A Librarian's Work : Fascinating article from 1876 explaining the work that librarians do. Today's librarians do much less cataloguing but, since we do so much more than libraries used to do, we still have plenty to keep us busy. When you're done reading, scroll to the top of the page and you'll find some interesting and related links so you can just keep on reading!

Jedi Archives Clones Long Room, Trinity Attacks : Look at these two pictures and tell me Mr. Lucas didn't do a little borrowing... Oh, and read the article too. It's pretty good, I guess.

INTERVIEW WITH THE SEARCH ENGINE : This is a freakin' riot! And unlike a lot of comedy, there is a kernel of truth inside (that has been turned into a humourous fiction - most of the time it's the other way around - a kernel of untruth leading to a generalized truth).

Ok, sir, I will look that up for you. Let me see... ah! Here it is : First subtract 32. Then multiply by 5 and divide by 9. The answer you get will be in Celsius. Hope that helps!

Got this from a post from breadcrumbs.tk. You have to answer the questions about yourself with lyrics from one specific musical band or artist. I think I'll choose Led Zeppelin.

1. Are you male or female?
   

   I'm just a simple guy...
   from Out on the Tiles

2. Describe yourself.
   

   Many times I've lied,
   Many times I've listened,
   Many times I've wondered
   How much there is to know.
   from Over the Hills and Far Away

3. How do some people feel about you?
   

   ...a little bit of raving madness.
   from South Bound Saurez

4. How do you feel about yourself?
   

   ...ain't nothin but a two-bit, no-good jive
   from The Lemon Song

5. Describe your girlfriend/boyfriend/interest/ex.
   

   ...she's my lover and I love her so and she's the one that really makes me whirl and twirl...
   from The Crunge

6. Where would you rather be?
   

   ...the land of the ice and snow.
   from Immigrant Song
   [I'm originally from Canada.]

7. Describe where you live?
   

   ...what is and what should never be
   from What Is And What Should Never Be

8. Describe how you live.
   

   Working from seven to eleven every night,
   It really makes life a drag, I don't think that's right.
   from Since I've Been Loving You

9. Describe how you love.
   

   If the sun refused to shine, I would still be loving you.
   When mountains crumble to the sea, there will still be you and me.
   from Thank You

10. Share a few words of wisdom.
    

    Mmm, I'm telling you now, The greatest thing you ever can do now,
    Is trade a smile with someone who's blue now, It's very easy just...
    from Friends

Which Hey Arnold! Character Are You?
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You're a Speak & Spell!! You nerd, you. Just because you were disguised as a toy doesn't mean you weren't educational, you sneaky bastard.

What childhood toy from the 80s are you?
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I was just rereading my little who am I d&d thing in the last post... Man, I'm a dork.

I guess this is pretty accurate [except for the knowing mage part... heh...] b ut the best part of this test is just thinking about the questions. Check it out.

I Am A: Neutral Good Elf Mage Druid

Alignment:
Neutral Good characters believe in the power of good above all else. They will work to make the world a better place, and will do whatever is necessary to bring that about, whether it goes for or against whatever is considered 'normal'.

Race:
Elves are the eldest of all races, although they are generally a bit smaller than humans. They are generally well-cultured, artistic, easy-going, and because of their long lives, unconcerned with day-to-day activities that other races frequently concern themselves with. Elves are, effectively, immortal, although they can be killed. After a thousand years or so, they simply pass on to the next plane of existance.

Primary Class:
Mages harness the magical energies for their own use. Spells, spell books, and long hours in the library are their loves. While often not physically strong, their mental talents can make up for this.

Secondary Class:
Druids are a special variety of Cleric who serves the Earth, and can call upon the power in the earth to accomplish their goals. They tend to be somewhat fanatical about defending natural settings.

Deity:
Mystra is the Neutral Good goddess of magic. She is also known as the Lady of Mysteries. Followers of Mystra wear armor and carry shields with her symbol on them. Mystra's symbol is a ring of stars.

Find out What D&D Character Are You?
courtesy of NeppyMan (e-mail)

libraries doing good things with blogs : Collection of blogs created by and/or for libraries. Interesting. I should suggest that we do something like that.

Read this on the train last night and a little this morning. "Creature Tech", a graphic novel by Doug TenNapel, is done all in black and white, a method I don't always like in comics but kinda works here. It's all about this 'agent' that becomes head of a paranormal research warehouse, finds this dead-people-reanimating shroud, loses it to a ghost, becomes host to a superpower-enabling crab-like lifeform, and fights to get aforementioned shroud back. Oh, and falls in love. I know, sounds pretty standard, but it's weird and I like weird.

Just finished reading "The weblog handbook : practical advice on creating and maintaining your blog" by Rebecca Blood. Although I really just [heavily] skimmed it [which is what you can do with non-fiction sometimes - I give you permission], it is really a very good guide to the topic. Although this blog of mine is pretty new [only about a month], I've been reading and making [and unmaking] blogs for a year or two or three. Although I knew some of what she was talking about already, there's some really good tips in there. If I had had this before now, maybe I would have quit less.

This is an interesting test to see if you can tell the difference between fake smiles and real ones. I got 12 out of 20 which is apparently ok. [Found this link while reading this entry from Life of Brian.]

This is a little story my wife told me about a conversation she had with our daughter.

We saw a tree that had been topped, and Zoe said "Do you remember when that tree had leaves and stuff?" and I replied "yes"... she wanted to know what happened, and I explained some reasons they might have cut the top of the tree off. She listened, and then she told me that they probably had a garbage can in the kitchen, and they put the top of the tree in that. I told her that someone probably came and took the branches and stuff away. She thought for a moment, and replied that yes, I was right, a man probably came to take the tree away, and his name was probably Craig Houston! I started laughing, and told her that she was funny... and she got mad and said "Craig Houston is a good guy. You don't say he's funny, and you don't say he stinks! He doesn't smell like yucky, he smells like... good stuff. So you don't say that!"

Is violent poetry criminal? California high court debates conviction of teenage boy : Children writing disturbing poetry being convicted of criminal intent. Wasn't there a Law & Order about this? The foolish thing is this :

Speaking for the state, Laurence said the boy's poem cannot be analyzed in a vacuum. The boy passed the poem to a girl in his English class 11 days after a student killed two classmates and wounded 13 others at Santana High School in Santee on March 5, 2001.

Right versus right: Should public librarian turn police informant? : Excellent and thought provoking little article about library ethics in this age of information paranoia. These questions are more important now that institutions can manipulate, store, and even ask for information so seamlessly.

Just finished "Mainline" by Deborah Christian. I had just picked it at random from the science fiction section [that be my tastes, arrrr]. It's not the best story in the world but it's got some interesting ideas - genetically enabled phase and timeline shifting - which is all you really want from sci-fi now isn't it?

The first day of work after my pseudo-vacation!!! And I was still almost late. Had ten days to set my alarm and prepare, but no... last minute rushing around this morning. What with getting up late, starting (but not finishing) the dishes, and looking at trash online, I practically had to run through the pouring rain to get to my frustratingly but conveniently late train. Golly Sarge!

My wife took the test and...

Came across the two things so here's a few of my own.

Two things about Epistemology

1. Knowledge ain't just data.


2. You have to know that you know what you know.

1. Nobody know's what they want.


2. Sometimes it's just not there to get.

1. Let them go. Everyone has to make mistakes.


2. Never let them go.

Woah!!! 6 days without a post!!! I better nip this disturbing and deja-vooey trend in the bud!!! So... I need my own line of T-shirts. That would be cool. I should think of some logos for me and my pages and stuff. I mean, I have Photoshop. I better use it before it gets all rusty!

I tried about a million times to get a different result but it always came out Beast. I know when someone's trying to tell me something.



I'm a superhero and a villain... Okay. I wonder who my parents were? Jaws and Garfield?



I take particular pride in this, since I'm terminally white.



Knight Rider kicks ass!!! I don't think this is a bad result at all! The only thing that could have been better would have been Air Wolf!

Although I've always been a kid at heart and watched more than my fair share of immature programming [read kids' shows], these past few days off with the little spawn has, of course, led me to rely on the television for its vast powers of entertainment. I've discovered a delightfully fresh take on the teenage plight called "As told by Ginger". Do partake. Do.

Well, it's my first full day of being mommy and daddy for a while. My wife took a well-deserved vacation to visit her parents and friends "back home" while I took some time off work to watch the little almost-four-year-old monster. We went grocery shopping. Got her a little chocolate pie. Left half of it on her face. Went home. Gave her some pudding. Left half of it in the tub. Made a pie and she had a slice. Left half of it one the floor. I'm surprised we don't have a pack of hyenas trailing us.

I think I'm in (or on?) Bizarro World. You remember Bizarro, a sort-of nemesis of Superman from a parallel world/universe in which everything is crazy and stupid? Well, here I am. A customer complains that the computer they're using in our humble little library is too slow. I try to explain to her simply and politely that 1. all the computers in the library are acting that way and that we are trying to fix it, and 2. it is also partially due to the fact that her disk(s) are mangled beyond comprehension and that the computer is stumped trying to read it. She asks to speak to a supervisor which I get and she says that I was being rude, that perhaps I was having a bad day!!!! Fortunately, the supervisor knows me better than that and doesn't make an issue of it but still... Maybe it's the heat.

Wouldn't it be great just to have meetings all the time? Not actually do anything but just go to meetings and talk about doing stuff. I have three meetings today and boy do I feel productive. Nothing's done - in fact I now have a whole bunch more work to do - but it feels like I did a lot.

Well, I'm an adult now. I've traded in my ideals for job security and comfort. Because of the assinine CIPA monster, our library is having to install filtering software on our computers. But they decide to filter a whole bunch more than just "smut", piling in games and chat and instant messaging, because it's against their contradictory policy. There's a committee to review the filtering process and the sites it affects. But I would prefer not to be on the committee because I know that anything I say there will be deemed as nothing but "philosophy" (read with a sneer). I feel so grown up.

This morning my daughter decided to play a trick on her mother by hiding under a blanket in the middle of the floor. This is how, in her words, she thought it would play out.

When Mommy come here she a say, 'what this lump here?' and then I a say, I mean the LUMP say , 'I not a lump, I Zoe!'

Had my first real weekend in a long time. From working Sundays all the time, I would only get one day off a week. But today and tomorrow are the start of a beautiful friendship... And I celebrated this morning with my eyes closed for as long as my daughter would let me [my darling pregnant wife likes to sleep too].

Here's something about me. I hate "the news". I hate news on TV, I hate newspapers, I hate radio news, I hate news magazines, etc. I hate people who read/watch the news. Well, not hate. More like pity. These are the people who think that they are doing something important by "being informed". Firstly, you can be informed in many other more effective ways. The "news" is just one of many sources of information about the world, and just like all the others it is biased. You can't get away from biased information, but you shouldn't forget that it's all biased either. Secondly, if you just read the news on the train to work or watch the evening news when you get home, that doesn't count as doing your part. And you can't say that it's all justified by the fact that it informs how you vote or give to charity. That's hardly a reason to sit through stories about local murders and how many people were killed on the other side of the world. You're only justified if you're USING this information. No one is [or rather should be] entertained by this abattoir of information.

My, my, aren't I being serious? That's enough of that.

My daughter [4 years old pretty much] likes to watch:

• Arthur


• Barney [blechh]


• Blue's Clues


• Caillou


• Dora the Explorer


• Dragontales


• Jo-Jo's Circus


• Sponge Bob Square Pants


• The Wiggles

Just when I thought that I was done finding funny sites... then this one found me.

OK... You've got to check this page out. Potty/chemistry humour at it's finest. And although it titles itself "Molecules with Silly or Unusual Names", the majority of them are not so much silly or unusual but just crude. Still funny though.

It's a sad sad world in which "The Critic" has such a short run on TV but "Saved by the Bell" lives for an eternity. It's like a horror film where the character we all love dies in the beginning but the undead zombie keeps walking around until the very end.

I'm just about to teach another Internet class for our customers [that's another thing librarians do... teach!] and although I like teaching, I'm really tired. Maybe I'll just tell 'em it's all done with magic and send them home early. I think they'll buy that.

You know, people live in their own little world. Occasionally I'll get a customer that for the life of him/her, cannot see past the end of his/her nose. I just dealt with a woman to whom I was trying to explain how this computer I was going to assign to her had a new setup we're testing and that it will be faster and better and will allow customers to simply use their library card and PIN to log in. All the while she could not get it out of her head that I was somehow angry at her because earlier she had gotten into a little shouting match with another customer.

Then there are the truly crazy people who need to have every little detail of their computer using experience the same every time. They can come in asking about a person who had assisted them days earlier but end up simply needing someone to help them open a file from their disk.

Weeeeeeee!!!!!

Check out this article. It's a discussion of the increasing access to personal information in all areas in the name of fighting the "war" on terrorism. There's always the defense that if you don't have anything to hide then you should have any worries about invasions of privacy. That's true. In an ideal world. If the information was true [which it isn't always], if you have the ability to change and review it [which most of the people most of the time do not], if everyone handling the information is absolutely trustworthy [which they are not], then why would we need any privacy [or anonymity... a closely related concept]? In a perfect world, privacy might not be an issue, anonymity might not be an issue, but it is. So suck it up.

I work in what is called the "Cyber Center" in the central library of Queens Borough Public Library system, a bank of 48 public use computers. Occasionally [this is sarcasm] the computers break down or a slow or freeze or something of that nature and I have to go around and fix them. Just moments ago, a wise wise customer informed me that the computer needed to be "reprogrammed to go faster" and that you have to "take everything out of the computer and put it on the floppy disk" to do it. And no, this was not a five year old. So sad...

Tired now... Although I started this blog yesterday, records will show that I've only posted messages for one day before this one [a gummy bear to the dimbulb who takes more than 13 seconds to figure that out]. But I've stayed up too late which gives me a perfect excuse to stay up a little later and add another day to my archive.

Gotta get up early to go to the "ultrasounders" tomorrow [for the last time] to see my little baby [second and final stop]. His name is [or will be] Max. Well. Not a million. We are all very excited. Except for little miss number one. She will need a bucket of toys to prevent her from tearing out my last nerve during the twelve minutes I will have/want to watch all three of my closest loved ones.

Nighty-night.