I'm baaaack

I got a new laptop; therefore I must resume blogging. Otherwise, how will I fill the endless hours I will now spend at hip coffee shop d'jour? (aka Starbucks.) Actually I have not been to a coffee shop with my laptop yet but once I do...look out, world. You are unprepared for a level of nonproductivity such as this.

Actually, I have been quite productive lately, if by productive you mean producing things that are not entirely necessary. I suppose artsy-craftsy is the better term. For Christmas, I got my brother Michael a collection of recipes that I will cook for him. He is a vegetarian now but may as well be a tunatarian because I swear that's all he eats. If he cooks canned tuna, rice, cheese and hot sauce and bullies me into tasting it one more time, I will flip out. If he goes to Subway one more time and brags about how he was able to trick the Subway employee into giving him a tuna sub and a veggie sub with a side of tuna for the same price, I will flip out. Hence, the gift.

I also got a Kindle for my birthday and I've got to say, it's one of the greatest things ever. I now have every book I want to read, ever, right at my fingertips. It has already come in handy on the long train rides to and from Chicago. I mostly read classic literature, and anything over 100 years old is free due to public domain, so I am in book heaven right now. I finished up "Great Expectations" and am now ready to finish "Vanity Fair." I find that I read much quicker with my Kindle because I've cut down on the losing of books/forgetting of books. It's also much easier to read different things at one time. I tend to read at least 4 or 5 different books at a time, so when I go on trips, it's annoying to drag all those along. (And then I usually don't end up reading them all anyway.) Now, I can bring the entire collection and read the whole time, or not read a single word, and I've still only toted along something that weighs about 4 ounces.

I love my new Kindle so much that I have named it (Kendall) and am knitting a cozy for it. I will post instructions for this once I am done. I am making it up as I go, so the instructions do not exist yet.

So, that's all I've been doing lately in the way of all that is unimportant.

By the way, stop reading my blog posts and telling me in person how much you liked it. Comment on it so everyone will know how much you love me. Every time I get 0 comments on a post, God kills a kitten.

Weekday Christian Education - The Trailer Trash of Religious Programs

While looking through an old Bible, I found a piece of paper where someone had written two scripture"recipes" or whatever you want to call them. Somebody else wrote them, presumably a teacher of some sort. I got this Bible as a present from my Weekday Christian Education class, which I signed up for in 3rd grade because you got to leave the classroom for an hour and go outside to a trailer. (I still don't understand how that's not a violation of church and state, but whatev.) The trailer seemed like it'd be cool but it was really beige on the inside and there were lots of boring posters with books of the Bible on them. The teachers were a young, skinny, tall and also pregnant lady, and a tiny lady who seemed EXTREMELY old. It seemed like we always wore our coats because the trailer wasn't heated (though obviously it couldn't have been cold the entire school year.) I remember that the old lady had a grey coat and the young lady had a long, maroon one that I thought was really ugly.

Anyway, I don't know if this piece of paper is from Weekday Christian Education, probably not though, because it's doubtful I would have kept a piece of paper from the 3rd grade. But I went to Sunday School at church and we would occasionally get special verses or things, so I assume it was that type of thing. One verse is Psalm 121. Pretty standard. The next is Jeremiah 11:14 -

So now I, the Lord, warn them that I am going to bring destruction on them, and they will not escape. And when they cry out to me for help, I will not listen to them.

Um, okay, that's pretty terrifying for a small child. Pretty weird. Oh wait, I think. Naturally this person simply meant to write Jeremiah 14:11 and just got mixed up. So I look that up:

The Lord said to me, "Do not ask me to help these people." (it later goes on to say, Even if they fast I will not listen to their cry for help; and even if they offer me burnt offerings, I will not be pleased with them. Instead I will kill them in war and by starvation and disease.) That's uplifting.

Would it not be hilarious and twisted for a Sunday School teacher to do that to a kid, like, "Here's your special Bible verse, Jenny! Look it up before bedtime! Then the poor kid can't sleep all that night because she's terrified God will smite her in her sleep or something.

Fortunately for 3rd grade me I rarely remembered to do what teachers asked and I did not look up the verse until now, and I can't stop laughing.

I'm sorry, but once you've played King Koopa, this is all the tribute you get.

Well, just because a lot of other bloggers punked out on me doesn't mean I'll follow suit. Here is my much clamored-for new blog post. (I'm hoping that the opinions of three people is enough to constitute a "clamor."

As you all know, the great actor Dennis Hopper recently passed away. I know for people of my parents' generation, Dennis Hopper was associated with some pretty revolutionary movies like Easy Rider and Apocalypse Now. In fact, Dennis Hopper was sort of known for "sticking it to them man." However, for people my age, this image is something of a joke, as one of Hopper's less talked about movies shows just how willing he was to take one for the man.

Most kids who grew up in the 80s and 90s played Super Mario Brothers at some point or another. I played a lot of video games growing up, mostly due to the fact that I have a brother close in age to me who has a few obsessions in life, one of which is Nintendo. Said brother was and still is unnecessarily competitive 95% of the time so video games were extremely serious business. *Case in point, we recently engaged in a war to see who can type fastest. I am currently in the lead with 101 words a minute.

If you’re between the ages of 21-40 and you don’t understand such phrases as “one up” or “star power," chances are you are reading this on a Saturday night because you have no friends. Gamers must be forgiving to people like my friend Sarah who inexplicably like Mario 2 the best, but total cultural and generational ignorance cannot be overlooked.

Imagine all us kids about my age - loyal, devoted fans of Nintendo, believing that anything stamped with a Mario face must be good. Now, imagine all our adorable, innocent faces looking up to adults with complete trust. Now imagine a movie executive roundhouse kicking all of these children in the face.

Somewhere in ’91, ’92, movie executives saw a golden opportunity to turn Super Mario Brothers into a movie. A live-action movie aaaaaannnd that’s where you lost 95% of your audience because even a 2 year old is with-it enough to realize that Dennis Hopper, reptilian as he may be, looks very little like King Koopa, a.ka. Bowser:

The film received mixed to negative reviews from critics and fans alike and was denounced by critics as "cheesy" and lacking any sort of coherent plot. Gee, who could have predicted that they’d have trouble coming up with a coherent plot? Not with so much plot provided by the original video games! From Wikipedia…:

The player takes on the role of the main protagonist of the series, Mario. The objective is to race through the Mushroom Kingdom, survive the main antagonist Bowser's forces and save Princess Toadstool.

That screams “coherent plot” to me. I mean, one the one hand you have the also incredibly successful Legend of Zelda franchise which features an iconic "predestine" hero, a well established cultural setting, a compelling princess, a villain with believable motivations, and plenty of magic and violence. On the other hand we have Italian plumbers, mushrooms and evil turtles. Of course, before we judge, we must remember that most movie executives are legally retarded. Otherwise, how do you explain something like this?

The saddest part about there not being a Zelda movie is that the currently best-remembered artistic reinterpretation was the short-lived cartoon show of 13 episodes in which Link says his catch phrase, “Well excuuuuuse me, Princess!” 27 times LITERALLY:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPxY8lpYAUM

Yeah...bet you thought I was kidding about that.

Anyway, the movie execs chose Mario Brothers and hired some talented writers (monkeys with typewriters) who developed a plot with a few tweaks to the original story. Again, from Wikipedia:

Mario and Luigi awaken a minute later and head deeper into the caves following Daisy's screaming and discover an interdimensional portal through which Mario and Luigi follow Daisy. They find themselves in a strange dystopian parallel world where a human-like race evolved from dinosaurs rather than the mammalian ancestry of true humans. 65 million years ago a meteorite crashed into the Earth and in doing so ripped the universe into two parallel dimensions. All the surviving dinosaurs of the time crossed over into this new realm before being sealed there forever. Iggy and Spike turn out to be lackeys (and cousins) of the other world's germophobic and obsessive dictator, King Koopa, descended from the T-Rex. However, the two have failed to also bring Daisy's rock, a meteorite fragment which Koopa is trying to get in order to merge his world with the real world that separated from Koopa's world during the meteor strike. It turns out that Daisy is the princess of the other dimension but when Koopa overthrew Daisy's father (and turned him into fungus), Daisy's mother took her to New York using the interdimensional portal.

If you took a 4 year old and gave him some mildly hallucinogenic drugs and some action figures, this is the movie he would construct for you. That’s how stupid this is.

Aftermath of this horrible, horrible film, again courtesy of Wikipedia:

The film states that both Mario and Luigi's last name is Mario (hence the Mario Bros.), giving rise to the idea that they are named Mario Mario and Luigi Mario. However, Nintendo has publicly stated that Mario and Luigi do not have last names in the official canon.

I find it sad that Nintendo has to make “official statements” about such matters.

And some more notable quotes:

The Super Mario Bros. movie was mentioned [in Nintendo Power magazine], only with the words, "Yes, it happened. Let us speak no more of it."

"The worst thing I ever did? Super Mario Brothers” – Bob Hoskins

And then here’s an odd one:

Shigeru Miyamoto, Mario's creator stated, "[In] the end, it was a very fun project that they put a lot of effort into," but also said, "The one thing that I still have some regrets about is that the movie may have tried to get a little too close to what the Mario Bros. videogames were.”

Whhhaaaa? Mr. Miyamoto, did you even WATCH the movie? Have you ever played or seen your own game? Just how far away from the game did you want the movie to get? Let's just breath a sigh of relief that, if the Mario Brothers movie had to happen, it at least happened before Hollywood discovered the whole "awkward and snarky = smart and funny" craze.

This blog post is so beast...

A few other English teachers at my school use songs to help their kids learn new info or get them jazzed about something. (The first rewritten song I heard was "I am getting punctuation down" in place of "Baby are you down, down, down, down, down...) I love this idea but I haven't had any time/energy this year to think about it much. This summer, my goal is to write lyrics for and record new versions of famous songs with English themes so I'll have more than enough songs (1 per week) for the entire year next year. I just found out that next year I'll be teaching only 7th grade (this year I've taught 7th and 8th) which makes it more simple (simpler? Just an English teacher, whatever.) It would also be amazing to have videos to go with them, especially in this, because as you can see I've already envisioned a Cullen vs. Black fight scene. Obviously, this all adds up to an awesomely cheezetastic summer. Who wants to help me…?!

Here is the first. I am also working on "Bad Grammar" (Bad Romance.) I am also hoping to shoot a video for that as it would give me an excellent excuse to wear head-to-toe sequins.

Sing along (loudly, in front of people) and let me know what you think. And let me know what 3-syllable band or artist name you think I should use...

“Read It”

(to the tune of “Beat It”)

So you hate reading, well think that if you will,

But soon you’ll see that reading is a lifelong skill.
So even when it’s boring or the words aren’t really clear
Just read it, just read it

I got an ipod and I want some new songs,

I want some - - - so I can sing along

Good thing I’ve got instructions; now this won’t take too long

I’ll read it, if you wanna know more

Just read it, read it,
Pick a book up and complete it

Showin’ how funky strong is your brain

to really get it, read the whole thing

Just read it, read it
Just read it, read it
Just read it, read it
Just read it, read it

Before you drive you better read all you can
Don’t wanna flunk the test, you need a better plan
You wanna drive a car, better yet drive a van
So read it, just read it

You have to show them that you're really prepared
You're playin' with your life, this ain't no truth or dare
They'll teach you, then they test you,
Then they'll tell you it's fair
So read it, if you wanna know more

Just read it, read it, read it, read it
Pick a book up and complete it
Showin' how funky and smart is your brain
To really get it, read the whole thang

Just read it, read it
Pick a book up and complete it
Read about vampires, choose the right team
Can’t put this book down or I’ll have to scream
Team Edward, Team Jacob (Jacob)

Team Edward (Edward), Team Jacob (Jacob)

(Edward & Jacob fight scene. It ends with Bella breaking up the fight)

Read it, read it

Pick a book up and complete it
Showin' how funky and smart is your brain
Want to know more? Well, read the whole thang

Just read it, read it

Pick a book up and complete it
Showin' how funky and smart is your brain
To really get it, read the whole thang

Just read it, read it,
Pick a book up and complete it
Showin' how funky and smart is your brain
To really get it, read the whole thang

Read it, read it, read it, read it
Pick a book up and complete it
Showin' how funky and smart is your brain
To really get it, read the whole thang

(fadeout)

I'd like to see a comic of badass pokemon quoting badass bible verses.

Thank you purple t-shirt lady, for ruining my self-image

Spring break is officially over for those of you keeping score at home - any time off from this point forward is time I would have during any normal school week. I still judge Spring Break by college standards even though I haven't been in college for 5 years, hence my spring breaks always seem lame. I enjoyed it though. Mostly I spent time outside with my dog sibling (that is what my parents call her, sorry) and spent time on youtube and facebook when it was rainy. I also partook (fun word) in a hobby I have not had any time for this year. I have a hobby that most people think is weird. I have a doll (and that's where you lose 99.99% of your audience). This typically gives people a mental image of the stereotypical doll collector - you know, the overweight, vaguely Southern, 40s-ish, childless and never married woman who fills deep emotional voids with meaningless pieces of china and plastic that she treats like real people. This woman also wears a lot of floor-length floral dresses and owns a lot of doilies. She also would have definitely had a beehive if we were in 1961, which we are sadly not.

This is not the Marie Osmond style of doll collecting. I was unaware that there was an entire faction of people online who collect what you might classify as "punk", "alternative" perhaps even "hipster" (no, please, nooooo) dolls. I don't know much about other types besides Blythe, but there are a LOT. There has also been a resurgent interest in vintage dolls, which Blythe is. Blythe was a doll first released in 1972 and, as this still from the commercial shows, terrified the hell out of little girls.

The element of Blythe that little girls (and their parents) found creepy was the giant eyes which change direction and color with the click of a pull string. The dolls sold poorly and were only produced for a year, wallowing in obscurity until they were rediscovered by a photographer, Gina Garan. A company in Japan bought the rights, Blythe dolls of a variety of styles were reproduced, the original dolls began selling for thousands on ebay, etc. Blythe has become extremely popular and collectible and the photography is a big part of the hobby. I've always liked photography but was never good at photographing anything or one and was easily frustrated. Objects have always been much easier for me (or anyone, I'd be willing to bet) and dolls are expressive enough to not look as boring as an apple or a vase. Plus they are pose-able and add humor and whimsy to a photo, yup I just said whimsy. It's just fun.So, to recap:





















By the way, that poster in the back says "Nuge" (like Ted Nugent???) and that particular Marie Osmond doll is "Baby Donny." So eyes that move are creepy, huh...? Anyway, enough about dolls. I think I make my point. Here is a short photo story about the dangers of gum trees:

Stereotypical and downright racist clip art, Volume 1 (Because I feel sure there will be more to come)

One of our many English standards in this great state is to teach kids how to read consumer materials, which would be a great skill to have if consumer materials were written by people who speak English. I copied some reviews of cell phones and then made up fictional "customers" who needed phones - phones that JUST SO HAPPENED to match perfectly with the reviews provided...hmmm. One such man was "James Brandt," a 37 year old "Business Executive" (I know that's an inanely broad job title - these are 7th graders people) who needs a phone with a great internet connection and clear reception (for his many international business trips.) ("Excuse me...do you have some sort of...businesswomen's special?" Important life lesson - never let a chance to quote Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion slip through your fingers.) Anyway, in the interest of diversity, James is black. I needed some type of stock photo of a black businessman. Shouldn't be hard, right? Half the clipart tags online are generic businessmen. So I Googled "black man clip art." Oh. my. jonasbrothers.

The first man to pop up was a very angry, scary looking black man who just so happened to be wearing an orange shirt.First hit, and this same clip was repeated on page one of Google THREE TIMES.

This inspired me to break down exactly what type of black man clip art digital artists think people need. My research showed the clip art designers are the most racist people on the planet.

Stereotype #1 - Angry Black Man

Here is the famous orange shirt guy. I'm not kidding - three times! Man, he is angry. This clip is probably used for wanted posters by police stations across the country when they have no leads on an actual suspect, or to scare kids in Martha's Vineyard on Halloween. Guy #2 is not only angry, but he's devious too. I'm not sure if his teeth are gold or just yellow, but he reminds me of Pete, the villain from Disney cartoons. I don't think guy #3 is necessarily inherently racist, as he could just as easily have been white. I just think it's really, really crappy clip art of an angry snaggle-toothed guy.

Stereotype #2 - Athletic Black Man

I'm definitely going to find every opportunity to use shirtless, royal blue pants wearing, tribal-tattooed, uber-buff black guy. And of course we have the black sprinters, both of whom display questionable shoe choices - loafers with tube socks? Water shoes? Also, though I'm no expert runner, I'm pretty sure neither has the greatest stride. If you're going to exploit black people for your athletic clipart needs, at least have the decency to give them suitable equipment and skills. They're making tribal guy look cool over there.

Stereotype #3 - "Funky" black guy

Future clip art designer in 1969: "Man, that Jimi Hendrix is pretty cool! One day when there's such thing as a personal computer, let's make sure that 30% of all black clipart vaguely resembles him!"

Okay, so guy #2 is more of a "mod" and I have no explanation for the lampshade guy, nor I suspect does his designer. (This is clearly some more quality work from an artist who specializes in designing pointy nosed, snaggle-toothed people.) But you have to admit that a disproportionate number of black clip art people look like Jimi Hendrix. How many real life black people look like Jimi Hendrix? I don't have the exact figures, but probably not 30%.

Non-stereotype #4 - Attentive black fathers

So this is where clipart designers are seeking redemption. They regret making themselves look racist by designing racially insensitive clip arts. They want us to forgive them and as a peace offering, they have given us an anti-stereotype - domestic black men. Rather than succeeding in winning my approval, they have instead just scared the hell out of me. I'm not sure what to think of guy #1 on the left. First of all, his child obviously has a serious untreated medical condition - he has no face and is dressed like Jesus. Who knows how that happened? I bet the clip art designers would like us to think crack. Also, I can't tell if this baby has one giant arm and one normal one, or if the man has one normal arm and one tiny one. Either way, this family is f'd. The man is either bored to tears or is on drugs (which is exactly what clipart designers were hoping we'd think.) Guy #2 doesn't even count because he's too tiny and could easily be a hotel employee. Guy #3 is obviously way into his kid and seems like a nice guy, but I can't stop staring at his purple woman sandals and his meaty guy thighs. Also he looks like he's about to eat his baby, who cowers in fear.

By the way, googling the more politically correct "African American man clipart" turned up much more passable results and I did find my James Brandt.

After this little foray, I figured that black woman clip art would be even worse. It was surprisingly innocuous and featured all the typical white woman clip art activities like gardening, yoga and wearing hats. However, I did find one that was just baffling.

Sweet Stuff

Thought I'd take a break from grading papers to share some tidbits from the students. I just like the way they word things sometimes when they don't know exactly how to say it. You should just say exactly what you mean. They had to read a recipe (informational texts, woohoo!) and answer questions about it. One of the questions asked why the cookies needed to be placed apart on the baking sheet. This student answered, "So they don't collide and bake into each other and have room to bake properly." The thought of chocolate chip cookies colliding is really brightening up my evening.

Then I found a random Valentine's Day card. On V-day I'd explained why the apostrophe goes where it does (because the day belonged to St. Valentine) and told the kids to make a card for whoever they wanted explaining why we place the apostrophe where we do. This kid's card apparently got shoved between some other papers and I just found it. He wrote it to the girl who sits by him:

The ephasterfy is there for a reason. Valentine’s Day means it is St. Valentine’s day. A day that is for a specific person or thing. So it is your day too. It’s a day for everyone to give something to someone they love, care about, or even like. This card is for you. Hope you like the design of this card I thought I would get creative. So… Happy Valentine’s Day.

More thoughtful than many Valentine's Day gifts I've recieved. This kid is doing pretty well for a 13 year old.

Best of Facebook part 1

Here are some of my facebook scraps from recent months:


This is when I realized fanning had gotten out of control:






There are totally legit explanations for this, but it still makes Brian look like a crazy person:

Somewhat contradictory...

And on to my favorite ... Jerry Spinelli is the award-winning children's author of such books as "Maniac Magee" and "Stargirl" (pictured in his profile pic.) I became a fan awhile back and this is the first time I've noticed him post anything.

(No, I didn't actually post that...I felt too bad. He won a Newbery Medal, which signifies the "Most Distinguished Contrubution to Children's Literature" Spellcheck, Jerry, Spellcheck.)