Saturday, September 20, 2008

Twaddle

Allright. I have a twitter account. Now I can let all my friends and relations know that I am going to have chinese food tonight. I'm sure they'll be absolutely fascinated. How inane. This is the online equivalent of the people you see pushing their grocery carts and talking on their phones, saying, "Hi. Yeah, I'm at the grocery store. Buying groceries. Ooo, asparagus is on sale." My god. This is like blogging without a topic. "Havin' a cup of coffee." "Think I'll go buy a magazine." "Wonder what's on TV." "How 'bout them Buckeyes." Who uses this? Someone who is online all the time. All. The. Time.

Yeah, yeah, no doubt I've misunderstood the purpose of this wonderous innovation. No doubt this is a way for friends and relations to keep in close touch, learn about each other, whatever. I can do without being tweeted at. "What's that you say? The Chipotle you had for lunch is giving you gas? My, my! I am SO glad you told me."

Could this have an application in library service? I rather hope not. But if you wanna follow me around and learn all about my adventures, here: http://twitter.com/meesterdavid

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Pulp Fiction

My librarything library shall be devoted to exceptionally brutal crime fiction. This handful are recent reads; I'm sure I'll come up with more.http://www.librarything.com/catalog/meesterdavid

On the couch

Monday, September 8, 2008

All the news that's fit to print...

Man, there are a lot of really stupid people out there. I went shopping for news feeds via the suggested tools, and yes, I found some to add. I was continually drawn to the comments on each story, and I found myself reading these more carefully than the news itself. They say opinions are like...well, they say everyone has one. I am amazed at some of the hillbillies out there. How do these people feed themselves? How do they live?

It is no accident that I am a librarian in a public library. I think libraries are important. I think access to information is vital to a democratic society. I take seriously the mission to help every single person who crosses our threshhold. I would be pretty lousy at my job if I didn't like people and think they were deserving of our service and resources.

But sheesh, all of that milk of human kindness stuff goes right out the window after five minutes of being fed news articles about the world and all its problems, followed by the shallow, hateful comments of the willfully ignorant. It really challenges me, all this drivel.

I just have to have the discipline to read my handily-delivered news feeds, right down to the last word, and ignore the comments of those awful, awful people. Come on, face it: Palin is a jerk. She has as much business running the country as, let's see, who's a really good example of an inept and unscrupulous scoundrel, oh, I know, gwb. I know some disagree; well, opinions are like...well, they've got a right to their opinions, but they are a fools. AAAA, ranting again! Jeez. Imagine how much worse this would be if I were writing from home at 3am?

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Never Be Bored Again!

Bloglines! Marvelous! Now I can simply sit here and be fed a steady stream of amusement! Never again will I have to strike out on my own in search of time-wasting diversions, for here they are, served up on a silver platter. Most convenient!

Of course this is useful, but only if you subscribe to practical, substantial feeds. But, let's be honest: who's gonna do that? No, we are going to subscribe to stuff like bizarre news stories, humorous pet photos, daily 80s TV trivia quizzes, that kind of stuff.

I've actually tried to balance my list. For every time-waster (New Urban Legends), I try to have a semi-work-related feed (NYT Book Review), or one that is socially redeeming (Obama!).

Hey, how about that Obama guy? Did you ever think we'd wake up from the nightmare and get a president we could actually be proud of? I know what Michelle Obama meant when she made her much-criticized comment. I, too, am proud of this country, and yet, let's face it, we're all a little embarrassed by our government. I'm no less embarrassed that there are millions in this country who voted for w, not once, but TWICE! If you still have a bush/cheney bumper sticker on your car, you are an idiot, completely beyond hope, and I will tell you that to your face. AAAA! SEE?! I knew this would happen. My blog has become a rant! I'm a ranter! I sat down and started typing without really having anything to say, and now I'm a rambling ranter! Look away, turn away now!

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

At home with the lights out

Technology is wonderous. Not wonderful, mind you, but certainly wonderous. I think that if one wants to live peacefully, mindfully, real-ly, then technology can be a tremendous distraction. Ninety percent of technology makes our lives easy, or--never mind easy--makes our lives possible. Any of you old-timers remember what it was like to take a long car trip to a place you'd never been, without Mapquest, GPS, a phone, for goodness sake? Anyone remember standing in line, a literal line comprised of people, for tickets? Anyone remember having to carry cash? The remaining ten percent of technology, that stuff we refer to as "technology" in this context, generates ninety percent of the din. Blogs. Photo sharing. The mythical online community. Streaming video. Games. Toys. Widgets. Whatever.
We are obliged to be reasonably fluent in this new language. It is no longer enough to be able to help our patrons with basic survival stuff like job and apartment listings, printing tax forms and pay stubs, opening an email account, searching for information. Now we have to know our way around when it comes to that noisy, sexy ten percent. Is it really important to know about amusements like how to design your own trading card? Do we really care if this guy wants to rip off a bunch of music via Limewire and load it onto his iPod? Should we have to be up on the nuances of various social networking sites? Well, yeah. We're expected to. If we want to be good at our jobs, we have to.
Heaven help me, though, it is exhausting. Bombarded as we are with nifty new how-did-we-ever-live-without-these online "tools," I sometimes feel like an overstimulated child who needs a nap. It's all really, really cool, and surely we will never again want for distractions, but at the end of the we could be excused if we wanted to go home and sit in a quiet, dark room.

Elvis at Alpine


I should never have done this, simply because once you do Elvis to promote SRC, there's no place else to take it. The year: 2006. The theme: "Tune in: Read." The mild-mannered, bespectacled librarian is introduced to the gymful of kids and parents. He presses play on a boom box and darts behind a curtain. Soon the audience hears the strains of "Also Sprach Zarathustra." Then the band launches into CC Rider, and Elvis Himself bursts onto the stage. The King exhorts the kids and parents to come into the library to sign up for SRC. They do, of course they do. They might have anyway, but you can't say no to Elvis.


Maybe I had to do this, after all. Once it occured to me that doing SRC visits dressed as Elvis might...make an impression...then it always would have been out there as a possibility. This was a demon that needed to be slain.