Shimmery brown look for hazel eyes

I didn't intend to include any make-up tutorials when starting this blog but since I'm discovering the "world of putting colors on your face" now (unlike other girls who usually learn this in puberty and then are able to create awesome looks later in their life) why not share my discoveries with you. 

I got asked a lot today if my eye color was green - that rarely happens because I have one of those "hmmmm, we can't decide which color to give you" eyes and they look different all the time (depending on the light and mostly it is in the favor of the brown color). Surprisingly I probably got the green out today. Ha, without the use of any purple as most tutorials advise. 

I can only show you the finished look over there  --------------------->  because I didn't think of showing anyone, let alone documenting the whole process, but since everyone at work asked about it, it resulted in the shitty pictures which don't do the look justice (I think you have already gotten used to my super old camera which doesn't make sharp colorful pics) taken about 14 hours after application (so we can say it's really long lasting).

But I remember what I used for it, so don't panic, I'll tell you how to recreate it. It's gonna be very easy - I don't do complicated - I'm usually happy I can manage to have  breakfast and dress up after I wake up (yay for not-morning-people) so if I can't make my face look nice in 10 minutes, I don't bother with it at all.

I have greasy complexion so I have to prime my eyes with Urban Decay's primer even though the liquidy eye shadow by Lambre in nr.5 I used says it doesn't need it (I tried, it lasted a couple of hours but not the 14 hours I need so primer it is then). Then I applied the eye shadow all over my eye lid with a finger and spread it even a little further to the area above the crease so that the darker shadow would stick and blend easily. Next step included a fluffy brush and Catrice's Intensif' Eye in 010 Black or White Swan? which I blended in the crease and above it to make it look more smoky or defined. And lastly, I took my black Elf cream eyeliner and made a line along my eye lashes. Oh, and a black mascara to coat my lashes.... That's all: 10 minutes to make an easy and still nice eye make-up which will look good throughout the whole day.

Christine Feehan: Dark Nights

I came across the Carpathian series quite a while ago given the fact that I'm reviewing number eleven in the series. This book contains two shorter stories which were published earlier in some collections of short stories or something like that. 

Even before opening the book I was infuriated by the publishing house. I always pay attention which publishing house I'm buying the book from because I want to make it look nice on my bookshelves. Trust me, I've blindly bought series from a couple of publishing houses and it totally ruined my attempts to make my library look sophisticated. Me and my pet peeves, I know :-) So when I came across this book I made sure I was buying it from Piatkus because that would mean it would fit and have the same proportions as the books I already had in the series. I didn't care they changed the cover design, all I cared about was the size. I hate you, Piatkus! You ruined everything! (Not that this is the only case the publishing house went totally crazy and forced anarchy upon its readers during the series, but I couldn't keep quiet when stumbling upon this problem now, I want you all to know how evil this situation is for some of us).

Since this is a series, all the books or short stories are somehow the same. That's what keeps certain people reading it. The predictability. The happy ending. I read it because of that. I've already mentioned that when I feel under pressure I just wanna escape into a predictable world because I work in an unstable environment and all I need is to indulge myself into something easy. 

The Carpathian series' vampires are uber-domineering "wise old" men who force their decisions upon the others in the name of safety. The women, of course, try to struggle to gain their freedom only to hand it to their mates in the next instant.
There is action involved, the vampires have some cool tricks up their sleeves (we finally have this old school turning into mist  and seeping through the key hole or just turning into the children of the night stuff which reminds us that the author didn't entirely make this world up but followed some of the traditions in literature) and those who like hot scenes won't be disappointed either.

GENRE: paranormal romance with a little bit of action

FANGS OUT: easy to read and turn your brain off

FANGS RETRACTING: those manipulating men are just unbearable
TOTAL SCORE: 

Terry Pratchett: Carpe Jugulum

Now, there is a couple of authors or series I love without question. I will just devour everything and won’t care if it’s about the most boring topic in the world. Pratchett’s Discworld is one of the aforementioned. So I may be a little blind about this.

It was, as usual, funny as hell. You’ve got this family of vampires who want to blend in. Their taking over an entire town is a minor thing compared to what they try to achieve. To be like other people – walk in the sun at least. How, you may ask? 

Well, quite easily. The father shows them holy objects, puts garlic in their food ... just does everything he can in order to make them more resistant to all the “allergies” vampires have.

It is written in the same style as all Pratchett’s stories, so if you like Discworld, you will like this. I just chose this one because its main focus is on the vampires, which is the main topic of this blog. So hooray, even one of the most famous satire series touched our beloved topic.

GENRE: satyre just doesn't sum it up, Pratchett should have his own category

FANGS OUT: funny

FANGS RETRACTING: not really, it’s awesome

TOTAL SCORE:

Shopping for used books online

I know, I know, there is nothing better than walking in a shop, opening the new books, smelling them, chosing which one to take home... but for the less fortunete of us, there aren't many bookstores with English books in them. 

I shall introduce you to the buying process from my point of view (and before anyone asks or makes a smart-ass remark - no, no one paid me to say anything about the bookstores I'm going to mention).

Long time ago I started reading books in English. That actually ment buying English-speaking authors in bookstore around the corner. But the more books I devoured the bigger hunger was gripping me. I even got over my fear of used books because that meant I could start buying more for less money. 

So what do I do when I find about a book I'd like to read? There are four steps :-)

1) I first visit the Bargain Bin at www.awesomebooks.com, because an average used book costs around 4 Dollars. That's really awesome. Plus there are special offers (10% off, 4 for the price of 3 etc.) all the time so they are giving it to you almost for free ;-) I've bought a gazillion books in there and twice the package didn't arrive and once they sent me a different book. In all cases they were very helpful and gave me a refund in no time.

Shipping costs: 0 if I buy 2 or more books

Shipped: within a day

Arrives: usually within a frickin' week

Condition of the used books: always very good (yellow pages, a bent corner here and there, but I've never gotten any gross one)

2) If I do not find the book I want in the awesomebooks world, I go to www.worldofbooks.com. The average used book is around 3 Pounds. They always send the books separately so you pay the shipping price for each book. That sucks, I know. But, for example, this summer they were giving you a free tea sample so I got addicted to the mint one. And I'm not complaining :-)=

Shipping costs: 2 Pounds per book

Shipped: within 3 days

Arrives: after 2 weeks

Condition of the used books: always pretty

3) The third bookstore I visit, if I don't find my book in those above, is www.betterworldbooks.com. I remember discovering it, finding a rare book in there, ordering it and THEN reading all the reviews which weren't in the favor of the store. But after a dreadful month and a couple of days the package arrived and the books were the ones I orderd, their condition was ok... I guess I was lucky. AND I helped to raise literacy somewhere in Africa. Well, who wouldn't feel the warmth inside after this? So, every now and then I order something from them, always afraid it's never going to arrive or that if it arrives it's gonna be some really bad copy but so far I can't complain. 

Shipping costs: nothing ;-)

Shipped: within 4 days

Arrives: after a month

Condition of the used books: nice :-) except they put some stickers on the spines for better indentification and sometimes it doesn't come off easily

4) I either wait and after some time I repeat the process of looking for it in the stores mentioned above or I buy a new copy. Depends on how much I want the book.

What to do on a rainy Sunay

they even have this Hollywood style pavement

One would say that rain destroys the possibility of all outdoor activities but when you are among a group of friends who are from different parts of the country and have only limited spare time, you have to take the only day which you all have free in your schedule – come hell or high water.

That’s exactly what happened to us. We planned long ahead to find the day we were all free and decided to make a trip to Prague to go to the zoo. All the weekends before, it was sunny and that meant, of course, that our Sunday was going to suck. And it did.

The rain was pouring, we had to walk long kilometers around the zoo and saw nothing because it was early November, which meant most of the animals were locked up for winter and would be seen again in spring. Oddly enough, even the central or northern European animals were missing. Then there was this moose family sitting in one enclosure and the notice board said we were looking at some reindeer... The zoo has recently suffered from flood (again) and the low positioned habitats were under construction and we saw nothing.

It was all weird and empty and mixed up and wet and confusing ... and on the top of it all, there were women with frickin’ babies in prams who were always ALWAYS always blocking the way in the narrowest paths. You never saw them taking the normal path, no, that’s too mainstream. You gotta stick to the narrow one to make people hate you while your baby is either sleeping or crying. What the hell are all those people thinking? How can a little baby enjoy a visit to the zoo?! It’s not aware of the outside world, its only highlight of the day is a clean nappy and you take it to the zoo?!  

These misplaced cuties made us all doubt our biology teachers :-)

By the way, when talking about kids I have to mention this Russian family we kept bumping into (unfortunately we chose the same route). Those kids fed all the animals they could reach biscuits! They saw lamas and a notice board prohibiting everyone from feeding the animals weird stuff and they immediately took pictures next to it while feeding the lamas. While the parents laughed. I really wanted to shout at them when I saw them stuffing meerkats with chocolate biscuits. But then I realized that perhaps the fight was lost. My Russian is very limited, I bet they couldn’t speak Czech or English properly to taste my wrath in its full mode and that as a teacher I was probably overacting and letting my profession carry away my “offline” judgment. And if the zookeepers didn’t want their animals be fed by undisciplined people, they should have thought about it a little more and have them all far away from anyone’s reach.

When we all gave up hope of seeing the wolves, I stared into the enclosure from above and wondered what was my brain trying to tell me. And then I saw :-) This is a super-zoomed in picture because the wolf was very far away and almost invisible.

We still had some time to kill and decided to visit an observatory because they play documents there (on the dome ceiling, so that you can relax and lie there). Our was called “The Uninvited Guests from Space” and talked about asteroids. It filled us with despair, because now we know that it’s gonna hit us one day (maybe not us but still...). I somehow lost most of the info mentioned during the documentary due to the two little brats sitting behind me who started talking after ten minutes. I get it, they were bored, it wasn’t for them but when they started kicking into my chair I really wanted to turn around, grab them by their ponytails and throw them out of the room. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not their fault. It was the fault of the self-centered blonde bitch who spends more of her time on getting a manicure than on bringing up her children. So no matter how terrible the asteroid flying toward Earth sounded bad at that moment I thought it couldn’t be here soon enough.

Well, I can’t say it was all that bad because we spent the day with my friends and that kinda balances out the idiots you meet on the way. We contributed on rebuilding the zoo, educated ourselves, had fun and some of us decided for sure to never ever have children :-)=

Kathryn Smith: Be Mine Tonight

Now that I have read so many vampire romance novels I feel like I’m really getting into it. This one wasn’t that bad when it comes to how it’s written. Sure, the plot is little too much centered on the couple (but which romance isn’t) but every now and then there is a flashback of the vampire’s life from before which I find refreshing.

However, I don’t feel this book differs from the others in any special way. It’s a historical romance (that is always a minus in my eyes, for I dislike them) – yeah, yeah it is supposed to be only from hundred years ago but still...

I would prefer more info on the Holy Grail subject it revolves around to make it more adventurous or mysterious. Crowding it with more people wouldn’t be too bad either because when there are only a couple of them, you realize how badly described or how pathetic they all are.

All in all, it is one of those romances you read and forget in a minute because you’ve already read something like that in one form or another. But to cut it some slack, you won’t be bored to death either.

GENRE: historical romance

FANGS OUT: sit and relax, no big surprises here

FANGS RETRACTING: haven't you already read something like this?

TOTAL SCORE:

Vodka with Juice Halloween Style

Just like I've already mentioned in one of the posts before, Halloween is not the thing in here. But it doesn't stop some of us from decorating our homes or visiting the scarce parties dedicated to this special day. I skipped all the parties this year and just went ahead and made myself a spooky drink.

Nothing says I love vodka with juice more than a bowl of  some weird red/brown liquid with a melting hand in it.

On the brighter side, it's one of the easiest things you can do. Even a kid could do it (though I do not recommend this one for kids - some people say alcohol isn't for the small ones, after all).

What you're going to need:
- any red juice (I chose strawberry with pulp to make it grosser-looking but you can use tomato juice or any other you like)
- black vodka
- water
- a plastic glove
- bowl
- enough misery to drink it all alone or friends to help you

1) The first step is a tricky one. You take a surgical glove and turn it inside out. Why, you may ask. Well, they have this powder inside to prevent your hands from sweating. You sure don't wanna drink that. Yes, you can wash it out but who's got time for that? So turning it inside out it is. When you are done with the step one, you will just move to the step two.

2) Fill the glove with water. Be reasonable, don't make it burst. Plus if you fill it so that the palm area is round, you will only see that in the bowl (the fingers will very likely submerge). So make sure you fill it in a way that it can freeze nicely flat.

3) Knot the glove at the end.

4) Put it in the freezer so that it rests on a flat surface (You can make the fingers visible, I trust you!).

5) When it's frozen, prepare your bowl.

6) Fill the bowl with a red juice of your choice.

7) Add vodka - we are germaphobes so we need something to disinfect the possible glove germs, right? ;-)= Just make sure you pour it slowly so that it doesn't mix with the juice. That's just for the first impression, you will mixt it all later anyway.

8) Insert the frozen hand (after you've stripped it off the plastic layer).

9) Have the drink all for yourself as the others find it too gross-looking to drink.