Nerdy is as Nerdy Does

Ah, summer time, a refreshing respite from the tedium of the school year. The beach beckons children and adults alike to transform dull skin to a brilliant cherry red under a blazing sun, boardwalk vendors attempt to swindle unsuspecting passersby into buying colorful hermit crabs that soon go forgotten in a bedroom corner (shame!), and ice cream parlors encourage ravenous patrons to pack on the pounds. Others are enraptured by far different wonders. If you’re me, you read 3 1/3 books in half a week’s time, discover interesting new punctuation marks, and ponder the meaning of life. Oh, and write. Yes, write. For the fun of it. Mommy dearest thinks I’ve gone off the deep end, but if this is insanity, I relish it.

Anyway, while I attempt to procure a more profound blog topic, I want to share two interesting bits of information. There’s good news, and there’s bad. I’ve already hinted at the good; I found a very cool new (well, to be accurate, old, but new to me) punctuation mark called the “interrobang”. Occasionally, I find myself, ending a sentence with ?! (like “He said what?!”). Well, the interrobang is what happens when you smush a question mark and an exclamation point together and create a whole new beast. I am a bit disappointed that my keyboard lacks it, but if you want to use one in a word document (which I don’t think I’d recommend for a school paper, by the way) select the font Wingdings 2, then hold shift and click 6. Presto! An interrobang! If anyone else is as amused as I am, check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interrobang. Also, Wiki’s article “Irony Punctuation” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_mark#Irony_mark) has some cool punctuation marks under “Irony Mark”; I’m partial to the doubt point and the love point.

Whether the bad news is really bad depends on your view of Twilight. I’ll keep this short and sweet: the series made Oak’s “Summer Reading [suggestion] List” for grade 10. ‘Nuff said.