Thursday, May 31, 2007

Not only is it festival season, it's also summer reading season.

For small readers: the future librarian t-shirt!

For small geeks (or big geeks, for that matter): a pen that's also a jump drive. Just make sure no one walks off with it.

The interwebs have changed life as we know it! Nothing will ever be the same! No, really, they're serious. Along the same lines, Mashable keeps you up to date with social software news, and Brazen Careerist is a neat new find that helps you balance work with your actual life. (Many librarians are not very good at this, we've found.)

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

It's festival season! Time to gather and celebrate strawberries and cheese and...rhinos? Yes, rhinos!

From Nathan: Oh, great Cthulhu, eater of souls and roaster of dogs. This is quite excellent.

For the spooky: here's an interesting article on near-death experiences, and here's the wonderful Cabinet of Wonders weblog.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Okay, I'm starting off this shortened work week with an absolutely awesome video clip. Before Danny Elfman specialized in spooky soundtracks, he led Oingo Boingo, one of the great bands of the '80s. Before THAT, however, he was a part of the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, and they appeared on The Gong Show in 1976. And they won, too! Go watch it, it's only about five minutes long.

A link I forgot to include last Friday: Anarchtee, for people who are mad and are going to wear it on their sleeves, dammit. (Thanks, Cassandra!)

Somehow I hadn't seen Charles Saatchi's free online art gallery, where anyone can post their work, until now. There are some gorgeous pieces on there. Go, artists, and share!

This summer, Chicago will be inundated with Cool Globes, which are not only arty but also intend to educate the populace about global warming. Neat, and worth an ecologically friendly road trip.

And finally, for the newspaper people out there, there's a lovely little article about the history of the New York Times morgue. "A basement full of newspaper still makes newspaper people feel better," says the article, and it's true. I am all about the internet these days, but I would have loved to have worked in the morgue back in its heyday.

Friday, May 25, 2007

Happy Friday, everyone. Yesterday was missed due to more dental incidents (for the record, Bunny is very sick of mashed potatoes and applesauce), but today we are back, with links from others!

First, swiped from Tim: hey, all you hoopy froods, today is Towel Day. Go and do something crazy, or at least improbable.

From Cassandra: the bizarre Creation Museum thing is opening near us this weekend. Also, the big pharmaceutical companies are targeting women. But fear not, there are Krypt Kiddies to distract us.

From Bunny: George W. Bush can now assume dictatorial power. Oh, good. We're all gonna die. This is another good reason to keep a towel handy.

From Holly: Hello Kitty Hell.

Found on my own: look, rats as big as cats! I wonder if they would make good pets.

And finally, something good, courtesy of Susan: Goodsearch donates money whenever you use Yahoo to search for something. Susan's giving money to Koko the gorilla, who will not use the money for evil.

Have a spiffy holiday weekend, everyone. See you on Tuesday!

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Hurry! It's not too late to miss the giant tortoise race at Zoopolis 500!

If it is indeed too late, you could zip off to Leipzig for the Gothic Wave festival this weekend. It's not a tortoise race, but hey.

Alternatively, you could come to my hometown tomorrow and take part in the biggest Mentos & Diet Coke demonstration ever! (Thanks, Nathan!)

The past: Roman towns were aligned according to the stars.

The present: London Remembers catalogs all the odd plaques and memorials about the city.

The future: that Star Trek scanner wand that magically diagnoses your ailments could become a reality! Yes!

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Today is Slacker Day. (It isn't, really, but it SHOULD be.) Therefore, I bring you games and some ideas about work in the modern age.

We start off with the Results Only Work Environment plan, which I think is brilliant. I would be even more enthusiastic if I worked in a results-based job, instead of one in which I'm here just in case people have questions. Bah.

In related news, Cassandra just sent this: Why Working Less is Better for the Globe.

Also from Cassandra: monkeys and squirrels in Denver are dying of the plague. Yikes!

In case of plague striking your stuffed animals, fear not: here's a tutorial on how to perform surgery on a stuffed bunny. I didn't save him at first, but on my second try the bunny lived to hop another day.

Did you know there are two TRILLION ways to tie your shoelaces? I always thought there were about three. Golly.

And lastly, a wonderful online game in which you calculate how to launch Gonzo into a bucket of water. I got 5790 points total, and "Gonzo got a ride in an ambulance." Beat that!

Monday, May 21, 2007

Inspired by a post on Brendan's weblog, I have a linguistics poll for you: garage sale, yard sale, tag sale or rummage sale? Up in New England it's all tag sales, and Brendan hadn't heard of rummage sales (which we do have here a lot, but never have tag sales). Go and discuss.

Awesome artist of the week: Lori Nix.

Awesome art of the week: the things you can do with paper.

Tarot of the week: the international icon set. Yes, really!

Update on a previous post: the house where Arthur Conan Doyle wrote The Hound of the Baskervilles has been saved, hooray!

If you've ever wondered who's behind those occasional Google logo themes, here's an article about the man known as the Google Doodler.

Judge a book by its cover? Check out the Cover Art gallery for all sorts of fun.

Friday, May 18, 2007

Links from others! Thanks, everyone.

From Cassandra: Women are now empowered by everything a woman does. Oh, good.

Also from Cassandra: your buttoned-up coworker may secretly be a Wiccan!

From Scot: Ozzy wants you to edit his new video. This is a pretty slick operation, actually.

From a library list: check out the winner of the design for the new library in Prague. It looks like it should be on Venus. Awesome.

Swiped from the Librarian in Black: clothes that look sweet and pretty, but bear snarky messages. Hee.

And finally, your inspirational (?) post for the day, also found on a library mailing list: the various ways people stop themselves from growing and trying new things. Food for thought, at any rate.

Have a spiffy weekend, everyone! See you Monday.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

It seems like every week brings a new library information society to light. This week we have the Library Society of the World, "for library and information folks who want the advantages of a badly organized organization without having to pay money to be a member of such a beast." (As one of the many librarians-turned-lapsed-ALA-members, I say hooray!)

The librarians at the New Yorker have their own occasional column. I always thought that would be a cool place to work.

Google has a new sort-of-secret search engine in beta. It's called SearchMash, and so far I like it a lot, especially the category breakout options on the side.

Looking at books on a computer screen: Book Inscriptions is a collection, and With-Drawn is an art project of sorts. Also, in related websites, here is why you shouldn't forget about what you print out at a library.

A British survey of books recommended for boys centers on sci-fi and action books for the most part. I've only read about five books on the list, but a lot of them sound like they'd be great fun to read, and I've added them to my own "to read" list!

Muslim boys might be especially interested in a new comic, which features librarians as the originators of what turns out to be an epic quest.

Tomorrow: links from others!

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Today: world travels and spooky stuff. First, the travels:

Flickrvision shows you a map of photos being uploaded in real time, which is just completely awesome and also addictive.

America is full of crazy roadside architectural finds, and Agilitynut has most of them on her site! This is a great inspiration for planning a road trip.

Philadelphia has gone Egypt-crazy for their summer-long King Tut exhibit. There's a Tut Trolley! And an Egyptian-themed geocache hunt! And much more!

On to spooky stuff. Can people really see into the future, even if only for a few seconds? It looks as though they might indeed. (I would think this phenomenon includes those weird experiences when you "know" who's calling - without the help of Caller ID, I mean - or you know what the next song on the radio will be.)

Transhumanism is getting more and more press these days. I'm all for it, myself.

Mike Oldfield, who brought you the creepy "Tubular Bells," has had a dark sort of life himself.

Happy horror news: Hammer Films is BACK! Woohoo!

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

The British Library is helping create a sort of time capsule in Email Britain - if you're in the UK, you can contribute any time this month.

Now you can have your very own sonic screwdriver, like Dr. Who. You may be able to use it to fix electronics, but since we're on Earth and not Gallifrey it might be better to stick with Fixya, which helps the rest of us with repairing gizmos that have gone kablooey.

Atomic food containers! For your toxic leftovers! And then you can have a beer with a label you've created yourself. (Zazoo and Satori and I were talking the other night about how much fun it must be to design labels for wine and beer. This is the next best thing!)

And lastly, a funky little clock widget that you can either use to meditate or have as a desktop companion.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Hey guys -- free paintings! Seriously!

If you have an in-house artist in the form of a kid, perhaps he/she would be interested in contributing to Kid Cartoonists.

(Also, kid artists sometimes grow up to be in advertising, where they come up with ideas like this one, reminding Guinness drinkers to be responsible.)

Banksy is so well-known now that he's a little perturbed.

As music storage gets more compact, the great album art is vanishing. I remember studying album covers intently back in the day...hey! Get off my lawn!

Friday, May 11, 2007

Today: links from others! Well, not really. We have a link from Cassandra (thanks, Cassandra!) and a bunch of links from MAKE magazine, which is wonderful and awesome and deserving of your time.

From Cassandra: "A U.S. university shelves plans for a human 'body farm,' amid fears vultures could endanger low-flying planes."

In an area that is probably related, here's a list of edible insects. Crunchy goodness!

Wonderfully creepy insects and more are among the work of Christopher Conte. Giger fans, take note.

I am totally fascinated by the Neverwas Haul. I guess I should seriously consider going to Burning Man.

Cool historical geekiness: technical images of WWII.

Have a spiffy weekend, everyone! See you Monday.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Today, we seem to be about interesting new offers and projects. For instance:

Tomorrow: links from others.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Hi there. The Dental Reconstruction continues apace, but there is an end in sight, hooray!

The latest issue of Fortean Times is goth-oriented. Go and read it in a suitably spooky manner.

Meanwhile, if you're near San Antonio this summer, check out the dragons exhibit. Evidently there are dragons located around the city, too!

Adventures in websurfing: I read this interesting article about the Testatika from WikiDumper, then go from there to learn about the Methernithians, and then on to the actual Methernitha home page. Who knew?

And lastly, for sheer absurdity: Lucha Britannia.

Monday, May 07, 2007

Bits of artiness today:

Friday, May 04, 2007

Wow, it looks as if that Golden Compass daemon quiz below really does change according to people's feedback; yesterday I was a gibbon, today I am apparently an ocelot.

On to links from others! (Also, if you've sent me email and I haven't responded, I apologize - things are still a little frenetic around here.)

From Tim: a steampunky guitar. Ooooh, Ahhh.

From Danny: what did people in 1900 think the year 2000 would look like?

From Lindsay: people are coming up with sneaky ways to avoid library fines. This seems like more work than just paying a dollar or two, but anyway.

From Jase: possibly the ultimate photo of the Star Wars mailboxes.

Also, just for fun: the bizarre world of minor league baseball mascots. We are big fans of the Montgomery Biscuits at Spooky Librarians HQ. I think our friend Scot even has a baseball cap with the mascot!

Have a spiffy weekend, everyone. See you Monday. Probably. Perhaps Tuesday. (The Great Dental Reconstruction continues...)

Thursday, May 03, 2007





I haven't read The Golden Compass yet, but the movie is coming and you can find out your inner daemon. If you don't think I resemble a gibbon (?!?), you can click above and say so.

Not only is Saturday Cinco de Mayo and Boys' Day, it is also Derby Day and Free Comic Book Day. There's something for everyone.

Hey, the Library of Congress has its own weblog now! Sweet!

Found via Library Stuff: a weblog detailing anxiety and technology.

Found via Libraryola: a list of rejected petitions for Parliament. Some are awesome. (The whole site of petitions is interesting - go explore!)

Found via librarian.net: fun with LOLbrarians. If you have to ask, you might be better off not knowing. If you're geeky and well versed in the ways of the interweb, though, you will probably appreciate it.

Tomorrow: cool links, sent in from others!

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

The always-wonderful xkcd just put up a map of online communities which is frighteningly accurate, I think.

Saturday is not just Cinco de Mayo, it's also Boys' Day in Japan. Some lucky Japanese boys may score this Vader samurai costume. How awesome is that?

Some more pop culture fun: this collection of bubblegum cards features old-school monsters and weird little quips.

The A-Team is going to reunite and try to contact George Peppard from beyond the grave. I love it when a seance comes together!

Good soldier news: Wiccan soldiers are finally allowed to use Wiccan symbols on military gravesites.

Bad soldier news: No more blogging or personal emails without clearance.

And finally, one church has a really unique approach to marketing itself.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

In all the craziness last week, I didn't get a chance to post about the Great Turtle Race, where you could watch huge sea turtles make their way across the sea. The race is pretty much over, but there are still lots of interesting things to see on the site. Perhaps next year we can watch it as it happens!

The BBC wants to make its entire archives available for free online. Yay!

The UK wants to make analog radio extinct. Boo!

What's so great about memorizing piano pieces, anyway? You know, this is a good question. I played piano for a long time and the worst part was the anxiety about forgetting the piece, not playing it.

I am very not a morning person, and caffeinated soap would definitely help me get up in the mornings...if I didn't take showers at night. Hm.

And lastly, for the science-minded: the odd and sometimes very entertaining world of biological nomenclature.