Just a quick one

skating,
originally uploaded by dkun.

Favorite G photo at the moment. Just sayin'.

Late to the party - Christmas Edition

Christmas 2008,
originally uploaded by dkun.

So the siblings have pretty much recounted the Christmas happenings. They got the good bits version of the holiday. We got stuck with the travel. I will not speak of it, for doing so will only summon the vile beast that is Airline Travel itself. Suffice it to say I will most likely never fly again, and shall never fly American Airlines again specifically.

As for the good bits version, there was some bowling, some games played (Qwirkle is quite good as is the Catan Dice game), far too much food consumed, and much ribbing of the favorite niece. (That means giving a hard time oh favored relative. See? It continues.)

Santa managed to find the wee bairns (whose photographically stolen souls are displayed for the world to see here) a touch early delivering gifts on Christmas Eve. They were a bit too worn out to fully enjoy such providence, but that's ok, they still had a good time.

At any rate, a good time was had by all. I especially enjoyed the nifty photo book sister "J" put together for us featuring pictures of Mom. That and she makes a good cup of cocoa! Home made whip cream. Yum.

Books have been consumed, notably the fourth Percy Jackson story Battle of the Labyrinth and Uglies. Both were quite good. (And still in the YA vein, hmm...) Also read through The Fall of Cthulhu Book One: The Fugue. That's one trippy story. Even by Cthulhu standards.

Lovely wife almost escaped having to suffer through Twilight, but cruel siblings forced it on her the night before we left. Poor soul.

Thanks to Dad and family for a nice time. Hopefully it will be a touch longer next time. And not bookended by the eye gouge inspiring torment known as air travel.

Both Sides the Tweed

I'm not a big fan of memes. This one piqued my curiosity though. So you have to suffer through it. Mwa ha ha ha. Oh and in the interests of full disclosure, I did skip one track as it was an untitled Japanese track from Serial Experiments Lain. Sorry about that internet.

Da Rules:
1. Put your iPod (or MP3 player, or iTunes) on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!
4. Tag others, if so desired.

Da Meme:
IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY?
Tomorrow Never Knows, The Beatles
Magic 8 ball confused, ask again later. Alternately, this is very zen, go listen to the sound of one hand clapping and contemplate the futility of knowing if something is indeed, "OKAY"

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Sprite - Melonball Bounce, Raymond Scott
Apparently dropped on my head a touch too much...

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
See the Sun, Dido
Well. Really. This is not that sort of blog. Normally.

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Washington, D.C., The Magnetic Fields
Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ahem. Sorry 'bout that.

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
I'll Find My Way Home, Vangelis
Strangely, I'll take this one. I'm pretty sure it was in my last fortune cookie.

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Into a Dream III, His and Her Circumstances - Act 1.0
Oh letter 'd', you're so dreamy. You're straight out of Twilight.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Dirt Bike, TMBG
Curse you iTunes for illuminating my secret passions! it's so true... I think I'd like to be alone for a moment. Leave the dirt bike.

WHAT IS 2+2?
Love is, Kenny Loggins
Apparently iTunes thinks I'm a swinger now.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Starting Up, Final Fantasy VIII soundtrack
I... I don't know what to make of this. Although he does change places of employment quite often.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Sympathy for the Devil, the Rolling Stones
I always knew the Devil was a woman. And from the D.C. area...

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Alien Mind Bender, Pliant
I'm not sure anyone would argue with this. Least of all me.

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Katamaritaino, Hideki Tobeta, Yui Asaka
Sou desu ne.

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
State of Independence, Vangelis
Hee hee. <snicker> Bwa ha ha ha ha. This is spot on. (Sorry slacker siblings)

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Armogohma (First Storm), Zelda Reorchestrated (Twilight Princess)
And now is the time when we dance the ceremonial, ah heck forget it.

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, The Rolling Stones
Oh I'll be satisfied. Actually, this is strangely appropriate as well.

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Cut Flowers, Smithereens
Oh iTunes, must you continue to shine light on my secrets? Oh ikebana how I adore you.

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Dialogue 2-8, Cowboy Bebop CD Box Set
That's what she said.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Cherry Blossom Color Season, Yu Miyake, Katamari Company Jr.
So pretty. So lively. So what the heck is going on here?

WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
Jenova Returns (J-E-N-O-V-A ~ Jenova Complete), Steffan Andrews
This is true. This is the worst possible thing that could happen. Damn you Jenova!

HOW WILL YOU DIE?
End Credits, John Murphy (28 Days Later Soundtrack)
Couldn't have said it better myself. And I knew it would be zombies.

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
Runners High, The Pillows
Also strangely true. Exercise, my deepest regret...

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
Caribbean Blue, Enya
When they installed that Genius feature in iTunes they weren't kidding around were they?

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
Re: Your Brains, Jonathan Coulton
Hee hee hee. Oh and zombies again.

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
99 Red Balloons, Goldfinger
Apparently when I'm the last man on earth. Go Apocalypse. Sorry honey.

WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
Kansas City / Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!, The Beatles
iTunes has been to Kansas. So true.

DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
Papa Was a Rodeo, The Magnetic Fields
I... I have nothing to say here. Move along.

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
Treasure Every Meeting, His and Her Circumstances - Act 1.0
Apparently I was my own Grandfather. This explains a lot.

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
Hyrule Castle Soundscape, Zelda Reorchestrated: Soundscapes Vol. 1
... Your Princess is in another castle Mario. And another game for that matter.

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
Both Sides The Tweed, Mary Black
Done and Done.

Before I Forget

This is probably as much Twilight as I can take.

And they totally fired Jacob. And the director. And the new director is the guy that helped direct American Pie. And The Golden Compass. You guys are screwed. Bwa ha ha ha ha.

Melancholy is Fun

I've been looking forward to seeing The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya for quite some time. I requested it at the Library and it showed up last week. So we spent part of the weekend watching the series. It was brilliant. If you have any tolerance for/interest in anime this is one worth checking out. It follows Kyon (see Sis there's a K name - that you shouldn't use) a normal High School student whose life gets turned upside down by one Haruhi Suzumiya. She's on the lookout for aliens, time travelers and espers (psychics for you non Japanese folks). And poor Kyon gets dragged along for the ride. What follows is a tongue in cheek look at anime cliches served with lots of humor and some seriously snarky inner dialogue. I could watch this over and over. And I just might. It's a little FLCL a little Excel Saga and a lot awesome. And the opening and ending themes are great. Hit youtube and check out some of the dance numbers put together for Hare Hare Yukai.

In other news Hikaru no Go volume 13 was fun to flip through.

And the weekend draws nigh. As does Christmas and the end of the year. Where has this year gone? Although in a lot of ways I'm pretty glad to see it go.

Partially for my Uncle

First, I finished Death from the Skies and it was great. It seems to me that boys go through some distinct phases growing up. First there are Dinosaurs (G says Raaarrr!) and then there's Astronomy. This book rekindled quite a bit of my old love for Astronomy. Never mind that the book focuses on the destruction of the Earth a dozen or so times. Death by Asteroid! Death by solar flare! Death by black hole! They're all great. Well, ok, horrific, but you get the idea. The science is always at a manageable level and if you like sci fi apocalyptic tales, it's nice to see what might really happen. So give Death a chance.

Oddly, speaking of growing up male, that brings me to my current book: The Elfish Gene (another one with a subtitle I can't be bothered to type up). If you played D&D or knew someone that played D&D I suspect this book will bring back memories, fond or otherwise. It might also help you understand that poor creature that was the nerd in the 80s. I'm not very far in, but I can already tell this will be a great book.

My own sordid past with D&D all starts with my Uncle Paul. I still have fond memories of the old red box and the hours of fun it led to. I also remember pestering him to let me fight a Dragon with my brand new magic user. The death my poor character received at the hands of the foul beast was one I still treasure. My Uncle probably still rolls his eyes at the thought of some young kid with magic missile and an obvious death wish.

And if that last paragraph made any sense to you at all, you really need to read The Elfish Gene.

In (mocking) Twilight news, they fired the director of the film as they gear up for the sequel. And it also sounds like they fired the actor that plays Jacob. The werewolf. That's not a werewolf. Because in a movie about vampires that are not vampires, you better have werewolves that are not werewolves. Has the last decade of bad fantasy cinema taught you nothing? At least you can rest assured there will be no leather clad heroine in the Twilight sequel. That would just lead to impure thoughts and we know nobody in that series has those...

Christmas fast approaches. Which means I will have to brave airline travel. I don't think I'm ready for that. Trip to see the family notwithstanding. I hate airports.

If you're not watching Leverage on TNT on Tuesday nights you should be. And the Librarian movies were pretty good too. I only caught most of the second and the third, but (go figure) our Library carries them so we'll be watching the first two on DVD. They're a little National Treasure, a little Indiana Jones, a lot The Mummy, but it works. Although Noah Wyle is no Brendan Fraser. It was funny seeing Gabrielle Anwar in the second one. Glad to see she's still working (Burn Notice!) I liked her quite a bit in 80s/90s. Whenever that silly Invasion of the Body Snatchers re-telling came out. That and If Looks Could Kill with that Grieco kid. I think she was in that.

Well, that's quite the bit of rambling. I should point out at this point that Blue Moon does look to be rather fun, especially once you're familiar with the cards. It does look like there's a learning curve there, but I think it will be worth it. Also, I managed to collect all 120 stars as Luigi in Super Mario Galaxy. I won't comment on what kind of a geek/nerd that makes me. Did you not read the beginning of this post?

For my sisters (in insincerity)

Here you go. It's like a car wreck, actually, more to the point, it's like a bad relationship. I can't help but mock my poor sisters' love for Tryharderlight (and feed that addiction so I can then mock it some more). If I were feeling really abusive, I'd link to all the articles decrying the series as a step back for women's rights by something on the order of 50 years or so. But I won't, I'm not that mean. At the moment.

Mostly I'm just glad it's the weekend. And I can sleep. All weekend. Hopefully after the next 48 hours this stupid head cold will be gone. And I can return to the land of the living.

Head full of cheese

While the normal human head may weigh about 8 lbs or so, I'm pretty sure mine is clocking in at about 15. I really dislike sinus infections. From the way everything acts like a slow-mo action shot to that slight sore throat to the aforementioned hefty head full of snot, they're not fun. And don't get my wife started on the snoring. Ear plugs indeed...

In other news, G has caught the Star Wars bug. He's been playing through Lego Star Wars (or Star Wars the Clone Wars as he insists on calling it as everything SW related must be named after the show on Cartoon Network) with either my wife or I (depending on who he can con into it at the moment) and having a grand old time. Apparently he finished the game (a feat I myself have not yet managed) and decided that the movies had to be consumed next. I told lovely wife that he could only watch the first one without me. For Star Wars movies are an ancient male bonding ritual and he's not allowed to watch them the first time without me. Or there will be hell to pay. (Apparently the viewing of Ep 4 this afternoon was accompanied by much light saber wielding, toy x wing flying and "hey that was in the game! I remember that!" commentary.) Now to find a way to get that really cool Lego Millennium Falcon... Hmm....

Picked up Blue Moon courtesy of Father-in-Law for my birthday. Will report back on how it is. Looking forward to it as we really enjoy Blue Moon City.

The Graveyard Book and Death from the Skies are still being consumed. I'm going to run out of patience to read long before things to read... Although they may take a backseat to Zombies: A Field Guide to the Living Dead which is lurking on the hold shelf for me. That plus some Rolling Stones, gotta catch up on my classic rock yo.

It needs to snow. That is all.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go use my head for a paperweight.

Insert Post Title #42

Been a while. Kept meaning to jot some things down closer to Thanksgiving and just ended up ... not. Thanksgiving itself went fine. Food was good. Company was fine. Gratitude was expressed.

It was the first year in quite a few that I didn't have the whole week off. It will probably be another couple before I can attempt to do it again. Silly new job and resetting my vacation time... Oh well. Friday was pretty quiet, so that was nice.

Listened to a couple 5 Browns CDs to see what all the fuss over at sisters' blogs was about. Nice piano music. They're probably more fun to see live. It's ok to listen to, but mostly it's just nice piano music.

Read through the Old Boy graphic novels. Mostly as I'd heard Spielberg was going to do the movie based more on them as opposed to the extremely trippy and US unfriendly Korean film. The graphic novels were decent and certainly less disturbing than the film, so that's something I guess.

Snagged a couple DS games for my birthday (thanks Dad). They've been pretty fun so far. Avoided Black Friday due to working and real lack of anything worth fighting for. Although a couple of the HDTV's sounded nice. Sounds like Dad and Jen had a decent showing.

Other than that, not too much earth shattering stuff to comment on. Star Wars themed Robot Chicken episodes were hilarious.

Steampunk and other odds and ends

Finished up Starcross and it's genre-riffic subtitle the other day. It's the second in a series (Larklight was the first and I believe Mothstorm just came out) of Steampunk novels in which our heroes have adventures and save the world. All while extolling the virtues of the good ol' Victorian era. Huzzah! Not sure why I've been on such a YA reading kick lately. But there you go. It was a fun read and is another one that won't take much time to read through. Lots of twists and turns and yarn.

I must take a moment to point out that the book I'm currently reading (Death from the Skies: These are the Ways the World Will End) is truly awesome. It's written by an astronomer and details what would really happen if all of those sci-fi, astronomical, world-ending scenarios came to be. Truly brilliant. And funny. Go give it a look. There's plenty of humor and the science is aimed firmly at the lay audience, so there's very little pesky math to be muddled through.

Fall is coming to an end and I suppose and that's a good thing. Tired of leaves on the ground. Ready for some snow and some cold weather. It's been cold enough in the mornings, but strangely warm in the afternoons. Or at least it seems that way.

Sock animals have taken over the house. Pigs, cats, totoro. (Totorii?) I am amused by that. Most of them fall in the disturbingly cute camp, but you'll find a mutant here or there.

Speaking of mutants, the world can finally shut up about Twilight after this weekend. It will have its one big box office weekend and then we can all go about ignoring it and living our lives again. It will be nice, he thought giddily, while typing furiously and glittering in the afternoon sunlight. See I've read the book... Well, ok enough to know that Meyer should be brought up on abuse of adverbs. Early reviews are coming in and they're mostly positive (if you ignore the "vampire" content and see it for what it really is - tween romance chick flick) while knocking Edward. And really after seeing that trailer, who thought he was a good idea?

Guess I'll need a new passtime.

Books and sock animals

piggy,
originally uploaded by dkun.

Finished The Magic Thief the other day. Great book. Young adult story about, wait for it, a thief who learns to be a magician. Clever eh? It's a fun little story that I look forward to seeing followed up. Easily read in a day or so. Give it a try if you like YA adventure stories.

One of the other books we got from the Library was on sock animals. You can see McK's pig here. Lovely wife is currently working on a Totoro for moi. (Note to favorite niece, that means "me" in French. That's the language of France. It's a place where French people live. Also, French can be a salad dressing. (Although not a very good one.) At any rate. Relatives may discover sock animals under the tree at Christmas. For they are cute.

Snagged Mega Man III on the Virtual console the other day. And Secret of Mana. Mega Man III is an exercise in old school platform torture. Oddly enough I'm finding that strangely compelling. And G thinks it's great. Weird. Secret of Mana is a 1-3 player RPG from Yore (the time period, not a company. Squaresoft made the game). Should be good. Look forward to torturing lovely wife and kids with it. (Strangely Super Mario Galaxy has come back into vogue as well. I've actually gotten quite a few stars with Luigi. It's a pretty great game.)

Spaced is an humorous British comedy. Lots of geeky pop culture references. And Simon Pegg.

Ladron Que Roba a Ladron was a fun Spanish heist comedy. Also recommended if you run across it. I enjoy a good caper flick and this one didn't disappoint. Favorite niece should watch it. In Spanish. With subtitles. And then send me a report on the effects of Infommercials on Immigrants and other subsistence communities.

Well. I think that's enough of a catch up for now. Go watch the new Harry Potter trailer. It's far more interesting.

Cinema Paradiso

Have watched several movies in the last few days and several more in the wings.

Constantine is good. I can't really explain why, but I enjoy it thoroughly. Nice little action/horror type movie. Catch it on FX they show it a lot.

21 was really good for the first 2/3rds or so and then devolved into horribly predictable boring-ness. Which is a shame. I wonder if the book is any better? Or the actual story it's based on. It would be interesting to see if the guy's life actually followed tired Hollywood plotline #31.

Dan in Real Life, however, was amazing. Truly great movie. It made lovely wife cry for somewhat unrelated reasons, but I can understand where she's coming from. Steve Carrel did a great job and I suspect he's in some ways similar to Jim Carrey in that he's a better actor when the comedy is understated and the role is more serious. The best part of this movie is that the characters were all real people, they captured the family dynamic perfectly. I spent the first 10 minutes wondering if I'd actually be able to watch the show as the conflict between the father and his daughters was a little too close to home. I think I'll take a nice 10 year vacation while the girls go through their teenage years. Yikes... See this movie.

Twilight mocking is still in full force here. My favorite piece of news is that the books are badly written versions of whatever Bella happens to be reading in High School that year. Seriously? How some people get published boggles the mind. I don't mind retellings, I'm reading one right now - The Graveyard Book is Neil Gaiman's take on The Jungle Book, but it has good writing and an original twist on the source material. Twilight offers, well, sparkles I guess. Although if you're going to have a vampire story, you might want to actually have some vampires in it... Just sayin'. Oh and this and that. I'd link to the Twilight drinking game, but you can only shoot so many fish in the barrel...

So on to more random movie viewings. A Spanish heist/caper film, another horror movie, British sitcom featuring Simon Pegg. Typical goodness.

Jumbled thoughts

Finished reading Ring by Koji Suzuki (note to sister, translated from the Japanese), the book the movie was based on. I think the book came first. Heck even with the vast power of the internet a click away I don't care that much. Anyway, good book. It's interesting to see the slight differences. The movie follows the book pretty well and I don't think they made any significant changes. Well, ok I suppose there's one big change (no creepy Japanese ghost girl climbing out of TV sets in the book, shocking I know!) but other than that things were pretty close. Couple gender switches, some age changes, that sort of thing.

Honestly this is probably one instance where it is a slightly more effective movie than book. The visual images of the videotape are better actually, you know, viewed as opposed to read about. Although there was a nice little twist with the nature of the tape that was only sort of touched on in the movie. So if you liked the movie, I'd say give the book a shot. I'm going to have to track down the sequels now. I saw one of them just the other day on one of the trucks.

Watched 3:10 to Yuma again. Still enjoy that movie. Although the beginning was a little slower than I remembered. Ending is still pretty good though.

Election happened. That's really about all I have to say about that. There were no surprises at the outcome, and no really joy/dismay. Yay, we elected a politician. I really can't muster much enthusiasm about that.

Seems like there have been other happenings going on, but I really can't recall. We had some snow that made the commute a living nightmare. Driving downtown in stop and go traffic is an exercise in sheer physical pain. At least I have my iPod and an automatic now. Otherwise I'd be reaching for a slightly different automatic...

I want some more Chocolate Monkey Bread...

And some fries. And maybe a steak... Oddly, yes there is an article about the best steaks in Vegas nearby... Mmm steak.

RIP Michael Crichton

Huh, that was unexpected. While not as big a fan of his most recent stuff, his earlier stuff was brilliant. He will be missed.

November

October has been vanquished in a series of trick or treaters and sugar highs. Kids had fun dressing up and now we move on.

G had a pretty good birthday. Lots of dinosaurs, some fish, popup castles, and a couple Mariokart R/C cars. That finally work. And are admittedly pretty fun, if not the best construction.

Made some Chocolate Monkey Bread for breakfast. It was very yummy. I highly recommend it. It's worth the effort to make. Mmmm monkey bread...

So. There are (for the purposes of this post) 2 kinds of Westerns. The action-y kind (think classic Clint Eastwood spaghetti) and the sprawling, slow paced kind. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (and a title that's too long) is the second kind. It's a beautiful piece of work, no doubt. But exciting gun-slinging Western it is not. Which is fine. There's room for both, but if you want the first, look elsewhere. I'd really like to know how much of this story was true. It's apparently based on a book. It is an interesting show in some ways, and the cinematography really is gorgeous.

Currently devouring the second Library Edition Hellboy volume. It's wonderful.

The Host was on G4 last night. Taped it. If you've not seen it, it's a decent Giant Monster movie. Still have a few more Horror movies to make our way through. Silly patrons checking out the movies I want to see.

OMG1!11!!! Teh Sexxxy Vamp1res!!!111!

So. I watched the Twilight trailer. Not only am I not the demographic for this movie, I'm sad there is a demographic for this movie. If that dialogue were any more stilted they'd need circus performers for actors. The Pain! Make it go away. And who cast these people? And then attempted to do hair and makeup? I'd think it was the aforementioned circus troop, except they'd probably do a better job. Just wow...

Finished reading Blindness. Didn't really care for it. There were some interesting ideas that were pretty much invalidated by some bizarre who are these people choices. I don't think real people would react in those ways and it really derailed a lot of the story. Which is too bad as it was a pretty interesting idea. The writing style was mostly ok, although it did make things a little hard to follow. So yeah, move along, nothing to see. Heh.

Flipping through a book on Coin Tricks at the moment. Think I'll try and learn some. I miss magic. It's fun to have a couple tricks to show off on occasion. I still remember a card trick or two from when I was younger. They come in handy once in a while.

Also going to try and tackle Ring by Koji Suzuki. Book they based the movies on. I liked the movies. Both versions actually. They work a little differently, but are both effective. Halloween is far too soon...

Defending Food

Finished reading In Defense of Food the other day. It's the sequel to Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. Another worthwhile read, and in some ways a slightly better one. This time round he focuses on what we should eat and in some cases how. The most useful section is probably the last third, but the entire book is fascinating.

Here are a couple eating rules to live by:

Don't eat anything with more than five ingredients.
Don't eat anything with ingredients you can't pronounce.
Don't eat anything with an ingredient you don't recognize.
Shop around the periphery of the supermarket.
Don't eat anything that doesn't spoil (i.e. Twinkies).

Like I said, it's an interesting book.

The horror movie viewing has been continuing. We took in The Last Winter the other day. Probably the first Eco horror movie I've seen. The planet is angry. This one was fun in that it's another case where they build up the psychological tension as opposed to going for the gore or the cheap thrill. Those really are the best kinds of horror movies. The plot is a little all over the place and the ending is rather abrupt, but it was an interesting movie.

Honestly it's hard to tell what we've seen and done recently. The one drawback to working at the Library is that they have a pretty impressive collection. And I've had a lot of things show up that I'd put on hold lately. So we're a little swamped. A couple Westerns, some Horror, a WWII flick, I can't even remember what else. And that doesn't take into account the TV show, or actual broadcast TV. (Just a note, I really prefer TV on DVD. No commercials and your own viewing schedule FTW.)

Wil Wheaton's blog has been pretty interesting of late.

Hmm, what else. Birthday alley is in full swing. A couple of in-law birthdays over the course of this week and a couple weeks out. G's birthday is soon. Christmas. Ah the expensive time of year.

Well, this has been a decent catch up post. Maybe I'll do this over the weekend... And maybe next time I can find something interesting to talk about... Probably not.

Trying to gather my thoughts

And failing miserably.

First, The Orphanage is great. It's a nice horror film that uses atmosphere and characterization to really great effect. If you're looking for a good scary movie for Halloween, don't let the subtitles scare you. Watch this one.

Second, this makes me hungry.

Third, this is an interesting political diversion. See which candidate matches your priorities. Needs more questions, but it's interesting to play with.

We've managed to catch up some on horror movie viewing. Season 2 of Dexter is fun so far.

I'm still reading Blindness. It's a rather disturbing little civilization falls apart story.

Again with the one sentence paragraphs. Oh well, my brain really isn't capable of stringing together complex thoughts at the moment.

I ended up giving the Girl Scouts the Library tour this morning. There was a mixup in the Children's Department and I guess they had them scheduled earlier. Since I had stopped by to say hi to the girls, I ended up giving them the tour. McK and M seemed to enjoy themselves.

Sounds like we might be getting a piano from lovely wife's Mom. She can't use it any more and she's wanting to make some space in her apartment, so we may snag it. That will be nice. I like pianos. Although I've completely forgotten how to play...

Celebrated lovely wife's birthday this past week. Party went fine. Games were played, brownies were eaten, Republicans were mocked. All in all a success I'd say.

So yeah. That's about all I've got.

Around the net

Stealing a title from G4 and a concept from every other blog on the planet. Have some links:

For my sisters: Shannon Hale's blog. Recently she's been talking about an author's responsibility for the moral a reader gets from their work. I disagree with a couple of her points, possibly on technicalities, but qualifies as interesting.

Engineer humor. This one's for you Dad. Heh. I need me one of them.

Sci-fi. Death scenes. Countdown list. You know you want to click.

Fake Twitter feeds anyone? I'ma gonna check out Bad Horse for sure.

100 skills you should know. If you're a guy. Or something. I dunno, I stopped reading.

Need to put the kids to bed. Clean up when you're done with the internet. It's a mess. Links everywhere. Kids these days...

Some thoughts on writing and other fish in the sea

I've started reading Blindness by José Saramago (it's currently a film starring Julianne Moore and some other people). This has caused me to think a little bit about writing styles, partially as the book has been translated from Portuguese (I believe) and partially as there are some interesting stylistic choices. The book is, in a lot of ways, mostly dialogue but it uses its own method to convey the conversations. There are no quotation marks, no paragraphs breaks, no he said/she saids. Changes in speaker/thought are separated by commas within the same sentence.

This produces, for me, a strange - almost noisy - quick-paced rhythm in my reading. It's very different. Coupled with either an artifact of the translation process or a strange word style, reading Blindness is a cross between an interesting experience and a somewhat painful one. It's like there's a hum in the background due to the way the words flow and the effort required to keep track of what's going on.

Writers have been playing with style forever. Joyce and stream of consciousness narrative, ee cummings and the birth of texting, Danielewski and games with narrators and footnotes. Things that either make English teachers jump for joy or cry bitter, bitter tears. Personally I find it interesting if occasionally eye-rolling worthy. Not every experiment is a grand success. It will be interesting to see if I stick with Blindness. I certainly find the story interesting, it's just a question of whether the style gets in the way of that or really does help. And ultimately, again for me, that's what makes any of these experiments successes or failures. Does the style choice help the story or get in the way of it. Terribly conclusive I know.

Have caught a couple horror movies to usher in October. Part of something truly awful (and thus great) called Madman. A nice 80's slasher called The Burning (featuring a young Jason Alexander of all things). I think we may have to throw April Fool's Day into the mix for nostalgia's sake. And I might just have to venture forth into The Shining territory again. Here be dragons.

Paprika proves that Satoshi Kon is an Artist. (And yes, please to note the capital A) I liked the film for a few reasons, but boy is it out there. Apparently it's based on a novel. See previous commentary on writing styles. It was like a cross between Dreamscape and an artsy foreign flick. Oh wait. It was a cross between Dreamscape and an artsy foreign flick. Convenient.

Saw a bit of Drunken Master as well. It was funny. I miss good Jackie Chan movies.

Oh and here's the Geek Alphabet. Just sayin'.

October

I'm strangely drawn to this site. Mostly as I can build a playlist of just about anything. The Pillows! Jonathan Coulton! Weird Al! Go nuts internet. And seriously, listen to The Pillows. Don't let the Japanese scare you. Serious rock.

Speaking of serious rock, AC/DC track pack coming up for Rock Band 2. Thunderstruck. The only real problem is that nobody sounds like the lead singer of AC/DC. But the drums and guitar...

Fringe is slowly growing on me. It does scratch that X Files itch.

Run Fatboy Run was Simon Pegg goodness. And sweet. And funny. I should really say something else so my paragraphs are longer than a sentence. Simon Pegg is my Hollywood best friend. We would hang out if we knew each other. Totally. And much hilarity would ensue.

I may have to go watch The Graveyard Book as my copy is probably sitting in a box at the Library. I wants it.

Oh right, October. While not my favorite month this does mark the beginning of my favorite time of year. September just pretends. October typically delivers. Plus I can force my horror movie tastes on poor wife as, hey, October. And scary games and scary books and scary candy. Really. Have you seen how much HFCS is in that stuff? And you want to know what they say about it you stupid corn industry commercials? How about you can't eat it in moderation because it's in EVERYTHING?! How about it's so evil it convinces your body that you're not full. It's totally ok to eat more. How about there's no way it's a "natural" substance considering the amount of technical wizardry needed to produce it (which I'm pretty sure you don't allow anyone to see...) Sorry. Soapbox put away.

But yes, October is nice. Cooler temperatures start to be the norm and there's a nice shift to fall sensibility.

Mmmm burger

Tonight's How I Met Your Mother was pure distilled truth. And funny. Alas, I don't know that I can claim to have such a burger place in my memory banks, but burgers are serious business and there is nothing more vital than the best burger. One day, it will be my cheeseburger. One day.

RIP Paul Newman

Wow. I have nothing to say. Sad news. Hope Mom gets to meet him.

Killing time

The lovely wife is trying to kill a few brain cells watching Smallville. I suspect she'll kill more than a few. So in my own attempt to kill a few brain cells I've turn to the intarwebs and you lot. I'm pretty sure the wife will lose more brain cells, but it will be close.

Alas, the series of tubes isn't really humming today. I suppose there are a few distractions. I'm listening the ambient music mix from Magnatune and I poked around over at Whatever. Both of moderate interest.

Grilled up some brats for dinner. Have recently run across a few different interesting recipes. One of my coworkers pointed me to a deep chocolate pound cake recipe in the latest issue of Bon Appetit (I think). It sounds delightful. I'm not sure why I've run across a couple different chocolate cake recipes lately, but yum. And then there was the Hellfire Steak recipe in some grilling book or other. I forget the title. How to Grill or something like that.

Caught the last 10 minutes of The Wedding Singer. Billy Idol makes that movie. I want to listen to the soundtracks now...

Sounds like favorite niece is recovering from Appendicide. Have I mentioned lately that I love favorite niece? I'm pretty sure that the AMA will soon adopt the term Appendicide. And if they don't they should. (And on a slightly related note, apparently you have to have your head shaved for Appendicide. At least according to slightly evil little sister to aforementioned niece. Heh.)

Well, that's all I've got for now. Oh so thrilling. I shall go poke around the wilds of the internets and maybe something will strike my interest.

Inspired by true events

Ran across this on the internets today and thought that it was only so so. So I feel compelled to try and come up with my own list of geek wife trials. I am sure this will fail horribly.

1. Realizing that there are too many days celebrated in Geek Culture. (Talk like a Pirate Day? Pi day? Who makes these things up?)

2. That sinking feeling that comes from the knowledge that the tech gadget he just came home with will be replaced by a shinier version we just have to have exactly 2 seconds after he left the store with the now horribly out of date item.

3. Comic book movies. Except for Spiderman. He can wrap me in his web any day.

4. Why are there dice with more than 6 sides? And why do we have so many of them? And why do I know that there are 4 Editions of Dungeons and Dragons?

5. Why am I sacrificing valuable closet space to board games? I could have shoes. Or storage space.

6. Children that wander around clamoring for Braaaains. Ok, that's pretty funny. But the fact that my 4 year old knows more about zombies than your average human being is stretching things a little bit.

7. Plastic instruments. I don't care if the game is fun and I have a good time playing it. I want my house back and I'm not running a plastic garage band. And don't get me started on the bongos.

8. Why does my favorite t-shirt have a robot dressed as a green dog on it? And why do I suddenly crave tacos? Or cheese?

9. What do Tina Fey and Felicia Day have that I don't? And why do I know what the Evil League of Evil is?

10. Why are the kids reading books that did not originate in this country? And watching TV shows also not from this country? Any future therapy bills are so coming out of his toy budget. And I don't want to talk about the toy budget.

Eh. Needs a little work. And some wasabi. But it's a start. Celebrated the letter r's birthday a little early the other day and gave him Yestisburg. You know, Gettysburg with Yetis. In a card game. It was fun. And the instruction booklet was hilarious. I may also have to try my hand at letters sent from Yetisburg.

And how about that Eureka season finale? That was a bit of a downer for a cliffhanger. I'm a little on the glad side that Psych, Burn Notice and Eureka are taking breaks, but I am certainly interested in picking them back up again. I kind of like this short season twice thing. And I like the PI on House (and Felicia Day was on as well...).

Couple of books

Finished Soon I will be Invincible and it was great. Fun superhero story that hits all the right notes. It touches on most of the clichés found in superhero stories and tweaks them just enough that it's a fresh read. Plus it leaves you wanting to know what happens next time. It is a little frustrating in that it's so much easier to make compelling villains. You always find yourself rooting for the bad guy that never wins. There are a couple decent good guys in the story, but it also touches on just how boring they can be or how they're really not that different from the bad guys. That's actually one of the more fascinating aspects to superhero stories - how the heroes and villains are really two sides of the same coin and all it really takes is a shift in lighting to make them switch sides.

Also finished Only Revolutions (Only Revolutions? Only Revolutions? Maybe Only Revolutions? Ok enough Danielewski nods for now.) The fact that I finished it about a week or so ago and haven't said anything is its own sort of commentary. Whether it's about my blogging or the story I leave to you. It was certainly interesting. And it grew on me, but it was no House of Leaves. I did find it a truly mindbending piece of fiction. Danielewski is either brilliant or someone with far too much time on their hands. Quite possibly both. Rest assured you don't really need to check this one out.

I'm looking forward to Neil Gaiman's new one, The Graveyard Book. Soon...

Well, must go, kids are clamoring to go play Rock Band at the neighbors. I will not comment on where I fit in that spectrum.

Notes about nothing

I've been meaning to jot some random stuff down for a couple days now, but not really had time. So go play with Wordle. It will probably be more interesting.

We've been watching the HBO series John Adams that was based on the book by McCullough. It's been pretty interesting. The Revolutionary War has been somewhat fascinating to me of late. I read 1776 a while back and this has been another interesting look at that time period. It's definitely pretty amazing that this country ever got started when you look at how things were. The Civil War is also pretty interesting. I may have to watch Gettysburg. I read the book that one was based on and remember finding it compelling as well.

We watched most of the first season of Case Closed, but ran out of time to finish the last handful of episodes. Need to check it out again. Fun little anime series involving mysteries. It makes me want to read more of the Kindaichi Case Files. Fortunately the Library has a bunch of those as well, so once I finish Death Note that's probably next. Speaking of which, I'm almost through that series. It's definitely been interesting. Strange little series that it is.

Played some Lost Cities (it'll pop up on the right there at some point) with McK the other day. She still needs some work as a gamer. We'll get her whipped into shape. Hone those tactical skills.

Just as a note, G's favorite color is T Rex.

And apparently M is going to be a writer. They were evaluating reading skills the other day and she felt compelled to tell her teacher what should happen in the sequel to the book they were using for the test. Her teacher apparently has never had that happen before.

Caught the new trailer for Quantum of Solace, the new Bond flick. Daniel Craig is still the man. Looks really good. I really like the reboot of that series. It's better a little more grounded in reality. The characters are a little grittier, not quite so cartoonish. Good stuff.

We get a lot of cooking magazines at the Library. I have snagged a few recipes of late. Will let you know if there are any good ones. There's a really yummy sounding chili recipe. And a curry recipe and one for asparagus and another for mushroom soup and... mmm recipes. Oh and Bake or Break has a delightful looking chocolate cake recipe up at the moment.

In which I talk a little bit about gaming

I still have memories of receiving the original Basic Dungeons and Dragons set when I was younger. My Uncle had gotten it for me for Christmas. He was in the Navy at the time and would stop by every so often when he had leave. I was so excited about the prospect of battling a Dragon that I made him insert one into the adventure we were playing. Never mind that I was a lowly level 1 magic user that could barely cast magic missile. I wanted to battle a dragon. So he humored me and then mercilessly killed my character. It was great. I spent a few years with that game, definitely good times.

You may have noticed that I mentioned recently that the new 4th Edition was out. It has been years since I've rolled the old polyhedral dice and I felt like checking it out. I enjoyed the initial adventure they put out for the launch. I convinced the letter 'r' (there really wasn't much convincing involved) that we should give it a go here. So we set up shop, dragged the wife and McK into the room and handed them some of the pre-made characters and then proceeded to run through the adventure. We finished it up the other day. A good time was had by all (with a decent amount of skepticism from my wife). I doubt we'll roll up characters any time soon, but it was an interesting experience. And who knows, I suspect another dip in the role-playing pool is a possibility.

Gaming is one of those things that I spend a fair amount of time doing, but not a lot of time thinking about. Well, not the behind the scenes, nitty gritty aspects anyway. There are a lots of types of gaming: role-playing (D&D, Rock Band, lots of things fit), board (Blue Moon City, Catan), video (Boom Blox, Mariokart), card (Gang of Four, Canasta), the list goes on (and already that's a pretty bad set of examples, it doesn't really take into account genres or how any of those can fit in multiple places). I enjoy aspects of role-playing games but it's probably not my favorite. Honestly it's a toss up between board and video games. My current favorite board game is probably Blue Moon City. It ostensibly has a story (you're rebuilding the city you destroyed in Blue Moon), but the main draw is the mechanic. Using the cards in various combinations to earn the pieces you need to win the game.

As my family and friends can attest, I typically don't like losing. Bad habit, yeah yeah, blah blah. I don't like losing even more when it's a factor of random luck. If I understand why I'm losing, I'll grouse about it, but hopefully next time a new strategy will prove more effective. When it comes to Blue Moon City, for some reason I don't mind losing as much. Typically games are pretty close and that might have something to do with it. It might just be that it's a more fun game. There are a couple other games that we own that I suspect I'd like as well, but it's difficult to tell. Arkham Horror is the best example. It's co-operative, got an HP Lovecraft theme, and possibly a lot of fun. Can't find anyone willing to give it a go.

For one thing it's very long. Also very fiddly (this is a technical term, if you play games you get it, if not, go hang around BGG). The fiddly-ness could probably be overlooked (or gotten used to or what not), but the time factor is a bit of a problem. How often can we seriously get a 3-4 hour block to run through a game. Yeah, it's long. But HP Lovecraft. And bits!

As for video games, again, for a not so strange reason if you know me, I tend to lean towards the survival horror games. Or puzzle games. Both are good. Games that make you think a bit. And possibly want the lights on. I'm rambling a bit now, so I probably ought to wrap this up. I think the point I set out to make is that it's interesting to see the kids start to develop these interests. As mentioned I got my start pretty early and the kids are no different. It was fun to see McK stretch her brain a bit as a wizard trying to rescue a couple kids. She came up with some interesting solutions to some of the problems the group faced. G is rapidly becoming a platformer fiend. M is pretty fascinated by card games and a couple board games.

There are certainly a lot of benefits that come from all sorts of gaming. Problem solving, social skills, a desire to crush your opponents and leave them silently weeping in the corner, err sportsmanship. It's fun to watch the kids pick up those skills. And soon the family can take on the Old Ones and save the poor town of Arkham...

The one in which little sister one bangs her head against her keyboard

It's really her own fault you know? Anyway, on with the show:

WHERE WERE YOU BORN? In a crossfire hurricane
FAVORITE COLOR? The Colour Out of Space
FAVORITE CITY? Post Apocalyptic London (zombie outbreak preferrably)
TWO PLACES I WOULD LIKE TO VISIT? The Dreamlands, The House on Ash Tree Lane
FAVORITE ANIMAL? Def Leppard's
PAST LOVE? I'm pretty sure Elise McKenna and I had a thing going on
FIRST JOB? Annoying my little sisters

WHAT IS YOUR JOB NOW? See First Job, it never ends

WHAT WAS I DOING 10 YEARS AGO? I'd ask myself but the Grandfather Paradox prevents me
THINGS I HAVE TO DO TODAY? Stop myself from going back in time and becoming my own Grandfather

THREE THINGS YOU PROBABLY DON'T KNOW ABOUT ME?
1. I am not left handed
2. You killed my father, prepare to die
3. I hear being the Dread Pirate Roberts is a nice gig

FOUR MOVIES/TV SHOWS I LOVE
1. Bourne Trilogy/Firefly
2. Horror Movies of all shapes and sizes/House (I'm sure you have not picked up on any of the sarcasm appreciation)
3. Kung Fu Hustle/Psych
4. The Fifth Element/Burn Notice

FOUR BOOKS I LOVE?
1. The Necronomicon
2. The King in Yellow (Here, you can borrow my copy)
3. That one that explains what Men Know about Women and is blank, oh yeah, that's a riot
4. The Book of Stupid Questions (I'm pretty sure most of these were taken from there)

FOUR JOBS I HAVE HAD?
1. Tormentor of Souls (i.e. Big Brother)
2. Finder of Lost Children
3. Wheelman
4. Drummer for Spinal Tap (there's a reason this is the last one listed)

FOUR PLACES I HAVE LIVED:
1. The Second Circle of Hell aka Kansas
2. Arkham (Massachusetts, not Asylum, although come to think of it...)
3. Denial
4. Scotland, aka God's Country - if it's not Scottish, it's crap

FIVE OF MY FAVORITE FOODS?
1. Haggis (where do you get your daily allotment of innards?)
2. Soylent Green (it's people y'know?)
3. Melange
4. Ambrosia
5. Braaaains


A: ATTACHED OR SINGLE? This is not that kind of blog
B: BEST FRIEND? Outside of a dog a book is man's best friend, inside of a dog it's too dark to read
C: CAKE OR PIE? Brownies
D: DAY OF CHOICE? The day Dread Cthulhu Rises
E: ESSENTIAL ITEM? Sonic Screwdriver
F: FAVORITE COLOR? Deja vu
G: GUMMY BEARS OR WORMS? Braaains. Oh wait, I did that joke already...
H: HOMETOWN? Doomed to wander the world righting wrongs
I: INDULGENCE? Mocking lists designed to let people know the real you
J: JANUARY OR JULY? January because it's cold like the stare I use on unsuspecting mortals like you
K: KIDS? Make good paperwights. With a little duct tape.
L: LIFE ISN'T COMPLETE WITHOUT? A good knife in the back
M: MARRIAGE DATE? Isn't your wedding day a little late to start dating?
N: NUMBER OF BROTHERS AND SISTERS? Before or after I hid the bodies?
O: ORANGES OR APPLES? *processing error* could not compare
P: PHOBIAS? Those things I take great pleasure in creating in my children, family, friends, well everyone really
Q: QUOTES?
"Yes, have some"
"To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women"
"I say we call it your grave"
I really could go on...
R: REASON TO SMILE? See quote number two. Oh and when a plan comes together.
S: SEASON OF CHOICE? Tabasco
T: TAG SEVEN PEEPS!! Why would I try to play a children's game with a small animal made out of sugar?
U: UNKNOWN FACT ABOUT ME? My name, I always leave town before giving it.
V: VEGETABLE? I prefer the term differently abled.
W: WORST HABIT? Filling out these "lists"
X: X-RAY OR ULTRASOUND? I don't think either of those make very good superpowers
Y: YOUR FAVORITE FOOD? Braai, wait, seriously? Again?
Z: ZODIAC SIGN? The one he used in that third letter to the cops - second line, fifth character, yeah that was a good one.

Quick catch up

So we enjoyed a little "staycation" over the lovely 3 day weekend. Borrowed Rock Band from the neighbors, watched a couple flicks, grilled some burgers, and had a thoroughly wonderful bbq over at the letter r's. I love me some bbq...

At any rate, Rock Band is quite fun. Especially when playing drums. The drums are definitely my favorite instrument in the game. Possibly because they're the most realistic, probably because they're just a heckuva lot of fun to bang around on. Kids and wife all had a good time getting into the band groove.

Still consuming books. Death Note is the latest graphic novel series. It's wonderfully warped. Amulet by Kazu Kibuishi is also terribly enjoyable. Still working through Only Revolutions and starting Soon I Will be Invincible. (Which if you like superhero type stories and humor I can already recommend. It's pretty good.)

Brick is a great little film noir piece. Raymond Chandler meets Humphrey Bogart as played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The upcoming Brothers Bloom is by the same director and looks promising as well.

Seems like I had some other random things to ramble on about but I am tired. You get nothing. Go follow Stephen Colbert on Twitter or something.

Rolling a few things up

So, first Google Labs. Based on a couple recommendations in the comments, I checked out Page Creator (Google Sites now) and Google Mars. Upon arriving home the Dashboard Widget will get a glance as well. Google Sites seems like a nice way to muck about with web page development. I didn't dive in real deep, but a lot of the basics were present. I do wonder if you can play around with templates as far as site backgrounds go. Something to look into. Also I wonder just what sorts of things they'll let you get up to as far as storage is concerned on the free version. But still, definitely something to look into. The Mars page was pretty interesting as well. I wonder if Marvin is there somewhere... Again, I really do wonder just when Google will take over the world.

And in Web 2.0 award news, I thought I'd ramble on a little bit about Twitter and Pandora. I've used both for a while now and it was nice to see them get some recognition (although I may have to break down and check out this LastFM place that won). Twitter is micro blogging. You'll either like it or hate it. It's very much about the minutiae of people's lives. So if you have a voyeuristic streak you'll fit right in. (I still think the Library could do with some sort of Twitter feed. But that's just me.)

Pandora lets you set up radio stations based around artists/songs. Plunk in someone you like they'll play a song that you can then rate (more like this, not like this). Then they crossref it with other artists and soon you find yourself listening to someone you've never heard of, but stand a good chance of liking. And you can save the stations and make new ones and. Well, if you like music, this is a pretty nifty place to kill some time.

Web Office

So, today I look at some web based MS Office type replacements. Things like Google Docs. (Remember that earlier discussion about computers running Google OS? This is where that starts.) Honestly I've not really played around with Google Docs much, so this was a nice opportunity. I also looked at a couple competing options. Zoho took a few moments to cooperate, but once it did proved nice as well. Google Docs is a little more clean interface-wise, but Zoho has a nice set of features and I could see using either one in a pinch. Especially as they are web based. Nice bonus. I took a quick peek at ThinkFree, but didn't feel like signing up. So I will just have to guess that it's another similar option.

As for Calendar type options I looked at 30 Boxes, but the shout out is going to go to Remember the Milk my personal favorite. I ran across this online to do manager while reading Upgrade Your Life. It's terribly useful. I don't play with all the features it has (cell phone options and so on), but I do like it. If I used the Google Calendar I could even get them to play together. Nice.

So, yeah, it's pretty amazing what's cropping up in the world of Office replacements. Go take a look.

Update: Posting this thing to my blog was a little on the odd side. It first tried to post to a blog that I'm pretty sure I don't run, so if this post exists twice elsewhere, sorry. Also no title went along for the ride. Small annoyances to be sure (and the ID thing should be sorted now for the future) but still, silliness that should be ironed out.

Weapons of Mass Instruction

Search Engines (or how I learned that there was more to life than Google). Apparently people still make these things. I remember the early days of the internet (Webcrawler) and some of the search engines that you'd find. They were somewhat helpful. Today they're a little more helpful, partially due to the amount of information out there - it's easier to find somethings when there's a lot of it. The problem stems from the fact that you find a lot of it. Search engines are one of those things that people probably thought would doom libraries. And while I suspect we don't get a lot of phone calls or people coming in asking for random facts any more, oddly enough, libraries still around. Go figure.

So, yes, sorry for the distraction. Search Engines. I played around with the following:
Exalead
Clusty
KartOO
and Yahoo (you know, as a control, it's been around a while)

I will state at the beginning, if you want to see a pretty search engine, go play with KartOO. That's one nifty graphical interface. It would have killed my poor old 14.4 modem back in the day.

So I searched on Empire State Building. And oddly enough surprising no one, the results were pretty similar. See, if they don't take you to pretty similar, important places first, they won't really be considered a very effective search engine. The differences really come in how they present the info and the ways they offer to help your search. Exalead gives you the sponsored sites first, followed by the official site, but does offer pretty little thumbnails. They also offer some nice ways to narrow your search in the sidebar. Clusty led off with the official site and then offered cluster results on the sidebar. Somewhat interesting to click around on.

KartOO, as mentioned, has an eye-catching graphical representation of the results. Strangely the official site is off on it's lonesome, but it does have a larger graphic. It looks like they roughly map out how some of the sites interact with each other as well and that drives some of the site placement. Nifty. And our control - Yahoo - has your sponsored sites, some image results and then oh yeah, the official site.

See, there's one of the problems with search engines right there. You can now pay to get your site ranked higher. Sneaky. Not necessarily helpful either. It was actually pretty interesting to see what people are doing in the realm of search engines. Google (and Yahoo) is so ubiquitous that it can seem like there aren't other options. The new ones try to sneak in with the bells and whistles, the little touches they offer (thumbnails, sidebars that help you narrow results and so on) to help you in your searching. Searching for a song? Here, let's give you an embedded player that contains a snippet of the song in question. Shiny paint. Again, while they may try to set themselves apart on the outside, if they don't have a decent engine (heh) under the hood the results they offer won't be as useful as the big guys. And they will die a Darwinian internet death. Which means they'll show up in Google cache. Poor souls. Nothing really dies on the internet...

Library 2.0 - we can rebuild it

Today's post is meant to focus on the concept of Library 2.0 - the Library re-envisioned through the lens of Web 2.0 type functionality. (You know, those things I've been posting about of late.) We looked at a brief series of articles as well as the Wikipedia entry, which I've linked to for simplicity's sake.

For the most part I agree that a lot of the Web 2.0 functionality isn't really a new idea for libraries. It may involve a new way of doing something (hey, rotate those crops instead of planting the same thing year after year, it works better!), but the ultimate goals are still the same. Connecting with the community you're a part of. Serving the public and providing access to all sorts of information. The web presence of a Library will (and should) grow thus enabling people to access things on their own schedules. Use of tools like wikis and RSS to push information or aggregate content. It's certainly an interesting new place.

Which doesn't mean that the physical Library will go anywhere. I still don't see books and movies going anywhere soon. I know companies like Microsoft would love for digital distribution to be the norm and the accepted way of doing things, but there's a lot that would have to happen first and you'd need a pretty big generational shift. Music is certainly a look at where things might go. Digital music is a pretty strong force, but it hasn't completely killed off the CD yet. And that's to say nothing of things people create as far as mixes and so on. It's not all swapped electronically. People will still want a place they can go. A place where information can be used and collected.

It's an interesting question. And one that can only be answered through time. But here's to keeping up and seeing what new ways we can interact with the people we serve.

I'm the map

First:



create your own personalized map of the USA
or check out ourCalifornia travel guide

Now. This is a rough guess. I may have been through a touch more of the East Coast than I have represented there. If I had opted for the country version, you'd have gotten Canada, Scotland and England. We lived a few places while growing up (2 siblings and the three of us born in different states) and we visited a few places. My folks are certainly more traveled than I am. They also know far more people than I do and have kept in much better contact. Still an interesting exercise.

Image Generators

Power Nap,
originally uploaded by dkun.

I think I technically accomplished this the other day when I created that cover for Ninja!, but image generators are fun. So I had to make a motivational poster. This was a pretty quick one, but it turned out alright if I do say so myself. I will say that I could probably waste far too much time at fd's Flickr Toys. They've got quite the collection of things to play around with. This picture almost got turned into a trading card (and probably still will). This would certainly be a fun way to interact with family and friends. I believe there are a lot of websites that get up to image battles. Fark and Something Awful come to mind. Although I believe they tend to rely more on actual photoshop skills. Nothing like a good meme tethered to an image.

I think I need a nap...

Books, books, books

So I read The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. Bleak. I had heard about it a few different times over the last couple months. They're turning it into a movie and I believe the director of Terminator 4 has been passing it around to the cast to serve as food for thought on the mood he's going for with that film as well. I can see why. It's an odd little read. McCarthy seems to be afraid of punctuation for some reason. Either that or he thought channeling ee cummings was a good idea. The story centers around a father and son trying to survive in a post apocalyptic America. They follow the titular road as they head for warmer climes trying to survive the hellish weather. And even more hellish survivors. Some pretty eerie bits and some pretty depressing bits. It's certainly worth reading, but you'll want a teddy bear by then end.

You may have noticed a lot of zombies in the Good Reads sidebar over there. I shambled through Kirkman's The Walking Dead books. Another one I don't really have a lot to say about. Also bleak. And depressing. I need some light reading again. It's an ok series if you're a zombie fan. Although in a lot of ways, it's not really a zombie story. Which actually makes it more of a zombie story. If you watch zombie films or read zombie books that made perfect sense.

I'm smack in the middle of Only Revolutions by Danielewski. I rather enjoyed House of Leaves and was interested in his new(ish) book. It's claim to literary oddness is that you read 8 pages from one side following lead character Sam and then flip the book over and read 8 pages by other lead character Hailey (or vice versa). It's like James Joyce. Doubled. Made up words, stream of consciousness fantasy/history/strangeness. Don't know if I like it. It's certainly a bit tough to follow. I only have a vague idea what's going on in the plot. We'll see if I really make it through it.

And the Firefly essay book was good. I've read a lot lately...

As for other things of interest, Psych, Burn Notice and Eureka are all good this season. Although Psych season 2, still a touch better.

My sister gave us that Twilight series. I'm going to have to throttle my wife if she doesn't finish them soon. Dishes and children are piling up. It's not very pretty. <sigh> chick lit. Tween chick lit at that. Her definition of "just one more page" could give football minutes a serious run for their money. I'm pretty sure small dictatorships have been toppled by the time she finishes "just one more page". Twice.

RSS and this here blog thing

I'm going to tackle a couple topics in one post. Be amazed. RSS is a nifty little thing. Google Reader is my friend. It wasn't always, and I will not cop to how recently (or not) I started using it. But in much the same way Delicious allows access to your bookmarks from anywhere, something like Google Reader allows access to your favorite sites from anywhere. (I'm pretty sure we will one day soon simply buy computers built by whoever and they will run Google OS. They'll have Firefox as the default browser and then off you'll go doing just about everything you do now through Google. Although it will be interesting to see how third party developers will handle this. There are still a few apps that Google hasn't put online for you to mess around with. But some day. SOME DAY!)

Anyway, back at the ranch. Yes. Google Reader will allow you to subscribe to the feeds that all your favorite little websites provide. You can then browse the new content in one handy little location. I myself recommend the Google Reader widget for the personalized iGoogle homepage. It's Grrreat. (All apologies to Tony the Tiger...) I used to handle this through live bookmarks in Firefox. Which I still like, but Google Reader really does make quick browsing of things pretty handy. Plus the ability to star something for later is a must have.

As for locating feeds. Well, this is where you realize the net is vast and infinite. And boy howdy is there a lot of crap out there. Places like Technorati will let you find things that they keep tabs on, but using them today was a little on the frustrating side as they seemed to be having some issues. Google Reader itself allows you to search for things and even recommends things based on what you've subscribed to. How Amazon of them. It was rather nice to use though. And there are a handful of other things. Personally I rather like the little Google Reader bookmarklet that simply allows you to subscribe to something from the site itself while you're there.

And again, of what use might this be to the library? Well. Libraries could certainly create some feeds. You could have the new book feed, possibly a book review feed. If the Library has a blog, it most likely has a feed that can be subscribed to. It's another way for patrons to keep tabs on things and see what's going on. The nice thing about this, is it's a way to push content to your patrons. Once you've made them aware of it, they can choose to participate or not. But if they subscribe to a feed, they can be automatically notified about a variety of things. So. Content. Yes, have some.

Trading card get

'd',
originally uploaded by dkun.

Yeah, had to throw one together. I may sadly make a lot of these...

Ninja! Premiere issue (or More on Flickr)

Ninja! Premiere issue,
originally uploaded by dkun.

So, much like the Transformers, there is more to Flickr than meets the eye. People (who must have far too much time on their hands) have created little applications that let you manipulate your photos. This site has a whole slew of applications that let you toy around with your pictures. I messed around with the magazine cover app a little (working in serials it made sense) and then realized that I didn't really have all day to get my cover of Ninja! perfect. It's close though.

I'm not entirely certain how the library can make use of this in a Public Service sort of way, but I'm sure all sorts of fun can be had for book displays and so on. So behind the scenes ftw! I will have to make a Librarian Trading Card. Although that might mean using a photo of myself. Hmm. At any rate, there are some pretty nifty tools out there - calendars, fake magazine covers, motivational posters the list goes on. Check it out.

Dread Cthulhu and Flickr

Dread Cthulhu,
originally uploaded by dkun.

I've had a Flickr account for a while. Originally it was meant to be a place I could put family photos online for far away family to see. I wasn't very good at that. And my family wasn't very good at realizing they were there. Admittedly I probably needed to tell them. And then tell them again. And send an e-mail with the link. And, well, you get the picture. (Pun fully intended) I find the service to be quite wonderful although I don't make near enough use of it. I'm bad at tagging things (I will possibly get better in my post Delicious life) and worse at actually taking pictures, getting them off the camera, and then uploading them. It looks like there are some nice little freeware programs that might make the uploading a little less painful. And might even encourage more Flickr use.

At any rate, here is lovely amigurumi Cthulhu prepared to devour a helpless ship at, err, sea. Lovely wife finally finished Cthulhu (after going only slightly insane) and he has made his way to my desk. All must submit to Dread Cthulhu. If only to bask in his evil cuteness.

Hugo and messing with the internet

So, The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Truly wonderful book that. Go and read it. Now. I'll wait. See? Pretty amazing stuff, I told you so. It's a beautiful blend of words, drawings and photos. The way they all work together to tell and draw you into the story is pretty amazing. I've heard they want to turn it into a movie. They shouldn't. While some stories work across mediums, I can't imagine film adding anything to this story. It's already cross medium in the book and unless they're going to go the silent movie route for portions and have words on screen and a few other film bending tricks, it just doesn't make sense to me. I suppose it could be interesting to try, but simply as a film, it doesn't work.

Also, monkeying with some back end stuff, so we'll see how this goes. Hopefully you won't actually notice any differences, I'm just trying to make things easier for me.

Drawing Words and Writing Pictures was also interesting. It's more a classroom/instruction book than I was expecting. It's not like Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. There's certainly some good stuff, but certainly more for those with a serious interest in doing something about drawing than learning about it.

One More (Library)Thing

Need to round out this tagging exercise and talk about Library Thing. As you can see from the sidebar I found Library Thing a while ago. I believe I ran across it on Neil Gaiman's blog. At first I was pretty entranced. Thumbnails of book covers! My collection out there for all to see! Oh... I have to put them in. Um, but I love books. I have no space in my house for all my books. I am so not cataloging all of these. Especially when I can't find my actual version on this site! Why do you make me hurt you internet? I'm sorry, I've found someone new... I actually like GoodReads better. And I can follow authors like the aforementioned Neil Gaiman there and maybe Felicia Day from Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog (just to see what she reads you know, totally not in a creepy internet stalker sort of way. Oh wait. Did I say that out loud? On the internet? Hey look Godzilla!). And e-mail updates comparing friends and categories and Q&A stuff, and well, she's just better in my opinion. Remember the good times Library Thing, the good times. <quietly back away>

And how creepy is it that my author tag cloud has Michael Crichton so prominently featured. Well ok, his older stuff was pretty good, but his newer stuff? Yikes!

Technorati and Cabret

First things first. Why is Paris Hilton included in a list of top anything, anywhere? Have we not managed to rid ourselves of this evil yet? #8 on top searches? Really? Are they searching for her brain? Her morals? Oh wait, those are things that will never be found. Silly me.

At any rate, Technorati seems like a little too much peeking behind the curtain of the web. I'm glad it's there (I suppose) in a bringing things together sense. But it seems like a lot of effort for something... not quite intangible, but something like that. I suppose there are sites that live or die by a Technorati ranking (and I certainly know of/use several that are listed in the popularity rankings), but meh. I just can't get that excited. Searching the site was sort of interesting, things narrowed down a touch with each "filter". But I don't know that it seems terribly practical from a search engine standpoint. I suspect I just need some re-edumacation or something when it comes to this place. (And I must admit, the herd mentality in me really wants me to claim this poor little blog. Must resist herd mentality...)

In other news, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick is awesome (thus far). Why was I not informed of this sooner? Demerits for the lot of you. DEMERITS! You cannot escape the demerits. They will find you and you will rue the day you earned them.

SLCPL2.0, Hugo Cabret

Mmm Delicious

I am a late to the party Delicious user. I remember first noticing it when I switched to Firefox, as it was one of the default search engines in the drop down menu. Had no idea what it was and didn't bother finding out. Then a few months ago I picked up Upgrade Your Life by Gina Trapani and there was a section on Delicious (and can I just say that I'm glad they got rid of the periods in the url?) that explained what it was. Suffice to say the idea that I could access my bookmarks from anywhere was simply too good to pass up. I don't really search it that much, but I can see the appeal. Seeing what others have tagged when you're trying to search for slightly oddball things can be helpful. I remember trying to use it once to see if anyone had any good sites for auto loan calculators or something equally out there. Google is still a little easier to use and my first engine of choice, but tagging definitely brings a nice randomness and yet personal touch to things. Besides tagging things is fun. Especially if you use strange phrases or tags. I mean, no, use only the Alliance approved terminology when tagging your bookmarks. Big Brother is watching...

And in non Library 2.0 news I should point out that lovely wife is getting far too good at Blue Moon City. Must find a way to disrupt her dominance at said game. Hmm...

And The Ruins was not too bad although the book was better™. No really, book better. Movie not bad, but book... eh, you get the idea.

Littlest sister has departed our fair state. She can now go watch the Olympics in peace. Alas, wife not so lucky. She will still get to deal with snarky comments and much eye rolling. (Seriously, sports commentators are mouth breathers, who writes this nonsense?) Deep breaths.

Libraries and MySpace

So. Libraries and social networking. As much as I liked the idea of Libraries and wikis, I'm not convinced Libraries and MySpace are two great tastes that taste great together. I suspect the root of this is that I'm old enough to not "get" (and by not get I mean not want to get) MySpace. I probably fall into the crowd that would embrace Facebook a little more as it's the "grownup" version. There are types of social networking that I find amusing and fun (*cough*Twitter*cough*) and could see some Library uses for. (Create a twitter feed that highlights new books coming into the Library.) The slight draw is teens and the Library. But would teens really use a Library MySpace page? I suspect that really the only thing a Library could do is push information to teens through that site. I don't know that it would be terribly interactive - it would probably be limited to functioning simply as another information source - that teens might make use of if they're aware of it.

And I thought I'd take a moment to comment on the rant that was supplied as one look at Libraries and MySpace. I played D&D growing up and had to deal to some extent with the outcry that grew up around it. I certainly knew people who thought it was Evil (please to note the capital 'E'). While I can understand the idea that creating an atmosphere of fear around something is easy and a way to rally the troops, I'd say there are certainly valid concerns about privacy and safety. That can be dealt with by, you know, parenting. As long as there's interest and interaction between the kids and the parents a lot (if not all) of the pitfalls can be avoided.

So to sum up. No that would take too long. Simply put, jury is still out on this one.

Selling out, err a note about Wikis

First things first, those of you who actually follow this blog will notice a few changes in some of the posts. Mainly they will be a little more library-centric. There is a reason for this. The SLC Public Library has a pretty cool Learning Library 2.0 program that covers a lot of the web 2.0 functionality. And a lot of the exercises involve blogging about the topic at hand. So, some of this will be old hat (or possibly things I've talked about before), but some will be new. At any rate, you'll just have to go along for the ride. That or come back in a few weeks or something. Regularly scheduled content will appear at random just like normal.

So. Wikis. The first topic in the program. I've mentioned before that I think wikis are fascinating little things. I believe I've even talked a little about the internal wiki the library has. Personally I find them to be useful little tools. As long as you keep a couple things in mind. One of the biggest strengths of the wiki is also in some ways it's biggest weakness. Wikis live or die by their user base. Since a wiki is a community created thing, if you have no community, you have no, err, thing. Content. Yes, you have no content. Also, since in most cases you can let just anyone add content you have a slight quality control issue. So while they can be a fabulous place to get information out there, you do have to be careful.

As for libraries and wikis, well personally I think it's peanut butter and chocolate. There are a whole slew of ways a library could make use of a wiki. On the back end, it's a great place to store library policies and procedures as well as document how things work. And as the function of the library changes and shifts, amazingly the wiki can keep up. On the public side you could have a wiki for book clubs, a place that your patrons could rate and/or discuss books and an online presence/community can be created. (you can take a look here and here and even over here for a couple examples of possibilities.) So, yeah, wikis = pretty cool.

Again reaching "critical mass" is probably the hardest part. Getting a good framework that people find easy to use and then encouraging them to use it. You probably need a couple teenagers.

Firefly and Murakami

The Summer Fiction issue of the New Yorker magazine has an excerpt from Haruki Murakami's new book. Alas, I forget the title, but it has to do with his life - his running and his writing. Apparently Murakami has participated in a lot of marathons. In addition to being a pretty amazing novelist. I have several books by him and I find them all fascinating for one reason or another. I knew that music was a pretty important influence in his life (there are lots of references to the Beatles as well as other musicians) but I was unaware of the running. If you run (pun only partially intended) across the excerpt it's worth your time and is pretty interesting on its own. Otherwise give one of his books a shot. I don't know that there's a good starting place for him - you'll either like him or not. But for suggestions, try Hard-boiled Wonderland at the End of the World or A Wild Sheep Chase.

So I glanced at some of the essays in that Finding Serenity book. It's really only a matter of time before we start watching that show again. I still die a little inside when I think about the fact that Fox killed it off. It was such a brilliant show. I'm going to have to be content with the box set of DVDs we have as well as the movie. I think there may be another special edition I need to pick up. I also have some of the comics and apparently Joss Whedon has consented to telling Shepherd Book's story in a comic later this year. So yay for that. If you've not given it a chance yet, go find the DVDs and watch them. Watch the TV show before the movie. It's worth it. And then watch it again. Browncoats forever. Shiny.

I finished The Omnivore's Dilemma. It was an interesting read, and yet mostly frustrating. The food industry is so screwed up and yet there doesn't seem to be an easy way to fix it. We'll have to poke around and see what options we have for local food. I know there are some farmer's markets in the bigger cities, but it would be nice to find something a little closer. We should probably spend a little more time actually preparing food. At least we're not among the group that eats out every day. I really do wonder how people can do that. I can understand once in a while, but every day? I suppose I might understand a little better if my wife worked. I have a sneaking suspicion that having both parents work contributes to that lifestyle a lot. Another benefit to not having to do that.

Played a little Gang of Four with little sister this evening. And some Incan Gold with the kids. Games are good. They're off tomorrow to splash around the water park. If I liked water parks a little more I'd be jealous. I will miss the wave pool. And the bigger lazy river. Those are my favorites. But they never run the wave pool long enough. I want it to be a wave pool, not a wait for the waves pool. If I wanted a regular pool, I'd go sit in one...

The Olympics have taken over the TV. Good thing I have cable. Little to no desire to follow that. It's good that it only comes round once every four years. Oh wait... <sigh>

Neil Gaiman's new book is due out soon-ish. Looking forward to that. I believe this one is a riff on The Jungle Book by Kipling. I may have to track down a copy and give it a whirl. Unfortunately I have other things to polish off first. My list of things to read is far too long. Oh well. At any rate, time to bid the weekend Adieu. Alas poor weekend.

No catchy title today

Managed to throw my back out the other day. Back pain sucks (as my sister and her family can attest to).

Caught Balls of Fury last night because everyone needs a silly movie about Ping Pong and hey, Christopher Walken. It wasn't hilarious, but it was occasionally funny. Anything involving the not so lucky cricket was pretty good. And that's really all the space that movie deserves.

M-i-L wins the Are you freaking kidding me™ award. But we'll not go into that.

Apparently this is going to be a post of allusions and half stories. Poor, poor audience. Oh well.

Read the first couple volumes of The Walking Dead which is mostly a character drama that happens to feature zombies. I'm pretty sure the guy that writes it has a copy of Max Brooks's The Zombie Survival Guide on his bookshelf as the two are rather similar. It's interesting in a doomed character sort of way.

Picked up a book of essays on Firefly that my wife is devouring. I have a sneaking suspicion that we'll be watching it again soon. Heh.

Well, theoretically there are pancakes. I guess I should go investigate. And possibly consume.

Vampires

No, I didn't suddenly read the tween series of death Twilight books. We caught 30 Days of Night, the vampire movie from last year based on a comic book. You know, it might be easier to start pointing out the movies that aren't based on comic books. At any rate. Vampires. These were in your face neck, you'll be dead vampires. No emo, pretty goth boy, oh I'm so lonely, hey want to share my undeath types here. In other words, it was great. Bloody (hello, vampires), but great. There were some nice Bram Stoker's Dracula references as well as some original ideas (the whole concept of the film - vampires attacking Alaska during the month when there's no sun - being the biggest). They had the sense of isolation pretty well captured and they had some great creepy looking vampires. 2 fangs, err, up.

Saturday was spent at the "wedding reception" (read party) for Andy and Amanda. They had Famous Dave's BBQ (yum!) and a bouncy slide. A good time was had by all. I have the slide burns to prove it. The kids had a great time and Heather and I got to relax and chat with some friends from the old job.

Finished off Kino's Journey as well. Nice thoughtful little series. Probably left as many questions unanswered as it answered, but I suspect that was part of the point. Rarely are all of life's questions answered, that whole, it's the journey, not the destination thing.

So little sister #2 gets into town soon. That will be fun. M is definitely looking forward to the Seven Peaks trip. If only we could get her to suggest some birthday gifts.

And you will notice a distinct lack of commentary on the Dr Who season finale. Mostly because, while this season was a touch better than last season in my opinion, it was only a touch. I kept waiting for an episode like Blink. I don't think there was one. Although the Library episode was close.