Don't blame me, the cats have learned to type

(I've got a good theme going; there appears to be no end to cute kitties on the intarweb)

I am temporarily banned from taking on any new projects - no matter how fun and interesting they might seem - that will then take over my life. By decree of The Jay.

It has been a might bit busy around here lately.

First, there is the saga of the new car. By the end of the week the little blue, wonderful, realiable car since 1991 will no longer be with us. *sniff* It will be sent off into that used car heaven that all good cars go to when they die. In its place is arriving a shiny, new Honda with significantly fewer miles on it, a CD player, 4-wheel drive...I, for one, am thrilled!! Jay loved the old car because it didn't have the whole computer thing running it so he could fix it, he's not going to be able to do nearly as much for this one.

Then there is the freelance work. Doing all that I do on the computers and in graphic design means that I get to pick what interests me if I feel like taking on freelance work; and it can be for lots of reasons - sometimes I just want to help the person or business, sometimes there is a challenge I find fascinating, and sometimes a project just hits my quirky button and seems like the kind of fun thing that I want to do. I've had a string of huge projects lately that fall into that fun category.

Allegra is getting glasses. She actually picked my frames - she looks just like a mini-me!!

Finally the presentations and workshops; I love speaking in front of groups on subjects I'm passionate about. A lot of things have come up and I've been requested! First there were two presentations for the state Dept. of Libraries on fantasy programming for teens; one for the northern half of the state the other for the southern libraries. Both of them turned into a more basic "how to start teen programming" at your library because those were the questions they asked, so that was the direction I went. On April 11th I'll be in Albany, NY presenting on teens in the library, specifically on development issues, outreach, and creating appropriate teen services. Then in October I get to be on an "expert" on a panel with Michael Sullivan (author, "Connecting Boys with Books") whom I admire quite a bit. In the meantime, I'm working on a few articles for VOYA and contemplating writing something more substantial.

Just as soon as I find the time.

I did however find a little time to stumble blindly around the net finding some funny things.

Like this cute song about the people who live on Arnie's Street, brought to today by the letters G O P.

I love Star Trek (shock!), and this list of the 10 things that I hate about Star Trek is just dead-on and perfectly hilarious.

Following in the cute cat theme, this adorable little kitten will follow you!!

What's that?!? They're releasing a Voltron collection? Brings a whole new meaning to V-Day.

The Peanuts gang set to Hey Ya, sure it could happen.

Oh dear, regular people pretending to be Monty Python on home video and then putting it on the internet with the sound from the movie. How terribly clever of them. Oh, and they use chidren. Allegra saw it and asked why I don't do these kinds of things with her.

What I've read lately:
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane is just the latest, inspiring, sweet (but not at all sickeningly so) tale from Kate DiCamillo. The book is beautiful, with gorgeous paper, full color, tipped-in illustrations, and a story that is set in a time and with a theme that never gets old - this book may easily become a classic. If you are in need of a gift for a young reader who enjoys thoughtful stories a la Velveteen Rabbit, Alice in Wonderland, Children of Green Knowe, etc. this book would be a delightful gift.

Calvin and Hobbes the Complete Collection is a lethal set of books. I mean it, seriously, if one of these three books should fall on you, you're a goner. Somehow I've found myself working through them again. Happy, happy!!

What I've Watched:
You know, I really thought I had watched quite a lot of stuff, but I can't remember anything notable really. Truth is, we've dropped Star Wars Galaxies at our house and have picked up World of Warcraft (no we're not obsessed, thank you) Joe and Sam even joined us on our merry adventure out of there.

too much fun for my own good

Lately I've found reality truly amusing. How some people can think one thing so completely because they are capable of such a narrow bias; that if they were only able to release a little of their ego they would see a bigger picture and get a good look at themselves. Of course, I'm guilty of this on occasion, but I do like to think that I give myself enough space to look around quietly while letting go of wants. Anyway, the people that tend to do this the most are by and large the biggest collective group of complete jackasses I've ever known.

Editorial over.

I realized that with the library blog being attached to my profile now I'm going to have to remove this blog from the profile - while I don't do anything actually embarrassing here, it's best not to complicate matters with a personal blog on a library-linked space.

Otherwise things have been nifty and fun. Jess called me at the library the other day, which was excellent-cool!! Except for the group of kids patiently, and then not-so-patiently, waiting for my attention (actually they wanted to use the phone to call their friends to meet them downtown and were ticked when I told them that it wasn't a public phone but for calling for parents and rides only). And she mentioned Black Adder, which got me thinking, and then Allegra got involved, so this weekend we went to Reel to Real and binged on Black Adder. Fun!

Plus, we got Howl's Moving Castle and watched that for tonight's anime program (Attention Disney: I have a site license. Please don't sue me). The anime group wants to start having more discussions and chats and "stuff", so the plan is that everyone took out books from Pet Shop of Horrors and next meeting we're going to have a book discussion. I suspect high entertainment will ensue.

Anyway, just a mini-update and no actual links of fun (for once!) to say hi and yes I'm still alive and kicking (as opposed to...).

What I'm reading: I spent some time upstairs doing some computer work and I ran across this title on the new books shelf: The Town That Forgot How to Breathe. You're first thought might be: Really? And I would have to say: Yes. You see what makes this story fascinating is not just its resemblance to classic Stephen King in his Maine setting, but the use of the horror genre for general culture insight. There is some fabulously creepy imagery going on in this story both grotesque and fascinating; as well as captivating and timely political commentary. While it is easy to compare this novel to King's early work, the truth is that his storytelling really does stand on its own.

What I'm Watching: Of course, there is Howl's Moving Castle.

I'm also guilty of having watched Mirrormask a few more times.

The Black Adder made us happy this weekend.

A dark, modern comedy (I mean dark) about modern life The Chumbscrubber was a tragic, funny, and culturally nauseating film; a satire that was both way off and right on about the downfall of life in surbibia in a seemingly idyllic neighborhood.

yup

Looks like the blog issues worked out - I sent them a note and they rebooted the parts that were giving me a hard time. So all is good again! Thanks, blogger!

In local news town meeting came and went (the library budget passed - yay!), voting came and went and you can read all about it here. A young teen that helped out at this year's town meeting sports event made quite an interesting comment to me last night. She found it amazing that adults can treat each other and talk to each other like that at all - if someone did that in her school they would be in immediate trouble. One wonders what is going on in other peoples' heads.

I don't know how this happened, but yesterday I kept coming up on funny cat stuff on the net. Like this one that I'm sticking here because I intend to show it to all sorts of peoples for fun and amusement (I love cats, yes, it's true - and my own felines have actually done a number of these things...except for thinking the wall is a shelf, that hasn't happened. Although I do have one cat whose sight is a bit off and has a tendency to walk/run into doorframes; it's not quite off enough that she misses the door entirely, just enough that she kind of grazes the side. And one of our cats did manage to take a swim in the fish tank, but that's because when we had fish they would drink from the top of the filter - we couldn't stop it - like their own fish-flavored-fountain.)

And then I happened upon this adorable selfish cat.

Noooo, not the bunnies, too! Those 30-second bunnies take on Brokeback Mountain and King Kong.

Have you heard about the cow abductions?

The 7 Deadly (Gummy bear) sins.

I have been on the internet since the good ole bulletin board days, so this bit on "how many forum users does it take to change a light bulb" has quite a bit of meaning. If you've participated in any sort of forum you might recognize a number of these truths.

And this real life Simpson's intro is just adorable.

What I'm Reading: Honestly, not much - I've got too much writing to do. And the things I have been reading are because of the new shelves. See, as I move stuff around I'm running across books that are prime candidates for discards, but sometimes there are questions. So, I check and see how long it's been since it has circulated. Then I see if it won awards or had really great reviews. Then I evaluate it for it's timeliness - is it a universal theme that is unchanging or is it so centered in the 70s or 80s that it's really inaccessible to the average reader of its intended age group. Then, sometimes there are still questions, so I go ahead and read the book. Occassionally I'll decide it is a keeper and I just need to replace it for a new paperback version - basically a more attractive version that will entice kids to check it out, or sometimes it just needs to be tossed. So, I've been reading through some of those "questionable" discards this week. They've all turned out to be completely discardable.

What I'm watching: Well, the latest Harry Potter came out on DVD yesterday, so there is that. Otherwise, no time to read, no time to watch.

Oh wait! I did see one anime that was just bizarre and hilarious: Kodocha. Caitlyn brough it in and we watched it subtitled, which was hilarious and I suspected the translation a bit off, but still just really funny. Then Caitlyn let me borrow it to see the rest and with Allegra we watched it dubbed, and it turned out that the dub was completely different from the subbed. All the really funny subtitles were not there and instead the characters were saying more what I thought the translation was supposed to be. Anyway, if you watch this one, I recommend the subbed version.

What in the heck?!?

I'm having blog issues this morning and am testing, just testing to see about fixing them before I contact support for help.