Fictional Characters I Would Date: Part Seven

I thought now would be a nice and timely opportunity to post this next entry considering all of the hullabaloo surrounding the coming “Breaking Dawn” release:

Jacob Black from the Twilight series

Now I know that 95% of Twilight fans are firmly planted on the Team Edward side of the forest.  I know that most fans even go far enough to compliment their love for Edward with an absolute loathing of Jacob.  I know this because many of my friends and even my sister adhere to that way of thinking.  I completely understand why everyone goes gaga over Edward, but I guess I just don’t get the hatred of Jacob.  I am not trying to convince anyone to switch teams, because I would fail before I even started, I just want to explain some of the reasons why I would choose to date Jacob over Edward.

1.  I would feel so much more comfortable around Jacob.  I get really intimidated around good looking guys and Edward’s picture should be in the dictionary next to good looking.  Bella always goes on and on about how she feels so uncomfortable around him and all of his perfection.  Jacob is not perfect and that is what makes him awesome.  He might not be human, but he makes mistakes just like I do and I know he could laugh right along with me when I get food all over myself or wake up with a huge pimple.  If any of that stuff happened around Edward, I would just be mortified.

2.  If I am going to snuggle up to something, I would rather it be warm and furry than cold and granite-like.  Enough said.

3.  Jacob would be fun to hang around with.  Now I am not saying that Edward doesn’t do fun stuff, but Jacob is just as fun.  We could go on lots of adventures together and he could help me conquer my fear of water, heights, and motorcycles.  He could also fix my car when it breaks down.

4.  I would feel much safer among the werewolves than the vampires.  Apparently hanging out with vampires is not a very safe thing to do.  Bella has already had so many vampires try to kill her or plan to kill her that if I were her, I would run right back to the werewolves.  They seem to keep to themselves more and not get involved in all this international intrigue stuff.  And as for the whole, “what if he gets all mad and rips half your face off?”  Well, I would say you aren’t risking much more than if you were dating a vampire.

5.  He isn’t controlling and I wouldn’t have to change for him.  Two very big problems I have with the Twilight series are Edward’s control issues and the fact that Bella will eventually have to change who she is just to be with him.  These are not good things in any relationship, no matter what reasons and excuses lay behind them.  In Eclipse Edward tries to control who Bella sees and where she goes.  Even though it is for “her own safety” it still really rubs me the wrong way every time I think about it.  If my real boyfriend did that, I would kick him to the curb so fast…

6.  Not much competition.  Eventually, when literary characters come to life and join us in the real world, I will not have to fight the huge screaming mob of 10-70 year old women fighting to be with Edward, I will casually join the queue next to Jacob and only have to worry about sharing him with a few other people.

Now I am not saying that Bella and Jacob should end up together (I would actually never say that because I think Bella is incredibly annoying and whiny and Edward and Jacob both deserve better) because we all know she is destined to be with Edward.  I just wanted to promote Team Jacob one last time before I settle down with “Breaking Dawn.”

I’ll leave you with a picture of my Jacob, Steven Straight:

Jen

Super Useful Amber Tips

1. Guitar Picks make the best pill splitters.

Me holding a guitar pick

Seems I have been taking a lot of pills lately in abnormal doses because I have been doing some frequent pill splitting. First I tried the suggested knife which always seemed to explode the pill into a million fragments, so then I switched to a metal hairpiece which worked ok, but then I picked up a random guitar pick and I have never turned back–splits it perfect everytime! Oh, and I kinda realize that the whole using-guitar-pick-to-spit-pills image seems kinda of rock scene drug queen, so let me just say to you lovely readers: Take only doctor-prescribed drugs and take them responsibly! I’m so anti-drug drugs, except for marijuana which I think is disgusting, but I think others should be able to smoke it if they wish. I mean some people probably think cowtails are disgusting, whereas I think they are the most delicious candy ever! and I would hate for cowtails to be illegal.

2. When you find yourself without your cuticle cream, your chapstick will work just fine!

chapstick = cuticle cream

Just rub some chapstick onto your finger and work it into your chapped cuticles–they will look flawless in no time! chapstick is also great to relieve chapped noses when you have a cold.

3. Use a strand of hair for emergency floss.

me with my teeth and glasses

yes I know it sounds gross, but it works! Just pluck out a piece of hair and carefully floss–carefully because hair breaks easier than floss so sometimes you have to use more than one piece. And if you are like “ew that is dead skin, I don’t want that in my teeth” um, I ask do you ever use your fingernails to get stuff out of your teeth? I hope you said yes to that question because otherwise I will feel like a really disgusting person. I used this tip alot back in high school cheerleading before varsity games when I would sit and eat popcorn while stretching. Yum, I love concession stand food. OOOh, if you are ever at the Burlington Stadium–fyi they make the BEST walking tacos. You all know how much I love my walking tacos.

and that has been some handy tips from Amber that she collected while avoiding writing a very long final paper…

amberj.

Bring It On, Santa Monica Public Library

Watch out, Santa Monica Public Library–now that this nerdgirl and her nerdy friends have been introduced to the world of competitive book cart drilling, you are going to have some serious competition next year at the ALA Annual in Chicago. OOOO, the spirit of cheerleadering is bubbling up in me and it feels good. ew, no that is just my French Onion soup from Panera that I ate when I went to the mall to read “Airhead” by Meg Cabot. Yes, I go to the mall to read. Anyway— We will be BRINGIN’ IT.

Here is what we have to beat–the Well Stacked Cybraians performing at ALA:

Oh the costume changes! the pinwheel! the MOONWALKING! If I hadn’t learned the importance of not stealing another team’s routines from a certain life-altering cinematic achievement that entered theaters in August 2000 at the beginning of my second season of high school cheerleading, I would be running with this. or moonwalking with it… because I love to moonwalk… and rollerskate.

So the awesomeness of the ALA conference in Anaheim this summer was so massive that I seemed to just have skipped over blogging about it all together. Free books, Disneyland, and meeting Jon Scieszka and Mo Willems (who autographed my book “to Amber, the somewhat fantastic” which I would of taken as a compliment except that I asked it to be “to Amber, the fantastic” so he was actually knocking me down a peg which I’m sure I needed) left me overwhelmed. Who knew being a librarian could be so fabulous?!

amberj.

Submit your ideas…and stuff!

Hola chums,

Howdy from the land of country music and my current and ongoing unemployment.  You know, job searching really sucks when all the advertisements for the kind of job you’re looking for require you to either have a PhD or 5-10 years of experience in industry.  It’s like no one wants to hire new graduates.  Bah.  I also really hate how I’ve emailed like 5 different people to look at my resume for me on Sunday, but no one has replied with even a little email saying they’ll get to it later.  Well, I hate that I feel left waiting, I don’t hate the people – I know that they are super busy and aren’t obligated to do me any favors.  Anyhow – so for the past few weeks now, I have spent my days sleeping in, job searching, rewriting my resume, reading YA books like it’s my job, watching Daria episodes on Youtube, and not showering until 5 in the afternoon (…it’s almost 5, so I’ll be quick about this post).  

Today I decided that it would be fun for me to take a minute or two out of my super exciting day every now and then to do a new NGB post, where instead of writing, I discuss something and record it, then put it up on the blog…so like a vlog, I think is what they call them?  Ugh, do you remember when us 20-somethings were considered technologically advanced?  Yeah, I don’t think I am so much anymore – I’m sure any 12 year old could do way better with computers and the interweb and all that junk than me.  I spent 5 minutes this morning looking through my cell phone manual to figure out what an icon meant, only to figure out that it meant I had missed a call.  Wow.  But anyways, this is where you all come in.  For this vlog/blog post, I would like to talk about something that might actually interest you, the readers, instead of something that probably only me (and Amber and Jen, hopefully) would think is entertaining.  So submit your ideas in the comments!  Hopefully I’ll actually get some feedback.  So far my ideas include: commentaries on weird news, discussing Twilight stuff…trying to talk like a southerner (which in my opinion, I am starting to soak up a little bit), whatever book I’m currently reading…  you know..stuff like that.

So let me know your opinions kids!  (Don’t be offended by me calling you kids, I call everyone a kid – case in point, when I worked in a lab, I called all the graduate students my grad kids…but then I think in that case it sounded funnier than it would have anywhere else).

<3, lindsayF

Found in a used books store

Ahhhhhh Used Books stores are awesome!!!! I have been frequenting them more than usual lately because I am searching for a copy of Dodie Smith’s “A Starlight Barking”–the sequel to her lovely lovely book “101 Dalmatians” on which the lovely lovely disney movie was based on. (She also is the author of my FAVORITEST BOOK EVER “I CAPTURE THE CASTLE” read it). I really should just buy it off Ebay or Amazon, but the searching is kinda fun. Especially when like yesterday I found this neat little gem: “Pronunciation Dictionary of Artists’ Names.” Might as well just call this book “Gold.” Do you know how to pronounce Cimabue?

Madonna and Jesus by Cimabue

you should probably find this book and save your life. If only I could find a Pronunciation book of World Leaders. . . so I don’t make that little Stalin blunder ever again..

amberj.

Legos Galore!!!

This weekend was a huge weekend for me professionally speaking. I was responsible for bringing the Northern Illinois Lego Train Club to our library. I have been talking with the president of the club for months and this weekend it finally happened. There were a few little hiccups along the way, but mostly it was amazing, perfect, wonderful, and really really awesome.

These guys came and set up for 8 hours on Friday and then displayed their stuff all day Saturday and Sunday. We had over 1500 people come to see it!!!! Everyone was raving about how great everything was. There was a huge Chicago display, a Harry Potter display, Indiana Jones, Futurama, Star Wars, just to name a few. Here are some pics to give you a taste of what it looked like:

If you look really close you can see Superman on top of the Sears Tower. The best thing about the display was all of the little characters that would pop up in normal scenes. There were Storm Troopers everywhere, and occasionally you would see Hagrid hanging out at a pizza place. It was a such a great weekend, but I am so exhausted now.

There are some more pictures posted at my flickr account here.

My camera batteries died before I got to the Harry Potter display, but I am going to upload some pictures from the library camera soon, so there will be more coming.

Jen

Update:  I put up the rest of the pics!!!

Storytime with Jen

One of the highlights of my week is opening the mailbox to see my shiny Entertainment Weekly smiling up at me.  Since I have been super busy this week, I hadn’t had a chance to look through the latest issue.  I was also kind of saving it because I knew it was all about Twilight and it would be a nice treat on my day off.  Well, first off I looked at the cover:

On first glance I was very excited, but as I looked closer I was like, “Ugh! Ick!  Why does Edward look dead?  Not sexy-vampire-dead, but actual CSI dead???  Also, please button up your shirt!  No one wants to see your not really hairy, but not really smooth pasty British chest!!!”

After the initial shock, I opened up the magazine to a very pleasant sight:

Woohoo!!!  I am so excited for this movie!  I saw the show in London and it was pretty much the greatest thing ever!!!  I can’t wait to see Colin Firth sing and hopefully dance!

In a much better mood now, I continued to flip through the magazine until I got another shock.  This is the actual ad from inside the magazine:

Here is a closeup:

It totally freaked me out!!!  Now I know that my name is on the outside of the magazine, blah blah blah, but putting my name in an ad…………eeeks!!!  It makes me feel all paranoid that there are cameras watching me everywhere and little robots monitoring my every move, which would only be okay if they were all like Wall-e (oh how I love Wall-e……….everyone should go see that movie now……..take tissues!).  Maybe it is not all that freaky to some people, but it still gives me the heebie jeebies every time I open the magazine.

Other than being stalked by my magazine, things are going well.  There is a whole menagerie of wildlife outside on my porch using the birdfeeder including a black squirrel, a chipmunk, and some rather intimidating pigeons.  I also got a random hug from a five year old boy who was in my storytime group last fall, it was very sweet and made my whole summer.  Right now I am gearing up for my family reunion, the Breaking Dawn release, and Terminus!!!!

The Googling – when Google gets a little too personal

So I was perusing mentalfloss.com this morning (great site, you should all go there and/or read the magazine), and I clicked on one of their morning cup o’ links sites.  It led me to a video of 2 guys who see something they shouldn’t using Google Moon.  Then I clicked on over to their youtube site and found that there was a series of videos called The Googling.  I have posted them below for your viewing pleasure.  I found them exceptionally hilarious.  Enjoy!

<3, lindsayF

 

I speaketh Shakespeare in my Sleepeth

So last week I attended Riverside Theater‘s performances of A Comedy of Errors and The Winter’s Tale which were the shows of this year’s Shakespeare Festival in Iowa City. Finally I attended the Shakespeare Festival!!!! that only took five years of attending the University of Iowa, sheesh. Although to be fair, this is only my third summer spent in Iowa City—Although to also be fair, that is still way lame of me since both of my apartments have been only a block away from Lower City Park and the lovely Festival Stage!

Actually it was on this stage on a very humid humid day in late summer 2006 that Lindsay and I laid out with our library books on podcasting and worked out the details of NerdGirlTalking. We had planned on going to the pool, but it cost a dollar more than expected–and we had only brought exactly what we needed since our money was in for-laundry quarters–very heavy. It was also cloudy so we didn’t get tan, but not like we get tan anyway. Pale and Proud and skin cancer free! (hmm, except for the skin cancer part–already been there, done that, despite the massive amounts of sunscreen I applied since I was 12 and that “Wear Sunscreen” song was popular.)

OK, so I finally go to the Shakespeare Festival!!!! the year that Iowa City is massively flooded, including Lower City park and that beautiful Festival Stage—but seeing the plays in gnat-free, air-conditioned City High Theater was probably preferable since I do not like being outside in the summer anyway (I would so rather shiver than sweat—-it is way cuter and less disgusting and more energizing—that is three bonuses of winter over summer). THE PLAYS WERE AMAZING!!!! Although I had read The Winter’s Tale and was thus more familiar with it, A Comedy of Errors was my favorite. But I won’t really go into that, because, hey–the festival is over now, so why go on and on about plays you can’t go see anymore??? oh but do go next year!!!! and donate to Riverside, they need it badly!!!

So I love how when I first start watching a Shakespeare play/movie/etc I always feel like my brain has switched on the language scrambler, but only for the first ten minutes or so and then things start to make more sense—like I’ve got a really lazy babelfish in my ear. And then by intermission, I’m all “Gosh dang it, why don’t we speak like that anymore?! We sound positively boring,” but “no big deal, things change, la de da.” BUT THEN, my brain goes all mimic on me! This isn’t such a big deal when I’m in the South, because then people just think I’m Southern—but I doubt mimic-ing Shakespeare speak is going to make people think I’m Elizabethean. Especially because I can’t even mimic it properly–I have no idea what I’m saying, but brain just starts thinking in thou’s and ith’s and cuckolds and flattery OH MY! And it doesn’t make any sense at all, but my brain won’t stop. It just keeps trying as if it thinks eventually brilliant poetic language will start pouring out. I know better, and so I keep my mouth shut and tried to distract my brain with reading and reality television. But sleeping became very difficult last week–for Shakespeare lurks in the dark and the quiet!!!!

Do not despair though, my cousin Kelly came to visit me and after watching hours of Project Runway and Shear Genius this weekend, I think my brain is back to “normal.” However, I also learned that my brain is never “normal” according to Kelly because I prefer crew neck sweatshirts to hoodies. More on that discussion later.

My three favorite Shakespeare movie adaptations:
Romeo and Juliet–the Claire Danes/Leonard DiCaprio version—I remember in junior high when my mom rented this for me during my Titantic phase–I love my mom.
10 Things I Hate About You—most quotable movie of my generation, me thinks
She’s the Man because Amanda Bynes is HILARIOUS.

much loveth
amberj.

Pedialyte is not just for children

Howdy folks,

It’s been quite a while since my last post.  I loved the posts before me about Jen’s cat stroller and Everwood.  I remember Everwood – I watched the first season but then after that I became disinterested because Amy turned into kind of a bitch (or at least I think she did…forgive me, it’s been a few years).  And then I remember Ephraim was going to sleep with their housekeeper or something like that, and I was all like, OK, if it’s not Amy and Ephraim than it’s nothing.  Maybe I need to give it another shot though.  Ugh.  I have been holed up in my apartment down here in Nashville for the past few days suffering from terrible stomach problems.  I’m not going to say what all the problems are, but I think you’re all old enough to figure this one out.  Anyways, on Monday night we said enough is enough and ventured out to our local Kroeger’s (is this a national food store?  I think I might remember a Kroeger’s being in the Quad Cities but I know that area is more dominated by HyVee.  Anyway, we ventured to the Kroeger and bought some soup and yogurts and stuff like that, and we also got some Pedialyte.  I remember Amber saying she got some when she had the flu (oh boy was that a horrible time…for me!….hahahaha, no it was worse for Amber – she was the one throwing up for almost 24 hours straight…I got of lucky), but that since she was an adult her mom got her the unflavored kind.  So thanks to Amber, I got the grape flavor.  Let me say that it is mighty tasty and made me feel almost instantly better (quick fix though).  

So anyways, the Pedialyte.  The grape flavor was delicious.  The orange flavor wasn’t bad, but it smelled like medicine, so it is by far inferior to the grape.  Also, we got the Kroeger brand of the grape flavor and it tastes exactly the same and is $3 cheaper than the Pedialyte brand.  So if ever you guys get the flu or anything else where you need to stay hydrated, I highly recommend Pedialyte or Kroeger “pedialyte”, but only in the grape flavor.  Unless you get off on the medicine smell, then I recommend you try orange.

In other news, last week Amber went to California for a librarian conference, and brought me books!  I finally got around to reading An Abundance of Katherines by John Green (not my favorite book, but not a bad one either), and I started reading a book called Chessie Bligh and the Scrolls of Andelthor by Thora something, but I do not like it yet, so until I finish the book I will reserve total judgement.  I read Sarah Prineas’s new children’s book, The Magic Thief (for those of you Iowa readers, I hope you might recognize Sarah’s name, as she was/(maybe is still?) the university’s honors program coordinator.  I got dropped from the program after freshman year (hahahahaha, but I still used their building for free hot chocolate and popcorn), but I always will remember the name Prineas because I think she sent out like an email a day, plus then her husband is the head of a physics lab that’s in the IATL and his office is right next to my friend Josh’s, so whenever I visited Josh (which varied from once to five times a day, depending on how bored or mischievous I was feeling) I would have to see his door.  I think I almost stopped reading her book after like 3 chapters because I really didn’t like it, but then I powered through because Amber encouraged me (yay Amber!) and I ended up loving it.  I even went and bought a copy of the book for myself (because I had to give Amber hers back).  So everyone go out and read The Magic Thief by Sarah Prineas!  Yeah!  Amber also gave me a book called The 13th Reality by James Dashner, which I totally loved!  And I also started Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper, which is OK right now.  Have you ever noticed in all those older books that there are always housekeepers or cooks?  Or am I off base here?  

Anyways, I have some ice cream calling my name.  That’ll feel nice in my belly.

<3s to y’all,

lindsayF