The Friday Society

     Some of you may remember hearing me talk about Alex and the Ironic Gentleman, one of my favorite books when I was younger (and still towards the top of my list).  This was author Adrienne Kress's debut book, cleverly written and ingeniously original in concept.  However, with no other books to go off (because it never turned up at the library, I wasn't able to read the sequel, Timothy and the Dragon's Gate), I was left to wonder about Adrienne Kress-- was she as brilliant an author as Alex implied, or was it a beginner's luck of sorts?  Did she put all of her inspiration into this book, or were there more brilliant stories to come?

     Thus, I was extremely intrigued when, several years after Alex, I came across a collection of short stories called Corsets and Clockwork: 13 Steampunk Romances, which featured a story written by none other than Adrienne Kress herself.  Now, I wasn't any more excited about the idea of steampunk romance than I am about any other type of romance, but I dutifully read the book-- and was shocked.  Adrienne's story stood out far above any of the others-- Yes, it was a romance story, but I liked it.  It was told in such a brilliant way that I almost forgot I was even reading romance.  She took the same guidelines as all the other authors in this book and made it her own: Her story was completely original, and it managed to be different while all the other stories were dully similar.

     Now aware of Kress's ability to write YA as well as children's books, I was very excited to learn about The Friday Society, another steampunkish YA story, this time an entire novel.  I was thrilled when I could finally get it from the library, and I read the whole book in an afternoon.  I loved it.  The plot was slightly less involved than Alex, but it was by no means dull.  The story follows several different threads that seem to be completely unrelated, but they all end up fitting together in the end.  This type of writing, which is also used frequently by Jaclyn Moriarty, is absolutely my favorite literary style.  I became attached to the three main characters, Cora, Nellie, and Michiko, and was impressed by the way their lives kept colliding throughout the story, eventually terminating in their forming a crime-fighting alliance(Spoilers! Highlight to read.)

     I now have a newfound love for Adrienne Kress's YA books, and I absolutely can't wait to read Outcast, Kress's latest YA book.  (This one, I've read, is sort of a quirky paranormal story, which should be right up my alley provided it doesn't have any sparkly vampires in it.) 

Toynbee Talk is Up!

Good news, everyone! I have just launched Toynbee Talk, a blog exclusively about Toynbee Tiles!  The blog is going to be an up-to-date collection of tile sightings, discussions, informational posts, and more.  After the success of my Toynbee Tile posts on this blog, I gained a large online audience-- it seems that there isn't much information available on the internet about the House of Hades tiles I've spotted, and I was contacted by numerous people who'd seen the tiles and come to this blog for information.  After hearing about more and more sightings, I decided to expand to a separate blog specifically for Toynbee posts, and thus Toynbee Talk was born.  I encourage everyone to check it out and spread the word so Toynbee Talk can become a successful internet resource for Toynbee Tile enthusiasts.

Paper Towns Movie Cast

     As most of you already know, I'm a huge John Green fan, and one of my favorite books is Paper Towns.  For a long time I've thought that it would make a great movie, so a few years ago I started organizing my ideas and working on a screenplay for Paper Towns that stuck as closely as possible to the original dialogue of the book.  I worked on it on and off for some time, adding to it when the inspiration struck.  I organized soundtracks, settings, dialogues, and, most recently, cast members.  Obviously, I had to put a lot of thought into the actors that would portray the characters that I've loved for so long, but after much deliberation, I believe I've now landed on my cast choices for the five main characters of Paper Towns.

Quentin (Q): Logan Lerman 

Logan Lerman's naturally innocent personality seemed to be a natural fit for Q's character: a sweet, thoughtful person who's a bit of a social outcast but who is also understanding about Margo's situation.  Lerman reflects Q's good-guy attitude, which makes him initially reluctant to take part in Margo's shenanigans, but he also has an adventurous side, which shows when he lets Margo's whirlwind adventures take him away.

Margo Roth Spiegelman: Jennifer Lawrence 

    Already admired by geeks everywhere after her portrayal of Katniss in The Hunger Games, Jennifer Lawrence's more mature style of acting perfectly suits Margo's character, who seems to have experienced more of the world than her high school classmates.  We've already seen Lawrence's ability to play characters with adventurous personalities and complicated emotional problems, both of which are key aspects of Margo's personality.  Margo is an intelligent yet internally complicated girl, with layers of personality that can only be pulled off by acting genius Jennifer Lawrence.

Ben Starling: Josh Hutcherson

Josh Hutcherson's experience playing characters somewhat similar to Ben as well as a confident attitude and short, stocky build makes him the perfect actor to play Ben Starling.

Radar: Donald Glover

Donald Glover looks how I've always imagined Radar: kind of nerdy, but with a cool side that shows when he's in the right situation.  

Lacey Pemberton: Ali Liebert

Though most of her acting experience is on TV, Ali Liebert's appearance perfectly matches the picture I have in my head of Lacey Pemberton.



Also: Speaking of John Green, I got The Fault in Our Stars from the library a few weeks ago, and I was lucky enough to get one of the 150,000 copies signed by John Green! (He signed every single pre-ordered copy.)  Here's a picture:

Art!

Hi everybody...
I realize that I haven't posted in FOREVER, but I have been quite busy with school and whatnot.  However, I'll be out of school after this week, so I'll try to do more posting over the summer.

Anyway, I took a year of art class this past school year, and I think I might have made some pretty cool stuff.  So, here are some photos of various projects I think I did a decent job on.  There are a few projects I left out of this post, which I might post later.  Also, please forgive the poor picture quality-- I had a tricky time getting the angle right on some of them.

1. This is a random collage I made with a guest teacher one day.  I've always had a thing for making these completely ridiculous and random collages... and this one is no exception.

2.  My art class also did linoleum block printmaking, and I think that mine turned out pretty well, though I kind of went insane trying to carve out all of those tiny spirals.  (By the way, I had to make the print based off the art of a specific country that I picked out of a hat... mine is Greece.)

3.  This is a scratchboard drawing I did for a Day of the Dead art show.  I actually think the frame turned out better than the actually piece on this one, but I still had fun making it.

4. This an abstract line drawing that turned out to be not so abstract because I decided to put a duck in it.  From a distance, I think it looks pretty neat, just don't look at it too closely.

  5.  This is a project where I had to cut shapes out of a piece of black paper and then flip and transfer them to the opposite side of the paper.  I did Batman, obviously.

6.  In between projects, I had some free time, so I made this random steampunky sketch thing, which I think ended up looking pretty cool.

7.  Finally, I did a project where I took a square and transferred  it over and over again until it covered the entire canvas.  Most of my class did flowers and stuff like that, but, ya know... chickens.

These are just the best ones I think I did, but you could feel differently.  Leave a comment and tell me what you think!  If I get a lot of positive feedback, I might post some more art from this year.

 Band update:  I'm still looking for one.  Anyone need a mandolinist or violinist?  I've been thinking about trying the guitar lately, too but if there are any bassists, drummers, singers, guitarists, or keyboards out there, or if you have a preexisting band I could join, please leave me a comment or email me at thetoothpickchick@gmail.com.  Thanks, ya'll!

Holidays and Whatnot

Hello everyone; I know it has been quite some time since I last posted, but I have been fairly busy studying for finals, taking finals, and doing Christmas-related activities.  I had a great holiday and I hope all of my lovely readers of this blog have too.  I'm very excited to say that I finally got a new mandolin for Christmas, because my old one was a fifteen-dollar thrift store item and sounded terrible, with awful tone and a buzz on every note.  However, I now have a very nice Kentucky A-style mandolin which sounds amazing, and I have been playing it almost non-stop since Christmas.

Here's a picture of my new mandolin:

 I am also pleased to announce that I now have my own laptop as well, which I was able to buy with my Christmas  money.  It's a very sleek Dell Inspiron 14z ultrabook, which I am going to blog on from now on.

This is what it looks like:

  Looking back, I see that I went through a stretch where I posted a lot of Minecraft pictures that I'm sure nobody really cared about, and I'd like to apologize for that now, and I'll endeavor not to make posts of that kind in the future.
 Anyhow, I hope you all had a very nice Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or Monkey
Day, and that today you're having a happy new year.

Cool NPC Creations

In Minecraft, you occasionally encounter some really neat NPC (or non-player character) buildings, which are built by the villagers.  I've found NPC villages (the most common), temples, and one time, a house in the middle of the ocean.  Here are some screenshots.

These are all a sandstone temple in the middle of the desert.  I have found two of these so far.

There are also temples in the jungle, which are very cool because they have redstone tripwires and chests in them, and are very high-tech.

 Finally, I have some shots of this nifty little hut in the sea that I discovered in one of my worlds a while ago.  (In the background of a couple of the pictures, you can see my replica of a modern mansion in Florida.  It will have its own post in the next couple of days.)

House in the Sky

Today is day three of my Minecraft Week, and today I have a few photos of my house in the sky (in my random exploring world.)  Here are some shots of it from various angles.

                                         The first picture is just what it looks like on the inside.

From the air, you can see inside through the glass roof.  This also gives a sense of how high up it is.   (In the bottom left, you can also see the top of my giant Enderman from yesterday.)

                                    This is what you can see from the ground looking up.

Out the window, the view is very impressive, and here's what the sunset looks like from up there.