Doctor Who 50th Anniversary!

(Image via http://www.whos-name.com/archives/1336)

Today marks a special occasion for all of nerdkind-- It's Doctor Who's 50th anniversary!  You've probably already heard about/been looking forward to "The Day of the Doctor", the Doctor Who special that marks this occasion.
This post is just going to be a masterpost of all your pre-special essentials-- Teasers, trailers, photos, links, and more to follow today's happenings and prepare you for The Day of the Doctor!

(Image via http://isntthatwizard.tumblr.com/)

Here are all your essential trailers and other anniversary-related videos, if you haven't seen them yet:

If you haven't yet checked out Google's homepage today, I'd also suggest you go look at that and play the awesome little Doctor Who game.

The special is going to be shown in theaters across the world.  Here's where you can find the showing nearest you.  You can also watch it on TV on BBC 1.  If you live in the United States, the special's going to be on at 2:50 p.m. eastern time, 1:50 p.m. central time, 12:50 p.m. mountain time, and 11:50 a.m. pacific time.  If you don't have cable, here's where you can live stream it online.

To follow more of today's fun, follow #SaveTheDay or #DoctorWho50th on Twitter, or check out the Doctor Who 50th Anniverary tag on Tumblr.  Be sure to visit the BBC website to find everything else you need  for the anniversary.

So, break out your bow ties, fezzes, bananas, and sonic screwdrivers, and celebrate the Whovian Holiday!

Point-of-View Photography!

As some of you may know, I'm taking a traditional photography class at school this year.  It's extremely fun-- I absolutely love photography, and I really enjoy the intricacy and charm that hand-developed photos have.  When putting so much work into a single photograph, I really feel more attached to the print once I've finished, and film photography, while extremely complicated, is also very fun to do.

My first assignment was to shoot two different objects from as many points of view as possible.  I chose a vintage fan and, of course, my trusty plastic sheep.  (Those of you who snapchat me will know that this sheep plays a significant role in my life.)  Here are the two best prints from that roll:

As the year goes on, I'm hoping to be able to post more of my photography, so I'll definitely try to get my photos put up as quickly as possible.  However, I've been pretty busy lately, so it could be some time until I get around to doing it.  

Got any photography of your own? I'd love to see it!  Email your own pieces to me at thetoothpickchick@gmail.com, and with your permission I might even put them in a Nerdy Babble Today post!

ADDENDUM: I recently started listening to the podcast Welcome to Nightvale, which is, in essence, a fictional podcast that tells the story of a small town in the middle of the desert where all conspiracy theories are true.  The characters and style of storytelling are great, and it's wonderfully quirky and definitely worth listening to. I haven't worked my way through all of the episodes yet, but it's extremely great, and I'd highly recommend that all of you go check it out.

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.

My Giant Enderman

Hello,
Going along with the Minecraft theme from yesterday, here are some shots of the huge Enderman I built in one of my worlds.  I think that Endermen, despite being monsters, are incredibly cute, and in fact, I am currently working on making a stuffed, fleece Enderman (I'll post photos when I'm done.)  Anyway, so I have this random exploring world that I basically just use for experimenting (in this world I have the Airborne House-On-a-Stick, Giant Enderman, and a huge target I use for archery practice, and there are also some cool NPC structures, like a neat temple I found.  More on those later.)

So here are a few screenshots of my Giant Enderman (and in the background you can see some of the other structures I was talking about above.

Minecraft Creations

     Now, I know I haven't posted in quite a while, but lately I've been playing a lot of Minecraft, and I've made some pretty awesome creations. Each day for the next two weeks or so, I will post screenshots of my latest world, or something neat I made. I will try my best to post daily, but i have a lot of schoolwork and other things to do, so I apologize in advance if I'm not able to post every day. I also understand that not everyone is crazy about Minecraft, but, as I said, my posts will be Minecraft-related for the next couple weeks. If you're not interested, just ignore all posts with the label "Minecraft".
     So, today I have some photos of what I consider to be my crowning Minecraft achievement-- Grace Manor. It's basically this very big, fancy mansion I built for myself. It was completed a few weeks ago, and it took about a week to build. It's my favorite thing I've built so far, so I hope everyone else likes it too.

 
This first shot is just the outside of the manor from the air (yes, it's in creative mode. I'm awful at survival.) You can see the huge cave it was built over, which is filled with torches to avoid becoming monster-infested. At the top, there are two big, flaming lapis lazuli fountain pillar things that I thought looked pretty cool.

The next two photos are of the courtyard just inside the walls you can see from the last photo. There are two birch trees and some fire pits on either side. Above the door, you can see the crest of Grace Manor, twin golden swords.

 Inside the entrance hall, I tried to make it with a balcony overlooking the entrance with a flight of stairs on either side, one of my favorite architectural styles.  On the bottom, you can see the row of doors to the guest bedrooms, and the entire entrance hall has a glass roof.  To the right you can see the flight of stairs leading to the lounge in the South wing.

The South wing has a lounge on the bottom floor and my bedroom on the top floor.  This is the lounge.  There is a hot tub in the corner, a table and chairs, and the ladder up to my bedroom.

 Here's my bedroom.  The carpet is my favorite color, alien green, a nice contrast to the red downstairs.

 Each guest bedroom has a different carpet pattern and they are all connected from the inside. Basically, all of the guest bedrooms look like this one, except the carpet is different colors.  The bottom one has a lava window, which is a nice source of light in addition to looking very cool.

 This is the observatory/sunroom (it's on the balcony over the entrance hall.)   You can see my adorable cat here, which also explains why I am always holding a fish in many of the screenshots.

And that's it! Remember, check back in later, because I'm posting a new creation every day!