Threadless just released this shirt today, available as a tee for guys, girls, and kids! The kids get it on light blue, which is my favorite of the three colors offered. Combine it with your “Reading is for awesome people” t-shirt, and you’ll truly be a force to be reckoned with (even if you will be sending mixed messages, I mean, do you read the books, or eat them!?).
Sometimes I forget the events that led to my being here. Sometimes I forget the days before the voyage, the glimmer of an idea of a thought, a glint of the mind, sent out so far to the east that it seemed more fantasy than possibility.
The first time I mentioned Montreal was in November of 2004. Politically motivated, I was determined to abandon the festering conservative madhouse that I felt the United States had somehow become. At the end of my rant, a brief remark: “Well, I’m off to explore the web, and see if I can find any viable ways to move to Montreal.” By the next day, I had found McGill, and my “escape route” was all planned.
Sometimes I forget the tribulations that followed;
relationships ended for my imagined lover,
a city that I’d never met.
“I’ve been thinking about Montreal. If I end up going, I have to go alone. I need to leave my attachments and start fresh, to seewho I am.”
I remember clearly reading the first letter from McGill,
“We’re sorry, better luck next time”,
and my first conversations with the administration that,
then chimaera, invisible roadblocks in my path,
are now just another everyday
part of my existence.
I continued my illicit love affair regardless,
my obsessive stalking;
I knew what Montreal was doing as I
peeked through the windows into its secret mechanisms.
I lifted up its skirts and found an impenetrable wilderness:
Beware of what comes out of Montreal, especially during winter. / It is a force corrosive to all human institutions. It will / bring everything down. It will defeat itself. It will establish / the wilderness in which the Brightness will manifest again.
– from ‘Montreal’, by Leonard Cohen
Sometimes I forget this path that led me here.
Now I’m here. All that build-up and anticipation,
and now I’m here, wondering what to do with it all.
There’s magic here, absolutely,
loneliness too, as I wander through this wilderness;
remembering, and
waiting for the Brightness to manifest again.
Old Gregg, from The Mighty Boosh! Just more proof that the British are batshit insane.
My first Photo Friday entry ever! This was taken flying over the great lakes on the way to D.C. The only thing that can make a redeye flight worthwhile is getting to watch the sun rise from the air.
For Photo Friday: Sky.
My friend Yuri lives in Bellingham, WA, and is in a band called the Planets. They used to be the Jetsons, but I imagine that certain copyright issues were discussed, and a name change ensued. But hey, the Planets is good. I like ’em.
So there’s a bit of a competition going on right now for new bands to try and get a demo gig with Virgin Records, and to get their song on the next Burnout soundtrack. 
And you guessed it, the Planets have a song entered. Personally, I think it’s awesome. You should too. But more importantly, you should click on over here to the MySpace Burnout Bandslam Contest Page, click to “Listen and Rank” the U.S. Gallery, and find the Planets submission, which looks like this:
You don’t have to do it for me. But you should do it because their song is actually really great.
This week was my first week of assignments being due. The opening weeks of a term always seem a bit lazy; it’s easy to keep up with the reading (most of the time), but difficult to visualize where it’s all going. What it lack in actual workload, it makes up for in the absolute tedium of theory.
Monday, my group turned in our documentation of the presentation we did last week on collection development issues in public libraries. We talked about collection issues involving serials, government documents, electronic materials, and finished with some discussion on particular issues found in bilingual or francophone libraries. The presentation was fun enough, but I’m just glad to have it finished.
On Tuesday, Maya and I handed in an evaluation of a research article. Within our evaluation we had to answer four questions; involving previous research, statements of hypotheses, organization and communication, and problems within the research, including possible solutions. The research article was on transformed gaze conditions in a Collaborative Virtual Environment, particularly focusing on augmented gaze. If that doesn’t mean anything to you … well, you might be better off.
Wednesday I handed in a user needs assessment based upon an interview I did over the weekend. I had to pick someone who represented a user community, and based upon my interview, determine what sorts of information needs that community might have, what information seeking behaviors it exhibited, and possible obstacles the community faced. The interview was fun, and the write-up, once I figured out how to turn an interview into a needs assessment, went pretty smoothly.
Now I’m full swing into the term, with something new due every single week, it seems. It’s nice to have things spaced out a bit, though it means that there’s always a deadline looming, and that I have to stay on top of my work, i.e. I have to try and suppress my procrastinative nature as best I can. I have to prepare a strategic plan for next Friday. After that, we have a week off, and Abigail is coming to visit, so chances are I won’t be very productive. The following week I have a midterm, and then a couple weeks after that the next big collection development and information services and users projects are due.
It’s fun times, for me, despite my occasional proclivity to get involved in hallway conspiracies. But that’s an issue for another day. Things can always be better, but honestly I enjoy the things we’re doing, the multiple aspects of the field I’m in, and the direction I feel like this education is taking me. I admit I may be a bit of an optimist at times, but like Poe said: Man’s real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.
I wish someone would show this to my professors.
It’s not that they don’t have interesting things to say … but my god, I just get SO DAMN TIRED OF POWERPOINT. Granted, this would still be powerpoint, but at least it would be more interesting.
On the other hand, would these ideas work in an educational, weekly-powerpoint kind of setting? We have to give a presentation near the end of March, so maybe we’ll give it a shot.
I’m really interested in talking about Seth Godin’s blog about “High resolution mistakes”, and how concern about metrics, and drawing the Digg crowd (or blogging for popularity in general), can ruin what might otherwise be an entertaining, personal blog. I mean, if you can write, you can write, and you can find stories in your life that are interesting. Following the cookie cutter model to popular blogging means you’ll just end up with another robotic technopolisci blog among thousands. I like his list of “common metrics”, and their possible real points, but to me the crux of his article lies here:
There are literally millions of bloggers that have become so focused on measurable traffic that they end up posting nonsense designed to do nothing but attract a Digg. Look back at a blog like that a month later and it appears to be a series of gimmicks, all designed to maximize a metric that’s almost totally irrelevant to what the blogger set out to do in the first place.
I wanted to be popular once. Thankfully, these days I just want to be me.
The Maplewood Library, who I previously mentioned were planning on closing their doors immediately after school to cut back on “teen rowdiness”, has now decided to remain open, after a unanimous decision by the board of trustees just one day before the first closure was to take place.
Teens are a valuable part of a community, and of the library that serves it. Granted, they can be rowdy and tough to manage. I personally once had to break up a fight between two teenage girls right in front of the library, so I know how it can go, but I think the answer, rather than to lock them out, is to bring them in and to give them some outlet for their energies. The Lester Public Library in Wisconsin created a Teen Advisory Board whose job it is to do just that: arrange events for teens, by teens. I understand that not every library is going to have a librarian interested in playing DDR, or even having video games inside the library (feelings definately remained mixed on that one among professionals), but that doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be something available, inside the library, to engage teens on a level they’re interested in.
According to this librarian’s story, it may be becoming one:
I recently spoke with a junior who was stressed about her decreasing ability to focus on anything for longer than two minutes or so. I tried to inspire her by talking about the importance of reading as a way to train the brain. I told her that a good reader develops the same powers of concentration that an athlete or a Buddhist would employ in sport or meditation. “A lot out there is conspiring to distract you,” I said.
She rolled her eyes. “That’s your opinion about books. It doesn’t make it true.” To her, the idea that reading might benefit the mind was, well, lame.
On the one hand, I appreciate librarians using things like DDR to connect with teens, but I’m anxious that with more “engaging” (i.e. distracting) pursuits, reading will continue to be set aside, to our (as a society) long-term detriment.
That’s just the way we roll.
I’m referring, of course, to the end of this music video by Cascada. In my opinion, it’s all fun and games until she starts throwing the catalog cards around. At that point, I’d throw the tramp out and ban her library privileges indefinately.
Then I’d breakdance.
If you want to watch a library music video of an ENTIRELY different persuasion, you should click here. It’s very cartoon network, i.e. annoying but catchy anyway.
Auriae is my night elf warrior in World of Warcraft. I created her so I could hang out with Theo and Kandace, though the time difference and schedules have made that somewhat infrequent. Still, she’s a lot of fun to play, and if that makes me a big old dork, then so be it.
I play on the Dark Iron server, which any webcomics fan should know is the Penny Arcade Alliance server, and I’m in the PAA guild Exuberance. It’s a happy guild.
Anyway, I just thought I would admit, publicly, to my WoW gamer-ness. It’s part of my ongoing campaign to feel comfortable as a dork out in the open. Seriously though, these things are important.
Crossstitch has way too many S’s in a row. I kinda dig it. But wanna know what I really dig?
I really dig this I am 10 ninja crossstitch idea. Seriously, if someone wanted to do something like this, say for my birthday, in April, or just because it’s awesome, and I’m usually awesome, and it would therefore (usually) suit me – well, then I wouldn’t complain at all.
Also, while we’re on the subject; I know I’ve linked to it before, but it’s been awhile: Subversive Crossstitch
Go nuts.
For instance, I spend about three hours investigating different <blockquote> styles, and finally decided on using Stuart Robertson’s CSS Curly Quotes technique. Of course, once I decided to use it, it took me most of that time to get the spacing et al to work the way I wanted it to. I’m really happy with the result, though. Behold:
He is wise who knows the sources of knowledge — where it is written and where it is to be found.
– A.A. Hodge
The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall, nations perish, civilizations grow old and die out, and after an era new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again and yet live on, still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men’s hearts of the heart of men centuries dead.
– Clarence Day
Second hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack.
– Virginia Woolf
Quotes provided by Useful Information.
By the by, if you’re using Internet Explorer, you’re missing the entire effect. You’re also, and perhaps more importantly, way behind the times. Don’t you know that even IE7 isn’t standards compliant!? Sure, it’s shiny and new, but try to use some blockquote:before or blockquote:after styles and you’re up virtual creek without a joystick.
That said, you should really go and download Firefox. Trust me, life’s better when you’re foxy.
Another great shirt from nerdyshirts.com.
People keep asking where I got the “She blinded me with library science” t-shirt I was sporting the other day(and once last week), so I thought I’d just send out the link (again). They’re made by the creator of the webcomic Questionable Content, Jeph Jacques. You can check the merch out here: http://questionablecontent.net/merch.php, though if you enjoy comics at all, I really recommend QC. It’s my fave, by far (and I was quite the expert in these matters at one point in time).
For other library gear be sure to check out http://www.cafepress.com/buy/librarian, which has lots of options, including a “blinded me with library science” rip-off design. Just remember that Jeph did it first.
Finally, there are a few more items up for grabs on a newish site: http://www.cafepress.com/libraryorbust, and even more at http://www.cafepress.com/curmudgeony/634513
While I’m here, here’s some library humor.
As a purveyor of all things fucking rad, I thought it my duty to inform you of this, the coolest shirt ever made.