Fox to adapt 9-year-old’s self-help book (Reuters) December 10, 2008

I found this story here: http://movies.yahoo.com/news/movies.reuters.com-fox-adapt-9yearold39s-selfhelp-book-reuters

 

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Fox is ready to take advice from a 9-year-old.

 

The studio has acquired the film rights to “How to Talk to Girls,” a cute 46-page self-help tome written by Alec Greven, a Colorado fourth-grader.

 

Greven wrote “Girls” as a handwritten, $3 pamphlet sold at his school book fair; he wrote it after he noticed his peers were having some trouble talking to the ladies, though the book is geared for all ages. Among this advice: Comb your hair and don’t wear sweats; control your hyperness and cut down on sugar if necessary; a crush is like a love disease that can drive you mad; it is easy to spot pretty girls because they have big earrings, fancy dresses and all the jewelry but are like cars that need a lot of oil.

 

Soon enough Harper Collins picked up the book, which came out in November and quickly became a hit. But initially, Fox, which is like Harper Collins is owned by News Corp ., and its book scouts passed on the title. But when the book hit the town last week, garnering heavy interest from multiple parties, Fox stepped back in and took the book off the table. The deal was in the low-to-mid six figures .

 

No writers or producers are attached yet.

 

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

Whoa…Weird! July 31, 2008

So the most hilarious thing happened to me this week. I was hanging out at the library (’cause that’s how I roll), and I decided to pick up a movie or two to watch with my family. I walked over to the movie section and started looking for something interesting. About that time, a young guy came over and began to do the same thing. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, just to make sure he wasn’t premeditating stealing my purse or anything, and the impression came that he reminded me of someone I know. I checked again: tall, slim, beard, shoulder-length brown hair, pulled back into a ponytail. Whoa. Weird. He really did remind me of a friend from school–a friend I had previously thought to be so unique that I’d never find anyone else who even came close to reminding me of him. Apparently there’s been some cloning going on…

The guy reached for a copy of the original Pink Panther, then plopped down on the ground cross-legged and began to talk to himself, debating whether he should get that movie, or another off-beat comedy. Oh, my word, I thought, he not only kinda looks similar, he kind of acts like him! Weird!

I reached past the guy for a copy of Pride and Prejudice, and he asked me whether i’d ever seen Pink Panther. I told him I hadn’t, and that’s where it began. From there, we introduced ourselves, and began to talk about movies…and books…and musicals…and theatre…and people in general…and humour…suffice it to say that we kept talking. For a solid hour. Wow!

After about an hour, and having migrated to the very center of the library (no harm in being clearly visible, for safety), he left to go get some dinner, but not before he had mused several times on how amazing it was to find another person who still read books, and not only that, who read a variety of books, and appreciated them, and not only that, someone other than his girlfriend who would stand there and talk with him for an hour and understand all the topic changes (which happened for him, as for me, on average once every 14 seconds). Also not before he had given me not only his name, but his place of employment, and a rough idea of his schedule, and where he likes to hang out…bad idea. i didn’t give him any of those besides my name. I guess I’m not very threatening looking.

As he left, I went back over to the movie section, to hunt for a couple movies–what I’d planned on doing an hour ago, basically. As I reached for a movie, I heard a man behind me whisper “Pssst…miss!”

Great. A 40-year-old man. Apparently I was attracting all the random men that day?

“Can I help you?” I asked. “Go after that boy and give him your number! I think he likes you!” the man replied.

Matchmaking. Just another free service offered by your local library. For your convenience, we now have 40-year-old men to match up the young people who run into each other in the library.

I assured the man that I had it under control. Should’ve told him I was taken (admittedly, that’d be “reserved for my future husband”, but “taken” would probably have gotten him off my back easier)!

So I went home and realised: my sisters were at camp. Sad day. I couldn’t even tell them right away, so I wrote them to tell the story. I can just see their faces when they read the letter: “We haven’t bee gone 8 hours, and she’s already getting picked up by random guys in the library! She can’t function without us!”

Ah well. They say variety is the spice of life. And I’d say randomness of this sort is quite a bit of variety. Spicy!

And Some Nostalgia… July 23, 2008

Not sure exactly what possessed me to youtube for muppets tonight, but I remember these from when I was a little girl…:)

Ernie & Aaron Neville–I Don’t Want to Live On the Moon

What happens in my house at 2 AM…just kidding

“Dance Myself to Sleep”–Bert and Ernie

Grover–”Monster in the Mirror”

Wubba!

Randomness on Youtube…lol July 23, 2008

Some funny videos I came across on youtube today…hilarious stuff!

“Canon Em D” by Paulinho Winterle

“Ode to Joy”, as performed by Beaker

“Habañera” as performed by Muppets

Just a dose of randomness! It does a body good! Enjoy!

Hutu GPS July 3, 2008

Overheard in the back kitchen at a pizza joint:

“Dude, I’m pretty sure that throwing a cell phone into a 500-degree pizza oven voids the warranty!”

I’m pretty sure that guy’d be right. Someone should tell that to the customer who came in just the other day.

The man had purchased a GPS unit from our store a little while back. He didn’t have the receipt, but he’d purchased an extended store warranty that covered the product for a year. The deal was that we would replace the item if it were to break within that year, or, if we no longer carried the item, a similar item would be substituted.

The man complained of problems with unit; namely, it had “randomly” changed the interface language to some unknown language which he couldn’t read. He wanted a new unit so he could start fresh. The associate looked at it to see whether she could figure out how to change it back to English-quite a task, since she couldn’t read a word of the menus. She showed it to another associate, who also couldn’t read it. I checked to see whether I could recognise the language, and at first glance it looked like Portugese, having both cedillas on some c’s and ~ (these things whatever they’re called) above vowels. But it wasn’t Portugese, since it didn’t bear enough resemblance to Spanish. During this whole process, my coworker who had originally tried to fix the device was talking to the man, who insisted that he get a new GPS unit on the grounds that this one was “broken”. My coworker explained that his changing the language to one he didn’t speak was not covered by the warranty.

Eventually, a couple of associates and rather a bit of a headache later, the device was back in English from what it had been before (which one associate thought might have been slang French-huh?) and the customer left with it, not quite satisfied.

Lesson learned: never put your GPS device into Hutu…the warranty doesn’t cover that.

Intercultural? Me? June 29, 2008

I thought I was pretty much an American traditionalist.  was pretty sure that my “culture” and that of America were pretty similar. Ok, my culture and that of America 50 or 60 years ago, maybe.

I thought that, until the other day at work.

I’ve chosen purity and sexual abstinence until marriage for my life, not only out of obedience to God, but largely out of honour for my future husband, whoever he may be. As a symbol of that, I wear a ribbon wrapped around my left wrist and tied into a bow, symbolising that I am, as I delicately state it “an unopened gift” until marriage. (I also have a purity ring, which I wear on my left ring finger.)

Sometimes folks ask about these symbols, and I tell them what I have chosen. I try not to preach or talk their ear off about it, instead I just give them a brief explanation of why it’s there. Usually, since the subject is rather delicate, I use the phrase “unopened gift” or occasionally “saving myself”.

The other day at work, I was behind the service desk with a couple of coworkers. One of them, call her Ana (false names are used to protect the innocent), asked me about this ribbon. Ana is bilingual, with English being her second language. She understood my words, but had some trouble with my vague implications as to purity. She grabbed another girl (call her Krista), and asked for further explanation. Krista asked what exactly she was explaining. I told her, and she began.

This was Krista’s explanation of my position on purity: “Well, it means that she believes the Lord, and she follows the Lord. In her religion, the rules are that men and women don’t do anything, like they don’t kiss or have any kind of intercourse until after they are married. Once she’s married, she and her husband can do whatever they want to, but not till then.” She looked at me, as if to check her facts. “You also don’t date, correct?”

“In her religion“? Hold it! I hadn’t even actually tied this position to my religious beliefs; most people just thought that I was honouring my future husband, which is true. But what got me was her academic tone. It was as though she were introducing another friend who was Jewish by saying, “This is so-and-so, and they are Jewish, so they worship on Saturday and abstain from pork”!

That was the first time I’ve ever felt like an intercultural curiousity before. Ah, well. Perhaps I am. I knew I was from another decade, but I hadn’t quite grasped the idea of being viewed as from another culture entirely.

If you need me, I’ll be visiting Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Although I doubt the Amish there will look too kindly on my Internet use, Christian rock music, or jeans. Ah, well. I’ll just be my own little culture here.

Good afternoon, sister. Have you heard about the Lord?