random facts

so i went to seattle for christmas and visited some family there, so that is why i didn't post on christmas. sorry. i hope everyone had a great christmas. on my way home, my plane got delayed from 8am to 11pm that night. so i was stuck in the airport all the time, for i didn't have a car. so while waiting for my plane that night, i was goofing off on my droid phone. i downloaded an app that gave you just random facts. well there were some facts about writing and the english language and i thought i would share them with all of you. i will comment that i'm typing it straight from the app, so don't mind that bad grammar, it's not me, it's the app. hehe.

~ stewardesses is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
~ it was accepted practice in babylon 4000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month we know today as the honeymoon.
~ in shakespear's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. when you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. hence the phrase 'goodnight, sleep tight'.
~ no word in the english language rhymes with month, orange, silver or purple.
~ the first novel ever written on a typewritter was tom sawyer.
~ the longest one-syllable word in the english language is 'screeched.'

xkcd

there's this great comic called xkcd which is a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math and language. and there are some great literature and language comics in this comic that i thought i would share some of them. hope you enjoy them as much as i do.

alternate energy revelution
certainty (for all you teachers)
tag combination (great thinking on one's feet)
skateboarding is not a crime (censorship? no, it's ok)
literally
emoticon
hitler (actually about art, but had to share)
the raven
i will find you (about love, but my absolute favorite comic)
ted talk
fortune cookies
pick up lines (not so great thinking on one's feet)
microSD (it's so true about library's for me)
leaving (what you say is important)

maya angelou's cooking advice

maya angelou has recently published a cooking book. and it is actually with cooking recipes from her. but what i'm posting about is that she was interviewed by npr and she was quoted saying this:

"You need the best ingredients when you're going to cook," she says. "The writer has to take some nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, et cetera, and boil them up in such a way that you can throw them against the wall and they'll bounce."


i thought this was a great quote, that i just had to share. you can read the whole article about maya angelou's cook book on npr's website. 

quotables

here's another installment of quotes. hope they inspire.

-"we believe too much in ourselves, like high walls perched on a cliff when a storm impends, confident and self-assured." - huang guobin
-"we too, could be glorious." -muse
-"i need some distraction oh beautiful release memory seeps from my viens let me be empty and weightless and maybe i'll find some peace tonight." - sarah mclachlan
-"i think i'm losing my grip but i can still make a fist." - nine inch nails
-"the coldest blue ocean water cannot stop my heart and mind from burning." - the white stipes
-"i am not afraid of storms for i am learning how to sail my ship." - louisa may alcott
-"some of the most wonderful people are the ones who don't fit into boxes" - tori amos
-"all music is folk music. i ain't never heard a horse sing a song." - louis armstrong
-"there are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell them." - louis armstrong
-"oh, i swear that i'd sleep forever if you never left my dreams. so while the world passes by, i'll lve in the frames, in the picture stills of memories." - ?
-"when you walk through the waters i will be with you you will never sink beneath the waves." - ?
-"she was struck by the simple truth that sometimes the most ordinary things could be made extraordinary, simply by doing them with the right people." - nicholas sparks the lucky one
-"god grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change, courage to change the things i can, and wisdom to always tell the difference. - ?

thor movie trailor

for those of you who don't know, thor the comic has been made into a movie. the offical trailor has been released and i thought i would share it with all of you. it looks pretty cool. i'm definatly excited. the only thing i could care less about is the 3d.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOrM7X5WQqc

dancing in the snow

today is the first real big snow fall of the year so i thought i would share a poem that was inspired by the snow.


Dancing in the snow
With my soul all a glow
Hand and hand with the ghost
Of the person i love most