Quickie Review: The Know It All

After what seemed like quite a while but was really only about two weeks, I finally finished The Know It All by AJ Jacobs. How much fun was this book? Not only did I learn about everything from Animals to Zeros, but it was intertwined with a bunch of fun anecdotes, an unsuccessful run on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, crazy Mensa conventions, a couple's struggle to conceive and way too many attempts to impress others with (pretty much) useless knowledge. Education + entertainment = absolutely enjoyable!

Check out this description and excerpt from Jacobs' web site

I'm definitely going to read Jacobs' other book, The Year of Living Biblically, in which he writes about his quest to obey all the rules of the Bible for an entire year. If it's half as entertaining as The Know It All, I'm sure I'll love it.

Coming Soon

• Completed review of The Know It All
• Review of Earthy Pleasures
• Series review of High School Confidential
• Commentary on The Paper and reflection on the visit to my new classroom
• Review of The Savages
• Catch-up on Newsweek and Time
• A picture of my beautiful new green tote I got in the mail (on sale!) from GAP.com
• Countdown to Wicked

And much more. I just have to finish my portfolio first!

Now I Get It

I now understand why nobody reads this (except maybe 2 people, who totally count and thank you for commenting!). I am boring lately! I write ten words about a freaking Justin Timberlake song and call it a post. Just for the record, I started another post for Sunday but got tired and didn't finish it. The finished product is coming tomorrow.

Today I have many things to do so I will again use some kind of cop-out for my post. Aaaaand no more complaining about readership. Here goes:

Gale Harold is joining the cast of Desperate Housewives! I miss Queer as Folk so much... I may have to start watching this painfully ridiculous show again just to see him and daydream about Brian Kinney in that white tank top. Ha! He even melted my heart as a disgusting racist Nazi guy on Gray's Anatomy earlier this year... Oh what a chump I am for the guest stars.

Can't Get Ya Out of My Head

I heard this song twice on the radio this morning when I was driving home and now I can't get it out of my head!

We've only got four minutes to save the world...

Late Night with... Jimmy Fallon?

The word on the street (and when I say street, I obviously mean blogs) is that Jimmy Fallon is taking over for Conan O'Brien! At first I was like hello what did Conan do? Did he get fired and I totally missed it? Then I remembered that Conan is taking over the 10:35pm slot from Jay Leno next year...and I'm an idiot.



So what do we think? Jimmy Fallon? I mostly liked him on SNL but usually in character--not so much as himself. And where has he been for the past year or so? Holed up somewhere writing jokes for late night talk show TV? Let's hope so, for everyone's sake. It could be worse--at least they're not moving up Carson Daly!

Grey's Returns!

Now that I've watched the first new episode of Grey's Anatomy since the Writer's Strike, I truly believe in the old adage "Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder." Cause honestly? I wasn't totally loving this season pre-strike.

Apparently those months without Izzy and Meredith's craziness or McSteamy and McDreamy's hotness were longer than I thought--boy was I excited to see it all again! I even enjoyed Lexi the kleptomaniac decorating her "crapartment" as George so lovingly labeled it. The one thing I didn't miss was Rose and Derek's cheesefest of a relationship. That needs to end SOON. Even if it means we go back to Derek and Meredith's whiny is-it-or-isn't-it relationship. I'm okay with that.

Next week Addison returns to Seattle Grace!

Here's BuzzSugar's take on the episode

Honest to Blog?

Here's a new deal I cooked up...

FROM THE BLOGS

News: Sam's Club, Costco limit rice purchases as prices rise
I saw this on the Today show this morning, too. Apparently we are so busy using grain for fuel that we kind of forgot it's for eating, too. And now people are paying the price!

Entertainment: Aliens in America's Raja Joins Nip/Tuck
I just love that they are already planning the next season of Nip/Tuck. Even though it's not coming until this fall, I am already waiting in anticipation. Plus who doesn't love a Doogie Howser-type?

Images: This Says It All

Life: I Swear This is a Happier Post
Just when I start to whittle down my big pile of books to read, Jen goes and throws another stack of must-reads in front of me. By the way, have I mentioned how much I love the Amazon Marketplace and their $0.01 books? I plan to read 27 hours a day this summer. Right.

Random: I don't getz it.

OH HELL NO!

This might be my last week watching American Idol.

First, they go and eliminate Michael Johns.

WRONG.

Now, America has outdone itself in wrongness. They have eliminated freaking CARLY SMITHSON. On a night when she totally dominated singing "Jesus Christ Superstar"--in a super cute dress at that. EW.com agrees with me.

What is wrong with you America? Do you really think that dreads are hot enough to keep someone in a competition who really truly honestly CANNOT SING? What is your obsession with weird hair? First Sanjaya, now Jason?

GET OVER THE HAIR. This is a singing competition.

Yeah, yeah, knowing me I will be watching next week but if David Cook is ever in the bottom three, I'm done.

Andrew Lloyd Idol

Tonight's American Idol theme is a dream come true for me. Show tunes!

As much as I just love to hear bad karaoke versions of Dolly Parton and Mariah Carey every week, I am super pumped for a night of Broadway's finest with Andrew Lloyd Webber himself! This is going to be great for big voices like David and David, plus maybe Syesha and definitely Carly. I'm just hoping for a little Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat!


UPDATE:
Just as I suspected, the big voices were awesome. Carly totally owned "Jesus Chris, Superstar" and David Cook was a-may-zing singing "Music of the Night." I knew he could sing but MAN can he SING! David Archuleta kinda butchered "Think of Me" with his weird arrangement but sang it beautifully nonetheless. Brooke started over! A-what?! That was crazy. And seriously? Jason Casto sucks. SUCKS! We'll see what happens tomorrow night... I'm thinking Brooke or Jason is out for sure.

Post 200: 2 Conclusions I've Come To

Wahoo this is my 200th post. Pretty crazy.

In celebration of this momentous occasion, I will elaborate on two conclusions I've come to today:

1. Nobody reads this blog. Which is fine. But it's true. One comment in like a month is pretty much proof positive of that fact. So my question is this: if nobody reads your blog, is there any point to writing it? It's kind of like that old inquisition "If a tree falls in the middle of forest, does anyone hear it?"or whatever that saying is. I thought about it and I do this for myself, as a creative outlet, not to impress or even entertain anyone else but me. BUT what's the point of links and pictures and whatnot if I'm the only one looking and clicking?

2. Monday night TV used to suck. Not anymore! I love Samantha Who at 8:30, and then at 9 I can take my choice between High School Confidential (the show about my high school) on WE or The Hills and The Paper on MTV. I pick one to watch and tape the other. Mondays are usually kinda rough so it's nice to hang out and relax and watch some TV. Especially on a night like tonight when I only slept a few hours last night and barely have enough energy to type this out. I also kind of realized that the Writer's Strike was a good thing for me--I'm not sure I would have gotten all my job apps out and done all the lesson planning I needed to do if there were new shows on every night! Nevertheless, I am pumped for Thursday night!

Okay, enough revelations. Gotta get ready to sit and veg. Maybe later I'll write about it and nobody will read it.

Sounds about right!

In My Dreams, Unfortunately

So today Tony was showing me the external hard drive he "made" from his old computer; he took the old hard drive and put it in a case and --ouila--he now has a many-gig homemade external hard drive. I was thinking about buying an external hard drive anyway when I saw Tony's and thought about the old iBook sitting in my closet. Then I came across this "how-to" online and knew I just had to do it. From the sounds of that article, it seemed pretty darn simple.

WRONG. SO VERY WRONG.

Check out this 17-page instruction guide for how to remove a hard drive from a freaking iBook G3. This thing is harder to get into than the Pentagon. Holy crap! I counted and I swear to God you have to remove no fewer than 7,312 screws, plus "pry off" about 10 things and "carefully peel back" many tabs and tapes. Utterly terrifying.

My dreams are now shattered! This dream may be just a few hours old, but it's still a dream, darn it!

I guess I could risk destroying the whole laptop to get the hard drive out... I don't plan on using that laptop again anyway, but it seems just plain wrong to destroy a poor helpless Mac, no matter its age.

However, it would save me like $100 or something like that. I'll have to think about this.

Super Nintendo Back From the Dead

Val is here this weekend for a short visit (yay!) and we're stuck in my apartment for Street Painting (despite it being canceled), so what do we do? Bust out the old Super Nintendo.

I definitely only play when she is here, but it's fun to have someone who equally enjoys the poor graphics, basic game controllers and lack of special features. We're still trying to beat Super Mario World... it's taken us years, but I supposed that has more to do with the fact that we only play every few months than our actual skill level. At least I'd like to think that.

Today we ran into a hold up on Chocolate Island when we beat a level and it sent us on a path right back to the same level. I hate these damn secrets. We tried to figure it out ourselves, but no such luck.


So, what do we do? Being Super Nintendo nerds, we get online and look up secrets. Fortunately, there are millions of other Super Nintendo nerds in the world, so all the secrets are on random message boards and gamer websites.

Hysterical. I never thought I'd Google "Chocolate Island secrets" or "Super Nintendo Chocolate Island," but hey, we do what it takes to beat the game... in four years or less.

Lars = Real Dumb

I watched Lars and the Real Girl today. I had been looking forward to it after the critical acclaim it received.

Honestly? I don't know why this movie got such good reviews. I thought it was kind of boring overall. And not really very funny. It was just ridiculously awkward when he started treating the doll like she was a real person--taking her to the doctor, serving her meals, etc. And when the sister-in-law started playing into it, I pretty much lost interest. Her character seemed so down to earth but I guess she just wanted to do whatever she could to make Lars happy again.

Whatever.

Ryan Gosling did a good job playing the weird, awkward and super bizarre Lars, ticks and all, but it wasn't enough to get many stars from me. I definitely enjoyed watching Juno for the second time a lot more this week. ***

Can't Get Enough

I'm pretty obsessed lately with Panic at the Disco's new CD: Pretty. Odd.

It's actually Pretty. Awesome.

I bought it on iTunes and so got the electronic booklet and two videos, which only makes it all that much more amazing. Many bands sophomore albums are flops, but this one is full of catchy tunes and typical Panic lyrics. Love it.

Enjoy this short "making-of" video:

Television and Movies <3 Books!

How much do I love the TV/movie industry right now? They keep pumping out awesome adaptations of some of my favorite books.

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult is heading to the big screen soon. The Memory Keeper's Daughter premiered on Lifetime last weekend. Gossip Girl is a breakout show on the CW (not necessarily my favorite books, but entertaining nonetheless). Even Lipstick Jungle was pretty fun overall as a series on NBC (I still say it would have been better without Brooke Shields).

Now another great author is getting her movie and TV dues. Jennifer Weiner, who already had one book adapted into a movie (In Her Shoes--love it!) has Little Earthquakes and The Guy Not Taken in movie development. She also reportedly has now inked a deal with ABC to develop a gal-friendly series.


I can't wait to watch that show and I don't even know what it's about yet!

Not Exactly a Red Hot Press

Last night was the premiere of MTV's The Paper, which I had mentioned before I was just a teensy bit excited for. I'm going to be a high school publications adviser, I can't help it. I'm a sucker for anything high school related; add in journalism and it's all I can do not to squeal with delight.

Unfortunately, The Paper's debut episode wasn't exactly riveting. Stupid me--for some reason I actually thought they would show a little bit more about producing the newspaper. They mentioned ad sales and showed computers with layouts on screen, but not much else. Sure, the episode's main plot point was who would be the next editor-in-chief, but the focus seemed more to be on the cliques within the staff rather than what that job would entail. And is it just me or was it totally bizarre that the adviser was making such an important decision alone, and based solely on a short essay? I digress...

As I should have predicted, so far the show is more about petty high school stuff than how a high school paper is run. Nevertheless, I will be watching it next week and taping it. You never know, I might learn something valuable for next year.

Great commentary/review on Slate.com: The Tracy Flick of Journalism

Journalism Going Down?

Everyone and their brother (including, weirdly enough, Perez Hilton) is reporting on the sudden down turn of the print journalism industry. Apparently layoffs are happening everywhere and nobody's making any money anymore.

It's all the buzz... in the online journalism world at least:
Time Blog
Editor and Publisher

Even the freaking New York Times is getting ready to lay off 100 people!
The Observer

Obviously with the surge of online journalism and sudden popularity of going green, print journalism would inevitably take a hit. But doesn't somebody still have to write the stuff for the Internet? I guess I don't understand--people still want news. Whether you're reading the New York Times in paper copy or headlines sent to your inbox each day, some reporter needs to be there reading it.

What does this mean for my future career? I'm getting ready to start a job teaching students to be journalists right when the industry is apparently failing. It makes me a bit nervous, but when you think about it, do that many high school journalists really pursue journalism as a career? Something to think about I guess--and even more reason to focus on convergence and inclusion of an online journalism format.

Oh Yeah, Redesign

Yeah I forgot to mention that I kind of did a little redesign. I was tired of all those dots. Even though I am obsessed with polka-dots, sometimes they can get to be a bit much, you know?

So I went with simplicity and redid my banner thing. I stuck with my favorites: blue and green. Big shocker there. I'm still not totally happy with it, but it works for now.

I figured I should comment on the fact that I changed the template, if for no other reason than to get it into my head that I did. I published my last post and went to "view blog" and was like WHOA WHOSE BLOG IS THIS? And then I remembered it was mine and I'm an idiot.

Let the "Book-Reading Nerd" Chant Begin

David and Chad and Tony love to tease me about my reading "habit." I think in their weird little picture of me I'm holed up in a cave with a million books around me, just devouring them page after page. It's really not like that.

BUT

If I did have a cave of books, apparently I should include these 110 Books that Britain's Telegraph decided make up the "perfect library."

Guess What?

I only own 23 out of 110. Guess I'm not a book nerd after all!

The Perfect Show For Me

Oh my gosh. I was just catching up on the JEA listserv and I came across information about a new MTV reality show. I know, I know, but THIS IS GOING TO BE AMAZING.

It's a show... about a high school newspaper! Now I guarantee most of you thought that was a total let down, but I am pumped beyond belief.

Reality TV + high school journalism classroom = I am so there.

The Paper premieres next Monday at 9:30. You can bet I'll be in front of my TV eating it all up.

• MTV
• Music Videos
• MTV Shows
• Entertainment News

America Votes... Wrong

Are you freaking kidding me American Idol?

Moments ago, the bottom three was announced. I was okay with it except for one HUGE thing:
KRISTY LEE COOK WAS SAFE. That is BS pure and simple. That girl is the new Sanjaya... without the hair.

But I figured Syesha would go after her screeching performance last night.

Uhhhhhh no.

Moments ago, MICHAEL JOHNS WAS VOTED OFF. You have GOT to be kidding me.

America! What were you thinking? Hot Australian accent? Cute as a button? Sings awesome Queen songs you can belt out in your living room along with him? Seriously!



You got robbed Michael Johns. Paula totally thought so. Randy and Simon looked surprised, too. Cut to Kristy Lee Cook in the safety of the couch.

Please, America. Get real or even MORE people are going to stop watching this show. I'm one of them.

Quickie Review: Everybody Into The Pool

For some reason, it took me like two days to get through the first "true tale" in Beth Lisick's Everybody Into the Pool. I don't know how that happened, since it took me only about 4 hours to finish the entire rest of the book!

Lisick's memoir made me laugh, made me feel uncomfortable for her awkwardness, and made me think--all great things when reading a book, at least in my opinion. In her humorous way, she tackles real subjects and real life events that anybody can relate to, no matter if you lived in San Francisco and traveled around with a lesbian motorcycle group or not (Me? Not so much). A super quick read (apparently once you get past the first ten pages) and lots of fun. *****

Next up: The Know-It All by AJ Jacobs--an Esquire editor reveals his journey through the entire encyclopedia. I already started it and I freaking love it.

The Shiniest Moment of All

I alluded to watching it last night, and now--thank you Internet--it's up on YouTube already.

Here's last night's "One Shining Moment" for the 2008 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. Oh Luther Vandross, I love ya.

NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!!!

KU beat Memphis tonight in an overtime victory 75-68!


THEY WON THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP!!

2008 NCAA NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!!!

Mario Chalmers hit a game-tying three with like a second left in regulation to send it to overtime. Then, KU DOMINATED.


I needed to be asleep like a half hour ago, but I had to stay awake for One Shining Moment...

I can't believe we did it.

For now, just celebration.
Actually, sleep, but celebration nonetheless.

Kite Runner Flies High

I realized today that I've had The Kite Runner from Netflix for almost two weeks. I NEVER do that. Rarely does it even take me a week to get a movie watched. However, I wanted to really give this film the time and attention it deserves, so that meant it too me awhile.

But today was the day, I had the time and so I popped it into my DVD player this afternoon. Often my Sundays are spent watching movies and simultaneously working on something or cleaning, but I soon realized that wouldn't be possible with this movie--I had to focus and read the subtitles! I knew in the back of my mind it was not in English but it didn't register until I started watching it. That said, I am so glad that it was actually done in the native language rather than in English with a Middle Eastern accent... that annoys me to no end.

It's been a year or more since I read the book by Khaled Hosseini, so I didn't remember every step in the plot, but I believe the movie was pretty true to the book overall. A few things were played down or ignored (Baba's relationship with Ali, how hard it was to get Sorhab back into the US, etc.) but that has to be done when a movie is only 2 hours long. I thought the kids did a great job with their parts and I really liked the actor who played the adult Amir. I guess I don't understand why this movie got somewhat panned at the box office and by critics, because it was a very nicely done version of the ridiculously-popular book.

Maybe some people just can't handle reading at the movies.

NYTimes.com review

Real Life Big Love

I've been watching Season 1 of Big Love on Netflix the past few days and I distinctly recall thinking "does this really still happen?" I mean I know about Warren Jeffs I guess but the whole deal with Roman and his control over his entire compound--it's insane. Do we really still allow this stuff to exist?

Talk about instant gratification--today I got my answer!

Apparently more than 200 women and children have been removed/rescued from a polygamist compound in Texas as of this weekend:

CNN story
NYTimes.com story

Polygamy basically baffles me and reading about all this does nothing to help me figure it all out. Maybe I'll get it by the end of Season 2.

ROCK CHALK!

KU just beat North Carolina by 18 points.

18 points!
They are headed to the National Championship game against Memphis Monday night.
NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP!Plus, did I mention they beat North Carolina?
North Carolina!

Suck it Roy Williams!
ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK!!!

Quickie Review: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

It only took me three nights to finish Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safron Foer. Kelly recommended this book to me and I definitely enjoyed it-- you can probably tell by how quickly I finished it! This was definitely an odd book... filled with random pictures, pages with only a few words on them, and changes in point of view/narrator/narration style/grammar style. It was hard to keep up at times, but by the end everything was tied together and it was easy to see where Foer had been going in the beginning when I had been like "Uh... what?" Foer's novel had very prominent and relevant themes (the main character's father died in the WTC) but it didn't beat them into you like can happen lately with films related to 9/11. Overall, very interesting and one of the most unique reads you'll find--in design format, plot structure and execution overall. ****

Top 10 Teacher Movies

Over at Teach-J, they have a list posted of the Top 10 Movies for Teacher Motivation. Hello! Teaching? Movies? I'm so there.

I really am there--I've seen all of the movies and love them all. I totally bawled my eyes out at Freedom Writers... I am a total sap for teacher-overcomes-obstacles-to-inspire-students stories.

Here's the list, with my input in parentheses but without all of HIS (sorry!!!) commentary (feel free to head over to the post to see it though--quality stuff):

10. Radio (accepting differences in sports? love it!)
9. Music of the Heart (almost made me want to play the violin!)
8. The Emperor's Club (cheaters never prosper)
7. Stand and Deliver (teacher reaches out to inner-city kids and suceeds! me=tears)
6. Pay It Forward (love this idea for any classroom)
5. Freedom Writers (see above)
4. Lean On Me (the high school I'm at needs a principal like Joe!)
3. Remember the Titans (the ultimate feel-good, overcome-race-issues movie and OH GOD that poor guy in the car accident!)
2. Mr. Holland's Opus (just thinking about the scene where he sings Beatles to his son gives me goosebumps)
1. Dead Poets Society (Robin Williams' best performance ever...Carpe Diem!)

I'd also argue that Dangerous Minds should be on this list. Weirdly enough, it was my favorite movie in like 5th and 6th grade--I know! What was my mom thinking? But it was definitely inspirational. Getting those kids to read poetry--a-may-zing!

Any others missing you can think of? I'm going to continue to brainstorm. And go watch Freedom Writers! Ha!

Sick! Crazy! Yep Yep Yep.

I was inspired by Tony last night and looked back at my old blog from freshman/sophomore year.

OH. MY. GOD.

If you must, check it out here. Do not judge.

It was kinda painful to read. Not only was that a rough time for me in general, but it was also really scary writing, lots of random words (see title of this post and MUCH. MORE.) and bizarre rambling. I procrastinated all the time. I apparently was also very busy reading books and watching movies and TV so that may have had something to do with all that procrastination. Far too many posts in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep. Far too many posts that including obsessing about Matt Wertz and/or random Drake people.

Kinda makes me sick to my stomach to look at it. It's kind of nice to have everything recorded, but honestly? Sometimes I'd rather not remember.

Old blogs are SCARY.

Overheard In the Hallway

Overheard earlier this afternoon:

Teenage boy: "Suck my left nut!"
Teenage girl: "It would only make the right one jealous..."

Wow--what you hear in the hallways of a high school.

Constant entertainment, I tell ya.

Jump On...

It's the PhotoShop Express! Choo-choo!

Adobe has released on online version of PhotoShop and it is all the buzz.

Apparently it's simpler than the real software version but it does basic things most people need, like red eye removal, cropping, etc.

This could be very interesting. Here's the NYTimes review of it. Very interesting indeed.