Hi! Just squeezing in a blog post before the rain falls again.
I bought more Nyx SLMC! I love Milan, a “mid-toned blue-toned pink“, the quieter sister of my Addis Ababa tube. This is probably more wearable in the office.
I also bought San Paulo, plummy-pink, a pink that sits between these two shades, but I haven’t swatched it yet. Here are some nice swatches on Shen’s Addiction.
Oh wait, here you go:
I ended up on Taste Central again and got a bar of Trader Joe’s PB & J Milk Chocolate Bar. It’s a chocolate bar with creamy peanut butter and raspberry jelly filling. This is the best, and doesn’t feel very heavy. Just don’t eat everything in one sitting. (I did and I’m very sorry.) It sells at PhP 75.
I bought some gifts for my mother at the Beauty Bar, and got these little samples for free. I do love the Burt’s Bees Intense Hydration Night Cream. It leaves my skin feeling supple and soft. I might just get that when I run out of night creams.
I have used Cure twice already, but I can’t vouch for the exfoliation effects just yet.
Author and editor Carrie Cuinn has compiled a list of 90-plus authors of Asian descent, with links to their websites and a free sample story. I’m delighted to find my name, and the names of authors I admire, in this list. Click the link and discover some tales!
Meanwhile: The rains are here. Have a green tea cupcake and coffee, dear.
I posted an announcement about my new collection of dark fiction, Unseen Moon, the same month two pressure cooker bombs exploded during the Boston Marathon. The following month, three women escaped from a house on Seymour Avenue in Cleveland, freeing themselves from a decade of sex slavery and confinement. In the face of real-life tragedy, who needs horror stories?
It was the country’s Independence Day yesterday, June 12. We stayed inside and fed ourselves home-cooked meals that J experimented on, like this very tasty tuna sisig:
A can of tuna sauteed in a skillet with chopped garlic, chili, and onion. Add mayonnaise and calamansi after. Soy sauce, calamansi and chili for sawsawan. Pair with steamed rice. Sarap!
Book Giveaway Alert: Chris Mariano of Ficsation is giving away a signed copy (with a special bookmark) of Unseen Moon! Contest runs until June 22. Head over here to read the details. Go, go, join, join! :)
I don’t own a matte lipstick. The closest would be my Snoe Rouge Deluxe in Vintage Rose, which has a semi-matte finish. I also suffer from perpetually dry lips, so I just stay away from them, no matter how gorgeous MAC Ruby Woo looks. I’m not even sure I can apply a matte lipstick properly.
I was browsing Digital Traincase last week when I saw this product on sale: Nyx Soft Matte Lip Cream.
Neither lipstick nor lip gloss—this is matte lip cream. A new kind of pout paint that goes on silky smooth and sets to a matte finish. Soft Matte Lip Cream is surprisingly durable and, unlike some matte lipstick formulas, also moisturizing. Available in 13 lip colors.
• What it is: Highly pigmented, matte lip cream
• What it does: Creates various matte lip looks
• Why we love it: Delightfully creamy and lightweight, our award winning line just expanded with two captivating new shades.
• How to use: Apply directly to lips, or over lipstick. Apply with lip liner to define outline of lips.
Sold! That solved my problem with application and dryness.
I ordered Addis Ababa (described by Nyx as bright fuchsia) and Amsterdam (pure red). Great packaging for a tube that costs PhP 280 each.
I immediately swiped on Amsterdam. They weren’t kidding about pigmentation – I was so shocked by the red on my lips that I wiped some color away on a piece of tissue.
Stealth office shot! This is one (very light) coat of Amsterdam.
It looks brighter in person.
It’s such a pretty shade, and I’m now in love with matte finishes. I will definitely buy more of these matte lip creams. (And maybe the Ruby Woo?)
I’m also loving Addis Ababa. Look how the shade makes my teeth appear whiter than they really are.
If you’d like to order, do contact Digital Traincase. Ordering from them was a breeze.
I went home to Bulacan this weekend with J. It had been incredibly humid this weekend! And the heavy rain at night was insane. I wasn’t able to relax as much as I wanted, but still had fun eating proper home-cooked meals.
Brought home some sweets (peach and tamarind) and coffee from Vietnam and Thailand.Binalay! My favorite dessert from Cagayan Valley.A drunk J eating binalay.My brothers in Yellow Cab. We had dinner there before heading to our respective rented apartments.
Let me go through some films I’ve seen a while ago (but forgot to review):
I saw Casino Royaleand could now understand why fans of the James Bond franchise didn’t like this new version. Bond seemed too bitter here. There is a better balance of grimness and Bond-playfulness in Skyfall. I enjoyed watching Hannibal (Mads Mikkelsen), though.
Oz: The Great and Powerfulhas great effects, but lacks charm. It feels like the producers are holding a checklist and going, “So here’s how we get Elphaba, and here’s how Glinda will meet Oz, and here’s Oz giving gifts – not granting wishes, mind you! – to his friends.” I like origin stories, but this one just drags us from one scene to another. There is a sense of wonder in the beginning, with the huge, tinkling yellowbells and the water fairies, but this amazement soon deflates. James Franco, who is supposed to be wicked but is simply not wicked enough, gets swallowed up by the special effects. Maybe it could have been solved by a different lead? Johnny Depp? Robert Downey Jr?
Anyhoo. Rachel Weisz as the Witch Evanora looks absolutely stunning.
Star Trek: Into Darkness.Everyone’s having a nerd boner, I know. The opening scene is a winner, with the team struggling to deactivate a raging volcano, and Benedict Cumberbatch looks incredibly bad-ass in his fight scenes. BUT, the conflict gets resolved so abruptly that I literally sit up, surprised. That’s it? It’s still a good watch, but the plot unravels as you look closer post-viewing, and the resolution doesn’t feel as satisfying as I have hoped.
Still, bad-ass Cumberbatch.
Yes, I mean you, baby.
Also, finished another book! (Apologies to the books I have abandoned.)
Two couples are meeting up for dinner in a high-end restaurant. One couple – a famous politician and his wife – is used to a life of wealth. The other (we don’t know much about them at this point) is not.
‘What is it?’ Claire asked. ‘Did you see what it says here?’ My wife looked at me questioningly. ‘It says: “Aperitif of the house, ten euros”.’ ‘Oh?’ ‘But that’s insane, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘The man said: “We’d like to offer you the aperitif of the house,” right? “The aperitif of the house is pink champagne.” So what are you supposed to think? You think they’re offering you the pink champagne, or am I nuts? If they offer you something, you get it, right? “Can we offer you the this-or-that of the house?” Then it doesn’t cost ten euros, it’s free!’
It is clear, however, from the second couple’s circuitous discussion before entering the restaurant, that this is not just an ordinary dinner. They’re there to discuss something. Something important. Something big. While reading the protagonist’s long, meandering descriptions of the food and the place, I wondered to myself if this novel will just end on a lame reveal.
It doesn’t.
I was attracted to this novel because the entire story is told over the course of a single meal – aperitif, appetizer, main course, dessert, digestif. It was stylistically intriguing, but I didn’t expect to be blown away by how dark it is, by how brilliant Koch was in setting up the big reveal by giving us the details in small morsels, until we choke.
You know how dinners with people you don’t like can be more suspenseful, more nerve-wracking, than any thriller? And we haven’t even started on the secrets.
These Tweets from my friend Kate cheered me up this gloomy Friday morning.
Intrigued? I am done with shipping all of the pre-ordered copies of Unseen Moon, and I’m back to accepting orders. There are two ways you can order:
Email me – victoriaeliza [at] gmail [dot] com – if you want to order, and I will ask Books on Demand Philippines to print you a copy and ship it directly to you. Pro: You’ll get a copy of the book hot off the presses! Con: I won’t be able to sign it beforehand.
Books on Demand Philippines will print you a copy and ship it to me. I’ll sign it, package it, and I’ll ship it to you. Pro: I will be able to sign it beforehand. Con: You will need to shoulder the double shipping fees, which can amount to more than PhP 100. Note: Each copy costs PhP 450.
Either way, if you’re interested, just email me and let’s see what we can do.
Each copy comes with a small gift:
Cards shipped from London, printed by Moo UK(Note: I only have 50 of these.)
The novel Into the Darkest Corner opens with a transcript of a hearing, followed by a third-person narration of a murder. “As far as days to die were concerned, the longest day of the year was as good a day as any.” I was hooked already at this point, intrigued by the technique of detailing the events through the dying/dead woman’s perspective.
The novel switched to first-person and introduced us to another woman afflicted with a severe case of OCD. “Here I have to check and re-check the flat door properly six or twelve times, and then the communal front door as well.”
The novel, Elizabeth Haynes’ debut, was well-written and tightly paced. I was intrigued, and despite the one-dimensional antagonist (his motivation is plot!) and the not-so-explosive reveal, it kept me reading until the end.
I’ve read many thrillers about escape, but this one is a good, hard look at an escape’s aftermath.
Good morning Cambodia! Free hotel breakfast, at long last.
Cambodia was a former French colony, hence the baguette.
We got two tuktuk through Bou Savy and a tour guide named Sen for our trip to Angkor Wat.
Wheeeeeee.
This is Sen.
You can actually rent a bicycle to go around Angkor Wat, but are you kidding me. (I’m not an athletic person, as you can glean from my posts.)
The stone structures and engravings are incredible.
Apsara!
These huge tree just grew around the ruins.
Lunch! I had this yummy lychee-flavored soda.
Here we are, entering the main temple. Angkor Wat is the largest religious (first Hindu, then Buddhist) monument in the world.
This post has hardly any words, but words and even these photos are inadequate. You have to be there, to fully appreciate the scale of this complex.
Heaven and hell.
We planned to wait for the sunset at Angkor Wat, but we finished the tour at 3 PM, and I personally couldn’t wait three hours under the hot sun in my sweaty clothes. So off we go to Bou Savy to freshen up and fix our things.
Look at the chandeliers in Cambodia’s airport.
We boarded the 10:30 flight and arrived in Manila at half-past two. Home. :)
Total expenses for Cambodia is USD 206.
Total expenses overall: USD 898.58 or around PhP 42,000.
I almost didn’t go on this trip, but I’m glad I did.
My thanks to my friends, especially to June, who painstakingly read every blog post ever written about trips to these countries, and so I pass on this information to you. :)
opens with a transcript of a hearing, followed by a third-person narration of a murder. “As far as days to die were concerned, the longest day of the year was as good a day as any.” I was hooked already at this point, intrigued by the technique of detailing the events through the dying/dead woman’s perspective.
Eliza Victoria 