Friday, January 26, 2018

Jen's Gems: Beauties, Beasts, & The Great Period Debate

Time for more of my favorite finds from around the interwebs!


This non-Disney Beauty and the Beast photoshoot is so pretty it hurts:


Click the first link up there to see the rest of the photos and a video of how she made the beast out of spray-foam(!?). Just incredible!

***

Two things I love: big musical dance numbers and the one, the only, NPH. Put the two together, and you get one happy clappy Jen. C'mon, let's watch this one together - again and again and again:


The only way this would be better is if the camera didn't cut away to the judges' non-reactions so much. (YES WE SEE THEY'RE SMILING NOW BACK TO NEAL PLS)


***
Ooooh, here's some juicy intellectual controversy for you: one of my FB friends shared this article and came down on the "PROPER GRAMMAR AT ALL COSTS" side. (The fact that I just flaunted proper grammar in writing that sentence brings me great joy.) I'm obviously more in the camp of "by any means" when it comes to getting a point across, and found this fascinating - because it backs me up, haHA. Let's see what you guys think:

http://www.businessinsider.com/using-periods-in-text-messages-etiquette-2016-7



Side Tangent to share a fun/funny fact: When I wrote Cake Wrecks (the book) my publisher of course had a copy editor check my work. The editor found zero errors - BOOYA BAY-BAY - except for the fact that he wanted to change all of my all-caps words to italics, as is grammatically correct.

I convinced my publisher to keep the caps.

Score one for living language.

***

Over on Instagram I just started following Umberto Mulignano, tiny dragon sculptor extraordinaire. Check out this Deathly Hallows-inspired beauty:



And look at these little babies!



He also has an Etsy shop, but since it sells out fast better follow him on Insta to get the heads up on new listings.

***

WARNING, these next and final videos contain an adorable, talking, CGI spider.

However, if anything will help lessen a fear of spiders, it's little Lucas here. So you might give it a peek even if spiders squick you out.



[scroll down]




I must have watched this 10 times in a row. It's just so darn cute. The little "Hi!" Ack!

But wait, there's more:


There are a total of four over on his official Youtube channel. Go see, go squee. ;)


Hope these made you smile! Happy Friday!


11 comments:

  1. That NPH video was magical.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great post, but I'm sure you would want to know that it's Neil, not Neal. And there is no cute when it comes to spiders. Had to scroll fast - there's no way that thing's talking to me! Thanks for the warning! Love Epbot, sorry for a mostly negative comment!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nono... Trust the Jen. Lucas is adorable.

      Delete
  3. I had a dream a couple weeks ago that I went back in time to the very beginning of human history and met Eve. She lived in a hut-like house, and she had a lot of candles because lots of people had visited her and brought her candles so she'd have light.
    Anyway, a man was there, writing away, and I think he was writing the Bible, and he was writing the commandments and one of them was "Future generations shall make sure they know and use proper grammar, spelling and punctuation."
    One of the weirdest dreams I've had! I didn't know I cared so much, and while I know I make mistakes all the time, I do find it very hard to make sense out of meaningless groups of letters.
    Written language means something, and people saying "You know what I meant" doesn't really convey the meaning of what they're trying to write.
    I don't correct others (ok, I do correct my husband when he makes the same mistake over and over, but English is his second language and I'm sure he wants to get it right) but I do want to be correct myself.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Lots of fun in today's post! :D Lucas is too cute for words -- my heart grew three sizes with that little tiny "hi under glass!" All the beasts and dragons today were fabulous. And NPH -- always a winner! He was so good in the concert staging of Sweeney Todd.

    Thanks for a fun Sunday post!
    -Zippy

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, and I thought you were going to go in a whole 'nother direction about periods. ;)
      -Zip

      Delete
  5. Writer/editor here. (And, if you've ever heard the saying, "The shoemaker's children go barefoot," the same applies here -- I'm terribly remiss in thanking you for the adorable piece of art I won. The writer's thank-you notes don't get written.) I don't see anything particularly wrong with your sentence there. Some folks would say you should have an initial cap after the colon, because the text that precedes it and follows it can each be read as individual sentences, but others don't, because the colon makes it all one sentence. And some folks would have trouble with the all-caps text in quotes, but you're not using quotation marks for emphasis, just to treat the phrase as a single modifier, and if your hypothetical person is shouting, representing it in all caps is reasonable. (And some folks would have trouble with my beginning a sentence with "and," but they're full of hooey.) So, perhaps, you are, in fact, "flaunting" (that is, showing off) proper grammar in that sentence, though I think you meant to say "flouting" (refusing to obey). :-)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh my gosh! Those Lucas the Spider videos are awesome! So stinking adorable!

    ReplyDelete
  7. My husband and I love Lucas the Spider. Last weekend I was like yeah! Theres a new one! I think about 100 of those views are mine. Anytime i've needed a little pick me up lately I'll pop over to youtube and watch a few. Anyway, have a great week :)
    Brandi

    ReplyDelete
  8. Read the article about periods at the end of texts-- I must be old, because that is so not me! When I get a text without a period it says "I'm upset about something." If it has a period, it's just a regular sentence "spoken" in a regular tone of voice. Interesting! (I'm 40, so I guess I am old, in computer years. XD)

    ReplyDelete

Please be respectful when commenting; dissenting opinions are great, but personal attacks or hateful remarks will be removed. Also, including a link? Then here's your html cheat sheet: <a href="LINK ADDRESS">YOUR TEXT</a>