January 11, 2025 8:52 PM
The Day the Crayons Quit
Lately I've found that most books written for adults are just not that interesting to me. Picture books are where it's at. Because there are fewer words on each page, I feel like every word is so carefully crafted. Even the placement of the words is important. And the pictures matter. With a novel, you often have one place to potentially add an illustration and most of them have the most uninspired covers. So I wanted to make a blog post with a list of my favorite picture books, but I think that each book deserves its own post, so this will be the first of a new series of posts.
And because I quit my job yesterday, I thought it would be fitting to re-read one of my favorite books, The Day the Crayons Quit. I instantly loved this book when I first read it, and I love it every single time I re-read it. The words are hand written, and each crayon has a different personality.
\__/ __/ \__ \__/ / \ /\ /\ /\ /\ |==| |==| |==| |==| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | /\ | | | | | | | | |--| | | | | | | | | | | | | |AA| |AA| |AA| |AA| |AA| '--' '--' '--' '--' '--' Blue is stubby because he gets used a lot
I think my favorite characters are the orange and yellow crayons. They both think they're the color of the sun, but I personally like to include both colors in my sun.
And don't worry, the colors do come back in the sequel. I highly recommend that as well!
January 16, 2022 12:23 AM
If anything happens I love you
During the holidays I watched several mostly terrible movies (that I considered adding links for in this blog post, but I don't think that's worth it). For the most part, my mom picked out the movies, but as we were endlessly scrolling through Netflix, one title caught my eye.
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If Anything Happens I Love You is an animated short that follows two grieving parents. I was initially drawn in by the art style, and I appreciate the use of music and (lack of) dialogue. I was reading the Wikipedia page for this film and it included a quote from one of the writers:
From the very beginning it was always going to be an animated film. We just thought a live-action version of this would be way too intense. We thought animation was the perfect gateway to have these deep conversations about loss and grief.
I'm positive there is no way I would have picked to watch this movie if it weren't for the art, so I'm glad they went with this approach, and I'm glad I watched it.
October 26, 2021 10:15 PM
Florence
About a month ago, I was introduced to a game called Florence. I had mentioned that I enjoyed short visual novel games, though I had never played one on mobile before.
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It's a beautiful game, both in visuals and sound, and it was clearly designed to fit a mobile experience. I don't think I need to say more about the game, but I highly recommend.
May 28, 2021 6:32 PM
Elite Beat Agents
Because one silly rhythm game quarantine goal wasn't enough, I decided that I would turn on my Nintendo DS for the first time in years and play some Elite Beat Agents. And the battery on that thing is amazing. I hadn't charged it in over 5 years and it still turned on and had plenty of battery left.
I've heard the gameplay is similar to osu! but what makes it unique is that each song you can play has a story. Each one has a similar structure: the main character has some sort of ordeal they need to get through, and they call for help from the agents, and the agents dance their way to success. How well you do on the rhythm game determines the outcome of the story.
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I first played this game...14 years ago? I remembered it being a lot of fun, but once I got to the Hard Rock! level I struggled a lot, and I was never able to beat the whole game. But this time, I was determined to finish it. And because I like to make things harder for myself, I also decided to try and get a full combo on every single song on all 4 levels.
Yeah, I don't know why I insist on full combo-ing everything. That definitely made this take way longer than I wanted it to, and I think I hate the song Survivor now.
But I did it! And I only had to charge my DS twice this whole time! This is a fun game. I definitely recommend, but I don't think I'll ever play this again in my life.
March 20, 2021 10:32 AM
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the Great Glass Elevator
Yes, I'm still dealing with sleeping issues. It's not nearly as bad as before, but it lasted long enough that I read all of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator during my sleepless hours at night.
I kind of love that the first book starts off like this:
These two very old people are the father and mother of Mr. Bucket. Their names are Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josephine.
And these two very old people are the father and mother of Mrs. Bucket. Their names are Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina.
Love the fact that Dahl just calls them "very old people" and the fact that their names are "Joe and Josephine" and "George and Georgina". Little things like this amuse me when I'm reading.
I remembered the story pretty well since it's so popular that two movies were created from it. The book is actually a lot simpler than the movie, which I appreciated. In the original movie, there's a scene where we think the final golden ticket has been found, but it was actually a fake. There's also a scene where Charlie and Grandpa Joe sneak into another room and drink this fizzy drink that they weren't supposed to. It was kind of weird, because Willy Wonka clearly noticed them "breaking the rules" but it was like "eh, whatever, you still win." I thought it was a weird addition to the movie.
But I'm talking about the book. Charlie is 100% wholesome in the book. The book is simple and silly which is my favorite kind of book.
Now Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator is something that I think I had only read once or twice in my life, so there was a lot I didn't remember. But I have to say, this is even more ridiculous than the Chocolate Factory. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I can see why this sequel isn't as popular. There's a kind of racist section of the book. There's some more adult humor in it. Maybe it gets a little too political at times. There are really two separate stories that just get hastily strung together in the end.
But hey, in my bouts of insomnia I was laughing at all the insanity in the book, especially during The Nurse's Song. (Google it if you're curious.)
I really enjoy Roald Dahl's writing style. I think it influenced my own when I was in middle and high school. Maybe if I read more of his stuff I'll be inspired enough to figure out how to end a story I wrote many, many years ago.
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