Year: 2010

Heroes vs. Villains


Earlier this year, I blogged about The Action Heroine’s Handbook, a handy guide for wannabe kick-ass chicks, which details instructions on a variety of useful action heroine skills, such as winning a catfight, drinking someone under the table, choking a man with your bare thighs.

Months later, I received its companion volume, The Action Hero’s Handbook, that I requested from BookMooch, followed, quite aptly, by a copy of The Villain’s Guide to Better Living.
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The Mockingjay Launch Party, in photos




The article I wrote on the Mockingjay launch party came out on the Manila Bulletin last Saturday, but since I already blogged about the Quarter Quell LARP, I’ll just share a bunch of photos instead. Check out this awesome day of bookish fun!

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Nutcracker finger puppets!

The last two weeks have been particularly stressful, and I’ve gone on a bookish rampage (*guilty)* that doesn’t seem to show signs of letting up — not with the Manila International Book Fair coming up in a couple of weeks.

I was trawling at one of my favorite branches of a bargain bookstore today and found a Nutcracker finger puppet set! Now you know I collect all sorts of bookish miscellany – book gadgets, bookmarks, bookish toys, and practically anything book-related – so when I saw this battered box on the shelf, I couldn’t resist getting it for my collection. It was pretty cheap, too, at only P65, an awesome deal for four adorable finger puppets! Just in time, too, as September marks the start of the Christmas season here in the Philippines.

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The Red Pyramid

Egyptian culture has always been a special interest of mine since I was a high school sophomore, when most of our subjects for the year were tied up with Afro-Asian civilization. One quarter of that school year was devoted to Egypt, and I remember being fascinated with the history of pharaohs in Social Studies class (my personal favorite was Hatshepsut!), and Egyptian mythology and the concept of afterlife in Literature class.

I actually like Egyptian mythology over Greek mythology so even though I wasn’t all that fond of the Percy Jackson series, I was eager to try out The Red Pyramid, the first book in Rick Riordan’s new series, The Kane Chronicles.

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Quarter Quell Live Action Role Play (LARP)

Yesterday’s Mockingjay Launch Party was such a blast!

I’m still wading through hundreds of event photos, and am in the middle of writing an article about the event for Manila Bulletin, but I know you’re all waiting for one thing, anyway: the major highlight of the Mockingjay Launch Party — the Quarter Quell Live Action Role Play (LARP)!

Last year, the Hunger Games LARP at the Manila International Book Fair was a huge success, and I was lucky to be one of the few people to cover it. Of course, this meant the Mockingjay launch party wouldn’t be complete without a LARP, and Scholastic upped the ante this year with the Quarter Quell!

24 tributes representing the 12 districts of Panem participated in this year’s Quarter Quell LARP, competing for exciting prizes from Scholastic and National Book Store.

Here’s a recap of the Quarter Quell LARP (based on the events in Catching Fire) which is easy enough to replicate in case you’re planning your own Hunger Games party!

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