the tales of beedle the bard

all in the name of charity, amazon.com has purchased one of JK Rowling's handmade copies of "the tales of beedle the bard" at an auction in sotheby's london at a whopping 1,950,000 pounds. apparently there are only seven copies in existence and amazon.com was nice enough to share their review of the five tales that rowling painstakingly handwritten and illustrated.

i'm wondering if rowling has any plans of mass marketing this book later on, because that would be a wonderful gift to all her fans who lived on her potter books. if not, i only hope they would release high resolution scans of the book even for a fee, because that would just be wicked!

go HERE to read the review and spoilers.


(image taken from amazon.com)

a gift from nick hornby

so many weeks ago i got a parcel containing an ordinary yellow paperback. it looked ordinary enough that i could just toss it out on my stack of yet unread books and forget about it. i thought it was just one of those books that i mooched from somebody at bookmooch. upon closer inspection however, i learned it was nick hornby's slam. now why would i mooch this book when i already have one? turns out i won it on one of those book central websites that i chanced upon one of those early mornings that i was bored to my wits.

so now i'm stuck with two SLAM books. but what's great about this ordinary looking yellow paperback is the fact that it is an advance uncorrected proof. these kinds of copies are the ones that they give out to media people, book reviewers and such before the book goes to press.




anyway, what makes this book really special to me is because it was signed by nick hornby himself. yes! nick hornby, the english writer who i adored ever since his high fidelity and about a boy novels came out. how about that? so now i'd be re-reading this book again and again knowing that nick's hands has held it's pages (he he he ang baduy!). hey! it's either that or i'd tell people that nick took pains in wrapping and mailing me this yellow book as my christmas present from him.

today

the sun is shining brightly outside. temperature is on the high 60's and i actually drove with my windows down, can you believe that? i went out for a quick trip to the post office a while ago and dropped by borders to get a little bookstore therapy for myself. before heading home, i stopped by my favorite bakery to buy something that i have been craving for for several days now. something that is sinfully good which is gonna make me pay big time on the elliptical and treadmill this week.

i bought this.

(my favorite brown derby cake. a chocolate cake filled with strawberry and banana custard filling.)

anyways, i got three new books from my short trip to the bookstore
which is reason why i shouldn't be going out of the apartment at all. i step out and i end up buying stuff. come to think of it, i shouldn't be allowed to have web access too because shopping is also as easy as clicking a button. hopefully those books will tide me over the days that i plan to just bum around at home. so on my "to be read" pile of books is nick hornby's newest fiction SLAM, murakami's collection of stories blind willow, sleeping woman and david sedaris' barrel fever. i'm so excited, i can't wait to start reading them.

last time i wrote about an NBA game that we were planning on going this december right? well, just the other day i got a normal looking envelope from the mailbox and guess what's inside? seven tickets to the knicks vs. nets game! woohoo! it's official... we are going to be at madison square garden on the night of the 15th of december. he he he... super excited! i know it's still a month away but its reason enough for me to behave myself and be a good girl at work.

this is me rambling

third week into october and i don't feel like it's fall yet. the sun is happily shining it's bright rays outside and the temperature is well off into the 70's. yesterday, it was raining like it's springtime. the only thing that reminds me that it's autumn are the changing colors of the leaves which looks magnificent and which makes longish drives bearable. i'm not complaining about the nice warm autumn we're having. i'm just worried that this might stretch winter this year. a friend was even joking that we might not get any snowfall until april. i think the guy who's got the controls for the weather is vacationing somewhere in the bahamas. that, or he's got something up his sleeves come winter time. please god...no.

i am pissed right now with the way our schedule for the next 4 weeks came out. everything was messed up. i was given holiday time on a day that i didn't want holiday time and was scheduled to work on thanksgiving when i requested to take time off on that day. it would've been ok if they told me earlier that they couldn't grant me my requested days, but no they kept holding off putting the schedule out for reasons only known to them. those witches! so there goes my plans for black friday shopping spree up in smokes thank you very much.

it's saturday and i am home. lounging around, watching old movies on tv and waiting for kuya erwin to pick up my balikbayan boxes and hoping it will reach davao before christmas. i've done three loads of laundry, folded them and now they're waiting to be put into their proper cabinets and drawers. now this is what kills me with doing laundry. i am ok with loading my clothes on the washers and dryers and i am even good with folding them neatly into a pile. the thing that i am lazy about is clearing them from the top of my bed. i always procrastinate on that part, the reason being i don't know. maybe i'm just a freak that way.

i am excited with a new hobby i found online.... mooching books. mooching what? well it's actually a way of getting rid of my old unwanted books, giving it away to someone who's keen to read it and mooching those that i want from somebody else. cool huh? now how do i do that? well let me direct you to this site ( www.bookmooch.com ) to spare me the task of explaining to you all about bookmooching. i'm actually set to mail out 5 books tomorrow that i'm feeling generosity coursing through my veins. yay! i'm trying to be nice now specially since the holidays are coming.

i'm off to do some errands tomorrow. i'll have two more days off 'til i get back to work. lovely!

deathly hallows

well, well, well ...it seems that all that anticipation and waiting and theorizing is gonna end in july 21. everyone is excited. well at least everyone who knows what the hell quidditch is or who has a bit of knowledge about the rise and fall of "he who must not be named" should be excited. it is afterall the last of the series. the seventh book that will chronicle harry potter's adventures in the wizarding world. unlike the 6th book which i read in a matter of hours, i am gonna take my time and savor every page and every chapter of this book.


oh man! can you tell how excited i am? times like these, i miss my younger sister and jazz and dr. dada who shares my childish passion over the potter books. i actually pre-ordered it from borders the other night and called up my sis to tell her that i got one for her too. which made her crazily happy.


oh! and borders is giving away snape stickers. how cool is that? i hope they still have some left when i can finally find time to go to a borders store. in the meantime, i have to force myself to get some sleep so that i could survive my 12 hour shift tonight.