Monthly Archives: February 2004

I need more dynamic hobbies

I’m feeling very very bitter that UPS didn’t leave my package of yarn for me today. I’ve taken up knitting, I intend to learn to purl over the weekend. I ordered a ton of yarn off the internet too, hence my missing package. My hobbies aren’t too exciting since they consist of reading, movie watching, and an occasional bout of cello playing. Adding knitting to this list isn’t exactly making my life more dynamic, although I’ve heard that all knitting groups meet in drug-infested dens of iniquity.

So what are my options if I want a more exciting action heroish hobby?

I could take advantage of owing a japanese car with V-6 engine and become a tuner. Maybe then I could take up drifting. I could start reading Initial D for inspiration! But I don’t think my librarian’s salary will support extensive car modifications.

links!

Although I love Nausicaa, I do not think I would want to pilot this replica of her glider. via anime.org.uk

I don’t think I’m going to see Passion of the Christ. Mostly because I really don’t care about Jesus. If someone would just make a movie about Dogen, I’d see that. But I do care deeply about vampire hunters, which makes me want to see Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter (via Anil’s Daily links).

Linkmachinego points to a journal entry from someone at the Onion A.V. Club trying to set up an interview with Dave Sim.

Via Metafilter, evidently someone changed the text on the page to read “Administration Officials and friends” of the white house after someone from NASCAR took questions, when previously all the questions were answered by people with an actual position in government.

I want to know how NASCAR is a friend to the white house over other sports. Why not Basketball? They could Ask Mark Cuban. They could Ask Lebron James or the board of directors of USA Synchronized swimming or Chess!

I want equal representation of other sports figures on .gov sites!

info, but not too much info

One thing I sometimes struggle with is how much information to give students when they e-mail me with problems about their research. I know we are supposed to teach students to find information themselves, but sometimes it is just better to send someone an answer directly. I had a student who was in a class of mine this morning who e-mailed me later in the day with her question, and I sent her some information, basically the call numbers of the books that contained the government report she needed, around 4 article citations, a couple possible search strategies, and suggestions for further research. It probably wasn’t anything different than what she would have gotten if she’d come to the library tonight and asked me her question when I was at the reference desk, but it was much easier for her because it was all packaged up in an e-mail.

To some degree, I think teaching someone to ask a librarian for help when they need it is a good outcome for a library instruction class. So good for me!

Mark Cuban Reality Show

Yikes! The insane owner of the most wonderful basketball team ever with a forward/center from Germany is getting his own reality tv show. The show is called “The Benefactor” and he gives away 1 million dollars to the winner.

I want some of that Mark Cuban money. I wonder if I applied to get on the show, would I get bonus points for owning a Dirk Nowitzki bobblehead? I mean, as a librarian, this would be the only way I would ever get 1 million dollars. How much would get eaten up by taxes?

sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!

I am so sleepy. I had an early morning meeting today with some Faculty. I am always amused at the way a Faculty member will not say anything in 5 minutes that they could say in 15-20 minutes. I am not a morning person. I’m going to bed soon, it is 7:30 pm. I know how to party!

What I finally realized though (I am SO slow) is that every single blogspot site has an atom feed, even if the blogger who authors the blogspot site isn’t linking to the feed. I guess if you have blogger you don’t need to do anything special to generate the feed. You just have to add “atom.xml” after whatever blogspot site you want to subscribe to. So:
Fanboy Rampage Atom Feed
Thought Balloons Atom Feed
Tegan Atom Feed
I’ve added them to my blogdigger group page, along with a few others.

Does Neilalien have a feed? If he did, my life would be complete.

Comix Blogdigger

After seeing Steve’s Blogdigger group for library blogs, I wanted to check it out for myself, so I made a Blogdigger group for comics blogs. It was really easy to set-up! I’m going to experiment with it some more, I’ve often wanted a Lisfeeds for comics blogs, and this might serve that purpose for me very nicely. If you have some other comics blogs with feeds to add, let me know about them, or set up your own Blogdigger group!

Ultimate Fantastic Four

Well, I bought the first issue and it seemed good enough, in that Marvel retelling origin stories sort of way. I think if I already get Ultimate Spiderman AND Ultimate X-men, I don’t need to get any more Ultimate. Seems ultimate enough to me. However, if Warren Ellis is going to write Ultimate Fantastic Four, I will buy it like the fangirl I am. I’d still rather see more Planetary. But since John Cassaday is busy doing the art for Joss Whedon’s X-Men (featuring Wolverine in yellow spandex yet again?!) I’m guessing that Planetary issues will continue to be few and far between. (Newsarama links via Fanboy Rampage!)

teaching again

My teaching load is lighter in the spring semester, mostly because the department I work with is offering fewer classes. The students tend to have assignments focusing more on a specific theme or subject, so it is a good excuse to show them the more discipline specific databases or the subject encyclopedias I wish they would use more. It is also a little challenging because some of them saw me or another librarian last semester, so I try to show them fun and exciting things like field searching or proximity operators! Woo!

It is funny how classes take on the personality of their professor. The class I taught today has a very nice but soft-spoken instructor. As the students were coming in to the classroom I walked up to each one to check in about the subject areas they might be researching. Then later on when we were looking at the databases, we’d have an exchange like this:

Me: …so we’re going to find scholarly criticism here! Does anyone want to find some articles on their topic right now?!!!

Class: …..

Me: Well I know Julia over there wants to find information on film adaptations of Jane Austen novels so let’s see how we would do that!

Sometimes it is a little hard to get a reaction from them. Later when some of the students were packing up their things I heard a couple of them talking to each other, saying that the library sessions were really helpful because they didn’t know where to go to get started, and if left on their own they would “only use google.” I really wanted a transcript of that conversation so I could laminate it and hand out little cards to anyone wondering why it might be a good idea to give up some class time to bring their students to the library 🙂

remix not kosher

I could see how a project like this might make a few people run out and buy copies of the cds that fueled the remix. I mean, I’d be curious to see if the remix of “Change Clothes” is actually using the harpsichord track from “Little Piggies”. I don’t know how EMI can stop it now.