Friday, January 21, 2005
Anyway. On to the links from others. Thanks, everyone!
From Danny: "For those who loved the state game: this is the euro version (sadly in German) where you have to pinpoint the locations of the capitals of some European nations. It never changes the order, so practice does help!" I was great at getting Paris and Lisbon, terrible at Belgrade and Kiev, and in the middle on the rest. (My mental map of Europe is stuck in 1993 when I was last there, sad to say.) It definitely helps to know your German. Fortunately, I remembered Wien was Vienna, thanks to Falco. (Pop culture. I soak in it.)
From Zazoo: "Wow. This is so ridiculous I just had to send it to you. Christian groups have claimed Spongebob promotes homosexuality. Huh??? Has the world gone insane?" My answer is yes, everyone is now crazy. Everyone in America, anyway. As another example, check out what Cory Doctorow (sci-fi writer and founder of Boing Boing) went through at an airport recently. Creeeeeepy. Look out for American Airlines, everyone.
From the Sparkle Queen: 120 for 1/20. I don't know if it'll help any, but it certainly can't hurt.
From the Graveworm: Dan Brown, what have you wrought?
From someone over at The Usual Suspects: transsexuality in Iran is more open that one would think. Interesting.
Have a great weekend, everyone! See you Monday.
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Meanwhile, the good folks at Radical Reference are going to be there, hopefully raising consciousness and consciences. Even if they have to do it without signs. Or sticks.
Here's an old but still good list of 27 Snappy Rules for Good and Evil in Library Architecture. An example: "Never create a cozy corner you don’t want occupied by a bag lady."
Fark did one of their infamous Photoshop contests with the theme of "unlikely literary campaigns" and the results are hilarious. Like most things Fark, this may be unsafe for the easily offended.
Look, I'm linking to something useful for librarians! Provided the librarians are in Ohio, anyway. The new Ohio Legal Research Blog is a great place for finding out (and/or how to find out) what's going on in the state government.
Also: Real Lawyers Have Blogs. It's true! No word yet on whether real law librarians have blogs as well.
And finally: Delicious Library looks to be on the brink of something really big. It's from the brilliant minds at Delicious Monster, and I'm really interested to see how this whole thing goes.
Tomorrow: it's links from others day. See you then.
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
So during our little holiday weekend, I was expounding on a new theory of mine, which is that people are meant to live either all together in cities, as a community, or spread out all over the countryside, as another sort of community, and that suburbs have screwed everything up. And lo and behold, here's someone else saying the same thing! An excerpt: "Human life was meant to be lived in either a small town or a big city not in a car, where suburbanites spend a whole lot more of their time than they know."
In other radical thoughts, here's the General Lee crashing into the Unabomber's cabin. I'm sure this fits in somehow.
My favorite Lone Gunman has now invented the Chill Pak. Hooray for Lord ArmHammer!
The rest of today's entry is all about fun toys. Get ready for Darth Tater, who will start menacing shelves and sour cream this spring. If you're not ready for the dark potato, how about some Egyptian gods? Or the Godzilla menagerie? (Hedorah is particularly weird-looking.) And there's always the Jabberwock. I am thinking he (it?) might be a nice addition to my office.
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
The link of the day is a long list of Things Not to Do When Directing a Shakespearean Play. It gets funnier and funnier as you go on. Two of my favorites: "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern will not enter on a miniature train" and "If I must stage Macbeth in a modern setting, there is no reason to dress the Scottish nobles as Hare Krishnas, especially if I also arm them with machine guns." I kind of want to see that one, actually.
Shazam may be the coolest invention I've seen in years. Maybe the coolest invention ever. Their description: "Consumers who hear an unknown song while hanging out in the pub, listening to the radio or sitting in a restaurant, only need call 2580, point their phone to the music source, and London-based Shazam will then send a text message (SMS) reply with the name of the artist and the track." How amazing is that? Sadly, this is only for the UK. The US has something similar in GraceNote, but it's not nearly as hi-tech.
Another cool invention for the culture jammers: the SMS Guerilla Projector. This is a Flash-based site, so I can't link to it directly, but go to "Devices" from the front page and then to "SMS Guerilla Projector." The fourth photo is the best.
For people like me who are inordinately interested in linguistics, here's a lengthy discussion of the "Northern Vowel Shift" that occurs around the Cleveland and Pittsburgh areas in the midwest (and perhaps in other cities as well). Do you pronounce cot and caught the same way? How about stalk and stock?
And finally, take back the dictionary from the Republicans! Or, at the very least, understand what they've done to it. You can submit your own observances as well.
