Now I understand comics too!

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I just read a 71434-0.html”>Wired article interviewing Scott McCloud, author of Understanding Comics. I had to read this book for a YA lit class, and boy howdy, it was effective. It explains the depth and breadth of comic styles and functions. If you ever need to know more (even if you know a lot) about comics, this is the book you need. And it’s in graphic novel form.

Anyway, the article I just read has McCloud explaining about the boom of webcomics, and how this affects the comic world, and then a nice overview of where comics are going, and one upcoming trend I find interesting – the family-friendly tween genre. Except I kind of hate the word tween, but that’s neither here nor there.

Pops is tops

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Hey all. My wallet (which I got in 1996 by trading my sister a scrap of paper or something) is falling apart. Long ago I took the rude-girl chain off, and it’s served me well lo these 10 years. It’s finally starting to fail, and I need a new wallet.

Does anyone have any good website suggestions? I’m thinking cute and big-eyed more than black leather and Dad-esque. I’d prefer small over large, especially since I only carry cash and small plastic bits. (Note to stalkers and thieves: I do not carry cash or small plastic bits.)

I saw this duct tape wallet,
duct tape wallet and the description warns that homemade duct tape wallets tend to ooze adhesive. I think I agree.

Then again a homemade duct tape wallet is much, much cheaper. Also, I like the idea RFID blocking, even though I don’t own anything with RFID tags. I think. It mentions paper money as starting to have RFID tags, so one can’t be too careful.

Anyway, this was mostly a chance to blather on about online shopping and RFID tags. Did I tell you about the time I talked to the 3M people at the ALA convention about their RFID tags for library books? It ended in a fisticuff.

No it didn’t.
Tonight, after finishing my cataloging homework,
I made myself a dish of vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce and peanuts. Just like dad.

I Need a Wallet, or One of those cry for the blogosphere to help someone choose something to purchase

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Hey all. My wallet (which I got in 1996 by trading my sister a scrap of paper or something) is falling apart. Long ago I took the rude-girl chain off, and it’s served me well lo these 10 years. It’s finally starting to fail, and I need a new wallet.

Does anyone have any good website suggestions? I’m thinking cute and big-eyed more than black leather and Dad-esque. I’d prefer small over large, especially since I only carry cash and small plastic bits. (Note to stalkers and thieves: I do not carry cash or small plastic bits.)

I saw this duct tape wallet,
duct tape wallet and the description warns that homemade duct tape wallets tend to ooze adhesive. I think I agree.

Then again a homemade duct tape wallet is much, much cheaper. Also, I like the idea RFID blocking, even though I don’t own anything with RFID tags. I think. It mentions paper money as starting to have RFID tags, so one can’t be too careful.

Anyway, this was mostly a chance to blather on about online shopping and RFID tags. Did I tell you about the time I talked to the 3M people at the ALA convention about their RFID tags for library books? It ended in a fisticuff.

No it didn’t.

What I learned today in school

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Here are two emails I’ve recieved – one to my gmail, the other to the chemistry library’s address.

“So, ” I said. “I’m not offering any to you, because this is the first
“Home I have none. Flock I have none. I am Outcast. And we fly now at is something mysterious and maybe even incomprehensible. I’ve handled quite research in the Visitation Zones?”

“It’s all right,” I said. “The path around is faster.” I tossed the subjective evaluation) one important difference: Lem’s approach and style please, you’re not a human being now, do you understand? You are a machine, toward the light?”

I don’t understand. Neither had attachments, nor did they have secret in-white-text words. I do think Wadsbone addresses this in his post Morr Wackee Spam.

Perhaps I should start collecting this stuff. I need an excuse to bind a book, and a book full of non-commercial spam might be just the ticket.

Update:
Make her mad. chantilly albania “”How many times, God damn it? Not that there was much to look at — the furnace, the remains of a coal-pile, a table with a bunch of shadowy cans and implements lying on it and to his right, up a way from where be was propped. “The knife. a few extras. The whisper of the axe. “Three times, counting the trip for the water. His mother and father had taken him to Revere Beach often when he was a kid, and he had always insisted that they spread their blanket where he could keep an eye on that piling, which looked to him like the single jutting fang of a buried monster. Annie was driven forward onto the floor with the burning stack of paper under her. communicant

Do they employ writers to come up with original text for these?
Today in LIS590NF (Information Books and Resources for Youth),
I watched a video on, and learned how to …

play the spoons.

That is why I love library school. That, and I can use the term “digital divide” in casual conversation with a straight face.

Spam isn’t all bad

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Here are two emails I’ve recieved – one to my gmail, the other to the chemistry library’s address.

“So, ” I said. “I’m not offering any to you, because this is the first
“Home I have none. Flock I have none. I am Outcast. And we fly now at is something mysterious and maybe even incomprehensible. I’ve handled quite research in the Visitation Zones?”

“It’s all right,” I said. “The path around is faster.” I tossed the subjective evaluation) one important difference: Lem’s approach and style please, you’re not a human being now, do you understand? You are a machine, toward the light?”

I don’t understand. Neither had attachments, nor did they have secret in-white-text words. I do think Wadsbone addresses this in his post Morr Wackee Spam.

Perhaps I should start collecting this stuff. I need an excuse to bind a book, and a book full of non-commercial spam might be just the ticket.

Update:
Make her mad. chantilly albania “”How many times, God damn it? Not that there was much to look at — the furnace, the remains of a coal-pile, a table with a bunch of shadowy cans and implements lying on it and to his right, up a way from where be was propped. “The knife. a few extras. The whisper of the axe. “Three times, counting the trip for the water. His mother and father had taken him to Revere Beach often when he was a kid, and he had always insisted that they spread their blanket where he could keep an eye on that piling, which looked to him like the single jutting fang of a buried monster. Annie was driven forward onto the floor with the burning stack of paper under her. communicant

Do they employ writers to come up with original text for these?

Perhaps better than Farm Hustle

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Kim introduced me to a site that has AMAZING games to play. They’re not as simple in rules as Farm Hustle, but it’s pretty cute, and much more engaging (rather than sitting glassy eyed in front of tiny pastel animals).

Plus I felt the need to provide an alternative to Farm Hustle, because I’ve been hearing reports of addiction. STEVE.

The site is called eyemaze.com, and I’ve been playing Grow Cube version 0. You have to figure out the order things should be added, and I haven’t figured it out yet, but every game I find myself surprised at what the intention of the item is.

Cube

I’m also a big fan of the game Tontie. You use the numerical keypad (so accountants will be really good at this, if I know anything about accountants) and each level introduces a new rule. So it’s like Whack-a-Mole, only with cute cyclopses. If you whack an empty space, you lose a little bit of your soul.

Honk shu

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I really wanted to post about my last day at ALA, and tell you all about the programs I went to. But instead, I’ve played Farm Hustle until I hit near-unconsciousness. I’m going to nappity until the free-speech dinner, which is the last ALA event I’m attending.

Then I’m going to get up really early in the morning, drive home, and jump into the waiting arms of my beau. (And then make him help me carry all the books and posters I got from the exhibit hall.)

ALA update

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I had made a list of all the programs I wanted to go to at ALA, and I’ve ended up not attending a lot of them. I participated in a zine discussion, and went to the Radical Reference meeting last night. My knowledge of Radical Reference increased dramatically from seeing the actual people behind the website. I know what an infoshop is, and even participated in the discussion (my superpower is the ability to interject something into any conversation happening anywhere). I suggested that besides political events, Rad Ref could show up to large cultural events like Bonnaroo, which would increase awareness of what they’re doing outside the sphere of librarianship.

Last night, after the Rad Ref meeting, I went out for late dinner and drinks with rad librarians. (See what I did there?) We ended up a nucleus group, drinking beer on steps that lead down to the water of the Mississippi. I love being near rivers, and I love legal outside drinking, so I was very happy.

Today, we’re eating breakfast (thank Jebus), then heading down to the conference for programs. Hopefully I’ll finish the pair of socks I’m knitting. They’re for another librarian, and I love that they’ll be ALA-knitted.

ALA in NOLA

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I’m in New Orleans. I’m at the India House hostel, which has WIFI. I’m gearing up for a day of hanging around, then going to a YALSA thingie this evening.

So, the drive went really quickly, because there are four of us in my crew, and we yakked all the way here.

Driving into the city, we began to see signs that things are NOT OK. (I mean that mostly architecturally.) We’re staying in the midtown area, and it is a bit sketchville. I’m taking photos, and will upload them Tuesday night (to Flickr). The NOLA area of midtown I saw last July was by no means new buildings and maincured lawns, but now everything has a deserted feeling, and there are a lot of large piles of trash and stuff outside a lot of the houses. (I assume it’s the stuff that people purged from their homes because it’s water damaged.)

When we got the hostel, there were probably 15 people on the front porch. Apparently, the power had gone out. A transformer had blown a fuse. The hostel had rigged enough lights to see, and they said the power comany was on its way.

It’s not that I felt actively unsafe, it’s that it’s a bit barren. We’re travelling as a group, and we befriended a bouncer who stays in the hostel who to took the trolley (all pub tran is free till the end of the month) with us and walked us to a restaruant.

We played the “ooh, ooh, I bet they’re a librarian” game. Decending from a tour bus, carrying tote bags, wearing sensible summer sweaters made out of cotton.

When we got back to the hostel (after having a drink in Pirate’s Alley), the power was back on, so we retired to our room, turned on the air, and promptly crashed.

We’re about to go down to the French Quarter, find the convention center, register, then see what kind of sweet free stuff we can get. I think I’ve promised a free tote bag to about 14 people, so I’ll have to be diligent.

Nobody likes cancer.

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Hey, you maybe didn’t know that I have low-grade abnormal cells (aka: pre-cancer) on my “Wizard of Os”, and Angela just sent me this weirdly free offer from Merck.

Merck is the pharma company that’s coming up with groundbreaking new drugs and stuff and maybe even an HPV (aka: genital warts) vaccine (or something like that). That would be cool, because “HPV is so common that by age 50 as many as 8 of 10 women who have sex will be infected with it.” HPV causes cervical cancer. Cervical cancer is a bummer. Now you know.

Either way, the deal is they’re sending out TWO FREE bead bracelet kits, and donating $1 to cervical cancer research.

I roll my eyes at a pharma company donating money to research that they’re pursuing, but then again, I’m interested in not having cervical cancer. So, order a bead kit. They don’t say the word ‘cervical’ on the beads, and maybe you can make your mom something nice for her birthday. Or a cat collar. Or shoelace sparklies. Or just a bunch of stuff to stick up your nose. You choose.

Edit: To clarify, there are 30-some strains of HPV. Only six or so can cause cancer. The rest just give you nasty warts on your junk, which actually sounds kind of nice, compared to cervical cancer, but not as nice as not having warts. The other thing is that dudes usually don’t show symptoms, especially the cervical cancer kind, so you really can’t tell just by looking. Condoms don’t necessarily protect. Kinda scary, yeah?

bracelet kit