Question: Does anyone know of any JQuery syntax validators or checkers? The braces are killing me.

Answer: 
Check out JSLint for validating JS code:

<http://www.jslint.com/>

Warning: JSLint will hurt your feelings
**JSLint** and a live demo site **JSFiddle** will give you the ability to make sure something is valid and runs properly. 

As said, most IDE's will validate your Javascript. Eclipse, Netbeans, PHPEd and so on all have javascript checkers.