Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Happy birthday, Scot! Emergo wanted to get you the DVD box set of Blossom, but we said no.

Hurricane season starts tomorrow, and here's the list of names if you're curious. (My mom's name is on the list; mine was officially retired two years ago. Oooh, ahhh.) Names for hurricanes in other places around the world are listed as well. I like the Australian ones.

How good are you at identifying land masses? Without any borders or man-made landmarks? The GoogleMaps Quiz will find you out. I'm pretty bad at this sort of thing, apparently. However, I'm better at navigating city streets, which is why the new theme of Moleskine notebooks appeals to me so much.

(Also, for the spooky types in the audience: check out this amazing, incredible, wonderful alchemy notebook in Moleskine form!)

If you live in Europe, you can adopt an olive tree and reap the rewards. If you're living in America, however, you're out of luck. On the plus side, you could go to the Red Earth Festival this weekend in Oklahoma instead.

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Hi. Today I bring you a few arty things and some fun interactive games. First, the fun: see how good a tattoo artist you would be! I was better than I thought I'd be, actually. If you're not so much into coloring within the lines, you can participate in the Global Mosaic, making patterns with several other people simultaneously. It's sort of soothing in a meditative way.

If you like photography and literature, you can combine the two and be part of the Flickr Bookshelf Pool. If you're more interested in graphic design and movies, the Da Vinci Code Movie Titles site takes you through what could have been (and is, in some cases). If you'd rather combine movies with music....well, you should get on that, because evidently film scores aren't really grabbing anyone lately.

And lastly, for fans of Spalding Gray, there's going to be a final remembrance/performance/reading of unpublished material to celebrate what would have been Spalding's 65th birthday next week. There's almost no mention of Renee, though. That's pretty harsh. (Article is from the New York Times; use bugmenot if it bugs you for a password.)

Friday, May 26, 2006

Well, hi. Here are some leftover Thursday links for the library people! Actually, they're mostly questions. Has anyone tried the "Check This Out!" podcast yet? And has anyone tried listening to Reuters Newsbeats? I'm interested in what sort of music they play...

Louisiana lawyers are getting free technical assistance while everything's being reconstructed. It's nice to see something positive happening.

It's not too early to start planning for Internet Librarian 2006! They even have a wiki set up.

On to links from others! From Holly: there's a "sex theme park" opening in London. Yowza! Also from Holly: the Simpsons are a fount of philosophy for the ages.

From Zazoo: John Cameron Mitchell of Hedwig fame has a new movie out!

And lastly, swiped from the insanity that is Cute Overload...the amazing HamTrack '06. You can see all the different teams! And if you go to the "bet now" part, you can see the hamsters in their little helmets! Awwww!

Have a spiffy long weekend, everyone. Back on Tuesday.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Blargh! Today has been crazy. Until I can update further, enjoy this article (courtesy of the Graveworm) detailing how Cleveland libraries are hotbeds of sexual activity and dens of iniquity. Oh yeah. (Sheesh.)

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

A long weekend's coming up, and that means it's time for...cheese rolling! And tortoise racing! It's also National Vegetarian Week, although I don't think anything special's planned for the weekend. Maybe you could throw an all-organic banquet.

If you can't make it to the tortoise racing, you can at least watch meerkats via the joy of Meerkat Cam. You can steer it around and zoom in and out, too.

In Valencia, Spain, there's a giant figure of Gulliver lying on the ground, and kids can pretend they're Lilliputians and climb all over him. Er, well...

And for the morbidly inclined, there's a set of figures called Buildings of Disaster, which includes the Chernobyl plant, Oklahoma City's federal building, the Pentagon...and, inexplicably, the OJ Bronco chase. Evidently the LA freeway is considered a building. Who knew?

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Today's theme: imagination comes to life!

First off, the National Museum of American History has an exhibit on Jim Henson and the Muppets all summer. Also coming out this summer: a LEGO version of the Arkham Asylum from Batman -- all 860 pieces of it! (The asylum, that is, not Batman.)

The Marvel Atlas Project tries to pin down where everyone lives in the Marvel Universe, or at least those who live on Earth. Meanwhile, over in China, there's an abandoned theme park that looks to be the eastern equivalent of EPCOT's World Showcase, and someone got in and took over 100 photos. There's nothing like seeing a Chinese-made version of Arizona...

If you like Katamari Damacy (and really, who doesn't?), you'll love this group who ran the Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco dressed as characters from the game and rolling a katamari the whole way. They need to get together with the Electric Giraffe and start some performance art revolution, I think.

Monday, May 22, 2006

Today: Art! But first, we observe the birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Renaissance art: One man has made it his life's work to track down Leonardo Da Vinci's painting of the Battle of Anghiari.

Fantastic spooky art: the works of Stephen Berkman.

Modern photography meeting multimedia art: Tabblo provides a way to make a form of online scrapbook with your photos.

The sad art of remembrance: Washington Post's Faces of the Fallen.

Friday, May 19, 2006

Today: links from others, as promised! Thanks, everyone.

From Bunny: Wesley Clark Jr. takes on Democrats and Republicans in style. (It's long, but worth it.)

Also from Bunny: the Skeletor Show!

From Tracy: the Implicit Attitude Test, and some additional information about the study. Are you prejudiced without even realizing it?

Swiped from geistweg: They're looking for Jimmy Hoffa again, and it's not under a football field this time.

Have a spiffy weekend, everyone! See you Monday.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Today's theme: Stuff you (probably) didn't know about!

Tomorrow: links from others. Come back and check them out.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

If it's Wednesday, it must be travel day...

If you've ever wondered which country has which domain name (.cz, .uk, .be, etc.), wonder no more - the Visibone country chart tells all!

The National Geographic is experimenting with the 21st century and has begun a weblog.

Beware of the squirrel monkeys at the London Zoo! They will steal your cellphones and rack up all sorts of charges calling home!

In other British news, a team from their army is tackling Mt. Everest at the moment, and you can keep up with them virtually. If you have Google Earth, there's a map of their progress as well.

And finally, I never knew the Muppets did a song about the subway. It's one of those tunes that sticks in your head a bit, be warned. (Seeing Bert hanging onto a subway strap made my day.)

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Remember Frogger? Now you can do the same to British commuters, with entertaining commentary when you accidentally whack one of them into the side of a lorry or the Tube.

More British fun: Anything Radioactive sells you all sorts of potentially dangerous/panic-inducing items having to do with hazardous waste and the like. You never know when something like that may come in handy...

...like if you have an invisible cloaking device, for instance! Can flying cars be far behind? Come on, scientists, get to it. I want the traffic report to look like Coruscant. (Was that too geeky?)

Also, there's now a way to preserve snowflakes for years. Now we'll see if that whole "no two are alike" belief is true or not.

There's also programmable soda. Actually, the hazardous/toxic warning labels might be useful here, too.

Finally, you can create your own sign to show Barry Bonds how you really feel.

Monday, May 15, 2006

Today, we bring you a quick liberal arts recap of what's going on around the world.

Cool artist of the week: Eugenio Recuenco.

In an effort to soothe the wounded psyches of varying religious groups, Sony has begun The DaVinci Dialogue.

If you ever wanted to know what movie took place in a certain year, the Movie Timeline is a godsend. It goes way way back in history, too!

For us children of the '80s, here's another godsend: a list of music videos available on YouTube. It's not a comprehensive list, but it's a good start; I picked a Lene Lovich video, which then had links to other Lene Lovich videos, and so on.

And finally, art, history, and archaeology are all represented in this huge article about recovering sunken Alexandria.

Friday, May 12, 2006

Today: links from others! Thanks, everyone.

From Tracy: Bitter Waitress, which is pretty self-explanatory, and Vote for the Worst, which opines that American Idol would be much more entertaining if everyone voted for the worst trainwreck every time. They have a point.

From the Graveworm: "Well, they saved Parliament...now who's going to do something about our country?"

Also from the Graveworm: Jesus is found in the roots of a plant! (Best quote from the article: "I've heard about Mother Theresa's face being seen in a bagel but I thought this was much better.") If you're into this sort of thing, you'll love Miracle Tortilla, which features, among other things, Jimi Hendrix on a tostada. Hee!

Have a spiffy weekend, everyone. See you Monday.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Isn't it nice to know the government's listening in on all our phone calls? Thoughtcrimes are next. I didn't really pick this archive of American Left materials as a response, at least not consciously...

The missing library of Iona sounds very cool. I volunteer to go investigate.

From the good people at LII.org and ResourceShelf.com, some good library-related links: Worldmapper skews countries to show resource allocation, which is pretty amazing; there's a hidden city of salt under Detroit (urban explorers, take note!); and Kentucky university libraries, including my MLS alma mater, are struggling with the exorbitant prices of some academic journals. Legal materials are the same way these days. It's insane.

If you use Bloglines (and honestly, I can't imagine how I managed without it!), here's some good news: they've figured out a way to embed YouTube video within the feeds!

Tomorrow: links from others, as per usual.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

The Sultan's Elephant was in London last weekend, and I missed it! It looks like it was amazing. I suppose it's rather difficult for a 42-ton mechanical elephant to not be amazing.

Meanwhile, over in the Netherlands, they're building a landing strip for UFOs. Yes! Really!

Over here in Ohio, we're voting on the name for a new blimp from Goodyear...and some of the rejected names are much better than the finalists. Also, if you're in Cincinnati this weekend, the first Caffeinated Craft Show will be going on.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Ninja!


I could watch this for hours. You can write your own ninja message at the appropriately named Ninja Text Generator.

If you couldn't tell, today we are all about frivolous links. An eBay auction for a flux capacitor just ended, but you can still see the photos (and perhaps make one yourself, if you have a spare DeLorean lying about)!

Alternatively, you could make a lawn chair...out of an actual lawn. I'd love to see someone create a whole modern ampitheatre with these.

Any wannabe ninjas may be interested in the Shock Knife. Shock Knife! It's just fun to say.

The world of Atypyk is a strange one (and the English is sort of minimal), but man, I'd love to get these passport stamps.

Monday, May 08, 2006

Cool artist of the week: Lori Earley.

Cool subliminal message of the week: look, the pope has horns! Ha!

Put a small hole in a large truck, and you have yourself a very large pinhole camera. Behold the CameraTruck, possibly coming to a street near you!

Perhaps the CameraTruck can come to Cincinnati and take a photo of this bizarre yard display, created when the homeowners were denied permission to put up a fence. My town is so weird.

Synthmania brings you Famous Sounds. Beeep! Boop! BeepBeep! Ah, memories...

Friday, May 05, 2006

Happy Cinco de Mayo! And happy Free Comic Book Day on Saturday, too.

Links from others (thanks, all):

From Tracy: Global dimming. Eeeep.

From Danny: TV in Japan, in blog format! Also, there's a secret cookie shop out there. How cool is that?

From the Graveworm: "a new blog for aerospace nerds."

Random fun: It's a goat! On a pole!

Also, for your 3-D modeling needs: Google Sketchup is free. Interesting.

Have a spiffy weekend, everyone. See you Monday.

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Today, Kent State observes the 36th anniversary of the on-campus protest and shootings. Fittingly, the site is called "the cost of war."

The Ballard branch of Seattle's public library system is environmentally friendly and very cool-looking. (Yet another reason to visit the Pacific Northwest!)

You can browse through Isaac Newton's laboratory books online, speaking of cool-looking. (Found via the Librarian in Black.)

I have a few Sears catalogs from the late 1890s, and they're great. Some enterprising soul is going through the 1902 edition and commenting on it, which can be hilarious.

Browsing bookshelves can lead to all sorts of serendipitous experiences, says a professor, and modern society is taking that from us. I'd argue that the internet leads to even more serendipity, myself. (It can also lead to brilliantly random, yet somewhat scheduled, interruptions in one's workday!)

Tomorrow: links from others.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Today's links are all death-related. Er. I didn't plan it that way, honest.

At any rate, if you have had a near-death experience but haven't quite gone over to the other side yet, or if perhaps you've seen something strange happen at someone else's deathbed, the Deathbed Experience Research Net wants to talk to you.

If you have indeed gone over to the other side, on the other hand, the Edinburgh Ghost Fest would be happy to talk to you. It starts next weekend, so you still have some time to get there. Can ghosts travel transatlantically?

Wikipedia provides a list of unusual deaths. Attila the Hun choked on a nosebleed, while Jack Daniel died of blood poisoning after kicking his safe in anger. There's a lesson in there somewhere.

Something very sad, but also beautiful: the Library of Dust is a photo gallery of found containers holding the ashes of patients from an abandoned asylum.

Monday, May 01, 2006

Today is May Day, or Day Without Immigrants, depending on where you are; celebrate/observe/demonstrate as needed.

Arty bits:

The competition for the new "seven wonders of the world" has been narrowed down to 21 finalists. Discuss.

Another drive-in theatre is closing; this one is near us in Oxford.

And finally, for those of us who love reading stories written by kids (and trying to figure out how their minds work), there's a blog for us: Children of the Future. The future sounds pretty surreal so far.