“When I was very young, my half-sister Jenny died tragically. She was
a teenager, and it was the 80's. She left behind a wardrobe of brightly
colored clothes, rainbow stickers, life-size paintings, doodles on
lined paper, and hundreds of tapes. These constitute most of my
memories of her. It's sad for me to look at these things, and usually I
don't. But a couple of summers ago I found a tape of hers with a
startling cover photograph – this was Footloose. I couldn't
stop listening: it was a portrait of 80's love, desire, pain, freedom,
and frenzy; of being a teenager in a time of change. By listening, I
could step into Jenny's shoes, see things from her vantage point. I
could be emancipated by rock and roll and walkmen, just as she had
been. We could listen together.”
I start my new job tomorrow and so it's the usual mix of nervousness and excitement today. But to be honest, I'm more excited than nervous for this one and the biggest thing I'm worried about is whether I should take the bus or drive followed closely by “what should I take for lunch?” since I'm not going to get home for lunch everyday like I did in Weyburn.
Besides that cutting edge sense of fashion of course?
Both are mainstream artists who have chosen to release their latest works online. Moore's new movie, “Slacker Uprising” will be available for download on September 23.
It sounds more like a home movie/travelogue than one of his more full-formed commercial works but this is still pretty innovative and may lead others to follow suit as was the case with Radiohead's release of “In Rainbows”.
“The movie is basically a document of Moore’s tour through 62 US cities
in swing states during the 2004 U.S. presidential election; obviously,
it didn’t work out as well as Moore intended it, so now he’s hoping he
can recycle it for another go.”
“A new library in Casanera, Colombia shows us what humankind might have
built with sticks and stones if they'd never discovered bricks, steel,
and electricity. The Villanueva Public Library was built on a modest
budget, designed by a bunch of university students in Bogota. And
instead of importing fancy, expensive materials, builders used local
timber and stones from nearby rivers to lower transportation costs.
Then, instead of hiring experienced construction workers, they trained
local people to build it.”
(via Reddit)
On another topic, a question for all of you MacVangelists out there. If you were to buy a new MacBook, which one would you go for? Is the MacBook Pro worth what seems to be a substantial extra cost? Do any of you run Parallels or other software to run Windows for PC-only apps? Any other thoughts somebody looking to possibly convert should consider? I'm just kicking tires here but with a new laptop in my near horizon, I want to check out all the options.
There's a difference between lists of “Books I'm Reading” and “Books I Have Out From the Library”. This is because I tend to take out a lot of books that sound interesting or I've heard about via various sources (Internet, magazine articles, friend recommendations, publisher catalogues) but usually only get around to reading a few of them in the end.
What I do instead is use the library books I have out as a “mini-library” where I can pick out a new book as I finish a different one. (I've just finished “Shush…Dispatches From A Public Library” and “Parking Lot Rules and 75 Other Ideas For Great Parenting” – neither of which really blew me away by the way and am currently reading “X Saves The World: How Generation X Got the Shaft But Can Still Keep Everything From Sucking” which I'm quite enjoying.)
Here's what's on my Library Bookshelf right now… “Blood Meridian” – Cormac McCarthy “Free For All: Oddballs, Geeks and Gangstas in the Public Library” “Armageddon in Retrospect” – Kurt Vonnegut “The Nasty Bits” – Anthony Bourdain “Obama: From Promise to Power” “Around the World in 57 1/2 Gigs” – Dave Bidini “I Sold My Soul on Ebay” An assortment of five or six children's board and easy books A couple paperbacks for Shea A couple parenting books – one on play, one on helping your child sleep A few magazines – Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, Wired
What's that quote? “If you want to know a man, take a look at his bookshelf?” There's truth to that although I would argue that our bookshelves are often compiled to reflect the public persona we wish to present to the world, not necessarily so that they reflect who we really are. (How many people own copies of some “literary classic” that they've never read and never will? How many people conveniently store their copy of the latest King/Steele/Clancy/Grisham away from their bookshelf to keep it from judging eyes?)
So is my library bookshelf the public me or the private me? (I'll resist the urge to say “it has to be 'public you' since you're blogging about it, dumbass!”) Well, to my credit, I didn't “forget” to list any books I have out right now (honest) although there are times when I probably would have.
But when I mentioned the two most recent library books I'd read earlier, I did neglect to “mention” the third last book I read, a cultural studies survey of professional wrestling for example. So probably a mix of both depending on the day, the time and who's looking at it.
“Privacy is dead – get over it [part 2]
is a talk by private investigator Steve Rambam. It's a talk he has been
giving for a number of years where he shows how privacy is being taken
away, not by sinister plots but because people are giving it away. With
people putting up everything and nothing on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter
and so on, as well as a growing quantity of data held in private
databases, he shows how easy it is to find out enormous amounts of data
on just about anyone.”
It's a 3-hour speech so I haven't watched the whole thing yet. But I thought I'd pass it along since I'm sure some of you are interested.
Earlier this week, I posted that John McCain had picked “sexy librarian” as his running mate. (If we're going with librarian stereotypes, we should also mention that McCain personifies “Grumpy Old Man”, Obama is “Keener Weiner” and Biden is “that one city councilor who supports the library but probably never sets foot in the door”.)
Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs
into her policy at times. “She asked the library how she could go about
banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had
inappropriate language in them. “The librarian was aghast.” That woman,
Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports
from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not
giving “full support” to the mayor.
Holy shit. This is pretty exciting, the more I read about it (and a headline like “Meet Chrome, Google's Windows Killer” doesn't hurt either!)
Although I have to admit that my first reaction was, “Why would I ever switch from Firefox? I love Firefox.” Time will tell. I used to love Mozilla. And I used to love WordPerfect. And I used to love Tetris. Time moves on and the new replaces the old. Okay, I still love Tetris though!)
(originally found via link to a different site than TechCrunch on Reddit)
Tomorrow's a day off for the working world but for me, it's the first day of a full week off before I begin my new job. I'm pretty excited to have the week even though I know we'll never get done everything that we want to do.
I mean, our list ranges from easy picks like “change that burnt out lightbulb” to more difficult ones like “completely kill all weeds and other unwanted pests that now infect our yard after what is, in many ways, two straight years of neglect.”
As for weed killing, preferably in a way that leaves no poisons that may also be harmful to Pace. I grew up, not exactly on a farm, but close enough to that world (I was raised for the first couple of years of my life in the bulk fuel dealership my parents ran) that I've had my dose of poison and it's too late to worry about that. But I'd like to try to protect him as much as possible. And at the same time, I know it's futile because we basically live in a world that gives us cancer and all kinds of other crap, just because we live in it. “Here son, have some Red Dye #49 licorice.”
Some other goals for the week? Buy new shoes. Decide if I'm going to be a bus rider or a car commuter. Go into RPL and sign the papers to make it official. Have naps whenever possible. Change aforementioned lightbulb. Kill aforementioned weeds. Possibly buy a lawn mower if I can find a good deal. Maybe get a book or two read. Catch up on all sorts of loose ends I've really let lag in the past month – just the day-to-day basics of keeping up with regular mail, e-mail, etc.
Although it's tough leaving Weyburn, Shea's happy to be back in the city I think. I'm looking at the rough plan we drew up for the week and she's already got not one but two social outings planned! (I have zero if you're keeping track.)
My parents are coming up for a day or three to watch Pace while Shea and I try to compress two houses worth of clothes, toys and other crap into one (which is really our main goal for the week if I'm being honest – pretty much everything else I listed above is lower on the priority list). But with them here, perhaps Shea and I can steal away to such foreign delights such as a “movie” or a “brew pub”. That would be swell!
I have to do some inquiries about my pension and it's sort of surreal to have one after 10 years of no pension (one job paid us extra in lieu of a pension, one didn't have one.) I don't really worry about my pension and I suspect a lot of people in my generation feel the same way. At the same time, I had a grandfather who told me to start saving 10% of everything I made when I got my first job at 16. I think I've kept that up pretty faithfully for the most part my whole working life. That helps reduce the retirement worry. (Someone asked if I got a bonus when I left SRL. No, but I did get to cash a big chunk of my unused health benefits – they're on an ASO plan – and transfer that into my RSP. So that was sort of like a bonus in some ways.)
Shea and I sold hot dogs for La Leche League today and I felt like I was back in high school selling food for the SRC again.
Went to a bbq on Saturday and a friend said they knew someone who named their kid Revan…which is apparently the name of a Dark Lord of the Sith in Star Wars. Two thoughts – a) Pace isn't so bad and b) man, I have some ultra-geeky friends.
…and yes, the pun (such as it were) in the title of this post was intentional. Good-night.
A Saskatchewan library director who defrauded his system of half a million dollars (and possibly as much as one million dollars though that wasn't proven) over a period of fourteen years via orders to a false US-based publisher that he'd set up himself was sentenced earlier this week to two years in prison less a day.
Too bad the media kept identifying him as a “Saskatoon librarian” as this might give the impression he worked for SPL instead of the truth which was that he was director for a rural system that is based in Saskatoon but operates in rural communities south of that city.
