Video

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The Tooth Fairy, Animated

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Dustin Grella is one talented dude. He does this amazing kind of animation, as seen by his acclaimed piece Prayers for Peace. He also does this thing called Animation Hotline, where people can call in and talk about whatever and he'll animate it. Of course, he can't animate everything he gets, as he gets a lot of calls, but he tries his best. And he contacted me not too long ago saying he would be interested in doing some animations from the stories in the Hint Fiction anthology and would I be interested? Um, hell yes I was interested! So I emailed all the contributors telling them about this opportunity and a good number called in and read their stories and over the next two weeks Dustin is going to animate some of them. But to start with, he animated my very short story "The Tooth Fairy," which was published at Everyday Weirdness back in 2009. Enjoy, and hey, feel free to give Dustin a call.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/27320160[/vimeo]

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Matt Damon Is Awesome

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Out of all the movies he's starred in and all the charities he's donated to and all the organizations he helps, Matt Damon is probably best known for his performance in Team America.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWTzyU5MFgM

But this past Saturday he was down in Washington, D.C. speaking on behalf of teachers everywhere. He was the only celebrity who appeared at the rally. Of course, it helps that his mom who is a teacher no doubt helped organize the rally, but still, he flew from a movie shoot in Canada to New York and then from New York to Washington just to give his time. And you know what? He said a lot of great stuff.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7Jh3Z52KV0

I've never been a fan of standardized testing, which (to me at least) relies on the notion that all students are basically the same. Which, of course, they are not. Each student is different and learns at a different pace and has different interests and motivations and so to try to test them all equally is just asinine. When I started my student teaching back in 2004, I was very against state standards. But my cooperating teacher at the time had come up with a way to simplify the standards to use them to our advantage. He too had been very against the idea of being restricted to teaching to a series of standards until he realized that those standards were just a guideline, and that as long as you stuck with that guideline, you were okay. Like teaching parody? As it was a Senior Media Lit class, we watched an episode of The Simpsons and then had the students respond to the different types of satire that occurred. Story setting and characterization and flashbacks and other story devices? We watched a few episodes of Lost (this was during the first season of the show when many people didn't even know what it was yet). Anyway, it goes on and on. Thinking outside the box was what got me through student teaching and which helped the students become more engaged. The standards didn't become a limitation so much as a chance to do something different. Of course, I still think they're asinine, but that's okay, because Matt Damon is awesome.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFHJkvEwyhk

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New Interview At The Man Eating Bookworm

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Peter Leonard, whose review of The Serial Killer's Wife I posted the other week, has kindly interviewed me at his blog. Don't forget about my live reading here on my website this Monday at 7:00 pm EST. It's going to be a groovy time, so tell your friends!

And if you live in America, enjoy your weekend before Congress makes the country sinks even lower into depression. But no matter what happens, at least we'll always have this (I've watched it at least a half dozen times so far, it's so brilliant):

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXzdDRnWFqs

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How I Came To Write This Book

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I have a guest post over at Patti Abbott's blog today in her ongoing series of "How I Came To Write This Book" on how I came to write The Serial Killer's Wife. Check it out. And be sure to tune in tomorrow for a very exciting announcement. Until then, have you seen the new Spiderman trailer? It looks pretty cool, though I really hope the part near the end of the trailer isn't included in the actual movie, and if it is, that it doesn't happen a lot. A little too videogamey for me, thank you very much.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XayxMPrUP4