About time

I woke up this morning to hear a swishing and rustling outside and groaned thinking it was more rain, but it isn't! Instead it was a very forceful gust of wind blowing leaves around outside. Alright! Right now there is sunlight coming through the window - weak, and barely there, but certainly brighter than its been for about a week.

Yesterday was interesting. Jake (from D&D) is a new intern, so yesterday was his first day of Saturday training (poor thing, I had massive shelving all week, and unfortunately, having kept on top of it all week, had no time to do it on Friday, so he was left with a full cart and stacks underneath). Afterwards Jay, Ali, and I went to Joy Wah with Joe, Sam, and Grace - and all was good. Then we decided to stop at home, pick up some massively late movies and drive them back to Real to Reel (I do believe that we are subsidizing a part time position at Reel to Real with our late fees - I can also never remember which "Real/Reel" comes first, so I often switch the two figuring that I'm at least right half the time). On the way home Jay drove through a giant, well, "puddle" doesn't work, because it was a few inches deep and several feet wide and all the way across the road, anyway, Jay drove through it (because missing it would have meant driving on the sidewalk and I don't think the walkers would have appreciated it). And we pulled up in front of the house, turned off the car while he ran in, and then when we came out with the movies, tried to start the car that now won't start. Jay's theory is that it was that last lake we drove through leaving everything inside wet and the engine didn't stay hot long enough to dry everything. If his theory is correct, opening the hood and letting everything air out should fix the problem. We'll see.

In the meantime, I've discovered what, for me anyway, has turned into a fun little amusement. ESP - a picture game that you play with another person. You'll need to create a screen name (free) and then you start the game, you and another person will look at the same picture and you start typing in what you might use to describe it (black, hair, glasses, nose, small, photo, etc) and when you and the other person choose the same label you get on to the next one. The game is funded in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and is being presented by the Carnegie Mellon University. The idea is that the game will allow users to have a hand in creating proper labels for images. Having those labels associated to each image on the Internet would allow for very accurate image search, would improve the accessibility of the Web (by providing word descriptions of all images to visually impaired individuals), and would help users block inappropriate (e.g., pornographic) images from their computers. Anyway, I spent a ridiculous amount of time having fun with this little game. Enjoy.

And in my various internet ramblings I decided to check up on my friends at Jib Jab and look what they've got for us: Big Box Mart. I'm sure this is no surprise, but I avoid "Big Box Mart" for these very reasons and more.

Halloween is coming!! I've been sending out great, spooky books all week and one of my favorites: Coraline! (This is a great website, the music is fun - for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of listening to the audio recording and the mouse circus, well, it's a treat)

And why not do something completely useless and play Mash?

It seems there's a niche thing for just about everything. So, let me share one of my favorites: Unshelved a comic strip about a library.

What I'm reading: STILL, working my way through The Valley of Secrets. I know exactly to whom I'm going to recommend this book. I feel like I need to finish it simply because I've been at it for so very long. It's just not my kind of book. I rather like a good mystery, but I like the suspense of danger being involved, instead this book taps into the "curiouser and curiouser" type of mystery - sure there's a fuzzy yellow and black striped thing that resembles a caterpillar but acts like a cat that this kid is taking care of in his shirt, but despite the strangeness of that, we're never under the impression that anything bad could possibly happen. Still, the language is beautiful and I like the message of conservation and all that, but the book is not a "hot read" as it were.

The Nodwick Chronicles - remember Friday nights? When we sat around a table and goofed off in a D&D-like setting? Remember the perfect willingness to sacrifice someone or something else for the sake of the funny? The Nodwick Chronicles are like that.

What I'm watching: The 10th Kingdom maybe.....well, it's on....I'm kind of knitting.....and I'm avoiding Jay while he huffs and puffs about the house glowering out the window at the car. So, yeah, I'm kind of watching that too.

HEY - AND DON'T FORGET: November is National Novel Writing Month, so come on - sign up - have fun writing something.