New Terry Pratchett Novel!

Terry Pratchett, one of my all time favorite authors has a new novel called Nation coming out September 30th!! He was diagnosed last year with early onset Alzheimer's, but he's still planning on writing as many books as he can. He has also donated 1 million t research for it.

It isn't part of the Discworld series, but it still looks really good.



SUMMARY:
The sea has taken everything.
Mau is the only one left after a giant wave sweeps his island village away. But when much is taken, something is returned, and somewhere in the jungle Daphne—a girl from the other side of the globe—is the sole survivor of a ship destroyed by the same wave.
Together the two confront the aftermath of catastrophe. Drawn by the smoke of Mau and Daphne's sheltering fire, other refugees slowly arrive: children without parents, mothers without babies, husbands without wives—all of them hungry and all of them frightened. As Mau and Daphne struggle to keep the small band safe and fed, they defy ancestral spirits, challenge death himself, and uncover a long-hidden secret that literally turns the world upside down. . . .
Internationally revered storyteller Terry Pratchett presents a breathtaking adventure of survival and discovery, and of the courage required to forge new beliefs.







On a totally unrelated and environmental themed note:

This Saturday as part of the coastal cleanup, me and some other people where cleaning up trash by this creek located in Wilmington, DE. You wouldn't believe some of the stuff we found! There was a flip flop, a really old Reebok sneaker, and a pair of Adidas. Not to mention a pair of underwear (!), a shopping cart, and countless bear cans and bottles, along with the usual garbage and pastic bottles. One of the guys who got there before I did, said they also found ecstasy pills! All the things that people through away just anywhere really disgusts me. :( At least we didn't find any medical waste though.

Wordled Favorite Bands

Wordle.net is awesome! I typed a list of my favorite bands, played around with the fonts and colors, and got this!




(click to see a larger image)


To make a list of occurence-weighted artists off of iTunes you can follow these steps*

1) In iTunes, select View Options under the View menu.
2) Turn off everything but “Artist.”
3) Select all and copy.
4) Search and Replace the word “track” with nothing.
5) Paste the results into the Wordle.net Create page.



*From Scott Westerfeld's blog

I've been really busy getting used to my new school, and today I had to help unpack the moving truck, so I really haven't had time to post lately.

One cool thing about my school is that all tenth graders get to take Driver's Ed as an elective!! I'm taking it the second half of the year. The rest of the electives at my high school really aren't that great though. They didn't have web design, digital photography, intro to java, or zoology there (some of the electives I was thinking about taking).

Another not so great thing: the school itself. Its was built in the 1960's. Which isn't bad in itself except for the fact that it doesn't have air conditioning. The past week and a half have been horrible and sweaty since its been in the 90's, and incredibly sunny and humid. You can see how that might be a problem.



Also, a new book came on August 26th called Cycler by Lauren McLauglin. It looks pretty funny and Scott Westerfeld has given it his review of approval.






Review
“Artfully fractured and wickedly smart. A brilliant screwball comedy about love, self knowledge, and the secret identities inside all of us.” —Scott Westerfeld, bestselling author of Pretties and Uglies

AS FAR AS anyone at her high school knows, Jill McTeague is an average smart girl trying to get her dream date to ask her to the prom.What no one knows, except for Jill’s mom and dad, is that for the four days Jill is out of school each month, she is not Jill at all. She is Jack, a genuine boy—complete with all the parts. Jack lives his four days per month in the solitude of Jill’s room. But his personality has been building since the cycling began. He is less and less content with his confinement and his cycles are becoming more frequent. Now Jill’s question about the prom isn’t who she'll go with, but who she'll be when the big night arrives.