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.

Marching on

Read The Killing Joke the other day. Batman/Joker story written by Alan Moore (he of Watchmen - go catch the trailer - and V is for Vendetta fame (and a lot more)). It was pretty good. I've heard The Dark Knight takes some elements from it with regards to the Joker and his flexible origin.

Seems like I've read something else, but I forget what. Mostly we've been watching Keen Eddie. Truly a funny show. I'm so shocked that Fox killed it off. I mean, anything that requires a working thought process and an attention span is obviously too good for TV... Well Fox's viewership for sure. I would start to list everything they've killed that fits the bill, but it would take forever and be depressing. At least they're currently showing Bones and House.

So. Since the kids don't read this. At least I don't think they do, I can tell the Tooth Fairy story. We are the worst when it comes to letting the Tooth Fairy know she needs to visit. Middle child lost a tooth on Sunday and put it under her pillow and was excited. Monday morning comes and tooth still there, no money no nothing. M was understandably upset and voiced said upsetness to lovely (and forgetful) wife. McK managed to save the day when she explained that it was Sunday and nobody works on the Sabbath, so obviously Tooth Fairy would visit Monday night. And she did. <sigh> It sounds like she's pulled another tooth and we will need to remind the Tooth Fairy to visit again tonight...

Speaking of the Tooth Fairy, saw Hellboy 2 with the letter 'r' the other night. It was good. Not great, but good. Mostly it made me look forward to the Hobbit movie as del Toro is directing that as well. His fantasy creatures/settings are amazing. (See Pan's Labyrinth and, well, Hellboy 2 for examples.) So, while visually entertaining, Hellboy 2 really could have used a slightly better plot. There were a handful of nods to mythology that are Hellboy trademarks, but the overall story was only ok. Good in pieces, not great as a whole. But the Forest God/jumping bean was pretty amazing.

At any rate, lovely wife has tried to grill some brats. Must go see how they turned out. Because they're brats. They're yummy. They better be. They better be...

The post to annoy my sisters

So. The Library has a bazillion copies of Breaking Dawn. And I read the end and Bella ends up with... Oh wait. I don't want to get fired. But I know, oh yes, I know. Mwa ha ha ha. I like the Library.

That is all.

The Weekend

Well, sort of. I have to go take the car in for an oil change this morning and lovely wife has to run her Mom around for a few errands, so it's not the relax and enjoy type weekend. But we'll get there. McK has read enough books to get a free one from Barnes and Noble. I'm not sure why we're encouraging them to add more books to the house other than the fact that I'm certainly all for reading...

We went kitchen table shopping the other day and found a nice 6-8 person table for $800. They were doing a promotion where if you spent over $400 or so you got to spin the big Wheel O' Prizes™. We managed to win No Sales Tax. Which was lovely. Anyway, the real point of this story is that they had the most beautiful bookshelf unit I've ever seen. It was probably a good 6 feet wide or more (it would easily take up a wall) and it was probably 7-8 feet high. (Again we're talking wall sized here.) It had 4 or 5 shelves across about 3 divisions and then a set of cabinets at the base. But the best part was the sliding ladder that you could move across the face when you wanted to reach something from the top. It was amazing. It was also $3000. If I had a spare $3000 it would have been mine. Oh yes, it would have been mine. As it is I think I'll have to talk to Dad or Uncle Paul. I think they need a new project...

So. Cloverfield. Let's talk Cloverfield. For what it was, I feel it worked. In a found footage, slice of life/documentary sense it was good. Which is to say that I appreciated the movie more than I liked it. I appreciate that you were strictly following a small set of people as they encountered this random monster attack. My wife wanted to know more about the monster. What was it? Where did it come from? Did it die? And so on. This movie doesn't give you that. Oh and yeah, spoilers and what not ahoy. Unread this paragraph if you don't want details about the show. As for me, I was ok with not getting some of that, but I would have liked a little more than you did get. I'm not saying they should have switched to following a scientific or military unit, there was certainly more tension in what they did, but I do like seeing a little more of the monster than you get to see. It's also pretty short, but in some ways this works to it's advantage. The initial, get to know the people segment, was timed just about perfectly - in that if they didn't introduce the monster when they did I was going to start strangling people. I've heard one of the bigger complaints is that you don't care for the main characters. And there's a little truth to that. They're mostly ordinary people with the usual faults, so yeah, kind of jerks. I liked them well enough. Part of my problem was that I kept getting the few things I'd heard about the movie and the big ARG they ran for the movie mixed up. I could swear there was a bit about the monster and the ocean at the end. But that must have been online. Also, I knew the monster was young, but that's not explained in the movie (that I remember - as my wife certainly didn't notice this fact either). Again an online fact that would have been helpful in the movie.

Spoilers still, yadda yadda, last paragraph getting too big. Which I guess brings me to my real issues with the movie. I'm not really young enough for this movie. Or part of the right crowd. This movie was made for that group of people that is part of the Youtube generation. The people that live their lives online. That will play through the ARG and dig out the clues and follow the websites and watch clips and get the whole experience. If you just watch Cloverfield, you're not getting the story. You're getting the hour and a bit in the middle. Which, again, does work for what it is, but don't get fooled into thinking it's the whole story - it isn't. So. There you go. That's Cloverfield. Cool monster that you didn't get to see enough of (and the Statue of Liberty's head bit was very cool) and a story that you're, hey, not getting enough of. Trend spotted. Oh and the shaky cam thing, while not as bad as it certainly could have been, is getting really old. I'm really tired of that.

Finished up a little more Scott Pilgrim and Hikaru no Go. Still both enjoyable. The latest Scott Pilgrim was a little better than volume 3. Not as jumpy around and there were definitely some good jokes in there. Checked out In Search of Anne of Green Gables for my wife. We'll see if she likes it. She often rolls her eyes at me when I try to get her to read or watch things, but then she gets sucked in and I get to say, "See? I know things!". That's fun. And then there's more eye rolling and it's a wonder we're not constantly dizzy.

Mom would have liked this season of Psych. I miss calling her up and saying, "Did you see it? And what about this bit? And this one?" It's pretty good. Although we need to watch last night's episode still. We had a progressive dinner with some folks in the neighborhood. It was fun and the food was good.

Well, this has rambled on long enough. The only bits you're missing out on are stories about G at the pool (and his neverending supply of energy) and umm, other stuff. I've no idea.

Reading update

So, my pile of things to read is far outweighing my pile of things read - the one downside of working in a Library with far too many books. Oddly enough (well ok, not really that odd if you know me) most of what I've completed lately has been graphic novel-y in nature. Lots of Hikaru no Go volumes have been consumed. It's as good a series as I suspected it would be. And it's taken our family by storm. Wife and oldest daughter are thoroughly engrossed. And it might just get us to finally learn to play Go. I've wanted to for quite some time, but the problem is finding someone to teach us...

Let's talk about Scott Pilgrim. I've read through 3 of the 4 volumes currently released in the wild. I think the first is still my favorite. Which isn't to say the rest are bad. There's just a shift in storytelling in volumes 2 and 3 that makes them a little harder to absorb. There's a great deal of temporal shifting that takes place. So it can be a little difficult to follow. And this is compounded by the fact that a lot of the characters are similar looking. So not only do you not know when you are, but you might be confused about who you are as well. But the little jokes and asides and so on are so worth it. Punched the highlights right out of her hair indeed. Brilliant. It's certainly worth checking out.

I can't recall (and am too lazy to go check) if I've talked about the end of Y the Last Man. So I will. Maybe again. Volume 10 of the graphic novels just came out and it was Good. And Sad. But mostly Good. (Well ok, maybe mostly Sad) I am pretty sure I've said that if you only read one post apocalyptic last man on Earth story to read this one. So I won't say that again. But if you do read only one post apocalyptic last man on Earth story, well, yeah. What I said. I would really like to read the stories that they allude to, but don't actually tell. Because then I'd get to read more Y, and that would be a Good Thing. I liked visiting this world. Definitely wouldn't want to live, well most likely have died, there, but visiting was quite nice.

Reading some other things, and lots of things on the aforementioned pile to be read. We are currently watching Keen Eddie on DVD because it's hilarious and tonight I'll finally get to see Cloverfield. Because it's a giant monster movie. And giant monster movies are to be treasured. Lots of stuff in the to be watched pile as well. And I won't talk about the to be played pile...

In other random news, there is less than one month of summer left for the kids. I am pleased by this fact. It was a short summer in a lot of ways, but that's a good thing. For the parents.

New season of Psych is on and it is funny. Please to enjoy. Burn Notice also entertains. And Eureka next week. I knew there was a reason we finally caved and got cable...

Well, this has been thoroughly superficial, but covered a lot of ground. So there you go quantity over quality. It's the American Way. (You have to read that last line in a Sam the Eagle sort of voice. Go ahead, go on back and do it again, I'll wait.) Oh we're done here. Never mind. Turn the light off on your way out.

Dr. Horrible

If you're seeing this on Saturday, July 19th then you can still check out Dr. Horrible for free - Joss Whedon's Evil Mad Scientist musical. It's as good as it sounds. And funny too. I was unaware that Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion could sing. My wife claims to have known about Neil. I'm not quite sure I believe her, but she does pay a little more attention to these types of things than I do.

There have certainly been plenty of links to this running around. I almost didn't check it out because it was the "new big thing". I'm glad I caved, it was fun to watch. And since I waited till last night, we managed to watch all three acts right in a row. There are times that being lazy and indifferent work.

So E3 was this week. Everyone's pretty upset at Nintendo and their lack of anything that looks interesting. They're definitely catering to the new gamer crowd that they've created with the Wii. I will admit that the new Wii Sports title sounds interesting. And maybe Animal Crossing. I don't know that I care about the rest. Wii Music sounds a little too simple. I suspect the kids would love it, but I like there to be game in my music game. The one I really want is Fatal Frame 4. The first one scared the crap out of me. I'd like another scary game. Those are a blast.

Reading The Omnivore's Dilemma on K's recommendation. Boy is the food industry screwed up in this country. But I still love me a cheeseburger. Mmmm cheeseburger.

It's Carnival time here. Kids are pretty excited about that. Apparently our oldest actually rode the little ring "roller coaster" that takes you upside down. I'd have liked to see that. I'm sure she'll ride again today, so we'll see how terrified she is, but since it's old hat now, probably not as scared as she should be. ^_^

And our middle child has just about picked up all the intricacies of riding a bike. It's been a busy summer here. So many little milestones and so on.

Stealthy crochet ninja is stealthy

stealthy crochet ninja,
originally uploaded by dkun.

So, ran across the book Creepy, Cute Crochet while at the Library a few weeks ago. Had to check it out for the crochet Cthulhu. As the crocheted Elder God was a step up in difficulty that my talented wife wasn't quite ready to tackle (and she didn't want to lose her sanity by offending said Elder God with a less than perfect rendition) she opted to start with the adorable little fellow hiding in the foliage here. Just don't let him hear you call him adorable. Ninja dude. He'll mess you up. He's got a throwing star and everything.

So, of course, everyone in the family wanted one. The soon to be Crochet Dojo of Death now has two students, but there will be more. Oh yes, there will be more. Mwa ha ha ha ha. Run for your lives puny mortals, for after the ninja, there will be zombies. And then Cthulhu himself will rise from the abyss and devour your souls with his cute, yet nefarious plots. And photos.

New Look

We'll see how this goes. Site under new management, not responsible for old content, pardon our dust, nothing to see here, move along. Hey Look! Godzilla!

Whither the Weekend

Watched Nightwatch last night. Russian film from a few years ago. Parts horror, fantasy (of the urban sort), sci-fi. There's a lot of promise there, but it's a little on the "you must pay Attention" side of things for late on a Friday night. It also doesn't help when the copy you have is scratched six ways to Sunday and you suddenly have to switch languages halfway through so you can actually finish watching it (the Russian was on one side and the English the other). I can see why the director seems to be taking off (I believe he did the just recently released Wanted). He has some flair and some new things to bring to film. May try to track down Daywatch and see where things went.

Looks like younger sister has started a blog. Some neat photos and Kaijsa stories. This is good. I used to threaten to tell Kaijsa stories, looks like her mother will take care of it for me. Nice little template they're using too. I might have to go peek around at the newer blogger templates... We'll see.

Got the kids Pokémon toys from BK last night. There was much rejoicing from the younger set. It prints money I tell ya.

Sounds like the new Twilight book release is almost on par with Harry Potter. Not quite the same level, but close. I believe that series has sucked in a good portion of my family. Mostly the younger, female portion. I saw her new book Host at the Library a few weeks ago, but it didn't sound quite interesting enough to pick up. I'd probably almost prefer the vampires to the aliens, but the romance heavy plot would probably make me too dizzy from all the eye rolling. I will admit to liking the fact that some of her fans prefer to be called Twihards. Hee hee...

Quest for fire

BBQ grill has been set up which means honeymoon phase for grilling. So far we've done brats and burgers, up tonight are chicken shish-kabobs. I really, really love grilling. My Dad was in town over the 4th, which was great. We had a good visit and actually managed to get the baseboards put up and finally finish the new floors we got, umm, well ok, like a year ago. But he brought out a rather nice Weber grilling book with lots of tips and recipes. He also provided the new grill so, big thanks Dad. It was a tough call between gas and charcoal. We eventually settled on gas simply because it was a little more likely to get used. The learning curve on charcoal was a little daunting.

At any rate, so many things to experiment with: shrimp, steaks, more burgers, more brats, ok must go get grill warmed up... heh heh.

Saw Wall-E with Dad and the family over the weekend. Pixar has to have made some sort of deal with the Devil, their films are far too amazing for any other explanation. Possibly a pact with Cthulhu, that's rather likely as well. Basic point: Wall-E good. Go see.

Spiderwick Chronicles was also good. Although a little unsettling for our younger viewers. Lovely wife had some issues with the deviations from the book. Me not so much. Pretty good time for fantasy film fans. There are far too many movies to see and books to read and games and food and... must go rock in the corner for a moment while I contemplate overwhelming forces, err dinner. Yes. Dinner. Must go cook dinner. Fire. Meat. -insert Tim Allen/Home Improvement grunting-

Mornings

Well, it was a quiet Saturday morning until about 5 minutes ago. First G woke up and then it wasn't long before the others joined him. I'm sure the lovely H is still in bed. I'm pretty sure she'd sleep through a nuclear holocaust. Especially once the mutant cannibalistic humanoids showed up. After all, if she can sleep through the kids, what makes you think a mutant cannibalistic humanoid has a shot?

Watched Dead Alive the other night. One of Peter Jackson's earlier films (if not his first, I can never remember). Gloopy, campy zombie movie. It was pretty fun. Pre-zombie priest was my favorite character.

And in case you actually catch this early enough, it's Free RPG day! Go grab some free RPG stuff. And some polyhedral dice. Everyone needs their own d20. Or maybe a d10, I like those a lot as well. And if you have kids (and a DS) apparently there's another free Pokemon that can be picked up over at Gamestop. I have a sneaking suspicion that we'll be heading over so McK can add another Pokemon to her roster.

Read Scott Pilgrim volume 2 and Y the Last Man volume 5. Both excellent in vastly different ways. 2nd volume of Scott Pilgrim wasn't quite as funny as the first, but spent a little more time filling in some of the characters. The fight with the second evil ex-boyfriend certainly had some moments though. I like all the little video game and music references that get placed in the story. Some obvious, some not so. Y the Last Man continues to ratchet up the tension. I'm really looking forward to seeing where this goes. If you read only one apocalyptic last man on Earth story this year... heh heh.

Dr Who season 4 is still pretty good. Last night's episode was the first of a two parter, so, cliff hanger-y. I'm still waiting for an episode as good as Blink from last season. It's a pity I really didn't like season three as I'd almost pick it up just to get that episode. If I run across it on sale, it'll probably happen. I suppose I could try to grab it off iTunes or something, but that would take a little too much voodoo to play on the TV easily.

Well off to check out Feed the Animals' Girl Talk and Gnarls Barkley's St. Elsewhere.

More random thoughts (now with a third less calories)

Working at the library has certainly made it easier (in some ways) to catch up on my reading. I saw an interesting article on the possibility that Google is making us stupid. Or at least unable to read long articles/novels. It dealt with how the internet is changing our brains and the way we're processing information. It was interesting, but I only skimmed it. And of course can't recall the magazine it was in. I'd hit google, oh wait...

I also suspect Google/Yahoo are poking fun at Microsoft by updating their spam filter to send anything from hotmail into said spam filter.

At any rate. Reading. Yes. Lots of graphic novels of late. Some Hikaru no Go, some Y the Last Man, did I mention Scott Pilgrim? Currently reading A Simple Plan by Scott Smith (of The Ruins most recently). Finished off Little Brother. So many books to enjoy. ^_^ Little Brother was pretty good. Rather scary in a couple places. I've not been a big fan of the way privacy rights have been heading in this country. If you wanted a look at it, this book will definitely spook you a little.

Not had a whole lot of time for gaming of late. Ticket to Ride: the Card Game is pretty interesting. It's got a nice little mechanic and yet still has some definite similarities to the board game. Metal Gear Solid 4 has come out to tie up the Solid Snake story line, but I've not got a PS3, so I'll have to wonder. For that matter I never managed to play through the 3rd one, so I actually have a fair amount of catching up to do.

Father's Day was nice. Kids got me a card and some chocolate (the above mentioned Metal Gear Solid 3 is apparently shockingly difficult to come by at the moment. Who knew?). I'm ready for summer to be over. Oh wait... Hmm.

Learned a bit about wikis today. They are rather nifty. I always wanted to learn about them, but never really had the time/opportunity. It will be cool if we can get the library wiki to take off. Could be a good knowledge base.

Well, I'd best go contemplate downloading Firefox 3...

Round up

Picked up Wii Fit. Considering exercise is a pretty foreign concept to me, it's a decent workout. Hopefully I can keep myself motivated enough to use it. It does have a few "gamer" hooks - unlock new exercises (which is somewhat frustrating as you can't really build an exercise routine until you see what all is offered), competition (with yourself and others) and so on. It's a nice little package. That I'm sure will be improved immensely in version 2.0. (And I can't believe some of the ebay prices for this thing...)

Boom Blox by Spielberg and EA is a pretty fun little game as well. And Graeme is surprisingly good at it. Admittedly when it involves knocking things down or blowing things up, it's hard to beat a 3 year old boy. The girls get a kick out of it as well. Amazing thing this Wii. ^_^

Goose Girl by Shannon Hale is a wonderful little story. I'm not horribly familiar with the original fairy tale so in a lot of ways this was pretty fresh, but it's a good story either way. Give it a go if you like fairy tales or books with good stories.

There's a lot more I should ramble on about: Scott Pilgrim, Hellboy Volume 1 (the amazing library edition), Altered Carbon, the list goes on, but I think I'll leave it at those. Which isn't to say you got the top three or so, just the ones that were topmost in my consciousness.

It's still been an interesting couple of months. The new job is sort of settling in on me. It's still very different and I'm going to have to play with things to make it actually work as something that will support the family, but there are certainly some really nice aspects to it. Still lots of family drama. And still lots of adjusting to all the changes we've been through. But we're getting there.

I've been on a salsa making kick lately. I think I'll probably stop buying store bought salsa and just make my own for a while. It's a little time consuming but the results are so worth it. Next up is home made tortilla chips and home made ramen.

Have I mentioned Upgrade Your Life, the new book by the Lifehacker editor? I picked it up and there are some nice little tricks in there. It's been rather helpful with the new job as well. I need to be a lot more organized there than I'm used to. Heh.

It's-a Friday

Not that I can really tell anymore. Tomorrow night is the Video Games Live concert. Pretty excited about that, it should be lots of fun. Utah Symphony, video game music, set pieces, what's not to love? A big thanks to the letter 'r' for the tickets.

Waiting on word from the library. I hate waiting.

As tired as I am of the stress we've got going on, I am at least thankful that we don't have the added health problems my sister's family is going through. Our stress may be at a nice 8 or 9, but she's managed to dial things all the way to 11.

Brawl has left the house, but not the minds of the kids. All four of us. It's a good game. Can see why it's so popular.

We've borrowed a rather large bean bag for movie night tonight. It is actually quite large, not just rather large.

Seems as if there was a story that needed to be recorded here for whatever purpose, but of course I have completely forgotten it. Oh well. The perils of getting old I guess.

Happy Easter

Easter is once again here. Kids had a relatively grand morning. We managed to keep the sugar consumption fairly low so we had a grand morning as well. We did the annual Easter Egg Hunt yesterday, I suspect for the last time. The event has really outgrown the way it's been done. They get enough kids there now that they either need to resegment the age groups or they need to run it a few times. You wait for it to start for 15 minutes and then it's over in 30 seconds and if you have nice/timid kids they're lucky if they managed to grab an egg... Oh well.

Super Smash Brothers Brawl (or Brother Smashers if you're our kids) has taken over. It's grown on me quite a bit. I was horrible at the Gamecube version. I seem to have figured a few things out with this one. It's just a rental at the moment, but if the kids have any say, it'll find its way here somehow.

Caught Beowulf the other night. It was alright. Nothing to write home about, but certainly ok.

Well, must go entertain the natives. Happy Easter.

Words, words, words

Watched Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead last night. Still quite the enjoyable show. Proof that Hamlet is still quite the piece of work and that Tom Stoppard is pretty spiffy himself. Friends from way back will most likely remember drawing up rules to the game Questions after viewing that sequence a time or two too many.

Speaking of games, picked up Alhambra, it looks to be lots of fun. Will let you know once it's out of the box and been taken for a spin or two. (Did I mention that San Juan is pretty good? Nice set of training wheels for Puerto Rico while still being quite enjoyable on its own.)

Mostly treading water waiting for Wednesday. Family gets into town on Tuesday, so that will provide all of 12 hours or so of distraction. But that will most likely involve a plumbing project so it might be quite the distraction. Heh.

Lovely wife and the girls are out in the snow selling Girl Scout cookies. Am terribly glad it's them and not me. True dedication. Or something else equally cliché.

Graeme has taken to calling the girls "my girls". Are my girls back from school yet? I want to play a game with my girls. I need to get a Graeme's Girls poster made using Charlie's Angels as the template. So wrong it's right I tell ya.

And a one and a two

Yes, two posts (ah ah ah).

I think I need to track down a copy of Alhambra. Went out to dinner the other evening with some friends (steak is yummy) and said game came up in conversation. Just after I was looking at it in the store with puppy dog eyes. A sign it is.

It's rather amazing how many little things can take up your day. I've always had respect for my better half for this sort of thing. It's gone up a fair amount these last few weeks.

I was watching the remake of Dawn of the Dead earlier. Partially because, hey zombie movie, and partially because the Reel Horror podcast covered the recent Day of the Dead remake. Vegan zombie indeed. You should track down that review if for no other reason than to hear the Stephen Hawking zombie. Really.

There are very strange cartoons on the Cartoon Network. That is all.

I believe I have succeeded in convincing Graeme that he is a dinosaur. That is also all. (While that might not be quite the feat that was turning Miranda into a zombie, this is a much more persistent change, so I think it gains a few more points.)

News (not really)

Well, it's been a while again. And a lot has happened in that time.

I think I'll avoid all the messy details. Mostly I wanted to get a few words up on the ol' blog again.

Daylight Savings Time is once again playing havoc with our home life. I'm not sure why this thing is still around. It hates us it does. And we hates it. Oh yes, we hates it with the passion of a thousand burning suns.

Games have been played, movies watched, trips taken, people seen. Some of those things were good. Some not so good. But even the not so good things had their moments. We got to see lots of family over the last little while and that was pretty good.

Due to circumstances (the aforementioned and then avoided messy details) I'm currently taking a long look at things and trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up and so on. The front runner is a librarian. We'll see if that pans out. I'd really like to get out of the tech sector but I have secret fears that it's not going to let me go. We shall see.

Gee, it's hard to do this when you're out of practice. And you have no desire to dissect your personal life in front of you lot. Heh. I suppose a lot of it comes down to the realization that some of the things I used to blether on about really don't compare to the things taking up so much of my time these days. But those things aren't something I feel like putting on display at the moment. So we shall wait for time to pass and then I can get back to musing on trivialities.

We shall see.

So I suppose I should pass you along to some other sector of the internet where you can find something of interest. Try here. It should be good for a few moments worth of diversion. If not, well, this is the internet. Sink or swim.

Take a breath

Well.

Yes.

Lost Cities is brief gaming brilliance. It's a two player card game that plays quickly and yet involves some decent strategy. Can you get those last few cards played before your opponent exhausts the draw pile? Do you feel lucky punk? Well do you? Surprising amount of tension in a deceptively simple mechanic. Snag a copy.

Penny Dreadful was just that. Dreadful. That movie should have ended when the trunk was closed the second time.

Read all the Jesse Stone novels as well as the Dexter novels. All recommended. Dexter in particular.

The kids are gearing up for Halloween and then it's a dinosaur birthday for wee Graeme. Looking forward to that.

Managed a game of Arkham Horror the other day. Lost and the world was devoured. Poor world.

Well hello there

This quarter's update brought to you by the number 3. As in yeah, three months. Huh. Who'da thunk?

So, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Great book. Nice ending to the series and all that. I'm sad to see it end, but what a way to go. There were some niggly bits, sure, but over all quite the ride. I'll not say too much here as it is still pretty new, but the wife and I both enjoyed it.

Ran through The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan as well. Nice little story. Makes you want to go read Greek Mythology. Speaking of which, I've managed to aquire a nice copy of Bulfinch's Mythology courtesy of some friends of ours in Colorado. Yay.

Saw the fifth HP movie. It did a good job of hitting the highlights from the book. Some good moments, some ok moments. Luna was an inspired casting choice. Absolutely perfect.

Have I mentioned that Hey! That's My Fish is a rather fun little game? Well it is. I'm looking at possibly snagging a copy of Runebound at the moment. I have a bit of a fantasy itch that I'm hoping that will scratch. Speaking at least indirectly of boardgames, Pulp Gamer is a pretty good podcast for those interested in games of the table top variety.

The latest episode of Escape Pod, Conversations With and About My Electric Toothbrush was quite amusing. One of the better stories in a while.

Gee, so many random things to cover, so little that actually matters. We had a lovely trip to Texas to see the folks. Got to shoot off lots of exciting fireworks. Saw the Star Wars exhibit at the Science Museum. That was pretty nifty. So many fun models and a hover chair/car thing to ride. Nice.

Now to go track down a copy of Behind the Mask.

Hey

Wow, it's been a while.

Saw Hot Fuzz and it was indeed enjoyable. I've no idea what else I've seen and read in the interim. Rest assured that it was great. Or it wasn't.

It's been so long I'm terribly rusty at this. Serves me right I suppose. I've run across a few new podcasts, most dealing with games of the board/card variety. Pulp Gamer and Have Games Will Travel are the notable ones. I rather enjoy Pulp Gamer.

Picked up Planet Puzzle League for the wife. She won't put it down which is a pretty good sign. And when she does I do my best to sneak off with it myself. I now see blocks that I have to shift around whenever I close my eyes. Yeah, it's a little maddening.

Anyway, must wander off. Shall attempt to update for real at some point in the not too distant future.

Friday

Managed to finish off Fragile Things. An enjoyable collection of short stories indeed. I really liked the American Gods novella, Monarch of the Glen and the poem, Instructions. Which, now that I think about it, I've probably mentioned far too many times.

It'll be on to World War Z next.

Tomorrow I'm planning on catching Hot Fuzz and I'm very excited about that. I loved Shaun of the Dead and figure this will be a fun take on the action genre.

The wife and I have become quite enamored of Ninja Warrior on G4. It's a weakness. But what can you do? Go Nagano!!!

On a slightly ninja related note, Mur Lafferty has the cover story over at The Escapist this week. Well, ok for another couple days at any rate. This might be a permanent link to the story. Go Cthuloids! And I shed a tear for the poor ninjas. They deserve their moment in the sun. Or shadows rather.

Picked up Super Paper Mario the other day. But I'm trying to be good and finish Zelda prior to starting it. Well in earnest at any rate. The initial level was quite good.

I really did have something else to mention here. Oh well. I think I'll go play some Gang of Four online. I'm dkun if you play.

Night Owl

I have no idea why I'm writing this. Other than it gives me something to do. That and I feel like I should be writing more. Got out of the habit there for quite a while.

I started thumbing through I'm Just Here for the Food 2.0. It's a fun and interesting book. It makes me want to spend money on cooking implements and then try (badly) to make interesting dishes. I like food. I even like making food (although I don't do it very often). The Food Network (and Alton Brown in particular) is rapidly becoming an overwhelming force in my life.

I managed to find a copy of Gang of Four. What a fun game. The in-laws were here recently and several nights were spent playing it. Fortunately it plays well with three people also as we rarely have four. The online version is nice as well. If nothing else I may be able to pick up some strategy there.

Well, I believe this is enough words to soothe the writing monkey on my back at the moment. While there's nothing profound here, it at least exists. And at the moment that's all that matters.

Couple reviews

Gil's All Fright Diner is good. The Departed isn't. What you want something a little more in depth? Ingrates.

Gil's All Fright Diner is a nice horror/comedy book. Take a little Lovecraft and mix in, well, not quite Pratchett, but almost someone along those lines and there you go. It's a blast to read and I found myself laughing out loud at several points.

The Departed just left a lot to be desired. Jack Nicholson was great, but that's about it. Well and Mark Wahlberg (have I mentioned that Shooter was good?). I will admit that a good deal of my "less than impressed" comes from having seen Infernal Affairs. So a lot of the tension was missing due to knowledge of the plot, but I don't think Scorsese did all that great a job of ratcheting it up in the first place. I could go on about a few other dislikes, but I don't really feel like giving this movie that much attention.

I do want to see Infernal Affairs 2 and 3 though...

This Film is Not Yet Rated was interesting, but I only sort of agreed with it.

I suspect World War Z is up to bat next, although I really need to finish Fragile Things.

And I'm sad that Gunslinger Girl seems to have wrapped up its run on IFC.

So that should tide you lot over for a bit. I suspect there's plenty to cover coming up. Who knows. There might even be cute kid stories. I'm working on Graeme's zombie and Godzilla impressions.

Crichton

So, I made myself finish Next by Michael Crichton. I'm not sure why I did that to myself. I used to like Crichton, his books could be counted on for some fun reading that blurred the lines between fiction and non-fiction. These days, you can still see some of the compelling writing style, but it's bogged down in far too much politics and agenda pushing. The best thing I can say about Next is that I really liked Gerard, the transgenic parrot. And honestly that's about it. I really didn't like most of the characters (and Crichton must not have either given half their fates) and there really wasn't a plot. The book was almost a series of essays. Which was certainly one of the biggest problems - far too many characters. Oh well. I'm not going to spend any more time talking about this book. It doesn't deserve it.

We picked up some Motorola phones for the house on clearance. They're very cool. That is all. (They have been named Odin and Loki for no good reason at all...)

At any rate, I may go watch Casino Royale as I snagged a copy this afternoon. I really wanted the cool poker chip Circuit City was offering but settled for the Aston Martin car Best Buy was doling out. Mostly because Best Buy was closer and I didn't know if Circuit City still had any left.

And I need to track down a copy of Gang of Four.

Squeak Squeak AAAAaaaa

This is awesome.

500

So, somehow this is post 500. And to celebrate I'm going to do absolutely nothing. But possibly waste some words. I should be out of town right now, possibly shooting some clay pigeons and other assorted acts of random and possibly not so violence.

Alas, the office had other plans. Gotta love deadlines and high priority projects.

Anyway. I would be more bitter, but that would take a little too much effort. So I shall instead look for a silver lining and enjoy the fact that at the moment the house is terribly quiet. Well except for the sounds of me fumbling around on the keyboard. So yes. Quiet. It's a rather nice quiet at the moment. An all too rare quiet. But it will morph later into that depressing, hey where is everybody quiet. Why no, I don't miss the wife and kids at all. Why do you ask? But they left the dog. Meanies.

At any rate, I can catch up on some reading, play through some more Prince of Persia and create some Mii friends. Or something. If luck is with me I may still end up out of town, but at the moment I'm not holding my breath.

So happy 500.

Everybody Votes

I've decided that Nintendo's online strategy has nothing to do with games. And you know what? I think they might be on to something. Every couple times that I turn the Wii on it has nothing to do with playing games. It has to do with checking the weather channel (OK, it's a couple hours old usually and more specific to SLC, but it's a guideline) or checking the headlines. I've kept up with the news more since the News Channel showed up than pretty much ever else in my life. And now we have the Everybody Votes channel. Sure it's quirky, but that's the point. It's fun. And people will vote. And vote on how they think the voting will go. And so on. Nintendo is building a sense of online community. And despite the friend code hurdles, it works.

I can send my sister photos. Especially photos that have been drawn on. I can trade trash talk with my friend over Zelda times. And I do. And that's not even getting into the whole Mii concept...

At any rate, the more time I spend with the Wii, the more impressed I become. Nintendo really does have a plan for this system and it's more than just games. And that's cool.

Alton Brown

So we got DirecTV about a month ago. Since then AMC is my new friend and the Food Network has pretty much taken up permanent residence as the channel du jour. And the main reason for that is Alton Brown. I find his shows (particularly Good Eats) to be fascinating and funny and several other words that feature fs. I suspect I'm going to have to hunt down a few of his books. If they're anything like his shows, then they'll be interesting to read in addition to full of yummy things. He's joined my list of people that I'd love to have dinner with some time.

Daughter number one has become enamored of Iron Chef America. Partially due to the aforementioned Alton, but mostly because of the concept of the show - making foods featuring some ingredient. I remember iteration one of the show (featuring William Shatner). Glad to see it's back in a rather improved manner.

I've been reading through Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman. Always fun to read things by him. This collection (so far) doesn't disappoint. I really need a poster of the piece Instructions (which I thought I had bookmarked somewhere, but I can't seem to locate, so you'll have to track it down on your own (actually it's probably lost in the archives of this blog somewhere - poor thing)).

So many movies that I want to see, so few that I'll probably get around to seeing. I am terribly saddened that Norbit was number one at the box office this weekend. Words really fail to describe. For shame America. Seriously.

And you've probably seen it (it's made its way around the internet and back a few times by now) but I've finally become enamored of xkcd. I won't pretend to understand it all the time - math and I rarely get along - but I have enough nerd cred (geek cred will only get you so far with this comic) that the rest of the time it's hilarious. So check it out. And make sure you pay attention to the image rollover text, otherwise you're missing half the fun.

At any rate, the kids are now in bed and my wife is inexplicably watching a dog show. This situation must not remain unchecked...

Pranking through the internet

Pay no attention, not a real post. Mostly an attempt to help Neil Gaiman prank Penn Jillette.

Wii!

I don't think I've really spoken about Nintendo's new console yet. Other than to mention that the girls wandered over the house to look for it on Christmas. It's quite the little system. I've had fun making Miis of The Doctor from the new Dr. Who as well as assorted family members. Zelda is Zelda, so there's not much to say there. I think the big surprise at the moment is just how fun sports games can be. You've probably heard about Wii Sports, the pack-in game. And it's true that it's a lot of fun. We enjoy us some baseball and some bowling around here. But the big winner for me is Super Swing Golf. I've always enjoyed golf games, but they get a little old (and a little frustrating) at a certain point. Super Swing Golf has managed to hold onto the fun specifically because of the Wii. Using the controller as a golf club is brilliant. I could literally play this game all day.

The kids like Rayman Raving Rabbids which is a collection of mini games that utilize the wii-mote in various ways. Some of them are indeed pretty fun, but there are certainly some frustrating bits thrown in as well.

Just about wrapped up the Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. It's been fun. Looking forward to World War Z next. Ah the joys of the zombie...

virtual break

Have I rambled on about Ticket to Ride: Marklin yet? If not, I regret the oversight. It was the boardgame we picked up for the family this Christmas. And a rather enjoyable game it is. Apparently Days of Wonder has a design philosophy that entails simple instructions, set up and game play. Note that that does not mean simplistic - there's quite a bit of strategy involved. I will mention that the rules can be a little fuzzy, but the forums over at Days of Wonder help clarify any questions you might have.

Basically, you're claiming train routes in Germany in order to connect destinations that you've drawn. You can also send passengers over the routes you've set up. There's quite a bit of tension as every player cannot connect the same routes and as you try to link cities you may find yourself having to go the long way around. The game itself is rather pretty and the pieces are all high quality. (Although the point tokens that get placed on the cities could stand to be a bit bigger.) My wife and I have enjoyed several games against each other and it's been received pretty well by those we've introduced it to. If you like strategy board games (think Settlers of Catan and so on) then this one is a no brainer.

My wife would like me to point out that total chaos is going on in the background (which is why I chose the title I did - I was attempting to tune it out to no avail). I've no idea what we've been feeding the little monsters lately, but apparently we need to switch to moldy bread and stagnant water...

new year new clutter

So we're trying out a new ISP. Things seem to be working so far. Although I really hate updating e-mail addresses. And we also acquired DirecTV. Channels... <insert Homer drooling sound here>

Anyway, consider this a test post of sorts. It took me long enough to be able to move things around.

And a one, and a two

So, here we are, whole new year and all of that. We had a thoroughly enjoyable Christmas in Casa del D. The kids were sent on a scavenger hunt by Santa that culminated in the Nintendo Wii. They got quite the kick out of that. It's every bit as fun as you've heard, and I was pretty sore for those first couple days as my muscles got quite the workout from baseball and bowling and boxing and so on.

Night at the Museum was a lot of fun. The kids also got a kick out of that. We spent the hours leading up to the New Year last night watching Sci Fi channel's The Lost Room. Also an enjoyable show. Although the ending was a little weak.

Been reading some Anne Perry lately. Quite good. Reminds me a bit of Scotland.

Anyway, here's to a grand new year. Hope this finds you and yours well.

Snnrrrk

That's pretty much the sound that I make every five minutes due to the lovely sinus infection I'm sporting at the moment. And now that you have that lovely visual my work is done.

Okay, I'll stick around a bit longer. We caught Casino Royale the other day. Excellent movie. Best Bond movie in a long time and Daniel Craig rocked as much as I expected him to. Seriously. I had high expectations for this movie and it actually delivered. Nicely done Mr. Bond. Nicely done indeed.

Pirates 2: Dead Man's Chest was also enjoyable. And not nearly as cliffhanger-ish as everyone said. Have they not seen Empire Strikes Back or any other middle movie of a trilogy?

I think I've read a few things lately, but I've no idea what. I'm sneakily reading the Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks as it's technically a Christmas present. But who am I to let a little thing like that stop me? I'm also getting World War Z and that should be enjoyable as well. Fun stuff.

I'm pretty excited about Christmas this year. The kids are getting some fun things (the wooden train we got Graeme tops the list of things I'm excited to see them enjoy) and we managed to snag a Nintendo Wii. Camped out over night for that baby when it launched, but told my wife I'd save it for Christmas. It's killing me slowly, taunting me with its presence in the house. I really want to play some Wii Sports and some Zelda and... heh heh. Sorry about that.

Got Arkham Horror for my birthday. It's fun even though we have yet to actually finish a game. We came close once, but it grew too late. It is a pretty long game and rather difficult to win. It's been interesting playing a cooperative game though. And the Lovecraft overtones are nice. Good ol' Lovecraft. I need to snag a few books by him as well.

I managed to get John Hodgman's The Areas of My Expertise free from iTunes the other day. Great book. Terribly funny. And it features Jonathan Coulton, so big plus there as well. I've no idea if it's still free, but you should grab it if it is. (I'm looking at you Kit)

Well, I'm sure there's more to cover, it's been over a month after all, but I'm officially on Christmas break and hopped up on sinus meds, so no more random words for you.

*GASP*

Alright so this is technically *GASP* version two as the widget I'd been using seems to enjoy eating my posts as opposed to actually, you know, putting them online for you lot.

Normally I enjoy this time of year quite a bit. I manage to work shorter weeks due to accrued time off and I spend the time relaxing and enjoying the fall/winter. Not so much this year. We have a bear of a project going on at work and some family dramas that are interfering with my fall zen. Oh well, hopefully within a week or so at least some of that stress will no longer be a factor.

I've been reading David Sedaris and listening to essays by Mur Lafferty. Heck for that matter I've been listening to the This American Life podcast. I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the essay form and this has pretty much cemented my love for it. If November has its cruel way I may even find myself popping a few homebrewed essays up here.

We seem to have been under some form of curse lately as we've attempted to see The Prestige ever since it came out. Hopefully tomorrow will remedy that problem. I've been looking forward to it for some time.

I submitted that Trout Lodge firework photo to a wallpaper site, so we'll see if it shows up over the next couple weeks.

Well, that should be enough of a breather to get me through the next few days/weeks. We'll see.

AAaaarrrgghh!

Post eaten. Widget trashed. Will attempt to re-create later. <sigh>

random noise

The Grudge 2 is an enjoyable flick. There's not much new there (if you've seen the original), but it still does a good job of presenting a creepy story in a disjointed fashion. That's probably the most interesting aspect - trying to figure out what's happening when and to whom. There are a couple pretty good eerie scenes, so all was worthwhile. Plus it had a trailer for The Messengers which looks incredible. Good ol' Pang Brothers.

I finished House of Leaves. Truly interesting book. Some genuine freakout moments and a narrative that is pretty unique. I certainly don't claim to understand all of it. Or probably even most of it. But it was fun to read and that counts for a lot.

Did I mention that I finally finished 1776 as well? Also a good read. It's a wonder we ever won the Revolutionary War...

Anyway, that'll do for some random bits from a life with far too much stress in it at the moment.