And the award for further spreading misinformation about my profession goes to...

Yep, kids just hate librarians. Here's a book that will really challenge those librarian stereotypes.

Actually, the book sounds pretty funny, even if it is putting the verbal smackdown on the hard-working dedicated librarians of America.

Check out the website for Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians.

Can anybody think of a book that makes librarians sound like the cool and interesting people? I have found that even books with the best of intentions, such as Because of Winn-Dixie, still fall into the trap: the librarian is a nice, old woman who is all-knowledgable about books but seems to know nothing about technology. And for the records, male librarians get treated even worse.

Honeymoon photos are up

I had so much fun talking about my boring life that I totally forgot to mention that my honeymoon photos are available for the whole world to look at courtesy of my Flickr account. The wedding photos are coming soon. If you have any, let me know!

Me and Robert Crais - tough guys - one of us anyway.
This picture has nothing to do with my honeymoon.

What to blog? A mixed bag of stuff

It's another fine Saturday at the reference desk at Fullerton Public Library. We've been pretty busy between basic ready reference work and computer help but nevertheless I feel compelled to update this poor, poor blog.

The main issue is that I don't see the point of blogging about mundane stuff. Do you really need to know that I ate Cheerios with no milk this morning? Actually, there's a good story behind why I did that, but I may be the only person who finds it at all interesting. Also, I don't want to be the blog where you hear about it last. The chances are that if an interesting news item or cool web site has come to my attention, you've already heard all about it.

So all I think of is a "life update" for whatever it's worth to whoever is reading. Very LiveJournal, don't you agree? If you are of the LJ persuasion, let me know, even though I am of the Blogger persuasion I still read other people's LJ stuff.

Movies, Books and Music

I may not work for Borders anymore but they still define my life.

The last movie I saw in the theater was (huge surprise) The Dark Knight which I felt actually lived up to most of the hype. Other than that, it has been a steady diet of Netflix. As of this writing, the last movie I saw on DVD was The Departed which was plenty good, but shouldn't Scorsese have nailed his Best Picture Oscar any earlier (ahem...Raging Bull...ahem)? I happily joined A Netflix Community a couple weeks ago, but I really don't plan on being particularly active other than writing reviews that clear up obvious misinformation about various DVD's. Some of those "top reviewers" are scary. I do appreciate their campaign to purge those stupid "non-reviews" from the site. You know, things like "I haven't seen this movie, but I know it will be awesome!" or "The DVD doesn't play, so I hate it." Right now I've been watching a recording from TCM of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Not bad, but wantonly harpooning sharks and hunting sea turtles for provisions is probably no longer in good taste!

It has been a bad year for magazine reading because I've been pretty heavily into reading library books, and running into due dates left and right. I did a quick tally and fiction is leading non-fiction, much to my surprise. Probably all that beach reading is what did the trick. Last summer I read the entire Elvis Cole series by Robert Crais, so this summer I boldly moved on to Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch series, but with much less success so far (I've only finished the first two books!). My favorite books this year thus far have been The Resurrectionist by Jack O'Connell, Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock and On the Laps of Gods by Robert Whitaker. If you wanted recommendations, you now have them. For lighter fare, Harlan Coben's stand-alone books are great.

Not much new to report in the Music department. I've download about three albums in the last year: Icky Thump (The White Stripes), Astronomy for Dogs (The Aliens) and Roots and Echoes (The Coral). I guess I'm just content with what I have right now and new music isn't really grabbing me at the moment.

Sharing Stuff

Using Facebook's Posted Items application has made me lazy. Here are some of the weird things I've been sharing:

Don't bother watching this video if you are at work or don't like bad language. Just a little heads up.

This is pretty funny, too, if you use or have any familiarity with Second Life (compare the two for maximum comedy effect):

Get a First Life!

Finally the FAIL blog has been rocking my world everyday with ridiculous images. Here's one from a bookstore, which reminds me of the time we put bibles under a sign that said "Inspirational Fiction" which caused a customer to angrily confront us, shouting "You know, for some people it's REAL!!!"



So what do you want to hear about? We're accepting comments at this time. Actually we always have been (and why am I saying "we" - who else blogs here???). Finally, if you know of a mashup application that Twitters current iTunes tracks (and isn't just for Mac), let me know. Otherwise, I need to design one, stat! In the meantime, check out the microblog which now is doing double-duty for both Facebook and Twitter.

The power of a name

Maybe it's just my imagination, but a lot of things seem to be named after Reagan or Bush. I guess I'm thinking mainly of airports and government buildings and aircraft carriers, but it seems like twelve years of the 1980's have been glorified by the administration of the past eight. Who knows if they will succeed in replacing Alexander Hamilton with Reagan on the ten dollar bill or adding Reagan to Mt. Rushmore. Here is something that is probably closer to becoming reality. And yes, it's from my favorite city, San Francisco! Read about the renaming of a certain special utility building in San Francisco.

Until I think of something meaningful...

...here's a video, brought to you by the Onion.

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency

New content on sidebar

It's t-minus 8 days until my wedding, but I've added a cool "delegate tracker" to my blog sidebar. All you political junkies can get off my back now. Let me know what you think. In the interest of full disclosure, I am and always have been an Obama man.

Year of the slacker

Blogwise, this is turning out to be a pretty uneventful year. However, I am happy to report things are very busy on the wedding front, getting vendors lined up and, as of this past weekend, visiting the site so they can observe the canvas they are putting their art upon. It was interesting to watch the florist on Saturday, then the caterer on Sunday, each mapping out the event and how it would play out in the backyard. I can only hope the DJ, photographer and officiant are cool with it. Beyond this, the rings are done, the invitations are done and the cake is coming together as well as can be expected. In the meantime, you can enjoy some photos of the site, keeping in mind that the trees will be much leafier and the landscaping completed, front and back. Here's a zoom-out of where the ceremony will take place. You will have to imagine the landscaping and leaves, though.

Other than stress about the wedding, I have also been doing a lot of reading. I keep track of most of what I've read so far on Facebook on the somewhat imperfect iRead application. Also, Netflix has been supplying Frances and myself with many good and not-so-good movies. Unfortunately, we destroyed our DVD player at the tender age of five, so it's either (1) bite the bullet and go Blu-Ray power, or (2) getting a piece of junk to tide us over until we go Blu-Ray power? Any thoughts on that? We have pretty conflicting interests on what kind of television is worth watching, leaving pretty much the completely morbid "Breaking Bad" as the only thing we can agree on. I'm pretty upbeat about the John Adams miniseries on HBO, but I may be the only one in the household, alas.

In other news, there have been some minor life events (and it all seems minor compared to what's ahead). I spent a week in Las Vegas volunteering for Barack Obama. I took some great pictures, but they are trapped in my cell phone. The canvassing and phone calling was pretty taxing work, though doing a visibility rally before the debate at UNLV and the caucus process itself was pretty exhilarating. My astute canvassing partner, Anna, and I served as precinct captains for the mighty Clark 1063 in Henderson and delivered for Barack, though we had to settle for a delegate tie (even though more actual attendees stood in the Obama group). No matter what happens down the road, I am grateful for the experience I had (even though I nearly died from the flu after I got home!). Also, soon after my return from Nevada I made the much anticipated switch from the Sunkist branch to the Central library in Anaheim. Although I miss the people at Sunkist and the (sporadic) enjoyment of working with the public, I feel I made a big step up and I am now in a position to see how the entire library system works. Finally, Frances and I celebrated our seventh anniversary of knowing one another on February 2nd in familiar style with dinner at The Cat & the Custard Cup.

What's ahead? After the wedding and honeymoon, the next big step is going to be moving into a place that we will actually own. Where is that going to be? No idea, but the market is getting too good to ignore for much longer, from a hungry renter-wanting-to-buy perspective. From there, I will be putting my degree to use and consolidating to jobs into a single professional position. Where is that going to be? No idea, but it hinges on the move. I am looking forward to all of it, though.

Happy new year! New layout!

I felt that a new year called for a new layout, so here it is. Feedback is welcome, but Blogger defaults are renowned for their incredible lack of controversy. Although tempted to change the blog name to "Absurdity Central", I decided the current name is good enough for another year. Again, feedback is most welcome if you think I made a horrible mistake in NOT changing the name!

Anyway, I hope you all rang in the new year in a way you felt most fitting and best wishes in 2008. I know I have a lot on the agenda this year! If I'm feeling crazy enough, I'll share my new year's resolutions here and then check back later to see if I'm on the ball or just full of hot air.

In other exciting news, Frances and I created our first ever holiday newsletter. I tried to include everyone I knew, but for anyone I missed, go ahead and read the newsletter for yourself.

Again, have a great 2008 and keep in touch!