Links from others, because it's Friday and that's what we do here on Fridays. Yay! Thanks, everyone.

From Holly: angry chickens and invading ducks.

From Glenna: the weird and wacky world of porn.

From Chris of Libraryola: the steampunky creations of Jake von Slatt!

From a random weblog: Japan is featuring Cucumber Pepsi for the summer. The Club Creatures and I are intrigued by this concept.

Have a spiffy weekend, everyone! See you Monday.

Interesting news: the Internet Archive is now an official library!

Here's something Bunny will like: a recommendation that librarians play more video games. Woo! I bet a lot of Generation X librarians will go along with that.

Speaking of Gen X, a lot of us grew up reading Nancy Drew. The University of Iowa has a great digital exhibit on Mildred Wirt Benson, who was the main author for many years behind the Carolyn Keene pseudonym. Good stuff.

If you've ever wondered about the secret lives of law librarians, here's a glimpse. (PDF file, be warned.) I was a little surprised at how many hobbies/activities I share with my ilk.

If you're not a librarian but like to organize your personal library as if you are one, Lifehacker has some excellent tips (and the comments on the post have even more). Spooky librarian confession time: we have next to no organization for our books at home, other than the most general of categories. Maybe this will change when we get more bookshelves. I'd love to get cool arty ones like these Tangram creations, but I think we need something a little more practical. And bigger.

Tomorrow: links from others!

Spooky beauty: Suzy Poling does great work, and the interactive Fantastic Degradation is a beautiful (and bleak) look at abandoned hospitals.

Spooky books, in Ohio no less! Hooray! A pilgrimage is being planned.

Real life spookiness: the new playing cards issued to soldiers have archaeological sites to avoid, instead of people to capture. Er. Good luck with that.

Also, why not see how much fun gerrymandering can be, with a game that lets you redistrict towns? (Is "redistricting" a word?)

Today: science and fun.

In science, the periodic table is enjoying a resurgence of popularity. Now there's a periodic table of the internet, and a collaboration of artists is creating a tangible version of the original table, too.

Everyone makes fun of me for being a devoted Thompson Twins fan in the '80s. But did YOUR favorite band have a computer game of their very own? (Journey fans, don't answer that.)

The cute little knitted and crocheted figures have infiltrated the sci-fi world. I'd like to see a knitted Death Star. With exploding action!

If you liked the Baby Name Wizard, you will love Nymbler, which asks for your favorite names and then provides other possibilities based on your preferences. Hours of fun!

Today is the usual Monday mishmash of art, music and words.

Art: The Global Cities exhibition at the Tate looks really interesting (then again, I seem to find almost every exhibition at the Tate interesting). Speaking of cities, the fountains of Rome have gone dry - not due to global warming (yet, anyway), but due to some unfortunate worker ruining the aqueduct. Oops.

Music: tomorrow will be a day of silence for many net radio stations, as a warning of what may happen if costs keep rising and they're forced to shut down. Meanwhile, the International Music Score Library Project continues to grow (it's ok to look at music online, just not to hear it!), and the Really Terrible Orchestra is, well, really terrible, but in an entertaining way.

Words: So, like, is it not cool to have a big vocabulary these days? (Apparently not, according to this article.)

Links from others! Thanks, everyone!

From Bunny: "A website that lists up to 33 ways to watch TV for free online. Kill your television!"

From Cassandra: the image of the helpless woman in modern pop culture, a look at the Dangerous Book for Boys phenomenon, and, most dangerous of all, the perils of sand.

From Dawnowar: Drawergeeks! Check out their latest pictures, based on kids' drawings.

From Holly: the weird and wonderful world of signs.

Swiped from Scalzi: the pain of Emo Crayolas.

Have a spiffy weekend, everyone! By the way, this may or may not be true.

Happy Solstice, everyone!

Summertime means it's time for summer associates in the library. This article is interesting not only for the library PR, but for the comments on the article. (Welcome to the life of a law librarian.)

Forget the naysayers - it's time for another Pimp My Bookcart contest! Woo!

Ask.com gets ignored most of the time, and it's a shame because they're coming out with some really interesting search engine ideas. Here's their recent explanation of their "morph" concept when searching.

The new hip thing in literature is termed "misery lit." Ew. (I do love the British way with words, though - someone in the article called the book titles "wince-making.")

And lastly, something not literature or library-related whatsoever: the Lead Glove Awards, given out to lousy baseball players. Amazingly enough, no one on the Cincinnati team made the list (well, Adam Dunn got an honorable mention).

Tomorrow: links from others!

This just in from Cassandra: the European Space Agency is looking for volunteers to simulate a mission to Mars. We are considering posing as Europeans to get the gig.

For the more Earthbound (well, somewhat), the FlugTag is happening in Nashville this weekend! Go and see homemade aircraft crash to the ground! It'll be fun! There will also be lots of Red Bull around, apparently, so even if you don't get airborne you might at least get a caffeine buzz.

Strangemaps has a nifty little map up that compares the GDP of U.S. states to those of other countries. My state is Australia. Woohoo! (Bigger, clearer view of map image here.)

Respectance is a newer way to pay tribute to those who have died. I expect a lot more of these will show up as more and more people get online.

And for the spooky among us: a well-done Flash version of Dante's Inferno. Even the intro (and I usually skip over Flash intros if possible) is cool.

Happy happy birthday Cassandra!

The interwebs have been creaky over here today, so this will be a short one. More tomorrow, hopefully.

Wired has some good articles lately - one about arcade games from the Soviet era, one about the rise of steampunk.

Meanwhile, in modern design there's the Gravity-Powered Bookshelf. I think we need something like that - our entertainment center recently decided the weight of the world was too much and fell all to pieces.

RIP, Charley Harper. I love his art.

More art-related links: watch how Western women have been depicted in paintings over the last 500 years. For more modern pop culture, the Wicked Crispy weblog features some super-cute renditions of heroes, monsters and the like.

Mark Mothersbaugh of DEVO is an artist as well, and has a whole oeuvre of postcard diaries. Who knew? In other music news, AOL has a list of the 77 best uses of pop songs in movies. I have many bones to pick with this list. (For one thing, "In Your Eyes" should be much higher. And there are a huge number of missing songs/movies!)

In literature news, even Geoffrey Chaucer is getting into the LOLcats meme, and has put his Canterbury Tales characters in the new format.

Another instance of classic literature meeting new technology: Twitterlit. Guess the book!

And finally, the Telegraph ran a contest to see who could combine the most infuriating phrases into a few paragraphs. (As an aside, I've been mentally compiling a list of annoying phrases used during baseball game broadcasts. Granted, our team is lousy this year and there's not much to talk about...)

Links from others! Thanks, everyone.

From Tim: the story behind a suspected UFO in Utah. I am intrigued by this man's business ideas.

From Kazendei: the most amazing steampunky computer ever.

From Cassandra: Why Feminists Fight With Each Other.

From Dawnowar: a new reality show is looking for the next Elvira. Noooo!

From Bunny: a German squirrel goes on a berserker rampage , then meets his match in an angry 82-year-old wielding a crutch.

And finally, for those of us who were teenagers in the '80s, check out the BBC's site on 1980s Britain. Ah, memories.

Have a spiffy weekend, everyone. See you Monday.

You know why there are logic problems on standardized tests? So you can learn how to make vacation schedules at work, that's why.

Ahem. Anyway, on to the links!

Michael Gorman, former ALA president and "Blog People" hater, is at it again. (The link is to a well-thought-out response to his articles, not to the articles themselves.) He raises some good points, but not in a very good fashion, I think.

Meanwhile, libraries (and librarians) are learning how to work with Google, not against it. Good plan!

Google Reader is now available in "offline" format, which is brilliant and reminds me of the days of downloading newsreader articles to read offline back in the days of usenet.

Some fun links: Kakophone tells you what was happening on a certain day on the earth, in the sky, and on Mars. I just found out I was born during a new moon. Cool!

When the superheroes need to get together and save the world from some as-yet unknown menace, they won't have to worry about how to find each other - they're being cataloged. (I think it would be great to be a researcher for the Justice League. Or even the Legion of Doom.)

Tomorrow: links from others! Also, more items for trade will be up at Bartertown, most likely.

Man, and they thought Meet Cleaver Theatre would never change anyone's life. They were WRONG! Witness this lovely tattoo based on our show's logo, sent to us from someone on MySpace who apparently watches the show, or has seen us on YouTube, or at a convention, and has been swept up in the madness. Woo!

And look, another SpookyLibrarians announcement! Just in time to rescue you from the upcoming summer doldrums, we've started something new. Bartertown will go on throughout the summer. See something you like? Have something to trade? Go and have a look! We have a lot more to add to the list, so keep checking back. There's something for everyone. I bet.

Incidentally, today you are supposed to blog like it's the end of the world, for the zombies are coming and we're all gonna die. Obviously I am not following proper protocol today. I did, however, find out today that they're closing Antioch, so I feel like it's the end of the world, at least. (Seriously, this is terrible.) Even the superheroes are no help these days, now that they've been busted for steroid use. Only Bartertown can save us now.

According to Human for Sale, I am currently worth $1,965,000. If the research workload keeps up, I may be worth considerably less by the end of the year. (This week may be a little erratic.)

This week marks the debut of the first full-length film on YouTube! It's only up for a limited time, so watch it while you can.

Mashable offers some MySpace layouts that are simple and nice and will not cause you to jam a fork in your eye. I think I may switch my (boring) profile to look like this.(Meanwhile, the designers who came up with the logo for London's 2012 Olympics might want to talk to some of these guys, before their creation causes any more seizures.)

Here's an odd sidenote to the ongoing "internet will destroy books" argument: we're publishing more books than ever. Huh.

Artsjournal, home of many good weblogs, now has one called Flyover specifically devoted to those of us not on the coasts.

I'm a sucker for anything even marginally resembling a World's Fair. The always-fantastic Bibliodyssey has some sketches and prints from Seattle's Century 21 Exposition. (MST3K fans may remember a short from this same exposition, detailing how one day we'd have push button phones and call forwarding.)

Bibilodyssey also pointed me to the wonderful works of Sergey Tyukanov. Wow.

The BBC is running a series on the British Museum that looks fabulous. Hopefully it'll air on the other side of the pond sometime soon.

Oops. Turns out that the Creation Museum's "Adam" has a kinky past. That actually seems fitting, doesn't it?

In today's links-from-others edition, Cassandra sends in an article about the New Atheists (no word yet on what they think of the Creation Museum) and also the reaction to the upcoming Harry Potter movie by the always-entertaining folks at Landover Baptist.

Also from Cassandra: Bonnaroo is almost upon us, the band list looks fantastic, and Cassandra is going. I demand a report when she gets back!

The 2008 watch list of endangered world monuments is out, and a lot of fantastic places are in trouble. Go see them while you can, and do what you can to help them survive.

And lastly, some wonderful t-shirts, courtesy of the Imaginary Foundation.

Have a spiffy weekend, everyone! See you Monday. (If you're at the pride parade on Sunday, we'll see you there, too! Say hi!)

Compact shelving can be fun, especially when it's set to music!

A "Pimp My Bookcart" contest at a library is offending people. Sheesh.

Found via Librarians' Index to the Internet: a guide to the robes you see at college graduation ceremonies.

Found via Research Buzz: the fantastic Cinema Treasures! By the way, drive-in theaters may be making a comeback; one just opened in California.

Everybody has a niche search engine these days, even the fabric brigade.

Tomorrow: links from others!

This weekend is Cincinnati's Pride Weekend, which means parades and performances and dancing and a generally fabulous time for all. Stop by and say hi. We'll be there!

Farther west, the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle begins an exhibit featuring costumes for many sci-fi classic films and shows. It goes through September, and looks awesome.

Southern California needs a good transit system! Here is one of many proposed metro plans.

Meanwhile, some enterprising Dane decided to translate all Stockholm's metro stops into English, with the expected quirky results.

And finally, a great column from the Onion: I Believe in Evolution, Except for the Whole Triassic Period.

Today's moment of brilliance comes to you by way of the Algorithm March, which you must go watch now. It's from a Japanese children's show called Pythagoras Switch, which focuses on patterns and Rube Goldberg devices and is, simply, awesome.

Meanwhile, over here in America, we have flavored tap water and we're freaking out about wifi. Um. I think I see the problem.

I'm not sure if these carpet skates originated in Japan or the U.S., but the detail pictures are ninja-like and make the product look like oodles of fun.

Jaiku: a competitor to Twitter. Discuss.

If it's Monday, it must mean art links...

Music: there's a new subgenre of weblogs popping up which examine a band's work, song by song. Some are nothing more than "I remember when I first heard this song and it's cool;" others dig deeper into what the songs are about lyrically and musically. One Imaginary Blog lives among the latter, and focuses on The Cure. It's just getting started, so hop along for the ride.

Cinema: speaking of the Cure, I saw Gypsy 83 last night with the Club Creatures and Dawnowar. It's partly a roadtrip movie, partly a Pretty in Pink weirdos-versus-the-preppies story, and follows two young people trying to get out of Ohio to make it to New York City. Oh, and there's an Amish guy thrown in. And a lot of Cure, Siouxsie and Bauhaus. ("This hits a little too close to home" was said several times over the course of the film!)

Art: Joseph Cornell is a new discovery. Also, there's now a Frank Frazetta museum in Pennsylvania! There's also a virtual Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies that welcomes contributors.

And lastly, for those who think Twitter is too fast-paced and like letters better: Dawdlr.

Links from others! Many thanks, everyone.

From Cassandra, a whole slew of stuff:

• Reality TV goes a little too far - a Dutch show is going to donate a kidney to the winner.
• Potterpalooza reinvigorates (and/or confuses) New Orleans.
• Meanwhile, a man relies on psychics to help him with his plantation homes nearby.
• A look inside the creationist museum.
• "Monogamy is for the birds," Cassandra says.
• Some Kenyan women are immune to AIDS, and no one knows exactly why.
• The internet is changing everything, even the way we mourn.

From Jase: the Muppets do Lord of the Rings, and look quite stylish in doing so. This is from the storefront of a Toronto shop, which is now on my "must-visit" list.

Found via that last link: Look! Optimash Prime! Hee.

From Satori: Sweden opens an embassy in Second Life. No word yet on whether wannabe expatriates can seek asylum there.

Have a spiffy weekend, everyone! See you Monday.