An Important Announcement

I just completed a guest post on my brother's blog. Please go and read it! Or better yet, just go and check out his bl0g and leave a comment. He's trying to spread the word and having a hard time of it. So tell your friends, your family, your coworkers.... um.... whatever! Or just go look at it. If you think it's cool, make sure you comment, because he LOVES comments.

By the way, I'm very proud of my post. It took 2 hours to write. Phew!

Random Movie Clip: Night at the Museum

Yes, it's that time again. Here's a clip from one of my favorite movies, Night at the Museum. Larry is a night guard at the Musuem of Natural History. The cool thing is, everything in the Museum comes to life at night. Larry's been having a bit of trouble with Attila the Hun, and here's his attempt to finally make peace with the guy...



Of course, Night at the Museum is available from Amazon.com. That's where I got my copy, since you can get really good deals on DVD by checking the used copies. If you haven't seen it yet, you need to at least rent this movie. It's a good one!

Review: Half Human

Half-human edited by Bruce Coville

This collection of short stories is entirely unique. Containing nine short stories by some of the leading fantasy YA writers (including Tamora Pierce, Bruce Coville, Nancy Springer, and Jane Yolen) this book explores people that are not quite human, and animals that are not fully animals. You’ll find the expected selkie, mermaid, and boy with wings stories. But what about a princess who is half-dragon? Or a tree that has become human, but is still a tree at heart? An absolutely amazing variety is contained in these pages. The characters are torn between the situations, appearances, and emotions of two worlds and must learn how to find their place. I must admit that the illustrations for the stories are a little strange, but the stories are absolutely magical. So don’t let the creepy Photoshop pages stop you! A great collection, featuring a wide range of stories and viewpoints. Not to be missed!

Shady Glade Rating: 8/10

Shuffling Meme

Well, as most of you know, work has kept me busy lately, and this blog has been sort of neglected in the process. So I've built up a couple of memes along the way. So look for a few of these to be slipped in along the way.

This one I happened to see on Becky's Book Reviews.

1. Open your iTunes library or iPod (or MP3 player or whatever you have)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that’s playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don’t lie and pretend you're cool…

Like Becky, I'm going to ignore any audio book tracks. I'm warning you, I have a lot strange stuff on my iPod...


Opening Credits
"They Can't Take That Away From Me" from Crazy for You

Waking Up
"A Real Fine Place to Start" by Sara Evans (No, I didn't cheat!)

First Day of School
"Bradenburg Concerto" by Bach

Falling in Love
"The Medallion Calls" from Pirates of the Caribbean

Breaking Up
"You'll Never Walk Alone" by the Tabernacle Choir

Prom
"Under the Sea" from Little Mermaid on Broadway

Life’s OK
"Would You Love Me" by Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband

Mental Breakdown
"Dear Old Shiz" from Wicked

Driving
"Love to Love You" by The Corrs

Flashback
"Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol

Getting Back Together
"Over the Rainbow" from The Wizard of Oz

Wedding
"Don't Blink" by Kenny Chesney

Birth of a Child
"No One Mourns the Wicked" from Wicked

Final Battle
"Evacuating London" from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

Death Scene
"Linus and Lucy" by Vince Guaraldi (Okay, that's going to sound a little weird)

Funeral Song
"For Good" from Wicked

End Credits
"IllumiNations" from the EPCOT at Walt Disney World

So there you have it. I'm not going to tag anyone (since this is so old) but feel free to participate if you haven't done it!

Random Movie Clip: Simon's Cat

So I told you these would be coming. I recently discovered the genius of a short animated series called Simon's Cat. If you have a cat, you'll be able to sympathize with these two clips. I never get tired of watching these...

Cat-Man-Do (Wake Up):



Let Me In:

News and Updates: June 2008 Edition

Hello everyone!

I've actually got some free time tonight, so I thought I'd actually take an oppertunity to do a little catch up posting and let you all know what's going on. So if you find these kind of posts boring, I apologize. You can just skip over this one. I don't mind, I promise.

Now, I know I've mentioned my new Disney blog before, and my regular readers know that I'm a bit of a Disney nut. Well, if you're into that sort of thing, my brother just started his own Disney blog called Disney on the Brain. Check it out if you're inclined.

So here's what else is new. I've discovered the wonderful ability of Blogger's new (well, for me anyway) feature to schedule future posts. So hopefully I'll be able to set up a few future posts for you here. I've just found a file with some miscellanous book reviews I've missed, including a bunch I wrote for YABC but never cross posted. So look for those coming soon. Of course, I'm also working on some new reviews too, but hopefully these will help keep you busy. :-) I also have about 3 memes and two or three other posts that I have planned out, so look for those as well.

The last piece of news is that I'm planning on starting a new feature soon too. I'm sure most of you have noticed I love YouTube, and part of that comes from my love of movies. So I'm going to have random movie clip posting days, where I'll post a movie clip for your viewing pleasure. Yeah, it may be a silly idea, but I'm having fun with it.

Anyway, I think that's about it. But now it's really late, so I am going to bed for tonight. But look for the new stuff coming soon!

Random: Why I Love YouTube

So I was browsing on YouTube today and guess what I found. It's a clip from the closing ceremonies for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Take a look:

So what's special about this? Well, if you wait until about 3.5 minutes in, you'll notice a bunch of tumblers in gold using the trampolines shaped like giant Xs. In addition to being very cool to watch, this is special because my Dad built both of those trampolines.



You rock, Dad. Now you're on the internet. :-) Happy Father's Day, early!