A Little Something New

So, I just spent the better part of an hour (because, let's face it, that this point you all know it goes without saying that I have nothing better to do with my life) getting the stupid new playlist in my sidebar to work. And now it does. So I hope you enjoy it; I added some of my favorite music esspecially for you and will hopefully continue to add and edit it as my musical ADD kicks in. Let me know what you think, if the autostart is annoying, my song selection is cliche, my color choice is bad...etc. New semester, new sidebar gadgets!!

Hockadoo!

I <3 Books

So, I've always been a huge bookworm and as such I found this survey on stumbleupon.com and wanted to try it. Decided to post it here so everyone could check themselves...just out of curiousity. Leave a comment with the number you've read....

Instructions: Put the books you've read in bold. The BBC apparently believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here: instead I'm putting the ones I've read in red and the ones I've read some of, or attempted to read in yellow.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaube
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

So BBC, that makes 23 read and eight more attempted. Not bad, but still less that a quarter of the list, although I'm pretty proud that many of these I read on my own, not for school, but still! Damn, I'd better get a move on!! And don't be shy! Post how many you've read (no name needed if you don't want to) plus and suggestions from this list that I haven't read (or finished) that I should would be fantastical! Hockadoo!
 
Currently reading: The Complete Collection of the Brothers Grimm (210 stories!)

WOW: Word of the Week

2KX (noun): an abbreviation for the year 2010 which, when I tried to post the deffinition from urbandictionary.com, was not really given a great deffinition because the first person to post it wrote that the 'K' was the roman numberal for thousand (it's M). But I like it nonetheless and, for the record, the poor soul who is now being cyber-bullied on urbandictionary due to his mistake was probably thinking of the prefix 'kilo' meaning thosand when he wrote it. He gets my vote though.

And, the sometimes present Elvish Phrase of the Week! (note that I call these things 'of the week' even though their posting is sporatic and not at all weekly. So sue me, it's my blog.)

Feeling insulted? Want something unique and clever to tell off the scurvy dog who made a stab at your dignity? Why not tell them in a long-dead, Tolkien-invented language! That'll show them! Try these handy translations!

Llie n'vanima ar' lle atara lanneina. (You're ugly and your mother dresses you funny.)
Lle naa haran e' nausalle. (You are king in your imagination.)
or the ever popular:
Auta miqula orqu. (Go kiss an orc.)

And That's How Krysti Sees It.

There are a lot of things wrong with this world. A. Lot. But it's not like you needed me to tell you that. Hell, according to my mom ever since I walked out of the womb (no messy birthing process, I walked out. Ever the classy one.) I've been telling her all the stuff that wrong with the world and how it 'should be done.' So I decided to make an entry of it (as you might be able to tell, as my time NOT at College wanes as do my availablity of interesting subject matter/topics for blog posts. Heck, I might just catch a ride back to school with HB solely so my blog gets more interesting!). Plus, if Sue Sylvester can do it, I figure so can I. So here it is, my first ever list of recently enountered problems with society accompanied by my commentary (of couse) and proposed solution (sidenote: I do realise society has actual real problems, immigration, healthcare, the economy, forign realtions, etc. but I am sad to say that I am nowhere near informed enough to make this blog go political and present a solid argument, so I'm not even going to try. I swear I am not just another teenager blind to everything but MTV and beer pong).

1. 
   
   Ugg boots. I've touched on them before, I know, and I won't spend too long on them. But I'm just saying, that $200 for a 'ehh' looking pair of boots that go with nothing? Let me just quickly review what $200 can do instead of buy fugly boots: 4+ tanks of gas, 20 movie tickets (that's sad), 200 cups of McDonald's coffee, about 65 cups of Starbucks coffee, feed two Pakistani children for a year, or get Over 260 delicious school cookies. Just saying.
   
   
   
2. 
   
   Kristin Stewart's Acting Skills: well, considering the problem is that this doesn't exist, I can't really propose a solution. Other than sending your Ugg money to Ms. Stewart to get some acting lessons. And, on that note:
   
   
   
3. 
   
   Bella Swan: That's right ladies, our ancestors fought tooth and nail to get us equal rights so we can lay down and let a 107 year-old virgin with a disco stick do everything for us. What a role model for young girls. Forget the bicycle, a woman needs a man like Kristin Stewart needs acting lessons, apperently.
   
   
   
4. 
   
   Childhood Books Becoming Movies: How are parents supposed to share their favorite childhood books with their kids if they've all been turned into mediocre films? And how are parents supposed to encourage their kids to read if there are no quality classics to read them at bedtime? Everything from Cat in the Hat to Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs has made it to the silver screen. I swear though, if Goodnight Moon becomes a movie I will never go to a movie theatre ever again.
   
   
   
5. 
   
   The Lack of Drive-In Movie Theatres: I blame Greece for reminding me what a problem this is. I have never in my life even seen a drive-in, let alone go to one! What better way to bring families together and save the movie industry that resurecting a few of these puppies, charging per carload and popping in a double feature with an 90's nicktoon in between? I'll bring the popcorn.
   
   
   
6. 
   
   Ke$ha: You know, that wannabe really hardcore chick that sings that ridiculously addicting song 'Tik Tok' about feeling like P.Diddy and brushing her teeth with Jack Daniels. Although I'm happy that she and other female artists are currently dominating the top of the Billboard chart, I don't really know if that's exactly what I want the next step in equality to be...I mean "Ain't got a care in world, but got plenty of beer/Ain't got no money in my pocket, but I'm already here/And now, the dudes are lining up cause they hear we got swagger/But we kick em to the curb unless they look like Mick Jagger"?? I've deffinatly heard worse, but to be the chart topping hit of '09. Possible solutions: burned at the stake, use Ugg money to buy her some class, hire her a new lyricist, someone find the rest of her clothes? Maybe check the last place her dignity was spotted?
   
   
   
7. 
   
   Jersey Shore: Oh MTV you've done it again. possible solution: cancelation, brainwash of anyone unfortunate enough to have seen it. Before it's too late! (haha, the headline kills me.)
   
   
   
8. 
   
   Not Recycling: I don't care if you believe climate change is man-made, a natural cycle, or caused by killer manatees living on Pluto. Recycling is just flat out better for everyone and is becoming increasingly easier as more and more people start realising that we are not simply living on a flawless, endless reserve of oil. Not to swing your arm that extra 30 to 40 degrees to get your can or bottle to a recycling bin is not only lazy, it's downright shameful. It is quite possibly the easiest way to help the earth, regardless of who or what is causing global warming. Even it is the Plutonian manatees, it can't hurt for them to have a cleaner planet to take over. Possible solutions: sucker-punch non-recyclers in the face, more recycling bins closer and more convieniently located.
   
   
   

That's all I can come up with for now (believe me, it won't be long until I think of even more pressing issues of today's world. Also, I've just discovered how to insert links into my writing so from now on keep your eyes peeled for hidden links filled with all sorts of odds and ends I find surfing the web in my overabundance of spare time. G'night all!

Please excuse the terrible late-night webcam picture...

Some Art, But Be Warned...

...it's a bit risqué. I'm just saying.

I was on stumbleupon.com the other day and seeing as I checked 'art' as one of my interested, a lot of times it will bring me to online galleries. This one I felt like I needed to share. The artist, David Kawena, is extremely talented, not to mention creative. His 'Disney Heroes' series focuses on bringing each of Disney's male heroes 'to life,' putting them each in modeling poses and drawing them as realistically as possible. Now here's the catch (for those of you wondering why the warning was in the title). Mr. Kawena took his theme to a bit of an extreme, and each hero is posed as, well, a male underwear model. Take that as you will, don't judge me for putting it here. Dispite it's slightly off-kilter subject matter, the concept and craftsmenship are phenominal (as are many artists on deviantart - take a look around!!). Below is one of the tamer ones, for those with less tolerence for, what could essentially be viewed as cartoon nudity. Hopefully you enjoy it. If not COMMENT ME (I love comments) and I'll make sure my future efforts to bring art into my blog are a bit less contriversial (that's sort of a lie, I post what I want...).

Damn, now we know who put the 'glad' in 'gladiator.'

Spotted Around Campus: High School Edition

So, aside from the regular rag-tag band of awkward and hormonal adolecents usually spotted hanging around when I visited my high school, I spotted (well, to be accurate, almost ran over) this oddity:

Imperial Stormtrooper:

Now, I had always had my suspicions about the inner workings of CRS but never in my wildest imaginings had I dreamed of suspecting Vader as he culprit! What would he want with a (seemingly) harmless high school? But then I started thinking and the pieces just marched themself into place; the bomb threats, the odd (and illegal) shenanigans of the teachers, the smell surrounding the cafeteria everyday....and now solid PROOF that Lord Vader has in fact had a hand in my education. I can only hope and pray that the proper authories might find this blog and take preventitive actions to stop DV and his evil plot to influence the already chaotic establishment that is and American High School.

Wow! A Bright and Shiny New Year!! Whatta We Do With It?

Okay, so I'm not one to make resolutions, namely because I break them quite frequently. Plus, I'm the type to do only two types of things: things that need to be done and things that I want to do. Resolutions really, as much as we tell ourselves we want to do them (lose weight, quit smoking, grow a beard, clean out our closet, etc,) deep down we know the only reason these things are our resolutions is because we really want them to happen but lack the capacity to actually do them. In short, resolutions are big Debbie Downers and I disapprove. I do, however approve of goals. Which are different because they are much more reasonable than resolutions. In terms of a family complex analogy, goals are the hard-working, level-headed brother who gets a modest but steady income while resolutions are the hippy, happy-go-lucky brother who the parents somehow adore and make out to be much more than what he really is. So, instead of setting myself up for disappointment at the hands of my unreachable resolutions, I am writing a list, not of goals, but of things that I would like to do/see happen in the coming year. They range from the practical to the fantastic (in fact, many of them I have no hand in at all!) but I am not resolving to do them so if they don't happen I'm only mildly disappointed. This is another of my philosophys, which may be seen as pessimism, but I call is practicality. Appear to dream small but secretly have a huge and ridiulous dream hidden behind the smoke and mirrors of your small dream. That way you won't get too disappointed if things don't work out but if they do you get really pleasently surprised.

Moving on:

THINGS I WOULD LIKE TO DO/HAVE HAPPEN IN 2010

• Disney to continue in their tradition of classic, hand-animated, musical princess movies.
• To continue to get my current GPA or higher.
• To take an epic roadtrip to the Midwest to see the stars, I hear they're amazing.
• Stop drinking soda. It's terrible, it's my Achillie's heel, it's my scotch after a hard day's work and it really needs to stop.
• To make an epic 'parody/remake' of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romace" video. In a car. (okay this one is a bit far fetched, but I have this insane vision in my head of the whole thing...oh well, that's for another blog post)
• For a large-scale Harry Potter Conference to come to Philly!! Since Infinicus 2010 is in freaking Flordia and is wayyy out of my budget.
• To partake in a show of some sort. I've actually secretly always wanted to be in some sort of play (and by play I mean musical) but never had the balls to actually do it. But hey! 2010 is a new decade, so maybe I'll actually grow a pair and try out! Then again, maybe not...
• For Darren Criss to perform AVPM again, preferably somewhere accessable to me. If not, I'll make it accessable to me! [Sidenote: for all you AVPM fans- THE SEQUEL IS COMING - SUMMER 2010!]
• My room to be cleaned out/organised when I move back in during the summer.
• Get to my school's senior prom! And wear the kickass $20 dress I got last year.
• Go to a Pennsbury Prom. I would call this a life goal really. I want to go so badly. In fact, if anyone here can make this happen, I'll build your entire float at no cost if you can get me to a Pennsbury prom. Unless you're an asshole, in which case, ah hell I'd still do it.
• Have President Obama have great sucess 'fixing' the country. I'm kind of sick of political criticism, and I'm not just saying that as a supporter or our current president, I'm saying that as a concerned citizen who's paying for social security I'm probably never going to see and programs that aren't working. I'd really like to see some solutions in 2010, whether it be from Democrats, Republicans, Green Party members, or a roaming band of minstrels. I don't care. Just fix the economy, Afghanistan, health care, immigration, or all of the above.
• To have my group's camp talent show routine kick butt. Don't ask me why, this is one of those ideas that just come to me while driving with my iPod on shuffle. I just envision things along with songs. Basically I'm insane. I know.
• A new haircut would be nice, seeing as I've been rocking the same style since like 5th grade...
• QUESTWEEK '10. Need I say more?
• See 'Herculese' made into a Broadway musical. Always a dream of mine. Unless Bean & I made the stageshow first....
• Have Alan Menkin get back with Disney for their movies.
• To have Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (both parts) be worthy of having itself affiliated with the book series.
• Finally get my mom to consistantly use reuseable bags when she goes shopping. It's an ongoing process.
• Reset my biological clock so all my blog posts aren't from after 12 midnight...(happy 2am everyone)

So there you have it. A sort of goals/hope/to do list for 2010. Hope you all enjoyed and are starting to work on your 2k10 lists as well. G'night all!

Happy 2k10!

So, contrary to popular believe (or at least what I assume all of you have started to believe seeing as I haven't posted on here since LAST YEAR) I am not dead. Nor have I been abducted by aliens, forced into hiding by the government, been critically injured, or have begun a highly secretive underground jedi training program. And considering the amount of time I've been stuck at home sans Questmobile, it is rather surprising that I haven't posted. But, regardless of the past. Here I am. And speaking of the aformentioned vehicle, let's all have a moment of rememberence of the ol' QW:

You were a good van. In fact, I would go so far as to say you were a fucking great van (And I don't use italics lightly...). Given to my by the hands of fate mere weeks after I got my licence, when you were replaced by my family by the more modern 'Green.' You were always number one in my heart. Helping me to illegally park in the honors lot for the last two months of school senior year, transporting us in various states of questing, and accompanying us on our various adventures. You were the Shadowfax to my Gandalf, the Millenium Falcon to my Han Solo, the Firebolt to my Harry Potter...and you are sorely missed QM. Now more than ever. No, really. I honestly miss the days where I could actually drive places when I wanted to and wasn't at the mercy of a higher power to dictate when I was worthy of using a car. Like; I miss you hardcore.

Phew! Now that that's out of my system (could you tell there's recently been a power stuggle in my home over car usage? Probably not, I'm pretty sublte).

Hope that everyone had a happy holiday season, doing whatever it is your family does. I know I did. Although after the first half of my family asking the same exact questions about college and making the same awkward innuendos to my excessive partying (yeah, okay) I was ready to take my presents and run...but II stuck it out. Because that's the kind of trooper I am (and, as previously mentioned, it would have taken awhile to appeal to a higher power for a gettaway car and by the time my paperwork went through reserving my the time slot for our van my relatives would have caught me and probably force fed me the whole casserole dish of carrots-n-turnips (a holiday dinner staple at my table...which I will not touch). Other than that, all was merry and bright. Sadly I only got two and a half of the gifts I asked for in my last post, but don't worry, the half of a gift was not the pony. No animals were harmed for my Christmas gifts. Kwanza was also quite joyous for me. As had become tradition, we visited Red Robin and exchanged gifts and left messagages for future patrons in the promotional ginderbread house boxes. I recieved a mini-harmonica! Speaking of which, also sighted this holiday season, everyone's favorite traveling companion: Harmonica boy!! He came over to pick up his brother leaving me stranded and caught like a deer in headlights in my kitchen and in pajammas. I took shelter and didn't move until he had left, so I didn't actually see or interact with him. But don't worry, there's still a story! More for the class-o-meter too: he got caught plagerising on a final. Yeah. According to him (as overheard when my mother asked him about it) the essay question asked him to define a term and then explain its relevence in the course. So of course, he writes word for word the textbook definition....BECAUSE THAT'S NOT THE TEXTBOOK DEFINITION OF PLAGIRISM OR ANYTHING! And he didn't think there was anything wrong with that. Really!? Is it that hard to change WORD ORDER at the very least!? All in all, he got a zero on that portion, bringing his grade in the class from an A to a C(ish). *sigh* Other than that; released my inner child and saw Disney on ice, in a tiara. EPIC. Tiana (from Princess and the Frog which was also SO GOOD) had her own number. Plus the villians, princesses, Lilo and Stich, Alice in Wonderland, and Jack Skellington all had numbers! So what if we were most likely the only ones there under 20 who weren't with kids!? It was fantastic!

Anyway, that's what going on with me for the time being, I think I'm going tp put up some typical best of/worst of 2009 list later, but haven't given it much thought, so I'll leave you with a video instead. I really want to try this:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/26Rqkg/www.youtube.com/watch%253Fv%253DeoIGwLq9irk

Wishing everyone a happy remainder of break! Live long and prosper!!