I understand it’s a trend right now, but seriously?

And it’s book #128 in the series? I could understand that many books when the Hardy Boys were the only game around. 128 books is approaching The Land Before Time scale.

There’s a quote that’s been going around Facebook that’s attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr.

I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.

The original post was:

I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” MLK Jr.

But, in another example of the telephone game, Internet-style, the quotation marks got left off and a lot of people ran with it. In this case, doing a search for the last sentence of the quote led me to this article which then led me to checking archived writings of Dr. King.

Usually publishers include a one-sentence, catchy review to the cover of a book. Here’s what the publisher included for Tina Fey’s new book:

Once in a generation a woman comes along who changes everything. Tina Fey is not that woman, but she met that woman once and acted weird around her.

PRAISE FOR TINA FEY:

“You’d be really pretty if you lost weight.” (College Boyfriend, 1990 )

“Tina Fey is an ugly, pear-shaped, overrated troll.” (The Internet )

“Mommy, where are my pretzels?” (Tracy Morgan )

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR BOSSYPANTS:

“I hope that’s not really the cover. That’s really going to hurt sales.” (Don Fey, Father of Tina Fey )

“Absolutely delicious!” (A Guy Who Eats Books )

“Totally worth it.” (Trees )

“Do not print this glowing recommendation of Tina Fey’s book until I’ve been dead a hundred years.” (Mark Twain )

“Hilarious and insightful. Laugh-out-loud funny — oh no, a full moon. No! Arrgh! Get away from me! Save yourself!” (A Guy Turning into a Werewolf )

Every year it’s tradition for the President of the United States to pardon a turkey from being killed for Thanksgiving. But how do those turkeys get chosen? They compete in a dancing competition, trying to impress the judges into letting them live another day.

Here’s more to the story.

Scott Westerfeld loves language. Read Bogus to Bubbly and you’ll see how much effort he puts into creating worlds. I found myself saying “nausea-making” in conversation and realized I had read too much about Tally Youngblood.

I’m reading Behemoth right now and it’s a good follow-up to Leviathan. What I’m noticing, though, is his repeated use of lingo from the time period. In reading a blog post of his about using wordle to judge word choice, I caught on to how I overuse words like “just” or “walked” in my own writing (and offenses from an author whose name rhymes with “Ames Atterson”).

That’s why I’m surprised to see squick, Dummkopf, and barking spiders show up on almost every other page. I’m no Clanker expert, but I’m sure steampunkers have other ways to say words. In Uglies, it was a set of syntax rules. Here, it’s more a short list of vocab words. It doesn’t take too much away from my reading enjoyment, but, as I’m working on a writing project with its own grammar rules, I’m trying to learn for my own nausea-making world-creating.

I’d tell you more but I want to read.

Here’s today’s example, a project for our maintenance staff:

I love the font.

A friend of mine uses FirstGiving to organize fundraising events for HopeKids. I’m wondering if our school could use it for raising money for ALS research/treatments, like what we did with our staff fashion show.

Check out Improv Everywhere re-enact the opening scene from A New Hope: