Well, this is another virtual pet site. I signed up about an hour ago and already have slotted straight into it. It’s very easy to get to know, and extremely fun. There is a lot of different things you can do, so it keeps your interest very well.

The pets are very cute, and there are numerous quests that you can do to gain more “money”. The quests range from easy to hard, and if you get stuck there is a chatbox at the side in which you can post for members to help you. Every member is extremely helpful and really nice. There are the main forums in which you can get help as well.

It’s very pleasing to the eye, and despite only signing up an hour or so ago, I have a lot of “money” already. I’m very impressed with the layout, and the artist work is pretty good! It’s definitely somewhere I’ll be sticking round and getting to know further.

I look forward to finding more of the hidden avatars, and the trophies, along with seeing how high I can get my money in a short time!!

For those that would like to take a look, here is the link: Kuepets. My username on there is silentlybroken (nothing new there). If you need anything, you can pop me a mail, I can try and help out where I can!

Have fun 🙂

I have had numerous comments that I have needed to delete on my blog lately, as they contain spoilers to the 7th Darren Shan Demonata series book or indeed, to the other Demonata books in the series.

I take great care when writing to ensure that I keep away from spoilers on these, as I am very against spoilers, and I don’t wish people to have the story ruined for them by other people who think it’s fun to post the storyline everywhere.

I ask politely that people refrain from posting spoilers to any books or films that I review as it isn’t fair on others in the slightest.

That said, look forward to my review of the 7th book in the Demonata series, Death’s Shadow, coming soon as it looks like I may actually have the spare time to read it!

Eyelash is a band that I found during the Musicool TV show on Channel 4 last year. I was immediately drawn to them and their sound, and have loved their music ever since. They have been around since 2005, and just continue to grow and impress.

They have an incredible stage presence, and live shows are absolutely brilliant, although I haven’t had the luck to see them live as of yet. They performed at Download Festival in 2007 and blew the crowd away with an amazing performance. Apparently they were the first unsigned band to perform at Download Festival!

There are four members in the band: Fe, who is the lead singer; Ru on guitar; Marina on bass, and Flow on drums. Fe was in Musicool, and did fantastically well in the final performance on there. They have recently released a new video, Bow To The People, and you can see this on their Myspace. I also created a profile for them on Last.FM, where you can read some more background on them; see pictures; their top tracks, and listen to their music.

They recently released a single, and all the information to buy this can be found on their Myspace. I highly recommend you listen to their songs and support them by buying the single, as the music is amazing. They have received so many positive reviews, and were even listed in Kerrang! I will point out that a couple of their songs may have a couple of swear words in here and there, but they fit with the theme of the song, it’s not gratuitous. They are looking to release an album in the near future, which I will definitely be investing in, and are currently doing a couple of gigs in the London area.

Eyelash are one of my favourite bands currently, and I highly recommend them to anyone who is interested in their genre of music (rock/alternative). Go check them out!

I know I haven’t posted in a while, but I thought this was worth posting about. At 12:56am GMT, the Midlands, UK was hit by an earthquake registering 5.3 on the Richter Scale. People all over the UK felt the tremor, including myself. It has been said that it is the largest to have been recorded in the UK for nearly 25 years.

I was about to shut down my laptop for the night when my bed started shaking uncontrollably. I’m not ashamed to say I did panic, as the shaking lasted for around 10 seconds. I was rather shaky as it was the first earthquake/tremor that I have encountered, and very surprised that none of my family felt it either due to the strength of the shaking.

All the details can be found on the BBC news site, along with some more at Sky News. There doesn’t seem to be much damage, a little structural damage to buildings maybe, but as far as I can tell, very few people have been hurt according to the news, which is a good thing.

Now all the worry is over, it has to be said that it was quite an exciting moment to my evening/early morning. I think I’ll finish up a few things on my laptop and try and get a good nights sleep. Please feel free to comment here about your experiences of the earthquake!

Late last night I received a very interesting email from Darren Shan, the author of The Darren Shan Saga. We have known for some time that there was a possibility of The Darren Shan Saga being made into a film, and apparently it is definitely going to happen! The filming will start in February 2008, and I must admit, I’m rather excited about it.

The email states that the filming will take place in New Orleans, and will be directed by Paul Weitz. There is a rather good sounding cast, as Mr Crepsley will be played by John C. Reilly, and Steve Leonard will be played by Josh Hutcherson. I’m intrigued to see how Chris Kelly plays his part as Darren Shan.

Darren Shan has stated that there is no release date set for the film as of yet, and that he is very excited (as are we!) about the film. All my information has come straight from the e-mail, so it’s directly from the man himself, so to speak.

I’m very interested in seeing how the book will be adapted to a film. As always, I’m nervous with books being adapted, as I have yet to watch a film that has been kept close to the books (for example Jurassic Park, and the Harry Potter films, which seem to get worse with each film)! It seems to be in very capable hands, and as the books are quite short, it should be easy enough to create a film around the storyline. There are many things I’d be interested in seeing in the film, such as the spider that causes the entire Saga to “kick off”, and how they portray her.

I’m looking forward to further information coming out about the film, and will definitely be seeing it, hopefully it’ll be subtitled in the cinemas, enabling me to watch it with my friend, who is also excited about the whole thing. Good luck to the cast, and I hope they thoroughly enjoy filming, as it must be incredibly fun to play a part in. I shall wait with baited breath for further information on release dates!

Shana of the Burning Eyes

Originally uploaded by silentlybroken_x

Shana of the Burning Eyes, or its Japanese name (and the one I refer to it as), Shakugan No Shana, is an anime series I completely randomly came across. I was introduced to anime properly last year, and have been watching Studio Ghibli anime ever since. However, I felt the need to branch out. A friend of mine linked me to a website, Anime Planet, and by chance, Shakugan No Shana was on the front page. It caught my eye and I quickly read the plotline (not too carefully, as I dislike spoilers).I then went to find the first episode to give it a try, and fell in love with the series after watching the first two episodes. I was amazed at the quality of the fansubs that came with it, and appreciated the time and effort that has been put into them, as they even go so far as to explain certain parts of the Japanese culture that come up.

For those of you wondering what Shakugan No Shana is about, it’s about certain people called Flame Haze that visit cities to fight the Tomogara (demons pretty much), that take humans’ “power of existence”. The Flame Haze ensure that “torches” are left behind of any humans that get eaten, so as not to destroy the natural balance of the world. I don’t wish to say too much more, as it is all in the series, and I really do not wish to spoil!

There is a movie spin off from the series, which many people say is just a recap of the first series, but I beg to differ. I found the movie delved in deeper, and put a new spin on the early episodes of the series. A certain part of the series is so much more sad in the movie, just by adding a song to it and it shone a new light onto that part. I do recommend the movie as I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I think I have now watched pretty much everything I can find for Shakugan No Shana (although I would be incredibly happy if there is anything I have missed!), and was thrilled to find that the second series, Shakugan No Shana Second, has just started over in Japan. I have only seen the first two episodes of this so far (as that is all that has shown at the moment), but already I have been blown away by the storyline and how brilliantly it has been done so far. I’m excited to see how this turns out, and desperate to get my “Shakugan No Shana fix”, so to speak!

If you would like to read about Shakugan No Shana, Anime Planet has some information, and the Shakugan No Shana wiki has some more as well, but does contain some spoilers so be wary! The english official Shakugan No Shana website can be found here.

As for a sum up of the series itself… The storyline is brilliantly executed, and along with stunning images (as you can see in the picture) and beautiful music to start and end, you can’t help but get addicted to this show. I have already managed to get another friend addicted! Please do give this series a try, it is stunning.

For a while now, I have been using the syndicate blog option on LiveJournal to keep up with a few of my favourite feeds, such as my friend’s blogs, xkcd (so I don’t forget to read it!) and cute overload. However, the need to be a paid member to create new syndicates is beginning to grate on me a little, and as much as I love the way it’s integrated to my friend’s page, I’d like a separate place online for my feeds.

Here comes the complicated part. I dislike the layout of the majority of the feed readers I have found. They all look like it’s an email thing, with folders and tags and all this confusing stuff. The reason I like the livejournal one so much is because it’s all like a blog. You add the url, and then it’s displayed on what looks like a blog. Perfect for me! I was wondering if anyone knew of any feed readers that are like that? I’m open to needing to do a little bit of coding, as long as the code is there for me to use (similar to installing wordpress, for example).

To put it simply, I need a feedreader exactly like LiveJournal, but where you add the url to show up rather than needing a syndicate blog.

Thanks in advance for any help ^__^

Darren Shan – Demon Apocalypse (Demonata book 6)

Originally uploaded by silentlybroken_x
Earlier on in the year, one of my friends was poking me to start reading the Darren Shan books. I’m quite the wimp when it comes to horror, and the best I’ve managed is the Point Horror Unleashed series, as Stephen King gave me bad nightmares. He suggested I start on the less “gory” of the two “sagas” that Darren Shan has written.

So I picked up the first trilogy of “the Darren Shan saga” in July. Started reading it on the train home from London and couldn’t put it down. I went onto Amazon when I got home and ordered the rest of the Saga immediately. I was amazed at how beautifully the books were written, and how cleverly the plots were brought about and how much thought had gone into the books themselves.

I decided I was strong enough to read his second series, The Demonata series. These books are a lot more gory than the Darren Shan saga books, but I find that these books are better than the Darren Shan Saga now although I didn’t think so at the start! I was completely lost in the world of the first book when I started reading it and found it impossible to put down. I ended up purchasing the rest of the Demonata series that have been brought out and reading them one by one, discussing the book with my friends and speculating as to what things mean, and what is to come.

I finished Blood Beast about a month ago, and was annoyed by the “to be continued…” ending, as I generally have a hatred of those (I don’t like cliffhangers!). I spent some time speculating what would happen in book 6, which was due to come out October 1st and is shown above in the picture. Darren Shan went to great lengths to hide the cover, the title, and anything about book 6, which I liked, because I enjoyed the speculation and the wild possibilities that we could come up with that might happen in the book.

The title and cover were released on September 29th. I was a bit confused by the title, and intrigued by the cover, the artwork has always amazed me. I pre-ordered the book that same day, in the hope that it would arrive in time for me to read.

Unfortunately the book didn’t arrive at all, and I ended up going out and buying it in person so I could read it yesterday (anyone want the spare one when it arrives?). And I was amazed. I thought the first 5 books were good, but this one blew me away entirely. It was just so beautifully done, the writing and the plots were carried out impeccably. Just when I thought it was about to end, something changed. And it answered so many questions, and a lot of the things that I wanted to happen came to be, along with a few things I wasn’t expecting but were necessary to the series. I’m looking extremely forward to book 7, as I have some idea of what the main area of the storyline will be, but most of all I’m looking forward to spending time speculating with my friends and re-reading to pull out all the information I may have missed in the first read.

I highly recommend these books if you like horror/thrillers. They may say they are children’s books, but I’d say they are teenager’s books at the least. The writing is brilliant and each book is unputdownable until the end, and then you just want to pick up the next book and continue. They draw you into their world, and it feels like you are experiencing it yourself. After reading Demon Apocalypse I had to take my brother to his course, and whilst driving I kept expecting demons to leap at the car!

If you are like me and have read all of the Saga along with The Demonata books so far, there is another book, a short, called Koyasan. You can easily find it on Amazon, and it is another book I thoroughly enjoyed, although it only took around an hour to read!

If you would like more information about the books, and Darren Shan himself, he has his own website here which he keeps updated regularly, and is very informative. It has separate sections for each of the series.

Threadless has been a t-shirt site that my friends have talked about for a while now, but I’ve never really looked. However, I’m going out (me? out? Oh noes!) on Thursday night and I wanted a t-shirt to wear, so I decided to have a look.

Threadless takes designs that its users have drawn and submitted and puts them to a sort of vote. At the end of the vote the favourite designs are picked and Threadless prints these. The “winners” get a cash prize, as well as their design being available for all to see, so they do pretty well out of it! I was astounded by the creativity and the talent that I saw in the designs of the t-shirts that have been printed and was spoilt for choice! Luckily it solves the choosing problem for me, as there are only a limited number of these chosen t-shirts and due to the popularity of Threadless, these t-shirts seem to disappear very quickly!

I highly recommend them if you want funky t-shirts that are a brilliant price to impress your friends, or something a little bit different as the designs are stunning. New designs come out weekly, and you can even design and submit your own, as well as vote on those that you would like to be printed, or even those that you would like to be re-printed!

In the end I settled on buying this t-shirt, but due to new ones being printed, I also have my eye on this one. I think I may run out of money quickly!

I bought this game for my DS Lite not long ago, as people had given it such good recommendations for the Wii version, but I don’t own a Wii, sadly! I started playing it last week, and have been doing a level or so a day. It’s pretty fun really.

However, last night I came across a small bug in the game. Rayman has the ability to swim once he picks it up, and the level I was on, he switches between being in water and being in open air quite a lot. However, I exited the water expecting to land on the ground, and Rayman just floated in the air and swam about. I was rather confused, and managed to snap a picture of it on my camera, although the quality isn’t that good (you can click on the image to go the picture on flickr):

You can clearly see where the water was meant to end, and that Rayman should indeed have been walking, not swimming! When I went back into the water and swam elsewhere, before coming back to it, I found that the bug had disappeared, and he was walking as normal again.

I think I shall now head back to trying to beat the first boss that I’ve come across. Wish me luck!