Monday, October 31, 2005

Man, going to a conference - even a very cool one like Internet Librarian - really wreaks havoc with posting good Halloween links. Here it is Halloween already and no time to write anything! I also missed the local horror festival. Dang.

(Incidentally, the photos from last week are up - click on the Flickr badge to see them.)

AMC finishes its Monsterfest marathon tonight, and their site has various games and other fun ways to occupy your time if you get bored - or too scared - to watch.

Glenna warns that the Landover Baptists are on the scene, hunting wiccans and doing their doggone best to stop Halloween. (It's not serious, don't worry.) In a similar vein, the Onion tells us to watch out for Homeland Security officers searching trick-or-treat bags.

Fun spooky art for the holiday: Deviant Art, of course, and also Dan Henderson's Tyranny of Confection.

And for those of us who went to school in Athens, home of an amazing Halloween celebration, there's a documentary entitled "Athens Asylum" all about the Ridges. Oooo.

Have a great Halloween, everyone! See you tomorrow.

Friday, October 28, 2005

We're back! Photos from Internet Librarian will go up on the Flickr account soon - I caved and got a pro account, so expect an avalanche of images!

Friday, October 21, 2005

Friday! We'll be gone all next week - I may post next Friday, depending on jet lag and the like. On to the links from others!

From Danny: the progress of someone building the Lego version of the Star Wars destroyer. We have something very similar to this that we haven't built yet. We may be using this as a cheat sheet in the future!

Also from Danny: "Academia Embraces Spooky Studies." Woo!

From Glenna: Breast Cancer Action, for people who are more activist-oriented, I suppose.

Bootsy Collins, funkmaster extraordinaire and native Cincinnatian, has recorded two songs cheering on the Bengals. Truth is stranger than fiction...

Survivor Toyland: full of drama, injuries, and action figures in compromising poses.

Happy 40th birthday to the Slurpee! Did you know that the man who first created the Slurpee was a convenience store owner named Omar Knedlik? Sounds like something out of the Simpsons.

Have a spiffy weekend and week, everyone! See you next week, or maybe the Monday after that.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Next week, the Spooky Librarians will be living up to their name by being at the Internet Librarian conference in Monterey (we're staying at the Portola Plaza Hotel, come by and say hi!) and also running around with Remo D. and the other crazed denizens of the Manor of Mayhem. We'll take lots of pictures and share them when we get back!

Meanwhile, it's time to safety-proof your Halloween costume. (I love the illustrations here, but I really think they should have done a "Goofus & Gallant" style comparison of safe and unsafe costumes.)

I hadn't heard of blog carnivals until now. Have I been under a rock or something?

I know that articles on libraries and librarians can get awfully repetitive (exhibit A: the saga between Google Print and libraries and authors), but this article celebrating libraries has the great descriptive phrase "book worms and journal raccoons" which I'd never heard before. I like the journal raccoon label and want to adopt it for my own!

Fortunately, Kurt Vonnegut has our back. (Thanks to the Graveworm for sending this in.)

The Flickr group of Libraries & Librarians (which I'm a part of, marginally - I have to take more photos!) meets Google Maps. We are legion. Muhahaha.

Finally, the always-cool Library of Congress has a new online exhibit of women's suffrage scrapbooks. Very cool.

Tomorrow: links from others! Thanks to everyone who's sent in stuff already!

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

I can definitely think of times when a secret room would come in very handy. Maybe I'll make one!

Coming up this weekend: seasonal festivities like the annual Pumpkin Festival in Circleville, along with non-season activities like the International World Rock Paper Scissors Championship in Toronto. You can even check out the current league champions. Go scissors!

Tis the season for both superstitions and the World Series, and of course there's a link. Baseball players are crazy superstitious. Or they suffer from OCD. Or both. (I am sort of torn on the World Series. I think I'm pulling for the White Sox, if only to have a Red Sox/White Sox back to back World Series championship occurrence that will probably signify the coming of the apocalypse.)

Great reading: Esoterica, the Journal. Hey Mr. Graveworm, check this out.

Fun random link of the day: create your own giallo! Or rather, have a giallo randomly created for you. The plot of mine: "A man is butchered. A blind student is mistaken for somone else by the perpetrator of the the crime, and after discovering an old painting, she must prove herself innocent, even though the detective may be involved in the crime." Whoa.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Now THIS is cool. As a way to raise funds for CanTeen, a New Zealand organization working with teenagers who have cancer, the Muppets have redone their "Mah Na Mah Na" song for a 60-second commercial. (The new title: "Bandanana," for the bandannas they're selling.) Rowlf and the Swedish Chef and Kermit and the Electric Mayhem Band all make appearances in the ad, which you can watch online. Bandanana!

Also cool: little knitted robots, conquering the world one stitch (purl?) at a time. Soon they will set out to battle the frightening knitted zombies. Yarrrrrrrrn! Yarrrrrrrrrn!

October is National Cider and Perry Month. Drink up! I had no idea what perry was, being an American and all. Perry, it turns out, is made from pears. Ooooh. I so want to try this now.

In a faint nod to the overcommercialization of the holiday season, I am putting up a link to a Christmas tree. But this is not just any Christmas tree. This is a Very Electronic Christmas Tree which teaches you how to solder! (It's also from American Scientific & Surplus Store, which gives it added cool points.)

Bunny sent in a link to the new DigiMemo pad software, which lets you use ordinary pens and paper to put handwritten notes online. This looks pretty cool.

And lastly, in scary pop culture news: Marilyn Manson is creating a perfume and cosmetic line. Smells Like Heresy? Dope Show Scent? Sweet Dreams (of Ritualistic Killing and Other Pretensions?) Who knows?

Monday, October 17, 2005

It's always nice when my hometown gets in the news. Er, well, maybe not so much.

Today we are all about art at Folderol HQ. To wit:

Friday, October 14, 2005

Wow, today is busy. Thanks to everyone who sent in a link!

From Bunny: the freefall of George Bush. This is oddly satisfying and calming.

From Glenna: The Basic Laws of Stupdity.

From Nicole: fun robots and skulls and whatnot for your home!

From a mailing list I'm on: Haunted Times magazine is on the stands!

Have a spiffy weekend, everyone. See you Monday!

Thursday, October 13, 2005

First off, apologies to Dr. Matt for forgetting to post about National Coming Out Day on Tuesday. Here's hoping it was a good day for everyone!

News from the Obvious Department: classes are getting increasingly high-tech, and librarians aren't your typical shushing spinsters any more. (One of the librarians interviewed was Jessamyn of librarian.net, who's going to be among the presenters at Internet Librarian. This is exciting!)

Google now has a feed reader, which I haven't tried out yet (I am still loyal to Bloglines), but may be interesting for the future. Also, in other techy news, meebo is a web-based chat aggregator of sorts, which seems pretty cool and minimally invasive, and Common Times shows the news in a cool new way.

For the law librarians and personnel among us: The Graveworm is now hosting a page for random weirdness found in legal publishing. There's going to be some good stuff there soon - I got a preview yesterday!

And lastly, cookbooks for the literary-minded. I could get into those, I think.

Tomorrow: links from others!

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Wow, the Halloween season is chock-full of great stuff this year. Chicago is putting on the Music Box Massacre this weekend, and AMC begins Monsterfest the weekend after that. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has an exhibit titled Photography and the Occult that looks fantastic as well.

Meanwhile, for those of us stuck at our desks, there's all sorts of good stuff to read and experience on the interweb. Dark, But Shining continues its countdown of monsters (and even Animal from the Muppets gets a mention!); Tales to Astonish reviews several horror movies (and, in the process, points to one of the best t-shirts ever); and for the gameplayers, Lovecraft Country and Vampires! is there to enthrall. This is the best time of year, no question.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

The annual Ig Nobel Prizes have been handed out! I think my favorite was the one involving locusts watching Star Wars. It's true!

Today's argument between the Graveworm and myself (we have one every other day or so) concerns the Three Investigators, which (whom?) we both love, and the news of upcoming movies and TV shows featuring the Investigators, which fills me with fear. The Graveworm is trying to tell me that it may not be so bad, Harry Potter films well, blah blah blah, but I remain unconvinced. (Incidentally, Tunnel Two is a neat Investigators site, although it hasn't been updated for some time.)

Muslim girls have fallen in love with Fulla, an Islamic answer to Barbie. I think Fulla looks pretty cool, myself. Apparently she comes with a prayer mat as an accessory!

Meanwhile, Playmobil is currently featuring a rather inexplicable security checkpoint set, complete with security staff and traveler/potential suspect. The comments on the toy are pretty funny.

Project Puppet! For all your puppet project needs! This is awesome. I may make use of this for Meet Cleaver Theatre.

Monday, October 10, 2005

On Thursday you can pay tribute to and celebrate the life of legendary DJ John Peel, as it'll be John Peel Day in the UK. See, I'm telling you in advance so you can get there!

While you're in London, you could check out the Sherlock Holmes Society as well. They seem to be having all sorts of reenactment fun. And for the more introverted, there's the Baker Street Dozen site.

Great Flickr collection of the week: an assortment of photos taken by someone who worked as a still photographer in Hollywood from 1914 to 1932.

The Bubble Project uses speech bubble stickers to create art and humor and all sorts of emotional responses. Some are hilarious.

The Ephemera Society celebrates the assorting of various sundry objects. Hooray!

Friday, October 07, 2005

Today: links from others! Thanks, everyone.

From Zazoo:

From Nicole: Do They Know It's Halloween?

From some random website: The Personality Defect Quiz. I took it and discovered I was the following:

Emo Kid

You are 42% Rational, 0% Extroverted, 42% Brutal, and 14% Arrogant.
You are the Emo Kid, best described as a quiet pussy!

(The best part about this is that I was arguing about emo with the Graveworm yesterday. Hee.)

Have a good weekend, everyone! See you Monday.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Also! The big library news: The Spooky Librarians (yes, both of us!) are going to Internet Librarian in Monterey at the end of this month! If you're going to be there, let us know!
So I was wondering why every other news story this week seems to be about bird flu and flu shots and the influenza epidemic of 1918 and the any-moment-now bird flu pandemic which will wipe out a few million...and it turns out that it's Pandemic Flu Awareness Week. Well, there you go.

Bunny has a new office (with a door! Ooo! Ahh!) and is looking for some good posters. I suggested Neil Gaiman's ALA poster because Bunny has been known to stand in that same position (with that same "yes? can I help you?" expression) while wearing a leather jacket. Any other ideas? His library is mostly full of hard science and death-related books, so the Muppets or Stellaluna don't really fit in too well.

Some libraries let you check out bicycles now. How cool is that?

In response to Google Print (or it may be a coincidence, but I doubt it), the Open Content Alliance has sprung into being. The future of information is going to be verrrry interesting.

Some browsing fun: Leaf through Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks! Explore the seedy world of mid-century Canadian pulp fiction! Study the plethora of weblogs authored by and for law professors!

Tomorrow: links from others. Stay tuned.

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

We begin today's Folderol with Bunny's touching poetic tribute to Nipsey Russell.

-------
There once was a man named Nipsey
Whose jokes made him seem rather "tipsy"
He contracted the "C"
Found it difficult to "P"
He's now underground in Poughkeepsie!
-------

(Bunny could not believe I didn't mention Nipsey's death yesterday. Consider it remedied.)

Today is Dine for America Day. Go to a restaurant and help out hurricane victims. It's a win-win situation!

It's October, which means that a whole slew of horror-related weblogs are celebrating in style. Dark, But Shining points out several great sites to check out this month.

News of the Weird: there is now a patron saint of Russian nuclear long-distance bombers. Be sure to construct a small shrine to Saint Fyodor in your underground bunker.

The Airplane Book shows you - in brilliant 1970s color - how much fun air travel is. Wheeeee! If you'd rather be under the ground than above it, check out Gallerisation Underground for some incredible map paintings. And if it's maps you like, Adrian Leskiw's Fictional Road Maps make for great studying.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

[Updated to fix some links which Blogger impolitely broke during publication yesterday. Thanks to Mr. Graveworm for pointing this out!]

The local Kroger already has Christmas items at the front of the store. This is getting out of hand. Toys R Us has gotten in on the action as well by releasing a list of their top ten picks for the season's best toys. I've only heard of a few of them, but am eager to see what the Lego Viking ship looks like.

Also, CNet lists the ten worst products of the last decade. The best part is that this list actually has one item in common with the Toys R Us list, which is rather bizarre. Hee.

Retro moment: remember the original Scooby-Doo cartoon which had those groovy songs during the chase scenes? Now they're all together on a CD! I always wondered who Hanna-Barbera had locked up in a studio somewhere to sing all those '60s-esque pop ditties.

Retro moment 2: if you liked those strange little kids' books which featured Mr. Cranky and Little Miss Chatterbox and the like, you will love the official site where you can create a "Mr. Man" or "Little Miss" of your very own. (Warning: the site has sound; a British male voice walks you through the creation process. Maybe you can pretend you're listening to the BBC.)

For the role-playing geeks: Katrina, The Gathering. Heh.

For the arty geeks: The GrooveTube turns your TV into a sort of abstract Lite-Brite. Why you would want to do this is a little beyond me, but hey, it looks cool.

For Bunny: Words created by the Simpsons. You mean cromulent isn't a real word? D'oh!

Monday, October 03, 2005

Hi there. Welcome to the new redesigned Folderol, which has been a long time coming. There may be bugs in the system, and there are two important changes:

1) I'm trying out Blogger comments instead of HaloScan. If you don't like them, though, let me know and I'll switch back.
2) The RSS feed may have changed - check the XML graphic on the left if you think the subscription may have gotten wonky in the changeover.

If you like/hate/want to change something, let me know - like most Spooky Librarians pages, this is a work in progress!

Anyway. On to the links!

Lego figures are always wonderful. Lego figures portraying an opening night at a modern art exhibition are absolutely fantastic. Be sure to check out the Warhol offering, and also the shark tank!

It's October, and officially Halloween season. GoreyDetails features all things Gorey, plus those great haunted portraits and more! The Society for Art of Imagination is not solely composed of spooky art, but the fantasy angle can definitely veer in that direction. Meanwhile, a huge collection of literary figures, as portrayed by various artists, will take up some hours of your time. (In keeping with the spooky angle, Lovecraft and Poe are among the authors.)

And lastly, art made fun: water sculpture (oooh, ahhh) and balloon lamps (wow!).