with the visual via handsets, text and Twitter.

The onedotzero Adventures in Motion festival runs from 09 September – 13 September at the BFI Southbank. To see the complete schedule, check out the onedotzero website .

A couple of months ago I came across this cute jewelry brand via The Style PA . It’s called Fairytales & Post it Notes and everything about it is just so cute! The name, the designs, the site, I love it all.

Here are a couple of my favourite products:

Letter in Envelope Necklace : Envelope necklace with its own “I love you” letter inside. Also has its own little birdie on the side. £15

Telescope Necklace : Fully working extendable telescope necklace for you to keep a close eye on all those important things. £25

Pocket Compass Necklace : Antique style pocket watch style compass – so you’ll never loose your way. Fully working push button mechanism. £28

Sandtimer Necklace: Sandtimer necklace for those all important deadlines. £16

Bird & Cage Earrings : £6.50

Via The Style PA