Grace's Complete Absolute Favorite Books, Finally

Hello,
I know I haven't posted in a while, but I have finally compiled my list of my absolute favorite books of all time.  They're in no particular order, since I love them all.  Each title and author has a link for more information, so I would suggest clicking on them and reading the premise to see if it sounds good to you.

1. The Spell Book of Listen Taylor- Jaclyn Moriarty
2. Feeling Sorry for Celia- Jaclyn Moriarty
3. The Year of Secret Assignments- Jaclyn Moriarty
4. The Murder of Bindy MacKenzie- Jaclyn Moriarty
5. The Ghosts of Ashbury High- Jaclyn Moriarty
6. And, when A Corner of White comes out, I'm sure it will be on here too. (also by Jaclyn Moriarty.)
7. Dash & Lily's Book of Dares- Rachel Cohn and David Leviathan
8. The Westing Game- Ellen Raskin
9. The Perks of Being a Wallflower- Stephen Chobsky
10. Alex and the Ironic Gentleman- Adrienne Kress
11.The Catcher in the Rye- J.D. Salinger
12. Nine Stories- J.D. Salinger
13. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy- Douglas Adams
14. Paper Towns- John Green
15. An Abundance of Katherines- John Green
16. Looking for Alaska- John Green
17. Will Grayson, Will Grayson- John Green and David Leviathan
18. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie- Alan Bradley
19. The Discworld books- Terry Pratchett
20. The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Gothgirl- Barry Lyga

Crossword!

A while ago I posted about a crossword puzzle creator I found online, and today I actually made one that is, of course, Nerdy Babble Today themed.  Enjoy it! Correction: Three across only has four letters, sorry it's so messy.  Also, I really hope it turned out big enough!  Try to do it without actually looking at my blog, as that would be cheating.

Bookshelf Porn

bookish:  [book-ish] 

1. given or devoted to reading or study.

2. more acquainted with books  than with real life.

I would like to begin this post by saying that a) the porn I speak of is in no way inappropriate, and is in fact just a compilation of all the world's coolest bookshelves, and b) sit down, strap in, and get ready-- because folks, this is just plain amazing.  I'm posting some pictures of my favorites, but if you want to go to the website (and trust me: you DO.) I have posted a link, which is below:

CLICK ON THIS LINK!!! COME ON, THIS LINK RIGHT HERE!!!  YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO!!! THIS IS VERY POSSIBLY THE BEST WEBSITE YOU'LL EVER SEE!!!  I AM MAKING THIS LINK VERY VERY LARGE SO IT WILL BE VERY DIFFICULT FOR YOU TO NOT CLICK ON IT!!! I PROMISE THIS WEBSITE IS WELL WORTH THE CLICK!!!! CLICK HERE CLICK HERE CLICK HERE!!!!!

Episode 1... The final installment...

Hello everybody!  Here's the final installment of Episode I as Explained by a 3-Year-Old!  Next up is Episode II, which doesn't stick to the story very much (in fact, most of it seems to be from Episode I as well!) and a miscellaneous Star Wars adventure that doesn't adhere to the plot of any Star Wars movie in any way, and is just something I made up.

Episode I: The Saga Continues

 Here's some more Episode I as Explained by a 3-Year-Old.  I'm nearing the end, but don't worry- there are two more Star Wars books coming up.

Random Thought:  Does anyone know where I can get some Jedi robes for fairly cheap, or would it be easier/cheaper to make my own?

The Quest For the Missing Font... Accomplished!

Readers who have been with me for a while should remember my desperate hunt for a font I had fallen in love with several months ago.  And today I have good news-- for I have found it!  My beloved font is called Centaur, and you may recall that I came across it in a book called The Deep Freeze of Bartholomew Tullock (which, by the way, is an excellent book.)  I have a fantastically old version of Microsoft word at home, which explains why I couldn't find it.  However, during a Journalism project in Adobe InDesign (which, tragically, I don't even have on my computer at home), I was scrolling through a list of fonts looking for a good headline font, and lo and behold: There was my dream font.

More Episode 1...

Here's three more pages of Episode I As Explained by a Three-Year-Old.  If you didn't see the first three, make sure you check the last post.  Enjoy...

Episode 1 as Explained by a Three-Year-Old

Ah, the sweet simplicity of childhood.  When I was younger, I used to like to write books with my brother.  I would dictate to him, and he would write it down.  I also drew the illustrations in crayon, though sometimes he helped a little.  I was watching Star Wars Episode 1 the other day (in case you didn't know, that's the one with the really annoying little kid as Anakin Skywalker.)  Anyway, I was reminded of making a book based on Episode 1 when I was about three years old.  After I hunted it down, I was laughing out loud.  It was almost identical to the movie, just cut down and with better pictures.  I knew I had to share it.  So, enjoy the first three pages of Star Wars: Episode I as Explained by a Three-Year-Old!  (I apologize for the fact that these are rather poorly scanned.  I was hesitant to fold down the cover so they would fit into the scanner better.  Keep in mind that they're drawn on flimsy paper and I didn't want to destroy pieces of my childhood.)

Tentacles of Terror...

I was poking around on my computer and I discovered two pages of a story I started when I was six.  Evidently I only did the cover and two pages, but it was cute.  Anyway, looking at them, I decided they were awesome enough for this blog.  I have posted the title, first two pages, and the original title page (written by hand).

SCAVENGER HUNT!!!

Hello... Today I have a special challenge for you.  It's a scavenger hunt!  I want you to go to Google (Bing will NOT work) images and type in the keywords Nerdy Babble Today.  If that does not work, try different variations, such as putting it in quotes, adding blog to the end, or capitalizing each word.  You might even try searching for specific pictures from the blog.   Then find all of the pictures from my blog that you can (you might have to refer to it once or twice to check) and post the number that you found as a comment.  PLEASE let me know if it doesn't work.  Off you go!

Random thought for the day: I found a website where you can make your own crossword puzzle.  I'll begin working on one today and will post it here as soon as I finish.  If you want to make your own crossword, please share it with me!  This is the link.

Lots of Stuff I'm Going to Blather About

I have a lot to say today (at this point, you're probably saying to yourself, "oh no, that's never good...")  Anyway, I have a couple of books to recommend, a great opening line, a splendid book title, and some most excellent names.

The books are: The Secret Life of Cows by Glen Wexler.  This is not a book with a lot of written content, with the exception of a couple of witty saying about cows, so I have scanned in a couple of pictures from the book.  They are pretty intense.  They are Superhero Cows, Secret Agent Cows, and the Beefles (hah). One of my favorite sayings from the book was, "The cow is of the bovine ilk; One end is moo, the other, milk," ~Ogden Nash.  The second book I'd like to recommend is She's Such a Geek!-Women write about science, technology, and other nerdy stuff.  The perfect book for me, right!  This book has the stories of many women who dared to break free from gender stereotypes and became female nerds!  I'd recommend it very highly. 
My opening line is very good, but I don't quite know what I'd use it for... "The night was dark, chilly, and relatively cloudless.  The moon hung like an abandoned fingernail clipping in the sky. "  I also think a great title for a book would be Poire Noire, but I also don't know how to incorporate that.
In case you don't know what to name your children, this handy-dandy list should help you right out!  (Note: Don't actually name your children these names.  That would be cruel.)  These are mostly for the purposes of characters in a book, but they are MY NAMES that I came up with, so if I find a book using these names I will be very, very angry.  Now, for the names: Gerund P. Fizzleworth...Pilar Mackintosh...Gerry Gloppenheim...Chester Flax...and Bartleby Murdstone (Mr. Murdstone is actually a Dickens character; I didn't come up with that one).

R.I.P Borders

I hate to say it, but we live in an age where an excellent bookstore can be driven out of business by a hunk of plastic with a screen.  Ironic, I know, for me to be saying this, because I was discussing a few posts ago about how I'm getting a Kindle Fire, but that's more for the purposes of the environmental crises rather than because I enjoy reading off a screen.  I don't.  It's more that the world's trees could do without magazines people will just throw away after reading once and cheapo paperback romance novels that will live on a shelf all their lives before being donated to some book sale or another, where they will then live on another shelf even longer until they are eventually thrown away because no one wanted them.  It's funny because up until recently I was completely opposed to the idea of e Readers, but I guess they've grown on me a bit.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE books, I love the way the pages and cover feel, and how certain books smell certain ways (my favorites are very old book smell and brand-new book smell; they're both very distinctive and very excellent).  I love the library and I love bookstores and I love reading.  And I loved Borders, before they were driven out of business by the Kindle.  And that's why I'm here to tell you today to keep your independent bookstores open (Page One is one of the last ones in town).  So please: think of the books.  On a similar note, something else that is in trouble is the post office.  I can't even begin to say how sad I am about that.  I love writing (and receiving) letters, and the sad fact of the matter is that there really isn't anything of a future in the post office, and that's because of one word: email.  So the next time someone's birthday is coming up, maybe mail them a card instead of sending an e-card.  If you feel like talking to your friend who moved away, write them a letter instead of sending an email.  Send postcards when you go on a trip.  Write letters just for the fun of it.  Mail boxes through the post office, not UPS or FedEx or other companies like that.  Stand up to the electronic revolution.

Wordle

 



I don't know if you know what a Wordle is, but it's sort of a word art thing where you take a huge chunk of text and this program reads it and finds the most frequently used words, which are largest, and least frequently used words, which are smallest, and then arranges them artistically in sort of a "word cloud".  Something else the program does is get rid of words like "the" and "I" and "it", etc, to make the Wordle more interesting.  Anyway, I made one using every single post on my blog.  Sadly, I have no way to put the image on here, and the only way I could get it on here was to print it out and then scan that, so hopefully it's readable and looks ok.  I'm sorry about that.
Random thought for the day:  Today I finally made that dulce de leche.  I would NOT advise it!  It took me hours (okay, it would have taken less time if I'd read the directions more carefully and used whole milk instead of 1%, but still.)  Anyway, my arm feels about ready to fall off after all that stirring, and I ended up having to add starch to it to get it thick enough.  It also took a really long time to get it the right color.  But now that it's done and delicious, the big question is: Was it really worth it??

Another random thought:  Remember the post where I was listing all these holidays in December, and one of them was Monkey Day?  I had no clue what that was until today, when I finally decided to look it up.  According to Wikipedia, it's celebrated on December 14, and originated in 2000.  It's celebrated in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom.  So what is it?  Apparently, it's celebrated by costume parties, and a lot of other monkey-related activities, including contests to see who can act like a monkey the longest, speed knitting of monkey dolls, sharing monkey stories, shopping sprees on Paul Frank merchandise, eating Chunky Monkey ice cream, spending the day at the zoo, and chimp art auctions.  Sounds like fun, and it's for a good cause too, because the sole purpose of monkey day is to encourage us to give some thought to our simian friends, directing our attention to issues like Evolution, medical research, and animal rights.

Bembo Book Regular

Sorry folks, actually the font I thought it looked like was Bembo Book Regular, a bit closer.  SORRY the picture is so big, I couldn't post a link...  Anyway, it's nearly Christmas, so MERRY CHRISTMAS! :D
And, if you don't celebrate Christmas,
~Happy Hannukkah!
~Happy Kwanzaa!
~Happy boxing day!
~Happy St. Stephen's Day!
~Happy Proclamation Day!
~Happy Nichelle Nichols's birthday! (Uhura)
~Happy Union Day of Romania!
~Happy National Day of United Arab Emirates!
~Happy Sinterklaas in the Netherlands!
~Happy Father's Day (king's birthday) in Thailand!
~Happy Independence Day in Finland!
~Happy Constitution Day in Spain!
~Happy Saint Nicholas Day in Greece!
~Happy Monkey day! (?)
~Happy Bill of Rights Day!
~Happy Victory Day in Bangladesh!
~Happy Day of Reconciliation in South Africa!
~Happy solstice!
~Happy emperor's birthday in Japan!
~Happy Festivus!
~Happy Day of Goodwill!
~Happy Independence Day in Slovenia!
~Happy Proclamation Day in South Australia!
~Happy Rizal Day in the Philippines!
~Happy New Year's!

Still not enough?  Click here!

The Deep Freeze of Bartholomew Tullock, among other things

Okay, faithful followers, I have a mission for you.  Two missions, actually.
~Mission number 1:  I have just finished a rather good book called The Deep Freeze of Bartholomew Tullock, by Alex Williams.  It was set in a typeface I have seen many times before, but I never could figure out what it was called.  That's where you come in.  I have scoured the internet, and the closest thing I could find was Bembo, so close but not exact.  I need YOU (yes, you) to find out what font this book is set in!  (and no, it doesn't say in the book.  I checked, ok?)  The title of the book is a link to the Google Books page, where you can see what the font looks like and maybe read a bit of it (it's pretty good.)  BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!
~Mission number 2:  Today I found a flexible keyboard at Big Lots.  It doesn't work very well, but I figured it's portable, gimmicky, and I could plug it into the Kindle Fire I'm getting so it would be easier to type on it.  The problem?  Well, for one, the Kindle Fire doesn't have a USB port, and  so I have no way to plug it in.  That's why your second mission is to find a way to connect a Kindle Fire and a flexible keyboard.  I thought maybe a hub would work, but then realized they wouldn't be connected so they would work together that way.  HELP!!

The Mighty Lemon Drops!

Recently, I was at the library booksale and found a CD by a band called The Mighty Lemon Drops.  I had never heard of them before, but I liked their name, so I bought the CD (this time checking to make sure there was actually a CD inside) and listened to it-- and guess what: THEY ARE REALLY GOOD!  I'd reccommend them really highly.  Here is a link to my personal favorite song, My Shadow Girl.  Also today I've got a few sketches I drew some time ago but apparently haven't posted here before.  The first one is called Bobert Sees The World, and I have no idea what it's supposed to mean, but it's a cute little drawing.  You see the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, and this bizarre helicopter creature thing; that must be what the world looks like.  The second is called Stopping to Say Hi While Walking His Cat, which not only did I like enough to put on a T-shirt, but it's just one of my favorite drawings I've done.  The third one is just one of these creepy baby things I used to draw a lot of.  I also have ANOTHER link, this one to the Deviantart page of my friend who does the creepy experimental films.  He is an artist, too, however, like his films, they're really creepy and gorey (some of them).  Check it out.  I have another friend, too, who recently made another song.  He's going to be sending me the CD soon, and then I'll post it here.
Random thought for the day:  I'm happy, because there is a Chipotle's burrito place coming to town!  I discovered them on the East Coast trip I went on over this past summer, and it's quite good, but I thought it was just an East Coast thing.  Apparently, though, it's not, so there is one coming in where the old Shoney's was that they tore down a while ago.  Yay!
Another random thought:  Currently I'm working on a list of my absolute favorite books of all time, for reference, and since a lot of them appeal to the nerd element, I'm going to post it here as soon as I finish it.
Yet another random thought: I want to make a small, one-person personalized helicopter based off of the designs in old Popular Mechanics so I can fly it to and from school and beat the traffic.  I think it's really sad magazines no longer contain blueprints to small helicopters that actually work, and so I'm going to make a statement with mine.  I will, of course, have to get FAA approval.  

Brave Story

I know I haven't posted in a while but I've been quite busy; ANYWAY I wanted to recommend a book I'm currently reading: Brave Story by Miyuki Miyabe.  This is a very interesting book, both because of it's translation from Japanese (the are parts where you find yourself thinking "This was really well translated!" or "Wow, I have no idea what that's supposed to mean," but also because of it's captivating adventure theme, reminiscint of Alex and the Ironic Gentleman, one of my absolute favortie books of all time.  Though enormously fat, I'd reccommend Brave Story very highly.  *Side note: Alex and the Ironic Gentlman is currently being made into a movie, an idea I both love and hate: it would make a great movie, but I'm afraid it won't stick to the book enough, and will be ruined in a very Coraline-ish sense.  (In Coraline, as you may recall, in the book she is a very independant character, and in the movie they had to introduce a guy character to help her out, which I resent.)  Interestingly, I started turning Alex and the Ironic Gentleman into a movie several years ago, but didn't get very far.  The entire point of my idea was to make a good movie that followed the book perfectly before Hollywood ruined it.  But I'll be in the theater the day it comes out purely out of curiosity.  And even if they do ruin it, I'll still have Jaclyn Moriarty, my favorite author EVER.

THE END OF BEETLE CIRCUS

Guess what!!! I just realized that that last post was the end of Beetle Circus!! Tomorrow (or whenever I next get a chance, this weekend at the latest) I'll begin posting Slurb! I've already done one 6-part episode and I'm currently working on part two of the second episode! I hope you like it, and you're not mourning the end of Beetle Circus too much :D

More book

Hello! Sorry it's been a few days but I've been a bit busy (crazy math teacher assigns 40 problems a night!) Anyway, I hope to finish up this book soon so I can start posting Slurb, my incredibly cheesy but entertaining comic. Here's the next 2 pages of Beetle Circus.

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