Tidbits: Gitmo' Shady

• If you follow this blog on the casual, you well know my fervent dreamwish of one day partaking in a live-action version of Oregon Trail (seriously, reality tv - make it happen).  Thank you, Mental Floss, for providing this history lesson on the history lesson game. 
• Shame on you, reader.  You forgot Harry Potter's Larry Bird birthday (he turned 33 yesterday)!  Don't worry.  I did too.  Here are some cakes to celebrate, and here is Ron Weasley's message to his bff.

• Recipe for a Downton Abbey Party (or like 50 - so more of a guide!): I'm in if there's costumes involved.

• Some clever fiend who knows YA Lit and wants to make you nonreading, judging adults read made a Buzzfeed.  Well played, sir or madam.  (This is like the YA Librarians guide to some of the best recommendations in YA today.)

• Jane Austen's got mad scrilla, y'all.  Incidentally, some truly horrible Internet trolls cant handle it, and have nothing better to do than hide behind an IP address and threaten the woman who made it happen.  Grow a pair, dipsh*ts.   

• In other things British that you probably already know about, someone named JK Rowling published a book under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.  And then someone spilled the beans.  Luckily, the New York Times saw this as an opportunity to make other authors come up with some pretty fantastic pseudonyms.  Especially you, Carl Hiaasen

• Jellicoe Road movie news (I'd totally partake in a Kickstarter, for the first and only time, for this to happen.  Just sayin'...)

• Are you even more behind the time than moi?  Well, get with it campers: the Catching Fire trailer is out, and it's pretty solid (spoiler alert: Peeta gets a hair upgrade, Finnick sans shirt, Stanley Tucci will probably haunt your dreams, you get the idea).  The Forever YA girls break it down here. 

• Shock me, shock me, shock me with that deviant behavior.  Fifty Shades is the most popular book at Gitmo?  Get out, Reuters!

Tidbits: Sloppy shuffle sorts the presidents and some adapation news

• The Island of the Blue Dolphins + Archaeology = Paperblog Nerd
• Having never been to Australia, the Jellicoe Road I constructed in my head stands to be corrected by author girlcrush Melina Marchetta's photographs of what she pictures the Jellicoe scenery to look like - which frankly is so much better than what I pictured (which kind of looked like Simba's backyard meets Crocodile Dundee).  Even better?  More news about the moooovvieeeeee! 
• Have you spent the past week in a yurt in Siberia?  Then you probably missed the news that the USA had a big to do about presidents.  So naturally, some YA nerds had a big to do about which USA presidents would be in which Divergent factions.  Which leads me to ask which houses former USA presidents would be sorted into in Hogwarts?  Deep thoughts, guys. 
• Oh, hello unrealized childhood dollhouse dream.  Meet the greatest Hobbit hole EVER. 
• In all the hullaballoo about Boy Meets World making an unnecessary remake, you may have also missed the news that Bridget Jones is making her glorious literary return (and obvi has a case of the Twitters). 
• OhEmGee, you guys.  The Ron Moore Outlander adaptation got a network; in related news, a tempered slow roll of jazz hands is making it hard to type this out. 
• Remember that one time I went to Egypt and mentioned the really uncomfortable harassment women face there?  This made my day.
• This little girl's note to Dwell Magazine is a feminist masterpiece.  Also great?  The photos of the over-girlification of toys at the bottom of the story.  Bring back that first Lego ad!
• Guys, confession time.  I have no idea why I find this very silly SNL video as funny as I do.  BUT I DO.  Someone please explain it to me; I'll be over here sloppy shuffling away. 
  
  
  

Very Exciting Business!

You know how I gush about my love for Melina Marchetta a lot?  Stop reading now if you do not care or care for it.  

Okay now that we've got that out of the way, two items of VERY EXITING BUSINESS.

1.  Jellicoe Road has a movie script!  I don't know if this means it has been optioned or what (do share if you know!), but I like to think of this as promising.  It could be so cool as a movie!  All sparkly light on water and light through trees and teen angst and mystery and tree houses and drama and secrets and secret societies and boarding school...I'll just cut myself off.  Plus, it sounds like this company makes good movies.  I am filled with hope!  I love Jellicoe Road! Spotted this on YALSA's YA blog The Hub.  I'm not cool enough to have a google alert or anything of the like for Melina Marchetta.  Yet...I have one for Diana Gabaldon.  Yeah.  Judge away.

2.  I am so so so sad I cannot go to this next wonderous event:  The Teen Author Festival in NYC from March 14-19th!  It looks like such fun.  Plus, guess which awesome Australian author is going to be there?  Seriously.  I am bummed that I would have been able to go but can't as I'll be an ocean away in Egypt (yes, really.  Possibly more exciting, more on that later).  If you live in NYC, you must go for me and then tell me all about it!  You have full permission to rub it in.

Kim Jong has Il taste.

This photoshoped picture (via a fab Forever Young Adult post) delights me to no end. 

Kim Jong Il, let's share YA and ladies sunglasses, and possibly even the codes to those nukes with my other friend, Obama.  Maybe we can start a book club? Think about it.  

But not the polyester.  That's all yours to keep.