Nana nana nana nana...BATMAN!

Day Five: Your favorite super hero and why.

I think Batman is freaking awesome, though that's mostly due to Christopher Nolan's interpretation of Batman's universe. I've never been a huge comic book fan, so most of my super hero knowledge comes from the big screen. I have to admit, though, that I love me some comic book movies. They are highly entertaining.

The main reason Batman is my favorite super hero is that the movies are insanely awesome. Christopher Nolan is seriously a genius. I love Christian Bale as Batman (no matter how annoying his Batman voice gets), I love Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon, I love Michael Caine as Alfred, I love Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox, and I love, love, love Heath Ledger as the Joker. The Dark Knight Rises trailer gives me chills, and I cannot wait to see it. Tom Hardy as Bane is going to be sick. Throw in performances by Joseph Gordon-Leavitt and Marion Cotillard, and I'm in movie heaven (despite Anne Hathaway as Catwoman). Midnight showing here I come!

Another thing I like about Batman is that he's not a super hero in the super powers sense. He doesn't have any super powers. He's just a normal dude (albeit a very, very rich dude) who decided to take action in Gotham. It's kind of cool. And it brings up a lot of issues about society and about how societies view vigilantes who take the law into their own hands. Heroes like Superman and Spider-Man don't bring up quite the same issues. While they are technically vigilantes, they can do things no one else can do because they're "super." Batman just has loads of money and could have competition if another super rich vigilante decides to jump in the ring. It also means that the villains are more interesting because they don't have super powers either. They just want to take down Batman.

Basically, Batman is the coolest.

Harry Potter Nerd Alert

A few months ago, J.K. Rowling announced Pottermore, a new interactive reading experience for Harry Potter fans. Then at the beginning of last month, they had seven days of early registration. If you caught the clue before all the spots for that day had filled up, you could get in early and be one of the beta testers for the site.

Anyone who knows me even remotely well knows that I am a Harry Potter fanatic, so you better believe I tried desperately to get into Pottermore early. I would check the site every day as soon as I woke up, and invariably, registration would be closed. Then, on the sixth day, I pulled up the site, and voila! There was a clue! So I answered the question quick and registered before the spots could be taken.

I was so excited. Until I realized that they wouldn't actually let me onto the site until September. I was a little bummed, but I resigned myself to the wait.

Well, this week, the wait was over. I got into Pottermore. And while I don't really know exactly what I'm supposed to do, it seems pretty awesome so far. I haven't gotten this far yet, but I do know that I will get sorted into a House and get my own wand, which is awesome. There is also a bunch of new stuff from J.K. Rowling, like backstory and little insights into why she wrote the books a certain way. This is really why I wanted to get onto the site.

General registration opens next month sometime, and I'm super excited for some of my friends to get online so I can interact with them. Because I know for a fact that at least some of my friends will join me in the HP nerddom that is Pottermore.

So here's to having yet one more thing on the internet to waste my time on. Huzzah!

Defiantly ≠ Definitely

According to Merriam-Webster.com:

de·fi·ant: full of or showing defiance : bold, impudent <defiant rebels> < a defiant refusal>

def·i·nite: 1: having distinct or certain limits <definite standards for pupils to meet> 2a : free of all ambiguity, uncertainty, or obscurity <demanded a definite answer> b : unquestionable, decided <the quarterback was a definite hero today>

Therefore, "OMG, I am so defiantly there!" has a much different meaning than "OMG, I am so definitely there!" Mmmkay?

*end rant*

Chills. I have chills.

This trailer looks AMAZING. So does the other one. Basically, I think the final Harry Potter movies are going to be the best yet by a long shot. With two movies, I would imagine that almost everything in Deathly Hallows (which is my favorite book of the series) will make it on screen. And I can't wait.

I already have my tickets to the midnight showing. And I'll be dressing up. Am I a nerd? Oh yes. But I don't really care.

Holy Nerd, Batman

I've always known that I'm a nerd. You can't have a favorite punctuation mark without being a nerd. It's just not possible. But today my nerdiness was made more manifest than ever, pretty much.

I have a good friend who likes to give people gifts. Well, this friend (whose name I'm not going to say because I don't think he'd want me to, but he knows who he is) saw this frustrated blog post and decided he would send me something to cheer me up. This is what he got me:

Yes, that is a dictionary. The best American dictionary you can get. Unabridged. And it's AWESOME. It really is. The more I look at, the more excited I am that I now own an unabridged dictionary. Plus it comes with a free year-long subscription to the online version—which I will most definitely use. See what I mean? NERD! Who in their right mind gets excited about dictionaries?

Oh, right. An editor.

But really . . . look at the size of this thing! It's huge!

And I love it. Thank you, dear friend. Your kindness and generosity never cease to amaze me.

Being a Kid Again

I found out about this book from a friend's Facebook profile. She had posted a picture of her copy of Wreck This Journal. She had done so many different things to this book, and I was completely intrigued, so I looked it up. And then I had to buy it. This seriously was the most fun I've ever had with a journal. Definitely a well-spent $13.


The cover. The doodling is all me. Not that exciting, I know.


Title page. Again, doodling by me.


Burning was fun. Even though I had to stomp on it to quench the flames.


Ooooh, pretty colors.
This was the first thing I did to the journal. It was very liberating for an anal-retentive bookkeeper like me.

"Collect the stamps off of all your mail."

This damage was done with a pumice stone. It was pretty effective.

Scribbling on the edges.

I dabbed this paint on more than dripped it, but the effect was similar.

I carry this book with me everywhere now, just in case I find something else fun to put in it/on it. I feel like I'm ten again, and it's incredibly fun.

My Nerdiness Revealed: Editing

I am a nerd. There really is no question about it. I think the fact that my blog name is a Shakespeare quote is evidence enough. But I'm not a nerd in the LARPing, WOWing, Dungeons and Dragons sense, thank heavens. No, I'm rather particular about where my nerdiness focuses. So this series is about those things that I'm most passionate about, which is where my nerdiness is revealed.

My first passion is editing. I have always loved books and really good writing, but it wasn't until college that I realized just how much I love grammar and words. I especially enjoy the ability to look at a written work, see the things that need to be fixed, fix them, and help the author look good. It's extremely satisfying, and the thought of doing it for a living is extremely exciting.

I think the thing that makes me the most nerdy about editing is the fact that I absolutely love The Chicago Manual of Style (that's the big orange book in the picture). It is truly the editor's Bible and never leaves my side when I'm doing anything editing related. It's chock-full of rules and guidelines for things such as hyphenation (in fact, I'm itching to look up chock-full to see if it's hyphenated, two words, or one word, but I'll refrain), semi-colons, abbreviations, capitalization, etc. If there is any kind of doubt about how to write anything, there's something in Chicago that will help. It makes me happy.

You want to know just how much I love grammar? I have a favorite punctuation mark. Yes, it's true. You want to know what it is? An em-dash. I love the em-dash. It's so versatile, so fun, so full of voice and style. An em-dash is a dash the length of the letter m in whichever typeface you're using. It can be used parenthetically, to show an interruption, or to show an abrupt change of subject. You may wonder why this post is so lacking in them; it's because this program doesn't have the ability to make them. They would only show up as two hyphens, which is not correct. Geez, I'm sad.

There is a slight downside, though, and that is just that often people are afraid that they'll say something wrong around me. For example, recently I put together a book for my mom's Mother's Day present, and when my dad emailed me his portion of it, he said, "Don't be too harsh on me, Ms. Editor." And in fact, I didn't change a single thing. See? I can restrain myself. (Well, that and my dad is a really good writer so I didn't need to change anything anyway.) The flip side (hyphen, no hyphen? Must see Chicago . . . ) is that anytime I make a mistake in speech (which happens a lot), I get hammered for it, because I'm the English major/editing minor. But despite all that, there is honestly nothing else I would rather be doing. I feel so at home in my editing field that I know for sure it's the right place for me.

The hard part now is finding a job . . .