date a girl who reads.

I found this on teh internets. I must share it.



Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.
She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

i'm not ashamed.

I posted something today, and it came out sort of teen angst-y today. I was basically saying how the whole "nerds are cool" thing never mad it to Ireland, and how I was in no way viewed as "cool" by the general populus. It came across as whiny. I'm not ashamed of being a geek.

I'm not ashamed that I like Trek, Who the X-Files.
I'm not ashamed that I've read more pages of fanfiction than most people have read books.
I'm not ashamed that I've got every Star in Mario 64.
I'm not ashamed that well over a thousand hours of my life in RPGs.
I'm not ashamed that seven hundred of those hours were spent on Pokémon.
I'm not ashamed that I bought the DnD books and dice, even though there are no RPers in my area.
I'm not ashamed that I wore my zombie repellant shirt and jacket with two dozen in-joke pins to school on non-uniform day.
I'm not ashamed that I spend twelve pounds on magazines every month. (SciFiNow, NEO, and ONM.)
I'm not ashamed that I spend even more on books.
I'm not ashamed that I read the Science textbooks for fun.
I'm not ashamed that my favourite book is "Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd.
I'm not ashamed that I have a zombie apocalypse survival kit.
I'm not ashamed that I have read more books than most adults.
I'm not ashamed that I have an entire Glasstown style world inside my head.
I'm not ashamed that I know what Glasstown is.
I'm not ashamed that I'd rather do the techie stuff than be in a musical.
I'm not ashamed that I know all of "The Element Song"
I'm not ashamed that I took the time to type this with a frakking iPod.
I'm not ashamed that I use the terms "frakking", "Oh My Arceus", and "Phasers Down."
I'm not ashamed that I speak fluent Scooby.
I'm not ashamed that my NaNoWriMo plans are more detailed than a lot of finished novels.
I'm not ashamed that I've made my NaNoWriMo plans, even though it's April.
I'm not ashamed that I write a short story every Tuesday during triple Physics.
I'm not ashamed that I keep a journal comic.
I'm not ashamed that I watch the commentaries on every movie I buy.
I'm not ashamed that the tabs I have open now are this, Soul Eater, FF.net, and the Pokémon Tabletop Adventures Handbook.

I'm not ashamed of who I am.

RIP.

Diana Wynne Jones is dead, and I didn't know.

I view her as one of the greatest children's authors ever, and now she is gone. She died on the 26th of March 2011, and I only just found out. She passed away due to lung cancer.

Neil Gaiman puts it better than me.

A short post, I know, but I have nothing else to say.

Yuko Ota fanboyishness.

This is the first of many posts about comics. Get used to them.

The first comic I'm nerding out on is Johnny Wander, and the work of Yuko Ota in general.

Johnny Wander might be about life after college, being a kid, growing up and all the people you meet and all the things that happen in that brave new world.

Or it might be about something else entirely.

All I know is that it's awesome.Ananth Panagariya writes the comics, (I think) and Yuko illustrates them. Ilove Yuko's art style; sort of a halfway point between manga and western art. I love the character design, even though the characters are real people. I love the comics themselves, and most of all, I love Maw.

Sample Comic:

 

Nerdist! Yay!

OK, I said I'd post about something I knew about, and this is that thing:
Chris Hardwick's Nerdist Podcast. This is, quite simply, the best podcast ever. It's bi-weekly, with one of the episodes being an interview and one being a guestless, or "Hostful" episode. The hosts are Chris Hardwick, Matt Mira, and Jonah Ray. Both Chris and Jonah are professional stand-up comedians, and Matt works for The Fruit Based Computer Corporation, but is also an aspiring comedian.

Each show's about an hour long, and is awesome ninety-nine percent of the time. There can be a little swearing sometimes, for those of you who dislike bad language, but it's nothing to be too concerned about. Most guests are nerds themselves, and some interesting conversations ensue. (Anyone for a game of Dance Dance Industrial Revolution?) Anyhoo, here are some links to my own favourite episodes.

Episode 10, with Adam Savage.
Episode 32, with Felicia Day
Episode 35, with Jonathan Coulton
Episode 46, with Matt Smith
Episode 63, with Wil Wheaton

LISTEN TO THEM.

First Post.

OK, I just started this blog. I will tell you what I like, and try to force you to like it too. That is how it will work.

Alright. I just ordered this: 

   I really, really hope it lives up to how awesome it sounds. It's a collection of nerdy short stories from some Young Adult authors. John Green, Cassandra Clare, Garth Nix and Kelly Link have all contributed. Each short story is accompanied by an illustration by Hope Larson or Bryan Lee O'Malley. (Whom I adore.)

   However awesome the illustrations may be, the short stories are what matter. The one I am possibly most excited about is Kelly Link's story Secret Identity. I love Kelly Link, and I'm sure the story will be amazing. From what I can gather, the story is about a girl who pretends to be her older sister in an online game. She arranges to meet a man with whom she has sparked a romance, but he believes she is her much older sister.

  Also, it's edited by Holly Black. Always good. As a Nerdfighter, Whovian, Trekker, Otaku, Whedonite, Star Wars fan, RPer, X-phile and all-round geek, I cannot wait for this to arrive. 400-odd pages of awesome.

Next time, I'll try and post about something I've experienced firsthand.