!, ? and Aldus

Dear brother, Neil,

What prompted people to set Abba music to a plot? Why are they making Mama Mia into a movie? Ugh! Am I being too prejudmental? Yes. But no one can make me see that movie. I do not want to, so I will not! HA! Take that ABC’s the Insider!!!1 Neil, do not you agree with me? I do. Ha. Why do people even watch shows like the Insider or Extra? Hollywood celeb vacation locations ARE NOT interesting! Why am I watching this? Ugh, I am so stupid. And extremely bored.

What should I do to battle this boredom, Neil? Oh! I know! I will go to the shopping mall! Perfect!

I think I have broken my exclamation point record for this blog in just this post so far. Whoever invented the exclamation point is a genius. And the question mark…and the semi-colon. Ha, punctuation is amazing. Where did it all come from? According to a source on wikipedia, “Until the 18th century, punctuation was principally an aid to reading aloud; after that time its development was as a mechanism for ensuring that the text made sense when read silently” (Todd, Loreto. The Cassell Guide to Punctuation. 2000). Later, “Punctuation developed dramatically when large numbers of copies of the Christian Bible started to be produced. These were designed to be read aloud and the copyists began to introduce a range of marks to aid the reader, including indentation, various punctuation marks and an early version of initial capitals” (Punctuation). But as for punctuation as we know it today, “The use of punctuation was not standardized until after the invention of printing. Credit for introducing a standard system is generally given to Aldus Manutius and his grandson. They popularized the practice of ending sentences with the colon or full stop, invented the semicolon, made occasional use of parentheses and created the modern comma…” (Punctuation). So, there you go. Whether it is interesting to you…or not, it is interesting to me.

So we have Aldus Manutius to thank for punctuation. Thank you, Aldus. Maybe we should have a day to celebrate punctuation. It should be during the school year so kids can be forced…err…exposed to the importance of punctuation. Teachers should write sentences with no punctuation and have different students read a loud the sentences to show them how punctuation changes the meaning of sentences. And then, maybe we will have less Americans who abuse the use of exclamation points. Because, after all, is it really important to express something that way!?!!!1

Don’t Forget to be Awesome!!!1
Love, Pam

Judge a freaking Book by its freaking Cover

Ugh, Neil,

I am starting to get really bored with Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales. I am reading them, and there are starting NOT to make sense. Like this one particularly extruciatingly irratonal story called The Snow Queen.

The story does not start off with a woman or character called The Snow Queen, instaed it starts off with a random bad guy who makes a bad mirror. The mirror breaks a millions of tiny pieces of glass fly around the world and get stuck in people’s eyes a hearts.

What?

And the worst illogical part of the story is its length and narative flow. The story is long enough to be expanded (just a teensy bit) into a children’s novel. So why is this short novel a short story!?! And the narration does not make sense if you are paying attention, and let me tell you Neil it took immenseconcentration and will power for me to pay attention to The Snow Queen. Through out the story the main character, who is NOT The Snow Queen, meets a bunch of different characters and they all help her to het where she is going….which takes a really long time. So by the end of the story Andersen has to recap all the wheresabouts of the characters because this story took me three sittings to finish and I am getting the happenings all mixed up with other stories. So the author recaps the story, but the way he does this DOES NOT MAKE SENSE!!!1 Here is what I am so upset about with Hans Christian Andersen:

So the main character is happy that her part of the story work out well, and in case the reader was wondering what happened to everyone else (which I was not) the main character runs into one of the characters, The Robber Girl, that helped her a long her way with her journey. And the two girls are chatting it up and the girl asks The Robber Girl what happened to everyone else. And The Robber Girl answers her.

What?!!!1

The Robber Girl never ever MET the likes of the crow or the crow’s fiance who helped the girl get to where she was going. How the heck did she KNOW about the crows!?!

I am so glad i am almost done with this book. I am really glad I am done with the story The Snow Queen.

I have decided that the next book that I am going to judge by its cover is Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. I know you are probably asking, “But Pam what about the ABC order of your book reading?” And I will tell you: Barnes and Nobel does not have Chinua Achebe ont the self I am selecting from, but Borders does. I was in Borders look that the books which Barnes and Nobel does not have, and I recognized Achebe’s name from my literature class this past semester. So I bought the book. More on that after I finish this freaking Fairy Tale book.

Don’t Forget to be Awesome
Love, your loving sister, Pam

Judge an Illustrator by His or Her Cover Club

Dear Neil,

How did it get to be Wenesday again so soon? Does not it feel like Thursday was yesterday? Should not it be Friday? Why Wenesday? Why not Friday?

Well, at least I have a New Yorker cover to disect today. And it is a little strange in my humble opinion today.  Here is a man surrounded by oceanic water and islands. You can see, he himself is like an island, but not in the Simon and Garfunkelsense. And with closer examination you see a big sqaure patch of green on the “island man”’s chest. What could this be? Duh! It is the uber famous Central Park of New York City, home of Strawberry Fields, “rare tamarin monkeys, Wyoming toads, thick-billed parrots, and red pandas“, and a bunch of ice owned by Trump. So, we come to the wonderful conclusion that this “island man” is Manhattan.

But I do not think Manhattan Man likes being an island. I think he is in extruciating pain, because his face looks like he could use some codeine, or prozac or a lot of excredine. And, I think, the reason he is stricken with fear in his eyes and pain on his face, is because Manhattan has a lot of subways.

Can you image if your body housed huge tubes with tracks that run big cars along them? Ouch. So I understand if Manhattan Man wants a pain pill. So, what is the artist trying to say? Being Manhattan is painful? We should not under-appreciate that subway system? And for more insight to the illustrators thoughts, I turn to the cover’s title: Subway Man. Hmmm…so maybe the message is in the subways. Oh! I have just been struck by a little bit of genius.

Maybe the man is not physically the island of Manhattan, but instead he is demonstrating the anals and pains of the New York City subway system aggrieves upon humanity. And maybe the Subway Man’s distressed expression is a reflection of the grievence the  illustrator, possibly, feels himself.

So what do we do? Stop using the Subway? We should not do that; public transportation is nice, and necessary for big cities. Take the bus? How would that help? I have never ridden a subway, but buses have to contend with the traffic of this automobile obsessed society. Subways only have to deal with tunnels and tracks. So, my guess is subways might be faster…if you know how to navigate the system.

Or maybe the illustrator just needed something to draw, and he jsut had a bad subway trip. So he took his frustration out with water colors.

Don’t Forget to be Awesome, Neil
Love, Pam

Pants, Condoms and Suffixes

Dear Neil,

It’s Monday. It’s the Monday that kicks off Dad’s week off from work. I forgot that. So I was walking aronud the house in a t-shirt and underwear (I really could get away with that when I was nine years old) because it’s kind of stuffy in the house. So I grab myself a sandwich and settle down in the living room with my laptop to write some blog entryness and I see a hand with a paint brush outside by the frame of the window. And I think, “Holy crap I have no pants on”. So now I have pants on.

I am currently watching CNN and they are covering a story about a town in Massachusetts with an alarmingly high rate of teenage pregnancies. This year four times the usually rate of girls got pregnant in this one school. The school district errs on the side of abstinence in the realm of sex education. Obviously the teens are not erring on the side of abstinence. So when you can not stop teenagers from having sex, should not you help them and encourage them not to get pregnant? And what about sexually transmitted infections?!? The news aired a press confernce with the town’s mayor, and she claimed that sex education is a responsibility of the parents or guardians. But what if some parents do not know how to  thier kids? What if the kids do not want to talk to their parents about abstinence and contraception? I think it is common sense that teens would be more likely to listen to a teacher or a local Planned Parenthood representative about sex eduaction. In school kids have to listen to the lessons, especially if there will be tests.

Also, think about the other areas of education like religion. Schools can not claim that a certain religion is the truth, but they teach the kids what the world’s major religions are like. So could not schools approach sex education this way? Schools do not need to claim that one method of contraception is the right way to prevent pregnancy and sexaully trransmitted infections, but they should teach the kids what the major forms of contraception are like.

What do you think Neilio? Ha, see what I did there? I added the suffix -io to your name. Now your name is cool…not that “Neil” is not cool to begin with.

Don’t Forget to be Awesome
Love, Pam

Judge a Book (and a magazine) by Its Cover Club

Dear Neil,

Ahh, hear that? That is the sound of my full stomach…okay, I know full, satisfied stomachs do not make as much noise as empty hungry ones. But I just wanted to say: Giant salads are delicious and leave me tré un-hungry (that’s the opposite of full, Neil).

I finally recieved my New Yorker in the mail on Wenseday after I posted my blog entry, so I am going to take this Friday post update of the Judge a Book by Its Cover Club to dicuss my favorite magazine’s cover. Here is a link to a picture of this weeks cover. This week the cover features, what I think looks like an oil painting by, Bruce McCall. In the “painting” we see a toll booth into a park with a sign that says “NO PICNICKING IN BUFFALO WALLOWS”. This sign makes me wonder, what are the Buffalo Wallows, and why can’t I eat a sandwich there? But the big deal with this cover is what is happening on the left: BEARS! But these aren’t just any bears, they are anthropomorphic, human-like. These cool dudes are walking on two legs, and after closer examination these bears are not just any human-like, circus-trained, fairy-tale characters. No, these awesome animals are employees of the state park. All of them have photo id tags hanging from there necks, and if that’s not enough proof, they are exiting/entering the employee entranced. What I like about this iluustration is each bear is individual and has personality. And what is more, is the “message” the illustrator is giving us: bears work in the state parks. This is even more evidenced by the cover’s title: Summer Job. Ha! It is so funny, bears work in the state parks, they do not live there. Any it is even funnier if you think about it more, bears have summer jobs, because in the winter they are busy hibernating! Ha! Get it? Summer Job? Ha! New Yorker, you crack me up (and that is just the cover).

So that is this week’s wonderful New Yorker cover. Can you see why I love The New Yorker so much now? It’s awesome.

What’s not so awesome is my inability to get any further through my collection of Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales. I’m in the middle of this long, slow story called, “The Snow Queen” about a girl who loses her best friend. She goes and tried to find him, and I am just not getting it! I do not understand the point of this  story! Oh, well maybe I’ll finish it in a day or too, and then I can proceed to “The Red Shoes”.

Don’t Forget to be Awesome, Neil
Love, Pam

Lunch-time, Forecast, and Mail

Dear Neil,

I totally forgot that the arsonist of MASH a few years ago used a plastic gallon jug. That fact adds a certain amount of clumsiness to the mind’s eye image of the teen throw the Molotov cocktail at the brick wall. Plus, um, plastic melts when you put it on fire. No wonder the high school did not burst into flames.

My Internet connection is slowwwllly slowing down. Is it my computer or my Internet? Hum…I do not like this. I just noticed this difference in speed a few days ago. My computer is only a few months old; am I doing something wrong?…

Oh great server error. Hmm, oh well…

Where was I, what was I saying? Oh, yeah…nothing. It’s lunch time. I think I will talk about lunch. What should I eat? Oh, you are not a good person to ask you are vegan, and do not eat things I love to eat. Hummm, I just went to the kitchen and returned with a salad. But! It is a salad with ranch dressing and cheese, so ha! I will have my dairy, and eat it too!!!

The forecast for Jubilee Day tomorrow is looking good and cool. Which, you know is a huge rarity. Maybe it will rain…although Mr. Local News Weather Man tells us that there is no rain on the way for tomorrow…in fact it might be cloudy tomorrow which would be SO nice for a day made for walking on black top surrounded by hundreds of people…maybe it will be a good day…maybe…

It’s 12:28 pm and our mail has not arrived yet, and Neil I look forward to mail on days around Wednesdays. Why? Because Wednesdays are the days allotted for the mail to delivery my weekly New Yorker! Yay Wednesdayish-days! (sometimes my New Yorker comes late, like on Thursdays). And, Neil, I look forward to the New Yorker, not because of the wonderful samples of American and international writing inside, but because of the entertainingillustrated covers! I love interpreting the covers; sometimes they hold political commentary, sometimes they carry a deeper social message, and sometimes they are just an illustration. So that is why I look forward to Wednesday’s mail. But I do not have today’s mail yet, so…so much for sharing The New Yorker cover with you today…maybe tomorrow or Friday.

Well, now I really wish I had my New Yorker now, because then I would have something to do other than try to struggle through this particularly boring Hans Christian Andersen story.

Well, Neil, don’t forget to be awesome (which I doubt you do anyway)
Love, Pam

Caricatures, Arson and Qualifiers

Dearest Brother Neil,

I do not know what to write about today. I think I need a random topic, but it can not just be any topic. This random topic needs to be something I can write and write and write about. Hmm, oh!

Neil, your John Green caricature is a-mazing! Now you need to draw Hank too and send it to them, and the Nerd fighters will be, like, A-mazing fan art!, Neil!

What I like about your John Green caricature is that the drawing is cartoon-ish and realistic at the same time. A-mazing! So, Neil, I have got to ask: after drawing caricatures all week for amusement park amusees (see what I did there? I made up a word. Amusee: one who is amused. Ha) do you get tired of drawing caricatures?!?

I hope you do not get tired of drawing caricatures, because that would put a big krimp in your livelihood. So here’s to enjoying what you do!

Holy crap someone just threw a Molotov cocktail at Texas’s governor’s mansion. Can you say arson? I remember when I was in middle school someone tried to throw a Molotov cocktail at the high school, but I don’t think anything caught on fire. What an earth can get into a person’s mind to make them think that throwing a glass bottle filled with gasoline lit on fire at a brick wall would cause much damage. But then again he did get in mucho trouble, so maybe that’s all he was after. Attention. So some people commit arson, some people dye their hair three different colors at once and some people write web logs for attention.

Oh, hey Neil! I just remembered that this Thrusday is Jubilee Day: the longest one day street fair east of the Mississppi. Who can say that they grew up in a town with the longest one day street fair east of the Mississippi?!? Everyone in Mechanicsburg, that’s who! Geeze, I do not understand why people put so many qualifiers on things. For example there is this bridge across the Susquehanna just North of the city of Harrisburg that is the longest stone arched bridge east of the Mississippi! If it were not for the Mississippi the Harrisburg area would have NO achievements. Without so many qualifiers Jubliee Day would just be a day everyone can walk ON main street and that bridge would just be a lot of stone arches. What do you think Neil?

Don’t forget to be awesome
Love, Pam

Judge a Book by its Cover Club pt 2

Dear Neil,

I want to write more about Hans Christian Andersen’s assorted Fairy Tales translated by Tiina Nunnally because it’s interesting, and because I have nothing else to write about.

In a story called The Traveling Companiona young man loses his father to an illness, but he constantly praises God. After burying his dad he decides to go traveling, because he’s feeling lonely and has nothing else to do. In his travels alone he prevents a crime and does some all around good deeds.

Then the lonely guy meets a giant and the two decide to travel together, because the plot wasn’t going anywhere with the good guy walking all by himself.

The guy and his traveling companion go to the big city in the kingdom where the king lives (I guess you would call it a capital). The good deeds guy hears about the deal set by the king and his princess: if any man can answer three questions of the princess he has won the hand of marriage to the young royalty. This intrigues the young man, but there is a catch. If anyone fails to answer the three questions correctly the young suitor must die. Yikes, that’s harsh.

Then the man catches a glimpse of the princess and is totally convinced that he must vie for the princesses hand in marriage, because she is SO beautiful or something like that. The traveling companion is very distraught at hearing this because trying to answer the princesses questions is like receiving a death sentence.

So the traveling companion helps his young God-fearing friend, but I suggest you read it, because it is rather good. But what gets me is the author’s religion; Andersen did not really believe in God. But he writes about this young man in a good light and does not give him bad fortune because his characterhas faith in something Andersen himself does not. I am surprised at this, Andersen was so good at taking Denmark’s social problems and welding them into his stories. Is the point of The Traveling Companion that faith will get you anywhere? Or am I missing something a else altogether?

I was surprised by the happy ending of this story, and other stories like The Little Mermaid, because I have heard such dreary things about Andersen’s stories. Or maybe I am interpreting Andersen differently than everybody else. I still have half of the story collection to go. Maybe I won’t be as confused when I’m done with the collection.

Don’t forget to be awesome, Neil
Love, Pam

Doodle, Joke and Whitman

Dear Neil,

Ha, tell Mandy that sushi and pan-Asian dishes does not equal a sushi and Italian restaurant.

You’re welcome about the driving and such: family got to do what family got to do.

I’m watching Midnight Cowboy with the amazing Dustin Hoffman. But, man Neil, this is a weird movie–just watched the end: it’s really good, but stylized like the whole film crew was high when they were filming. Well, they all probably were high, but that kind of filming makes it hard for us sober people to watch.  I wonder what this movie would look like if it were made by sober people in this decade? Hmmm…

I think I have ulcers or Irritable Bowel Syndrome, or something that ends in -itis. And I think I can’t work this many hours a week. I think I need to quit the Peppermill. But…yeah…I don’t know.

Hey if your bored Neil could you possibly doodle up something I can use for a customized header for this blog? I would like something that looks like you have drawn it. And I would like something me-ish. Me-ish do you know what that looks like? I can’t describe in words here what me looks like. I like words; words are me-ish. I like books; those things are me-ish. And I like your cat, Wash. Wash is amazing. I like other things but I think I want to keep my custom header simple and clean.

Ah, Neil I just visited your Blenderman site and it’s Wednesday, but you got no new comic up. Is this celebration caused or computer caused? Ah! You just put it up. Good…

Hmm…need something to write about. Ugh. I’m too tired to think about joke things. I’m getting some pimples. That is not jokes. My friend Kate is getting a new niece. That is jokes, but it makes me jealous of her. She gets to be around babies and I don’t. That is not jokes. I’m bored. I need to do laundry. That is not jokes.  I am rambling. That is very not jokes. Ugh! I need a topic that is not how I can not think of a topic.

I think Walt Whitman had these problems. Now, I’m not a Whitman expert, but what I have read of Leaves of Grass he talks about the process of writing and creativity a bit. Or at least that is how I interpretted it. I’m pretty much convinced that Whitman was a literary genius…maybe I should actually read some of his stuff.

Well, I rambled long enough. DFTBA
Love, Pam

 

Gymnasts, Shoes and Masters’

Dear Neil,

1 pm

So sleepy. So tired. Must write four hundred words.

You know, it’s funny I am complaining about four hundred words. English majors and English professionals can write four hundred words with their eyes closed. But it IS summer…

So, we just ate lunch, Neil, you and I; and we were talking about so many different nerdfigthery things. While eating my hoagie I was thinking SO much, and now that I am in front of my laptop and Ooo! Paul and Morgan Hamm are on NBC for the Olympic trials. They are SO hot! AND they’re twins!

Wow, way to be ADD, Pam. Sorry about that Neil. Oh my Olympic Male gymnast are gorgeous. Oh, poor Paul Hamm he broke a bone in his hand.

Now who will make it to Bejing?!?

Sorry. I diverted again. Speaking of gorgeous, Neil! My shoes are gorgeous! Madden Girl black round toe Mary-janes with about a two inch heal! These shoes were made for me!!!1 These shoes are to me as the notorious Manolo Blahnik Mary-janes are to Carrie Bradshaw! Neil, these shoes were made for my feet!

I did it again didn’t I? I went on a tangent that you have no interest in, huh? I was going to write about being a nerd fighter since birth.

 1 am

Excedrin does a nice job. This afternoon I was tired from lack of sleep, and got a head ache the minute I woke up. So I took Excedrin with the wonderful ingredient: caffeine. Now I need to actually sleep. But before I do that I must get this post off my chest.

And speaking of posting, I don’t think I’m going to post on Sundays because when you’re home I want to concentrate on eating lunch with you guys or watching Big Bang from the previous Monday (but not this summer, the season just ended…). Also it bites on days I have to work at four but I want to hang with you guys.

Hey, Neil what do you think about my future plans. I am already focusing on my BA in English. And I want to reach and strive for my Master’s degree. I want to be able to tell people: “I’m graduate school” and “I earned my Master’s”. Jessi (Funk!) wants to get her Master’s in reading so she can work as a reading specialist for kids! So as I am working on my BA, I need to decide on my next step on choose what direction to head in for my Master’s.

And here’s the beauty in all of this Neil: I love learning. If I keep it up I can get my BA in four years (incidentally BAs are slowing becoming more difficult for the average American to earn in four years). And if I move on to graduate school (and, again if I keep my gpa in the high 3’s I shouldn’t worry about whether I will be accepted) I will get to extend my learning experience!

Wow I just did a bit of research about Master’s degrees in Liberal Arts. One can earn a post graduate degree in this field, but it’s just a well balanced education in non-science related subjects. What can you do with that? Do you declare a focus? Like Jessi and her reading Master’s? I’m tired, I’ll research about this more later. And you can help me decide what I’m really good at in the English field…

I hope I don’t set my sights too far away where I cannot see them. I must keep reminding myself to focus on my BA in English…and what I am going to do with that before I earn my Master’s.

Also, I know that graduate school will interfere with my other passion: babies. Besides learning, I love babies and want to be a mommy as much as Mom wanted to be a mommy. And it is scientifically proven that women who slow down their career development to raise a family sacrifice how far they can go. And women who concentrate on their careers do not get to be “on hands” moms, like Mom.

So, which would you rather have, Neil: a “Master’s” sister, or a sister who’s a mommy like Mom?

Oh, and I know- I have to find a man want to raise a family with before I even think about sacrificing my future career for a nice family. So if Mr. Babies Babies Babies doesn’t come into my life before I’m thirty I am SO going to get my Master’s!

Today a useless BA in English, tomorrow the world!

So it turns out I did not discuss Nerd Fighters for life. Maybe tomorrow.

DFTBA
Love, Pam

P.S. – I also need to find a job I can live by while I earn my Master’s…