Category Archives: writing

When I Grow up, I Want to be John Green

So a while back I posted a link to a video that was recommended to me by my friend, Alan.  (Alan, I know you’re reading this because I tagged you in the post on Facebook, and I’m probably going to tell you about it later.  Well I haven’t tagged you yet since the post doesn’t exist yet, but I will.)

And no I’m not going to link you to the video again.  I’m going to link you to the blog post (click here) because hey, this is my blog, and I happen to think you should read it.  So lately, I was bored.  I was supposed to be writing a ten-page essay, but I’m graduating in less than a month, and it’s a beautiful Friday afternoon here in New York, and I just wasn’t having it.  So I decided to go to YouTube and find the beginning of John Green’s video blogging (I refuse to say “vlogging.”  It just sounds weird) and watch all the videos he exchanged with his brother.  See what John and his brother, Hank, did in 2007 was they started using (Fine!  I’ll say it!) a vlog as a way of communicating with each other.  Hank challenged John to go a full year without any text-based communication, so that was the start of the blog, and their videos are really funny.

So I was watching them and laughing and not doing my essay, and I came to this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=fvwp&v=Ck-dW8YGyes.  And that’s when I decided I wanted to be John Green when I grow up.  (Incidentally, I have also written a blog post that contains a short story that touches on this phrase – “When I grow up…”)  Because John Green is funny, and he’s a published author, and he’s won awards, and he’s written books in the Young Adult genre, and he seems like a genuinely nice guy.  And I want to be/do all those things!  (As long as you replace “guy” with “girl,” “woman,” or “lady.”  Your choice)  And I found, also, that I was really happy for him even though I don’t know him.  And also I’m currently reading one of his books, and it’s really good.  (I should probably add it to the Books I Recommend page. I’ll do that later.)  It’s important to aspire to be someone who’s good at what they do, I think.  And that is why I owe Alan a sandwich or something for introducing me to these brothers and their crazy vlog (ew).  I hope I get to realize my dream and be John Green one day.  Even if that does mean I’ll have to vlog.  At least once.  Just to say I did it.  Because I do like to talk, and I love how when you listen to a recording of yourself, your voice always sounds so foreign!  I know you never hear yourself right, but it’s still really awesome.  I guess I’ll think about it.

That’s all!

Word of the Day: Aspire (v) – to long, aim, or seek ambitiously; be eagerly desirous,especially for something great or of high value.

Leave a comment

Filed under books, Humor, writing

If Your Ad is Grammatically Incorrect, I’m Not Using Your Product

I was on the Facebook just now, and I glimpsed an ad in the sidebar.  Facebook has a lot of trouble advertising to me, since I recently went through my profile and deleted every single bit of information I’d previously provided.  So now it has very little to work with.  Here are two things it knows: I play a horseback riding game, and I am currently in Syracuse, NY.  So my ads are pretty much all geared to that now – either horses or “fun” stuff to do in Syracuse – except for some random ones for FASHION.  I don’t know where that came from.  Oh…yes I do.  I’m female.  Therefore I must love buying hideous dresses from websites I’ve never heard of.

So I glimpsed the sidebar, as I said, and I saw an ad that said, “Five things to do in Syracuse everyday.”  I promptly clicked the little X in the upper right corner of the advertisement to make it go away.  And Facebook does this thing where it gives you a list of reasons to choose from when you dismiss an ad.  The reasons are:

– Uninteresting

– Misleading

– Sexually explicit

– Against my views

– Offensive

– Repetitive

– Other

(I used to get ads that said stuff like, “DO YOU LOVE TWILIGHT???  DO YOUUUU??” and I’m pretty sure I clicked the “Offensive” and “Against my views” buttons a couple times.)

For this ad, I clicked “Other.”  And when you do that, it gives you a little box to type in your reason.  I typed in, “This ad is grammatically incorrect.  They used “everyday” and not “every day.”  And that inspired me to tell this story on my blog, and also give a short grammar lesson, since this concept seems to be hard for some people to grasp.

“Everyday” is an adjective.  You have everyday activities, like eating, sleeping, swimming, killing people’s dogs, and reading the newspaper.  These everyday activities are things you do every day.  See what I did there?  “Everyday” is an adjective, and “every day” is an adjective describing a noun.

Every day, I stare out my window and make faces at passersby.

This ad is not seen every day.

I have many everyday routines.

This isn’t some kind of everyday threat.

Are we starting to see the difference?  “Every day” is talking about the day.  It’s a noun.  You don’t see people writing, “Onceaday, I kick my bedroom wall.”  No, they write, “Once a day.”  Same thing with “Every day.”  I think I’m getting a little repetitive here, but I really want to make sure I’m understood, because between you and me, I get a little annoyed when people blatantly disregard basic grammatical rules.  And it’s not an uncommon occurrence either!  It happens every day!

Word of the Day: Miffed (adj) – put into an irritable mood, especially by an offending incident.

Leave a comment

Filed under books, Grammar, Humor, Language, writing

Finally Marr

So IMDb just informed me that The Host, a book by Stephenie Meyer, is being made into a movie.  I should have known, of course.  Meyer has made it quite obvious to the movie industry that she can make them a fortune, and they’ve run out of Twilight movies.  So, yeah, making The Host into a movie is the logical next step.  But now I’m conflicted!  Because, on the one hand, The Host was a legitimately good book that I enjoyed very much, and even bought in Spanish since I like practicing other languages by reading my favorite books in them.  On the other hand, it’s Stephenie “Women don’t need to be smart as long as they’re pretty” Meyer.  I don’t want her to make any more money.  I really don’t think she deserves it.  So I guess I won’t be seeing that movie in theaters, even though I’d like to.  Twilight just taints everything it touches…like the plague.  Only instead of causing black sores to appear all over the body, I think people just start oozing glitter.

(I miss not having my tablet.  It’s so much easier to make longer pieces of speech fit in the frame)

Anyway, my point is that I can’t, in good conscience, support Stephenie Meyer.  So I guess I’ll Netflix it or something.

The next order of business for today is my homage to Melissa Marr, which I’ve been putting off for way too long.  So here we go:

(She gets a big number four because everyone else got a big number.  Don’t know what I’m talking about?  Then read this and this.)

Thanks MS Paint, for being there when I needed you.

So Melissa Marr wrote the Wicked Lovely series, which is mainly what I want to talk about.  Her more recent novel is called Graveminder, and while it was quite good, I don’t believe it was the same caliber as Wicked Lovely.  See those books are about fairies, but not the kind that wear tiny green dresses and run off to tell Captain Hook where your secret hideout is the moment they get mad at you.  These fairies are kind of deadly and scary-looking, and sometimes just plain crazy.  But on top of that, the books all address really deep issues about loyalty, friendship, right and wrong, etc.  Marr definitely doesn’t coddle you.  Her books can be frustrating and terrifying and sad in all the right ways.  I also wasn’t sure a lot of the time who I was supposed to be rooting for, which is kind of awesome.  And that’s why I like her.  She’s one of my favorite authors because she doesn’t pull punches, and she doesn’t take the obvious route for her stories.  And she reinvents the concept of “fairy” in very interesting ways, too, which is always fun.

Yay!  I finally got around to doing this!  I’m very happy.  I think that’s where I’ll leave off on this list, because I know if I say I’ll continue, then I never will and then I’ll feel bad for not upholding my promise.

You get two words of the day because I used two in this post that I really like.

Word of the Day 1: Homage (n) – respect or reverence paid or rendered.

Word of the Day 2: Caliber (n) – degree of merit or excellence; quality.

Note: Caliber can also be used to measure the barrel of a gun and other cylindrical, tube-like objects.  Obviously that wasn’t the use I was going for, so I didn’t define it in that way.  Just thought I’d point that out.

Leave a comment

Filed under books, Humor, writing