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Teen Blog

Reading, Wellington, and whatever else – teenblog@wcl.govt.nz

Category: isn’t that cool?

New Teen Space

Sophie, Kate, Izzy, Hayley and Christina from Wellington Girls College won an award in the BP Community Enterprise Project for re-designing our Teen Space in Cummings Park.

We love what you did!

No longer a Figment of your imagination

Figment is “a community where you can share your writing, connect with other readers, and discover new stories and authors. Whatever you’re into, from sonnets to mysteries, from sci-fi stories to cell phone novels”, you can find it all at Figment – it’s like a social network for those that love to write or read original stories. Check out the contests, forums or blog while you’re there, or just oggle at how cool the webpage looks.

You never know… you could be discovered as the next Stephenie Meyer.

(Us folk here at Teen Blog are alway happy to receive your writing anytime too!)

Figment Pic

Bandcamp And BARB

Hello, I’ll get to the new CDs later in the week, for now I just wanted to tell you about a site called bandcamp (watch the intro video, it explains the site better than I could possibly hope to). A lot of newer bands and artists have started to use it as a platform to release music over the past couple of blog years. Searching the tags is a great way to discover new bands and a lot of them are giving away mp3s and sometimes entire albums away for free. Free! Once you’ve found something cool it’s very easy to share on facebook, blogs etc. here is a song by Liam Finn and Connan Mockasin’s new band BARB

Incidentally, BARB is one of the new CDs on the shelf. If you enjoyed the track above, why not get the full album out from the library? Hmmm? It’s very good.

It’s information, but not as we know it

As you well know, one of the roles of the average library is to store information so you can get your hands on when you need it. But information comes in a variety of formats today, and not all of it is displayed using words.

There’s a growing trend to display information using graphics like this site or this site (or just google search for Information Graphics). An modern-day mash up of information, data, statistics and graphic design that’s used in school atlasses, newspapers and magazines. I’m hooked, are you?

(PS if you happen to click on the infographic below you’ll be whisked away to a visualization of how the US libraries stack up in 2010, just in case you’re interested)

Teen Blog Upgrade

In order to create more “atmosphere” on the blog, we have devised an optional “upgrade” so that your browsing experience feels more like it’s happening inside a World Cup stadium in South Africa. To switch over to vuvuzela mode click here.

STAMP!

stampy

We’ve enhanced our personal brand at the Teen Blog this week by getting a fancy new stamp made, there it is, just up a bit. Nice isn’t it? Expect to see it upon official looking pieces of paper at teen events, various flyers and other things deemed stampable. Like my hand.

Coolest. Video. Ever.

Remember when we made a list of the top ten music videos and declared Radiohead’s House Of Cards number one because it was shot with lasers? Well, it’s been topped by the Cold War Kids. So far the only thing better than lasers is interactivity, have a play here. What is the next innovation in music video? The smart bet is on interactive lasers.

A Classic Reworking of a Classic

book coverThis is such a good idea I’m really quite dark I didn’t think of it myself. How to make Jane Austen better? Add zombies! But of course. With Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Seth Grahame-Smith has created a whole new genre (I guess you could call it B Grade Horror Movie Treatment of Classic Novels, or Classic Novel Mash Ups), which is not easy in the 21st Century.

I have reserved it myself, since I had to study Pride and Prejudice and I wasn’t a fan of Mr Darcy, so this is therapy. I have it on good authority that the books are actually in the central library building, so it won’t be long until they’re circulating happily; Mr Darcy, Elizabeth, Jane, the immensely irritating Lydia, and zombies!

Reserve it now (there’s a queue, but why wouldn’t there be?). 

Hot news is that Seth Grahame-Smith is going to apply the same treatment to Abraham Lincoln in a story about the great US president and his escapades as a top vampire hunter (you didn’t know that about Abraham Lincoln, did you?).

More Vampire stuff

The Vampire Diaries are to be made into a television pilot, which is good news for fans of the books and fans of vampires. And fans of television, too. And fans of Ian Somerhalder, also, who has been cast as the vamp Damon.

The original four-volume Vampire Diaries series has been around since the ’90s, and are still popular. A new trilogy has just begun with the first new book, Nightfall. All are available from your local library, probably.

HP and the 1/2 BP

The latest and last trailer for the next Harry Potter film – Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – has been released. Watch it below! Now doesn’t that look good.

Can’t remember the story? Here’s the book. We also carry all the other Harry Potter films on DVD.

My Little Joker

Some of you may have had My Little Ponies when you were growing up – but they probably didn’t look like the ones in this new collection! The new range, designed by Mari Kasurinen to resemble characters from movies, are selling for £330 each, so start saving I guess. My favourite is the Joker one, miss u sooo bad Heath. I wonder if the Care Bears are in line for a similar makeover?

Where Are The Wild Things?

In theatres October 16 is where. Nearly everyones favourite picture book Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak is getting a big screen adaptation and somebody just emailed me this link where you can watch a very cool trailer. I know I’ll be off to see it when it comes out!

Buses.

You know how buses often have those advertisments stuck to the sides of them? Here’s a page full of some of the better and more clever ads on buses from around the world.

Linkity-Link-Link

Some neat and interesting websites. For the weekend! Or week. Whatever.

Truck with a view

A small Toyota truck that can transform into a two-storey bach sounds too good to be true. But it is true!

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