To Be A Good Blogger...

I came across this site through Project Petaling Street and was I glad I found it! The blogger, Narrowband, gave 11 hot tips on how to be a good and responsible blogger. The tips are for you, the blogger, and for your blog(s) too!

Narrowband had been very creative and precise with his tips. He explained them in an easy to understand way.

So, if you are thinking of becoming a blogger or if you were one already, I advise you to check out the tips he gave. Happy Blogging!

Buy Books At The Cheapest Price!

Lucy from Booksprice.com wrote to me and sort of introduced me to the website. It's motto is quite catchy, which is 'Compare Prices Before You Buy'.

This is what Lucy wrote in her e-mail.

Booksprice.com is a free service of finding the best price on books among the major online stores. Our real time engine can help you save as much as 80% from the retail price on new & used books,cds and dvds. We have introduce innovative features and tools like finding the best price of several books together, which might reduce the high shipping costs and save even more money. And now we are offering the new "RSS Price Watcher" that enables you to track the price of a specific book and with your own preferences (shipping to Asia, currency, condition, etc) using RSS feeds.

Well, you not only compare the prices of books sold at different online stores but you can also compare the prices of DVDs, CDs, and games.

I decided to try. So, I just typed in Twilight under 'Books' and clicked on 'Search'. If you want even more specific results, type in the book's ISBN. Then, choose the one you want and click on 'Compare Prices'. A very long list of stores will be shown on the screen. So, all you need to do next is check out the different prices offered. The cheapest price will be highlighted in green.

Have fun comparing prices then! That's part of the fun of shopping!

Related Posts Problem!

What in the world is wrong with my Related Posts plugin in my Books Love Me blog??? Why is it that some of my book reviews have no related posts? Only a handful of posts have some posts listed under the Related Posts heading. How does it work in the first place? How do they list them out?

Well, it's some minor problem for me anyway but it still bothers me. I'm sure I did what I had to do, that is, inserted all the right codes at the right places. This related posts stuff took me a long, long time to get it right. I had to ask for help, too, as usual. That's my motto. When I can't figure it out after a while, it's time to call for help! That's how it was when I was doing Mathematics in school!

Now, I'm going through each post to check which ones do not have any related posts. So far, I noticed that most of my older posts did have related posts. The most recent posts do not have any related posts listed. Does it mean that I have to wait for the posts to be older? Sounds like a pretty weird theory!

I'm currently reading Twilight by Stephenie Meyer and it'll take a while for me to finish it off! I'm in KL now and using my auntie's computer. I did not know she had an Internet connection. When she told me that she had one, I was somewhat ecstatic! I can check my blogs and and my e-mails! Haha! Clearly, I can't live without the Internet. Very sad, I know.

All right, it's the end of this post!

My First Time At The Chowrasta Bookshops!

It’s a pity I don’t live near to Jalan Chowrasta where there are bookshops selling second-hand books above the market. It’s even more a pity that I’ve only been there once!

Anyway, when I got there, I couldn’t wait to find the bookshops. I walked past shoe shops and empty lots and still no bookshop. But, I still continued walking and finally came to one, which was run by an old Chinese man. Well, he must be the owner of the shop.

I felt slightly disappointed when I took in the condition of the shop. The books weren’t arranged neatly either and most of them were Chinese books. There were comic books, revision books, and soon I saw a few rows of English books. While looking through the stacks of books, I was already sweating profusely as there wasn’t a fan around. The uncle should install a fan there.

A number of Sweet Valley books were available and many other kinds of novels. I came across a book called Party Frock by Noel Streatfeild and decided to buy it. Then, there was another green hardcover book with cute illustrations inside. The title is Love From Nicky by Hertha von Gebhardt. It should be an interesting book. Both the books only cost me RM4.00! Now, that’s what I call dirt-cheap.

After that, I turned left and saw more bookshops. Wow! I went in one and there were so MANY books!!! There were rows and rows of all kinds of books. And some of them were brand new too. I noticed many titles by Stephen King. When the shop owner approached me, I asked for Enid Blyton books. He brought out a pile of books for me to look through. My sister once bought Enid Blyton books from the shops there, so I’m interested in looking for more. Well, I only bought two Malory Towers books and they cost me RM6.00.

The shop next to this one had a number of interesting books too. The owner showed me many books ranging from books that will interest girls to horror books. I didn’t plan on buying anymore. But, I flipped through a book called The Gift by Peter Dickinson and spotted some illustrations in the pages. The man told me it costs RM5.00. When I told him I did not really want to buy it, he offered it for RM4.00. Haha! I still didn’t want to buy it! But, suddenly he said, ‘Okay lah, 3 ringgit.’ What an unexpected surprise! And I bought it. He said that I could come back and sell it to him again after I’m done reading it.

All the same, I only spent RM13.00 for 5 books. That’s a great bargain, isn’t it?

I like to write dates in my books!

I have a habit of writing out my name and the date of purchase in my books. All kinds of books, whether they are schoolbooks or storybooks. Well, at least people will know that the books belong to me and I will also know when I bought the book. It’s nice when I pick out an old-looking book, and then turning to the first page to check out the date I bought it.

That’s one habit of mine when it comes to books. I bet some of you have your own peculiar habits too! Like maybe, you wrap all your books? Or do you arrange your books in alphabetical order in your bookshelf? Whatever it is, as long as it makes you happy and contented.

Anyway, I don’t wrap my books and I don’t arrange them in alphabetical order. Nah. Maybe I’m too lazy and I don’t see the point of wrapping the books. I just take care to handle them with utmost care. And I don’t dog-ear the pages of my books. No way would I do that. If I stopped at a certain page, I’ll mark it with a bookmark. That way, my book will still look like new even if I’ve read it about 50 times. Hey, I am a book lover, after all! And they love me. Yes, they love me!

Unfortunately, I don’t know how to keep the pages of my books from browning. For instance, my Harry Potter books. I haven’t read them in years and they’ve been collecting dust in my bookshelf. =D I’m so lazy that I don’t find the time to wipe the dust off! Well, the pages are browner than ever! Some books still look fine but some just look quite disgusting with its extra-brown pages.

Okay, I’m off to read Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones now! And do check out my review on Jane Eyre. Great book. Definitely not to be missed!

From Queensbay to BM

Ah, what a tiring Saturday! A fun one, too and I learnt to be much more independent.

My cousin came over to stay at my house for the weekend. My sister thought it’d be more fun to bring him and me over to Penang and to Queensbay Mall so we wouldn’t be so bored at home but we had to come back home ourselves! He had to get his hair cut first, and then only we headed for Penang Island. I haven’t seen my cousin for nearly 5 years and it was good to see him again. Even my sis was shocked by how different he looked! Haha!

Yup, we were off to my favourite mall and had lunch there. After that, we were free to wander off by ourselves. We had to be outside the mall before 5 pm to board the shuttle bus that will take us to Komtar.

First, we went to Borders. =) I had to go to Borders. It’s my favourite bookstore. How could I NOT go to Borders when I’m already at Queensbay??? Anyway, there was a sale going on there. Well, yesterday was the last day of the sale, unfortunately. I hope you enjoyed it though.

I had to leave Borders because my cousin wanted to go to Popular as he wanted to find a certain book. I don’t know where Popular is but we’ll undoubtedly find it. We went to higher levels and then down again and still no Popular!

During our journey, we also made a few stops at some shops. I saw the skating rink and wanted to go skating but the fee was RM16. I did not bring extra money to spend on skating so we skipped that idea. We also went to the games center and played a stupid basketball game in a machine. Neither of us won anything. The ball just wouldn’t bounce into the basket!

In the end, my cousin got tired of the hunting and asked me again if I knew where Popular was. Hehe…poor fella. So, I asked the guard where’s Popular and he told me where I could find it. We did find it.

About 15 minutes before 5 pm, I had to drag my cousin away from a shop selling crystals to wait outside the mall for the bus. If we missed the bus at 5 pm, the next one would only come at 9 pm! When we went out, the bus was already there but the driver was nowhere to be seen. He only appeared at exactly 5 pm. Grrrr…..

Then, we went to Komtar and I had to find a bus to take us to the jetty. After asking around, I found the yellow bus, Milan that would take us there. We were lucky because as soon as we reached the jetty, a ferry had arrived. Not much waiting, then. I’ve been on quite a lot of ferry rides this year. Sadly, I haven’t traveled on a ferry for many years.

Okay, so we reached the jetty at Butterworth. I had to find another bus that would take us to BM. Finally, I found the wanted bus and we hopped on it. Yeah, home sweet home after a long day! I think my cousin was quite relieved when we got home. He probably thought we’d be stuck somewhere since I did not know which buses to take! But I did it! And it was surely easy. Well, it’s easy because I know my way already. Now, that’s a comforting thought.

A Cure For Coughing

My sister sent me quite an interesting e-mail on curing coughs easily and effectively. She loves to send me and my other sis this kind of health stuff. I think that she thinks I'll tell my mom the contents in all those e-mails because my mom is interested in health stuff, too!

Anyway, wanna cure your cough? Been coughing for days on end without stopping? No, this is not a sponsored post, okay! Haha! I'm left with 4 or 5 opportunities in my PayPerPost account and my blog is not that qualified to take them. Sad, huh?

Well, here's the article that my sis sent me:

A CURE FOR COUGHING

Don’t laugh, it works 100% of the time although the scientists at the Canada Research council (who discovered it) aren’t sure why.

To stop nighttime coughing in a child (or adult as we found out personally), put Vicks Vaporub generously on the bottom of the feet at bedtime then cover with socks. Even persistent, heavy, deep coughing will stop in about 5 minutes and stay stopped for many, many houses of relief. Works 100% of the time and is more effective in children than even very strong prescription cough medicines. In addition, it is extremely soothing and comforting and they will sleep soundly.

The head of the Canada Research Council described these findings on the part of their scientists when they were investigating the effectiveness and usage of prescription cough medicines in children as compared to alternative therapies like acupressure. Cough medicines for kids often do more harm than good due to the chemical makeup of these strong drugs. It was a surprising finding and found to be more effective than prescribed medicines for children at bedtime, and in addition, to have a soothing and calming effect on sick children who then went on to seep soundly.

Someone who tried it said it felt like a warm blanket enveloped her, the coughing stopped in a few minutes and this was a deep, (incredibly annoying!) every few seconds, uncontrollable cough, plus she slept cough free for hours every night that she used it.

So, if you have grandchildren, pass it on. If you end up sick, try it yourself and you will be absolutely amazed by the effect.