It sounds like...

Yay, Friday!

I finally, *finally*, got behind my desk cleared out and caught up (pretty much). It's been a quiet week - that's how I was able to get so much done. It always is when kids are transitioning back to the school year, which is why I don't schedule much programming before October. However, when October hits I am booked solid!

The anime club (now working as part of the TAC) is going to do food for the October 28th haunted house that my theater company is working on. All the money that they raise is going towards their May trip to AnimeBoston. We're planning on going for the full three days. I've booked a hostel dorm for the trip, so at least lodging shall be inexpensive. I don't think a Broadway show is going to happen next year for the library. I just don't have a group that's interested in making it happen. Ah, well, the anime thing will be fun - it's all part of being flexible anyway.

I'm still going to Broadway, damnit!

Don't know what I'll see when I'll get there. But, by jove, I'm going! And, can't forget WICKED on December 10th!!

Anyway, in other excellent news: the library is getting more shelves! Upstairs AND downstairs!! Wahoo - less packed shelves!

It's things like this that put a bad day in perspective.

This reminds me of the advanced math final when I gave up in frustration and wrote something to the effect of: "I'm really good in English" right under my name leaving the rest blank.

I just really like this little song and video. It makes me smile.

This one is fun. Just type in the site that you would like to see suffer, choose the disaster you'd like it to suffer from and then watch it go. So far I've nuked foxnews and flooded the Drudge Report.

And don't forget HALLOWEEN IS COMING!!! Don't forget the Candy. Speaking of Halloween, Allegra wants to go as Chiyo-chan.

What I'm Reading: on my quest to further rid the shelves of antique books that have fallen out of favor I have taken it upon myself to read through some of them to see if they are worth saving. So, I'm reading The Little Broomstick by Mary Stewart. It's rather good actually, it's written for younger children reading at a higher level. I think I'm going to see if I can find a better copy to replace it with since my copy is incredibly unattractive. Which reminds me, I needed a new copy of The Westing Game.

What I'm watching: So, I came home early yesterday because I'm coming down with a cold and all I wanted to do was sleep! However, when I got home, I was only able to sleep on and off. So, I watched some discs that I've had hanging around the house.

Gregory Horror Show: I so wanted this to be a fun, spooky animated flick. I was so disappointed. It looks like these were cinema shorts from a horrible game all put together into one strange, sometimes really funny, series. Bizarre (which means Allegra loved it). And now that I've looked it up (for the link above), I've found out that, yes, it was a bad game first. *sheesh*

Fruits Basket Volume 2: YAY! I love this one - the series is just so sweet and funny.

Cardcaptor Sakura Volume 1: Imagine my surprise when I actually liked this series. Somehow I'd managed to avoid ever seeing it; equating it with Sailor Moon nonsense. But it turns out it's rather cute and funny. I don't think I could stand a lot of it in one sitting without an insulin shot, but in small doses, I enjoyed it.

Entertainment Value

Inspired by Katie's remark about her dorm being entertained by my blog, I'm presenting a blog pretty much solely based on the idea that I, too, like being entertained and am willing to share those links of fun. Or something like that.

By the way, the Spirited Away books came in late Monday morning. ARGH!!! And yes, Myles, you should watch Spirited Away.

Firstly, I love this little rant-on-a-soapbox because I can relate to it so much.

I also love pranks, not those stupid little Punk'd pranks, I mean real pranks. Here's my favorite:

The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest
In 1957 the respected BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. Huge numbers of viewers were taken in, and many called up wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti trees. To this question, the BBC diplomatically replied that they should "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best." Check out the actual broadcast archived on the BBC's website (You need the RealVideo player installed to see it, and it usually loads very slowly).

I find this list to be the most fun when you have one person reading it out loud to a group of people.

Oh, and since I have the attention span of a 12 year old kid on AOL I'm also reading MAD magazine right now and I just saw an ad for the figurines for The Corpse Bride and am thinking that I need to get the Johnny Depp character to go with Willy Wonka for my computer shrine. Hmmmmm, that may require a mall trip. The magazine, by the way, is hilarious and has a spoof Trading Spouses between The Simpsons and The Family Guy.

I don't know how many of you have bothered to learn the rules of the robot game that lives among the other puzzle games on my desk, but this game operates by the same rules.

How to tell when a relationship is over.

I don't actually know what I think of this one.....part of me really wants to think it's funny. Hmmm....Dance, Paul, dance.

I agree, the covers of supermarket paperback romances are ridiculous and just begging to be re-written.

I feel really lucky that I have a job that feels more like play than work. Really lucky...because lots of other people don't.

Apparently our government can be a bit ambiguous?

Ever wonder what was going on in Aragorn's head during the Lord of the Rings trilogy? Well, here on the internet is Aragorn's secret diary. I should point out that this is the main page of secret diaries and the others are just as amusing.

I hope you've enjoyed this pointless little post as much as I have. I now leave you with this - get out there and play some whiffle ball damnit!

Go back to bed

Well, after stressing all last week that the books wouldn't arrive in time for the Literacy Fair, the books didn't come in. So, I hatched a Plan B right after D&D on Friday and printed out a bunch of "tickets" that I could hand out after we talked about Spirited Away that would entitle the holder to a free copy of Volume 1 of the Spirited Away manga AFTER September 28 - what the hell, might as well give myself a few more days to get them in. Yay, backup plan! The talk wasn't that bad; nearly everyone that came in had already seen Spirited Away, so we were free to talk about something else. Namely, Mythology and in particular when humans get involved in the dealings of gods and spirits throughout Norse and Greek mythology (and a bit of Fairy myth in it as well). It went well.

Then I sprinted to the Library to hold a Girl Scout Brownie meeting - that went well, after that I got to go home shower and not take a nap before going to the Opera House and getting ready for the concert that night. We had a small - no, disappointing - turnout, but what a great show it was! Ingrid's Ruse was fabulous, Joe Stacey was excellent, and Michael Veitch was amazing - and all 40 people in the 350-seat room loved it.

Then we went with Sam and Joe and Sam's little sister Grace to see Tim Burton's The Corpse Bride - which I LOVED! (big surprise, I know).

It was nice to have a day off from everything (I refuse to answer the phone on Sunday unless it's a friend), but I need more time off on the weekends!

Because I promised....here is the Sleepy Kittens video and song.

Imagine this: All three long trailers from The Lord of the Rings Trilogy sound edited to fit the anime Azumangah Diaoh, with Osaka as Frodo, Kagura as Legolas, Yukari as Sauron and Saruman, Kimura as Gollum, and so on.... and they changed the names to: The Lord of the Yen, The Two Pigtails, and The Return of Sakaki-San. Well, then you'd have The Lord of the Yen. A couple of things to note: it's a long download and you'll have to create an account (free) before you download it. After that enjoy! It's wildly amusing. (Thanks Hannah and Caitlyn)

The Highlander in 30 seconds re-enacted by bunnies. There can be only one.

A page that I've been visiting daily: The comics. About 2 dozen comic strips updated daily - great fun!

I'm pretty sure this is in bad taste.

I haven't had time to read anything.

We interrupt this blog....

Because I just found the trailer for The Producers - and it's excellent!!!!

It's all good

And see, she's demonstrating the proper way to hold a picture book at preschool storytime.

Cows with guns...in some bizarre alternate reality, sure, why not? (It might take a few moments to load - it's worth it). And while I'm at it, here is The Meatrix

I'm assuming that I hit too many animal choices on my Stumble preferences because I keep getting things like Absolutely Hilarious Cats. Which I have played at my desk quite a lot lately to the general laughter of everyone standing around.

I was in Berlin yesterday at the Midstate Library helping out with the planning of next year's state summer reading program, which is fantasy (YAYAYAY!!!!), the title is: Realms of Reading. And the whole YA section of the program is really cool. I'll have to explain in greater detail when I wake up and have my complete wits about me. Needless to say, I kept bringing up gaming as an excellent component of the program. I think I'm going to talk to some of the D&D'ers about getting a day off from school to host a librarian how-to-play D&D session at my library and just invite other librarians that want to learn to come on down and try it out.

Anyway, it looks like my trips to Berlin are over for now. So, I'm free to focus on the Literacy Fair (Saturday!!) and the fact that the books haven't come in yet. However, I didn't check the mail upstairs to see if they might have arrived yesterday while I was gone, and well, there's always today for them to show up (fingers crossed!!).

Had a theater company meeting last night - we are officially going under RAMP in the near future. Happydancehappydance All is looking really good - really busy, but good. We're going to be putting on a Halloween "Haunted House" at Rivermist B&B on Friday, October 28th, so since there won't be any D&D that night I'm hoping that I can get some of the players willing to get up in a costume and come help out as ushers, serving food, providing atmosphere, and learning some spooky stories to share.

Just for fun: Australia gets drunk and wakes up in the North Atlantic.

What I'm Reading: Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories It's not actually any of his stories, instead it's a collection of stories that he chose - most written before 1930 - it's interesting to see what is going on in them for horror and their use of language. Definitely atmospheric and somewhat disturbing it's a fun horror read.

What I WILL be watching: Because The Corpse Bride opens this weekend!!!

Lu la lu la lu

Viking Kittens!! I mean, Viking Kittens....not much else to add to that.

I stumbled (thanks, Myles, for pointing out that little productivity killer - I love it!) across the coolest graphic knitting tool. Save the picture you want to knit up to your computer, upload, and it turns your picture into a knitting pattern! Really nifty - Allegra is getting a Totoro Sweater soon. Meet KnitPro

I'm feeling a bit stressed this week. The Literacy Fair is Saturday, which is usually great fun as I have a project that I take there and kids can do all day. But this year things are different. I'm running a discussion on Paul Fleischman's Seedfolks, and we're going to be giving out copies of the books to people that participate. I'm prepared for that one as I've done a few discussion groups around it already. But, then I'm to do a book and movie combo on Spirited Away. I'm actually pretty prepared for it - the stressful part is that I'm supposed to give away several copies of the first volume of the manga and none of them have come in yet!!! This is after I ordered them in August and didn't check on them until Monday (ok, yeah, that wasn't such a great thing to do), when I learned that they are "Permanently out of stock". ARGH!! At least, from my jobber (the company that I buy all the library's books from), so then I went to the publisher, Viz, and they had a bunch, so I just direct-ordered my set of mangas to giveaway and they should get here before Friday. Still, they might not, and I'm a bit, no I'm really stressed that they won't. Oh yeah, and I'm taking the radio station's digital recorder and will be creating a radio show from the Literacy Fair, and I haven't trained on that yet, but that's like a five minute how-to, and then it's just talking to people, so I can handle that.

So, I won't think about that. If the books come, great, if they don't....I'll wing it :)

In the meantime, distraction.... How about a scifi/fantasy book that you can read in a minute, like The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy or The Lord of the Rings Trilogy? Sscifi/fantasy books in a minute

Wonder if you might have a virus? Try the Human virus scanner. Apparently, among the other things I suffer, I also am afflicted with Gaming (Life is not a game. Roll 3D6. On a 4 or more go out and do something with your life); Politics (Stop caring!); and Scifi (Stop wearing the stick-on ears).

Elevator Moods - I don't actually know what this is because I'm out of time to continue exploring it, but it looks fascinating.

What I'm reading: Shojo Beat - this is the new magazine answer to the popular Shonen Jump. Basically Shonen=boy and Shojo=girl. So, while Shonen jump features Yu-Gi-Oh, DBZ, One Piece, Bleach, and other violent serials, Shojo Beat has drama and romance rich serials like Nana and Absolute Boyfriend. Despite the violence that's in Shonen Jump it's rated for ages 13+, while Shojo Beat is rated for ages 16+. So, since I had three Shojos come in at once (darn mail) I took them home to read them - still a bit worried that maybe there is too much going on in them to have them in the YA collection. But really, it's not that bad, sure there are a few bedroom scenes, and there's talk of sex, drug, and alcohol use, but it's not nearly as raunchy as say Gossip Girl. It just seems that the ratings are reinforcing that thought that violence is ok and romance is bad - which bugs me no end. Take the Redwall series: at heart this is a series of animal wars, sure there's more going on, but still this series is massively violent to which there is very little complaint. But then compare it to Naylor's Alice series, which is one of the most challenged juvenile series for "inappropriate subject matter" - romance is bad, violence is ok.

Anansi Boys - NEIL GAIMAN'S NEW BOOK!!! I just got it two days ago, and since I was in Berlin again yesterday didn't get a chance to start it until last night. I'll have to review it later. But, speaking of Gaiman, at this picture book workshop that I've been attending in Berlin I had to put together a whole picture book story hour and present it as my final bit of homework. So, wanting to have some fun with it I did a "Spooky storytime" for ages 6 and up and made The Wolves in the Walls part of my program and read it to a large group of librarians in the workshop for my presentation. I had great fun with it.

Breaking news!

Ok, not exactly Earth shattering, but entertaining nonetheless. Ralph Fiennes, being very un-Ralph Fiennes-ish as Lord Voldemort from the next Harry Potter movie. (I know, the pic is not all that great, but - hey - it's something):

And, while at Borders today, look, look, look what I found!!

Toothpaste for dinner - THE BOOK! Ok, once again, not going for jaw-dropping announcements, just the little things that made me happy today.

I saw Katie last night, she dropped for the utter-randomness that is D&D. Although, I think calling my group "random" might be a massive understatement....anyway, it was great fun to catch up! And she got to thwack things and sense motives while I got to make in-jokes that the newbies didn't get (hahahahaha!)!

Everything else is pretty much going along smoothly. Except I lost my calendar. That hasn't been so great....I've just started operating under the assumption that if it's really important, someone will remind me.

The Llama song - well, it's no Kitty Cat Dance

Finally someone heard the unending call on the internet for easy to follow air guitar instructions.

Man, I haven't had time to read much or watch anything....well, that sucks. I'll have to get around to it this weekend.

Where's my cow?

THUD

It's a game of Trolls and Dwarfs where the player
must take both sides to win ...

It's the noise a troll club makes when crushing
in a dwarf skull, or when a dwarfish axe cleaves
a trollish cranium ...

It's the unsettling sound of history about
to repeat itself ... THUD!

It's the most extraordinary, outrageous,
provocative, insightful, and keenly cutting flight
of fancy yet from Discworld's incomparable
supreme creator ... Terry Pratchett

And, holy hell, it's book #30 in the Discworld series! First off, if you haven't been reading Discworld books all along, don't start with this one. You'll miss a lot of the jokes and the cast is just overwhelmingly huge to keep straight if you don't already know them. Terry Pratchett is just brilliant - his dig at the Da Vinci code is just excellent. And well, I don't really feel like writing much more about this book, so let's leave it at: It is a most worthy addition to a fabulous series! (And next month he's releasing the picture book companion "Where's My Cow?"!!)

Anyway, there's what I'm reading. I decided to shake things up a bit and start with the end. Perhaps there's no coincidence that we're having pancakes and fruit for dinner (which I must point out, is rather satisfying).

Otherwise, I have nothing much to add really. I'm finally going to watch the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". A movie I have purposefully avoided as I didn't want to really see what was done to my beloved series....but Jay went out and rented it. So now, faced with it being available in my very own living room. Well, the temptation is a bit great. And seeing as how we're still in our living-simply withno cable experiment I don't have the option of watching something more stupid. (Well, ok, I do have Jay's movies....think of movies like the "Dungeons & Dragons" movie and "Troy"....although he gets all offended when I mention their sheer stupidity.)

And now for something completely different

Wootness!! I finished my training for the radio station, so my I am a certified DJ...of sorts.

I wouldn't say I'm anti-social this weekend, so much as I don't feel compelled to go out of my way. We are off to church (Unitarian Universalists, we) this morning - it's our first service back as our church doesn't meet during the summer, and it's our water communion, so that will be nice.

Anyway, some fun diversions, which is about the speed I'm at today:

I Like U: Just click on this one for a happy message! (after it loads click the red button at the top of the bubble)

Mage's Maze: Mage's Maze is more than a riddle game. Besides solving the regular enigmas, you have to find your way trough the maze, in order to face The Mage and become his apprentice.

Belfast Ghost Watch: Halloween is coming, and here at our house we've dropped all pretenses of waiting for it and have started celebrating early. Let the spooky fun begin. (or just sit around watching a spare room for hours - great fun for library kids hehehehe)

Yeti Sports: This is one of my favorite online game sites. Love, love, love the Yeti and the Pingus!! Speaking of "pingus", "March of the Penguins" is actually playing downtown this weekend - we're going to see it again!

Die Anstalt Psychiatrie fur misshandelte Kuscheltiere: Haven't played this in a while, wonder if they ever finished it....

What I'm reading:
Baron: The Cat Returns - the manga is not by Miyazaki. The manga itself is quite funny and stylistic on it's own terms. I really enjoyed it. Granted, it doesn't feature Cary Elwes or Tim Curry's voice acting, but yet it was still fabulous, funny, and heartwarming.

The Historian - Great mystery, vampire fun with good and evil hanging in the balance. This may come as a shock, but I have a fondness for vampire literature and here is an interesting addition to the genre. The author clearly loves research. I'm about halfway through (the book is huge) and am so far enjoying it quite a bit.

What I'm Watching:
Chappelle's show season 1 : His absolutely UN-Politically correct humor just tickles my burning cities and busting balloons funnybone.

Nothing to add

We all know that magazines touch-up their photos, no allowing of any extra skin, wrinkles, or blotchiness, so that everyone has perfectly even skin tones, everything smooth, contoured, and perfect. Well, check out this site that showed up in my inbox this morning. On the main page click on the "Start Here" and then as you go through the photos run your cursor over them to see what they looked like before they were touched up. Some didn't have much work, others.... the Glen Feron retouching portfolio

While we're at it, why not enjoy some celebrity awful plastic surgery

Ah, what the hell.....I didn't do anything yesterday so I might as well divulge my, well I wouldn't say fondness, but interest in celebrity. Especially the parts that show just how normal they are like the fact that they don't wear makeup all the time. Yay! Normalcy!

Oh well, that's enough invasion for one morning.

And a few fun things:

Save the Sheep - a mindless flash game

D-Film Moviemaker - kind of a neat little online flashmaker. Make a film and then force all of your friends with email to watch it....er, I mean....Nicely send it to their email and suggest that they enjoy your cleverness.

And while I'm at it....hold on, need to drag the BIG soapbox out here......I haven't said much about Katrina and the aftermath because I like to reserve this part of the internet to play on not angst over and there is certainly enough fretting going on - and a lot to fret about (please consider donating to a reputable organization). But, as I was going through some articles this morning I came across a piece by Thomas Friedman, a writer whom I genuinely enjoy if not always agree with - he has a talent for grasping issues in perfectly clear, engaging prose. Enjoy:

via NYTimes:
Osama and Katrina (9/7/05)
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Well, if 9/11 is one bookend of the Bush administration, Katrina may be the other. If 9/11 put the wind at President Bush's back, Katrina's put the wind in his face. If the Bush-Cheney team seemed to be the right guys to deal with Osama, they seem exactly the wrong guys to deal with Katrina - and all the rot and misplaced priorities it's exposed here at home.

These are people so much better at inflicting pain than feeling it, so much better at taking things apart than putting them together, so much better at defending "intelligent design" as a theology than practicing it as a policy.

For instance, it's unavoidably obvious that we need a real policy of energy conservation. But President Bush can barely choke out the word "conservation." And can you imagine Mr. Cheney, who has already denounced conservation as a "personal virtue" irrelevant to national policy, now leading such a campaign or confronting oil companies for price gouging?

And then there are the president's standard lines: "It's not the government's money; it's your money," and, "One of the last things that we need to do to this economy is to take money out of your pocket and fuel government." Maybe Mr. Bush will now also tell us: "It's not the government's hurricane - it's your hurricane."

An administration whose tax policy has been dominated by the toweringly selfish Grover Norquist - who has been quoted as saying: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub" - doesn't have the instincts for this moment. Mr. Norquist is the only person about whom I would say this: I hope he owns property around the New Orleans levee that was never properly finished because of a lack of tax dollars. I hope his basement got flooded. And I hope that he was busy drowning government in his bathtub when the levee broke and that he had to wait for a U.S. Army helicopter to get out of town. [read on...]

And lest there be those who still doubt whether the devastation to New Orleans could have been prevented, consider that the New Orleans levee was *known* to need work but that this administration deprived that needed project of funds:

via The New Yorker:
Under Water (9/3/05)
by David Remnick

[...] the President'’s priorities, his indifference to questions of infrastructure and the environment, magnified an already complicated disaster. In an era of tax cuts for the wealthy, Bush consistently slashed the Army Corps of Engineers' funding requests to improve the levees holding back Lake Pontchartrain. This year, he asked for $3.9 million, $23millionn less than the Corps requested. In the end, Bush reluctantly agreed to $5.7 million, delaying seven contracts, including one to enlarge the New Orleans levees. Former Republican congressman Michael Parker was forced out as the head of the Corps by Bush in 2002 when he dared to protest the lack of proper funding.

Similarly, the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, which is supposed to improve drainage and pumping systems in the New Orleans area, recently asked for $62.5 million; the White House proposed $10.5 million. Former Louisiana Senator John Breaux, a pro-Bush Democrat, said, "All of us said, 'Look, build it or you’re going to have all of Jefferson Parish under water.' And they didn't, and now all of Jefferson Parish is under water." [read more]

Mental Health Day

Because I've earned it, I am taking a mental health day. I was supposed to be at a "Picture Book Story Hour" workshop, but the dates changed for that, and when I found myself with a day off already scheduled I begged to keep it. I need to figure out what I've got for vacation left and just take a nice, long vacation.

So, what am I doing on my suddenly free day? NOTHING (if I can help it). Oh I will be going to Burdick's (hmmmmmmm......Burdicks.............) this morning for latte and gossip with a few friends. But I decided not to get my hair done today and to just come home, put my pjs back on, read, sleep, watch movies (I finally just bought The 10th Kingdom DVD rather than keep renting it), whatever and not do anything else the least bit structured. Of course, I have some calls I have to make.....but they should wait until tomorrow with no problems.

The wireless internet is now available at the library! And we've got three new computers, so everyone is happy. For awhile there we were stuck with only one public computer per floor (you can probably imagine the chaos that ensued).

And the award for worst casting in a biopic goes to - whoever thought casting Elijah Wood as Iggy Pop was a good idea.

The Big Chill reeancted by bunnies in 30 seconds. (VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED! Contains bunnies in adult situations, bunnies cursing.and bunnies dealing with existential issues.)

From Creative Loafing:

• A WOMAN CALLED POLICE and said her Volkswagen Jetta was stolen while she was visiting friends on Irwin Street. Two hours later, police spotted the Jetta on Auburn Avenue and spoke to the driver, a 36-year-old man. He said the woman loaned him the car to go get more crack, but he fell asleep and she was gone when he returned to Irwin Street. The man described the woman's condo, her dogs, her roommate's wine cellar. He also said the woman had a genital piercing, and he knew this because they were sleeping together.

  Police talked to the woman again. An officer asked her numerous questions, including if she had a piercing anywhere on her body besides her ears. Eventually the woman admitted that yes, she did have a genital piercing, and yes, she did lend the man her car. She was arrested for falsely reporting a crime.

The new Jetta. It’s all grown up. Sort of.

What I'm Reading: The Ghost of Thomas Kempe - I've been weeding. Some of you can attest to the fact that the shelves downstairs are unquestionably packed with books. So, lately, as I put books away on a shelf that is too full to take it, I scan the shelf and see what is there that hasn't earned it's shelf space, doesn't belong, or what-have-you. And on one of my shelf scans I came across this title. The name immediately struck a bell although I couldn't remember why. So, I hopped onto the helpful internet and found out that it was turned into a show on "After School Mystery Theater", which I watched regularly (late 70s - early 80's) and this one was one of my favorites! And now that I'm thinking of that one....I remember that there was also The Haunted Mansion Mystery, which I always managed to catch the first part of over and over, but only managed to see the second part of once.

What I'm watching: Star Wars Clone Wars

The misadventures of Jay and Joe

Yesterday we had our last summer fling with the family and friends at Echo Lake (Camp Plymouth) in Vermont. What a great day. It was actually too cold to go swimming - not that a little thing like freezing water stopped the middle-schooler among us, but enough to send the 10 and under set to tears because they had hoped to go swimming. Oh well.

We spent most of the day eating punctuated with some activity - frisbee, playing in the playground (I did take an exhilarating whirl on the big swing- whee!), cooking more to eat, chatting, and canoeing.

Canoes - I love going out in the canoe, it's so much fun, it's so wooshy through the water. One of the big complaints I have about Echo Park - and to be honest, this is the only complaint - is that they allow speedboats to get very close to the beach shore and to areas where people are boating. Canoes, in some waves, with boaters who don't really know much more than how to paddle forward have a tendency to capsize.

So, yesterday, 4 of our group went out in 2 canoes. I went with Sam (hah- the Boat of Sam!) and Jay and Joe went out (Jay is my husband and Joe is the other Sam's father). We all went out at about the same time and for fun, when they got close to us in their "racing" I did spray water at Jay, and I did it again when they turned away - poor Jay, his shirt was soaked. Then Sam and I started paddling out to the middle of the lake, leaving Jay and Joe to their own devices.

It was a few moments later when Sam said, "Hey, what's wrong with their boat?" Looking over I saw Jay and Joe sitting in their boat, not rowing, but the boat looked really off. There was just a sliver of it over the water - it looked like it was sinking and they were just sitting in it. "How do you sink a canoe?" I said, amazed that it looked like they had managed it.

The Boat of Sam decided to continue ignoring them as nothing looked serious. But upon turning back a few minutes later I realized that I was seeing more of the boat on top of the water - but none of the two inside it. Oh dear, the boat was floating completely upside-down. So, we paddled over.

Luckily there was a man out on a paddle-boat that got there first. So, by the time we got over Joe was perched on the front of his paddleboat holding Jay's cellphone and wallet and Jay was still wearing his sunglasses in the water trying to pull the boat out (a little exercise is good!). Still not knowing that it was a power boat wave that had taken them out, Sam and I had concluded that it was simply their bad karma for trying to spray us - or something, anyway, it was easy to assume that some bad karma had gotten them. And we tried very, very hard not to laugh at them and create our own bad karma. We asked what we could do to help and Jay handed us his shoes, which we handed back to the guy in the paddleboat who was holding everything else. Oh, and Jay's cellphone is so toast! When you look at the screen all you see is this layer of water swishing around inside - yay, full replacement warranty!!

Finally, realizing we could do nothing to help, we paddled back out - still laughing (karma be damned, now that we knew they were ok, that was funny!) and we watched the shore to see what the group would do when they made it back to our tables. We finally watched them slosh their way back to the table (it was a long trip for them) and since our time was about up, decided to head for shore ourselves. We did, and we landed, and all was fine.

When we got to our tables there was a changing of clothes (Jay had to put on his swimming trunks - hah!) and lots of laughter and questions. As our friend Michelle put it: "I'm really upset that I missed it. And I'm even more upset that I didn't get a picture of it." I was in tears from laughing so hard. Then we ate more and all was good again.

I don't think Jay and Joe will be out in a canoe anytime soon.

What I'm reading: Get Fuzzy

No time to watch anything, it was a long day and late night, and now it's Labor Day morning and I'm looking at the fact that I actually have some work to do. *sniff*

Video killed the radio

I started training for the local radio station this morning; nothing like a crash course in sound engineering before a cup of coffee. Actually, the set-up is wonderful, most of it is set to run automatically - the more it is left alone, the better it will run. I can live with that. I'm training so that I can do the Falls Book Nook - basically I'll be presenting an hour-long reading from a juvenile/young adult book of my choice (think Camel's Hump Radio). I'm excited, this should be a lot of fun for me. Now to get those broadcast permissions......

In the meantime, I've located a bit of funny at Adventurers - the art isn't fabulous, but the content is solid enough. Makes fun of gamers, rpgers, D&Ders, LARPers, fanboys/girls.....who would've though those were groups that could be poked fun at?

"Being an Evil Overlord seems to be a good career choice. It pays well, there are all sorts of perks and you can set your own hours. However every Evil Overlord I've read about in books or seen in movies invariably gets overthrown and destroyed in the end. I've noticed that no matter whether they are barbarian lords, deranged wizards, mad scientists or alien invaders, they always seem to make the same basic mistakes every single time. With that in mind, allow me to present..."

The Top 100 Things I'd Ever Do if I Ever Became an Evil Overlord

What I'm reading: Feakonomics - Now it's no secret that math and I aren't always on speaking terms, so when I first saw this interesting little tome I decided that now wasn't the time, and off I went leaving Freak on the shelf. But, that interesting little title and sub-heading of "A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" kept tugging at my attention span. So I picked it up and WHOA! this book is really, really cool - this isn't to say that I agree with him on all of his insights, but - as a free-thinker - I like following his logic. I think it's a rather interesting approach to the world.

The Cottonmouth Club - a fun, end-of-summer juvenile read

What I'm watching: Mr. Show - When a television show has an episode entitled "If You're Going to Write a Comedy Scene, You're Going To Have Rat Feces in There," you know you're in for some off-beat humor.

Almost Labor Day....

My last Wednesday off the day before yesterday - and it was finally a *whole* day off; no meetings, no coming in after 7 to fix computers, no behaving responsibly - just fun, fun, fun at the mall.

Oh yeah, I went mall hopping. Great fun was had. Given the torrential rains we had yesterday (and last night) spending my last day off in the middle of the week at the mall was a great choice. Afterwards, we stopped by the teapot in Northampton for sushi and tempura (mmmmmmm.....unagi....). And I picked up the first volume of the soundtrack to Hellsing - love, love, love the bluesy-rock riffs.

Then last night we had another theater meeting. Big, big - and really, really good - changes!! The group is leaving our current non-profit umbrella group and moving over to an arts group. Plus, we're putting on the Vagina Monologues next February as a benefit for the Womens' Crisis Center and a couple of other groups. So, since I agreed to direct, I am on the lookout for an assistant - or at least a really good stage manager..... We've also got our season planned out. We'll be doing some small, eclectic things: a reprise of "Under MilkWood" (LOVE THAT ONE!! I CAN'T WAIT TO DO MY PARTS AGAIN!) and "Spoon River Anthology" (I didn't take any parts, just did the singing for that one with Ezra and his guitar); we're finally going to take on Our Town; we're considering doing Judevine (don't know about that, though....).

Once we leave to go with the new group we need to raise some funds right away, so we're thinking of doing some movies or perhaps sponsor a comedy night. I suggested a Christopher Guest film festival and then we all went wild thinking about a large-screen showing of "Waiting for Guffman" (finally, we take the fun out of our living rooms), while I dream of "Spinal Tap".

A new girl just moved into the area and she is a *perfect* fit for my D&D group! She's fun, very funky (even has specs similar to mine - not a look just anyone can cultivate), and has played D&D for years. Although, she also thinks Allegra is the little sister she never had.

What I'm Reading: (now that I've finished that overblown, asinine piece of crap "The Traveler") Big Fish by Daniel Wallace; I'm loving the book more than I loved the movie.

What I'm Watching: The 10th Kingdom (again)

What I'm Listening to: World Without Logos (opening song to Hellsing - enjoy the MP3 - I've got the whole CD)