Ain't Nothing But A Library Thang!

This is cool! It was easier than self-checkout and the grocery store! Adding books was fun and easy also. I liked seeing how many other people had the same books on their list as I did. I am reading one now that only 9 people had on their list. Pretty neat (ok it did just come out). Other than using this to catalog is there a point? This would be very time consuming and I already know what I have, pretty much...so...yeah. With all the databases and online books stores isn't this redundant? Am I missing something...I did only spend a few minutes on there?

I am amending this post! :) I can see now after speaking with people and reading more, how this could be helpful to people in different ways. I am going to wait until I have a day where I have nothing to do and am bored out of my mind before I catalog my books but I can see for instance a gardener with 400 books...ahem...should catalog their books. With an impressive collection like that it deserves to be out there. I don't think Amazon could compete with it!! :)

http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=chanson1961&shelf=list

Picture by Katherinewynne'sphotos at Flickr

"You have to... push that yellow button to load it. Take your time." Corbin Dallas from Fifth Element

Kudos, Congrats, YOU ROCK!

This is a congratulations to my very good friend who is just finishing up Library school! I am so proud of her!! She is an amazing person anyway

:Exercises, Writes, Reads, is always Smiling, Is Incredibly Smart, Very Pretty, and plays WoW, Did I remember to say SNOWBOARDS!:

but on top of everything else she is my friend.

So, this is for you my Stacey...

WAY TO GO!!!

NOTE: I would really love it if lots of people would post congrats to her on here...I know she could use it and would love it.

"Hey. Mr. Frodo's not going anywhere without me." Sam from LOTR:Fellowship of the Ring

Technorati...

Techno rati...I mean doesn't it sound like a style of clothes?

"So, what did you wear to the Rave?"
"I wore my fav Techno rati skirt with matching leggings!"
"Sweet!"

hehehe...

OK, very interesting way to search blogs. I tried searching (after the assignment parameters) for something I was interested in. I did a search for altered books and got the usual anything with the word altered and anything with book. So I used the words underneath the search bar to refine it and chose collage. It cut it way back and gave me what I was looking for. I also found a contest being held on Flickr for altered books. I liked that on the side bar to the left next to the search results was a small bar telling you when the posts had been made. 24 hours, in two days, etc.

I am pretty tired after coming off a grueling shift, not long just tiring. I keep thinking about an old TV show that wasn't on for very long since I am the only one in America who watched it :) called VR5! What the heck, I looked it up. 106 posts, I am sure not all about the TV show but still people were thinking of VR5 while I was thinking of VR5, now that's something! Or am I just really tired?

I am getting really tired now and actually went onto Flickr and put in VR.5. It was pretty dismal but that's cool, I mean it was only a TV show. I found nothing.

Doesn't it seem like it should be said " tech NO(C) rati " ? Side note-look Stacey, I am trying to screw up the pronounciation of another word!

"Why is the rum always gone?" Jack Sparrow from Pirates 2: Deadman's Chest

Del.icio.us

Yummy, what a lovely idea. I think I would have to use this to really get the full hang of it but my husband I were talking and he uses this to keep track of favorites. When he is loading or troubleshooting someones PC if he finds he needs a program or some further instruction he can log on and find his bookmarks rather than having to run back to his lappy and look them up. Sort of portable bookmarking.

I liked the Simply Recipes idea. Since I do bookmark a lot of recipes it would be nice to have them wherever I am and nice to have them bundled together. I'm not sure how this program is any different than having folders marked in your favorites which I already do. Other than the above usage I am not sure how I would personally use this BUT..as a Library I think this would be a fantastic tool! Can you imagine what you could bundle and other libraries could use? Amazing...only if I am understanding how this works!

"That's right. When I was your age, television was called books. And this is a special book. It was the book my father used to read to me when I was sick, and I used to read it to your father. And today I'm gonna read it to you. " Grandpa in Princess Bride

Pirate Plunder...

My lovely daughter redid my MySpace and with the coming of "At World's End" I am liking it much more than before plus with Holly as my friend I don't feel so alone. Plus with Lola the badger killer and Lisa the purple Prince fanatic, I feel so much better. :) Finally, let's not forget about Tom, my first real friend on MySpace. I love you Tom and I would never wear that tee-shirt!!

"Why is the rum gone?" Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean.

Moving Day, Troll Love...

So, today was packing day for my daughter and her husband. They are moving into a bigger place. I spent the day helping her get organized and pack boxes. But I did get 3 cool things out of it! I got a Pink haired troll, a yellow haired troll and a green haired troll! I was psyched!

Oh and if any of you go to my MySpace account and it's completely different, well, my 17 year old got to it and changed it. She likes doing that! I must admit it's pretty cool!!
(I hope Johnny likes it!)

"Hey, it doesn't always have to be about you. This poor little guy's had it rough. Seems a talking llama gave him a hard time the other day." Kronk from Emperors New Groove

pic from http://flickr.com/photos/heavininc/

MySpace....

I had so much written here but as mom used to say if you don't have anything nice to say it's best not to say anything...


"Forgive me if I stare, I knew you were young, but even then I was expecting someone a little more, well, more." Durza in Eragon

MySpace, a dialogue...

A conversation with my 17 year old...

"Argh! "
"What?"
"This weeks 9th,10th and 11th thing is myspace."
"oh."
"I am not looking forward to this. Hon, can you tell me why anyone would want to have a myspace account?"
"um...well...I don't really know. It's like blogging but with pictures instead of words but there are words also but it's mostly about pics. Come and look at mine"
"You made yours cause it was the only way to keep in touch with one of your friends right?"
"Yeah, I pretty much blog with my other friends, or IM or text. There's this one guy who doesn't have anything else but the phone and his family's on there a lot. So, let me log on...ok here is my site."
"Oh it's pretty. But what's this about selling Brittany Spear's hair?"
"Mom! That's a banner. I didn't put that on there."
"Oh, it looks so junky with all the ads on there. 'Guess who makes it to the Betty Ford clinic first, Brittany or Lindsay?' Ewww!"
"Yeah. So, here is my profile, music, movies, books, stuff like that."
"And what's this?"
"Those are my friends. I send an invite and they can accept it or not and then they get added"
"Oh. What if a strange man invites you to be his friend?"
"Gross! Not happening mom. I have security on my site so you can't just browse and get on my site"
"Well, I want to search around"
"That's not a good idea, remember pictures not words. You'll come across skanky stuff"
"I will? Do you search around?"
"NO! I know who has myspace accounts and they are my friends and that's it."
"Most of the kids at the library that I've seen just look around for raunchy pictures. I haven't seen any use this for what it's intended for."
"Yeah, well, that's one of the reasons I'm not comfortable with myspace."
"Your sister has a facebook account."
"Yeah but that's so she can share pics with the students she went to Australia with."
"I guess the library has a Myspace."
"Whatever."
"What's with the cheesy photos that people took of themselves with their arms halfway in the picture?"
**gales of laughter**
"yeah, dumb huh!"
"I just don't get it and I blog!"
"Yeah. It's just another way to communicate but it can be dangerous. You have to be careful."
"So, if I have to set one up will you help me? Am I going to need one of those pics with my arm in it?"
**laughter**
"I will help you, definitely. Yours will be cool."
"Cool's good."
"And Mom, don't search around you'll just get upset."
"OK."

Happy Dance!

I gave google blogsearch another try! SUCCESS!!! Before, I was looking for any blogs on altered art, specifically altered books. Can I say it again...SUCCESS!!! I found three blogs that are all on altered books and one I found had freebie downloads of ephemera used in altering books!!!! I am so happy!! SUCCESS!!! Now for my happy dance...

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http://flickr.com/photos/dcsaint/

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"So when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this: "I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there I shall be also!" Martin Luther from Luther

Blogline update...

I really thought this was a waste. Now that I've used blogline for a few days I want to hug whoever came up with it! It's so nice to go to one place and know if anything has been posted. So much less time than going from site to site and trying to remember if what's there is new or not! I LOVE it! It's saved me a ton of time.

Me is happy!

"I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it." Morpheus in The Matrix

Bunny Trails and Red Balloons...

I used some of the RSS search tools to look for blogs or feeds that I might be interested in. I have to say I was dissappointed. When putting in say "altered Books" into the search engine I ended up on the bunny trail from hell. It was slow going and I never did find what I was looking for. I did find a blog using Topix.net called "ask the crafter". You ask a question and the blogger posts about the answer. Kind of interesting. I added it to bloglines so I could find it again and see what ends up being posted.

I also found 'Grace County' which I just thought was really pretty. I didn't read the entire post but I wanted to be able to find this again also.

Bloglines kept locking up on me and then this message would come up saying "bloglines seems to be having troubles right now. You can refresh and try again" Very annoying!!

I found two library themed blogs using googleblog search. Both came right up and were exactly what I was looking for. One is 'the Shifted Librarian' which is about doing the 27 things in 15 minutes for each thing. I thought this was intriguing and I wanted to explore more on this site so I added it to blogline. I also found an interesting blog from the UWSP library in Wisconsin. They basically have a book of the week sort of 'on display'. There's a write up on the book and where you can find it by it's Dewey number. Nice! I will be curious to see what books are on display in the future.

I like fast searching. I don't like searching forever for one thing. I thought feedster was horrible. Every time I searched I never did find exactly what I wanted and it took a lot of time. As far as searching with syndic8.com....Blech! It was so busy looking when I opened it I didn't even try and use it. Less is more guys! It was to visually overwhelming for me.

On a side note...I love chasing the red balloon. My family coined this phrase after seeing an episode of Malcolm in the Middle where Malcolms little brother chased a red balloon, that had gotten away, for hours. When he lost the balloon finally and looked around he realized he had no idea where he was or how he got there. I have a habit of doing this very thing especially if I have my camera. I will be walking around and taking pictures and it's as if I don't see anymore through my own eyes but only see through the lens. If I am driving and I chase the red balloon it's usually cause I've seen something really pretty or unusual. I think "that would make a good photo". I once drove my daughter to a class and then saw some really pretty trees, then I spotted a really cool lamp post. I drove around like that for about half an hour and realized once my balloon 'popped' that I had no idea where I was. It took some time to find my way back to the right road. In saying all of this my point is that some times search engines can take you on a merry chase after info that you are seeking. 2 hours later you're on youtube watching a U2 video and you can't quite remember how you even got there when you were just looking up info about those new long life light bulbs. Beware the searching...

...or you could waste time reading this long post! The choice is yours!! :)

"Napoleon, don't be jealous that I've been chatting online with babes all day. Besides, we both know that I'm training to be a cage fighter." Kip from Napolean Dynamite

RSS and Bloglines...

I did today's 7th thing. Yikes! It was a little challenging mainly cause I had preconceived notions about what I was doing (I thought I was setting up another blog, no no, not another one!). I went ahead and trusted the process and it came out OK. :)

I was relieved to find out about bloglines! There are quite a few blogs to keep track of now and I was taking a lot of time reading all of them. On my Xanga site they email you when updates are posted to your favorite sites. Blogger didn't appear to do that and I was quickly becoming frustrated with the sheer amount to try and keep up with. So, woohoo RSS!! I can see how people who have many sites to keep up with would love this.

This is going to sound weird but, on the other hand, I like going to a persons blog page. It's like entering a private personal space, maybe a foyer or a drawing room, that I am allowed to visit and so I like checking on my favorites. I would be sad if I just got the update via the cold outside of RSS and blogline. Blogline felt sort of like I was peeking through a window. However, that being said many of the feeds I subscribed to (news feeds, and Unshelved) were nothing I would have to personally visit.

I found the process for setting up my blogline account pretty easy but I kept instructions from two places minimized so I could toggle back and forth to make sure I was doing it right. Once you get through the first "add" it's pretty easy.

Setting up a blog site- free
Setting up a Blogline- free
Getting a free MP3 player for playing in cyberspace-priceless!

"I guess when you've lived longer than your house and your family, then you've lived long enough." Mrs. Watts from The Trip To Bountiful

Patrick the cat

I just realized that I did these backwards. You should not being seeing this cat first. So please do me and Grey a favor and scroll down.

This is Patrick. I had to have him cause he was orange when he was little. He grew up and decided to be a ruthless dictator. If he could speak English he would be terrorizing some small country, but instead he just terrorizes us. He looks like he wants to be petted, he looks at you so longingly, but then **swipe** he will slap you with his paw or bite you, he is cunning this one is. I try to love him but it's hard. He was not happy with this picture and is starting a law suit as we speak since I didn't get a model release.

Ming cat...

This is my cat Ming. He is pretty big but it's hard to tell in this picture. He is a cuddle muffin and a love bug. He has no idea he's a cat. He doesn't hunt, play, or tangle with the other cats. When you snuggle with him he wants all 12 pounds to be under your chin and he tries to put his arms around your neck. He drools big time if you give him attention.

Grey cat...

This is my cat Grey. He is a Norweigan Forest cat. I think he is beautiful and I love him like crazy. He is a big hunter, a mighty warrior. When you pick him up you realize that he is one big muscle. When he dies I will be taking sick leave!!

Wheel of Lunch...

I was showing this guys website and his mashups to my daughter and we found another one. The Wheel of Lunch. Enter your zip code and then spin the wheel. On the wheel are all the restaurants in that zip code.

http://www.coverpop.com/wheeloflunch/

A very scientific way to choose your nosh!


"Don't ever call me crazy, Alan! Ever! 'Cause everyone in this town has called me crazy ever since I told the cops that you were sucked into a board game! "
Sarah in Jumanji

Gate

Hmmm...I tried using the URL link to upload pics from Flickr and it didn't work so I saved them instead to my computer and then it would upload. I'm wondering if I am doing something incorrectly?

I found this by looking in the explore/interestingness. I chose the month of December and a little calendar came up with a picture a day. I chose this one.

Flickr is dangerous for me cause I love photography. I could spend days in here and never come up for air!!

Check out some of this persons other photos...http://flickr.com/photos/mutephotoblog/

"Some day it'll just end. Everyone will go home, get on with their lives. Tall grass will cover the battlefields. And all the pilots we've lost won't mean a damn thing." Reed Cassidy in Flyboys

Stick figures in peril...

You guys have got to check this mashup out! Be sure and not only look at the picture but click on one of the little figures in the picture. It's a toy! This guy is really clever.

http://www.coverpop.com/pop/flickr_stickfigures/

"Let's look death in the face and say, whatever man."
Hurley from Lost

Changes...

I noticed after visiting different blogs that some of you have changed some colors and some other elements of your blogs so I had to put a little more color in mine as well, and there really isn't any other color for me than orange...so there you go....

"My qualities are more honeymoon than mortgage"
Ludvic from Mrs. Palfrey at the Clairemont.

Orange bliss...

Two of my favorite things together. A photograph of flowers and the color orange.

"You hear that ringing in your ears? That 'eeeee'? That's your ear cells dying. You'll never be able to hear that frequency again. Enjoy it while you can."
Julian from Children of Men.

To funny...

I thought I would check out flickr since that's our next task. The only experience I have with flickr is occasionally someone will send me a series of photos and I watch them and that's pretty much it. So, I went there today and I noticed a quote by one of my favorite artists.

First, more info about me. I LOVE to take photos of flowers. I can't take enough as those of you who have gone to the garden show with me will attest to. I usually take about 5-6 rolls of film there. Of course that was back when the garden show was decent, but I digress...

OK, so here is the funny quote that was on Flickr...

"I hate flowers. I paint them because they're cheaper than models and they don't move." Georgia O'Keeffe