LISNews presents their annual list of ten library-related stories that shaped 2007.
Closer to home, our top story of the day is that Shea won the AM1190 “Turkey Trotter” today by stalking the radio station's van as she drove home from a doctor's appointment. It parked in its “secret location” (one block from our house) and Shea was there banging on their window as soon as they announced their location. So we get a free 15lb turkey and I guess we're providing the main course for Christmas dinner! 
Now that I've been blogging for a year (actually heading towards two years I think), I've started to think about some posts that may become recurring features.
For example, last year around this time, I posted a link to a site that collects all the end of year “best of” lists in movies, music, books and so on (although strangely, I titled that post about a “25 Food Hacks” site I found and threw in the “Best of” site link as an afterthought.)
So today, I'm correcting that mistake by linking to Fimoculous as my one and only site o' the day. Enjoy!
Hard to believe it's less than week to Christmas. (Actually, it's hard to believe that it's been seven months – happy birthday Pace, by the way – since time last had any semblance of meaning.)
Anyhew, here's another fun Ask Metafilter question on a Christmas theme.
As best as I remember, at our house, the Santa gifts were wrapped, often in the same paper as our other gifts and with tags written in my dad's handwriting. (Even with big red flags like that, I don't think I still ever caught on to the whole Santa thing although that was probably a case of willful ignorance as much as anything. Of course, I'm also the type of person who never sees the twist coming in movies either nor tries to figure them out.)
Interestingly, it was the same guy who clued me into the Santa thing on the playground in kindergarten or grade one who also made me stop believing in god a few years later. I'll save that story for another day though… 
Shea has suddenly decided that duct tape would be a good Christmas gift for Pace.
I asked the following question on Ask MetaFilter and got a lot of song suggestions I wouldn't otherwise have known about.
“From now on, we'll have to muddle through somehow/So have yourself a Merry Little Christmas now.” | Ask MetaFilter
There are other similar questions that can be found with some quick Googling – for example:
Things I Love Today: Sad Christmas Songs
“Sad” Christmas Songs
I was looking at my blog stats today and started thinking about RSS (really simple syndication for anyone who doesn't know – a technology that allows you to use an external source – either your e-mail client or a web site or a piece of software or whatever) to track your favourite sites.
So, if you use RSS, you don't have to manually visit this site to see if I've posted that day or not. Instead, you can use your RSS reader to track this site (and many others all at once) to see at a glance via a single interface if there any updates to any site you follow, usually via a brief title and a excerpt from the post appearing in the RSS reader.
It's a great technology and makes it easy for me to follow dozens of web sites when in the past, I might have only followed a few on a regular basis. But I also realise it has some significant downsides…
– most RSS readers (okay, the one I use does this so I'm happy to generalize about all of them ) only show new posts and don't show comments. So you're less likely to read the comments on a blog (or even know if a post *has* comments) and that's often where the most entertaining, informative content is to be found.
– this probably also discourages readers from becoming active participants themselves if they're not right there with the “Submit Comment” button in front of them (I know I'm as guilty of this as anyone with the blogs of friends that I follow via RSS but rarely comment on. Sorry all!)
– if you don't at least occasionally visit the blog directly, you also won't know if the blogger has added new widgets or other features. For example, I have a feed of my del.icio.us bookmarks on my blog and often post interesting articles there that I find but don't want to devote a full blog entry to. Unless you visit my blog directly (or subscribe to the RSS feed for my del.icio.us content specifically – yes, it gets that convoluted), you don't see those articles. I also recently added a widget that shows where people are visiting my site from geographically. But for many readers, this is probably the first time they even know I did this.
– you also don't see if people have redesigned the look of their site visually unless they tell you in a blog post that shows up in your RSS feed that they've done so.
By far, the largest number of referrers I get to my site are from Google Reader and Bloglines, two of the main RSS providers. So, it's hard to tell with my stats package, but I'd guess that RSS readers outnumber direct visitors by 2:1 and possibly even 3:1. (And don't even get me started on Facebook – I syndicate my content there too but am constantly doubting whether this is a wise thing or not for all kinds of reasons – of which this article is just one (big) example.)
So yeah, anyhow, the point of all of this is to say that RSS is great (for the most part), I use it all the time (for the most part) and if you use it to visit this site, make sure you stop by directly every once in awhile to see what's new, throw in a comment if you're thusly inspired and see if I ever get brave and decide to change the default style I've had in place for over a year now.
Google will soon be releasing their own take on a Wikipedia-style of information resource – Google Knols (screenshot).
Some of the significant differences
will be: named authors (who can choose to receive a portion of ad
revenue for the “knol” pages they write) instead of Wikipedia’s
anonymous author model. The site will allow multiple “knols” on a
single topic (each will be written by a single author) with the
community voting for the best one and suggesting changes in a separate
area instead of the collaborative style of composing articles used on
Wikipedia.
(via MetaFilter)
Flames 9, Lightning 6 – Game Notes
I didn't see the game tonight (getting Santa pictures at the mall in Weyburn is apparently more important 
) but I saw the highlights and wow. A see-saw battle in the first meeting between these two teams in Tampa since the Lightning beat Calgary in Game Seven of the Stanley Cup Finals in 2004. (Don't get me started on the NHL schedule and how it mislays the focus on inter-division rivalries at the expense of making sure at least each team has a home and home with each other every single year. Sidney Crosby finally playing in Vancouver last Saturday after being in the league for two years is another example.)
The game was back and forth, all the stars were shining, and then the Flames pull away in the third for a convincing victory led by Captain Jarome Iginla. (In 2004, I often made the comparison that the Stanley Cup final was like Superman II. Iggy was Superman fighting the heroic battle against three foes, all with the same level of (hockey) super-powers but leaving him badly outgunned. The three bad-guys were Vinny LeCavalier, Brad Richards and Martin St. Louis (he was the female bad guy 
) and the result in 2004 wasn't the typical Hollywood ending as the Flames just simply ran out of gas and ultimately lost after having two chances to win the Cup after going up 3 games to 2 in the series. So Iggy had some redemption of his own last night with a third period hat trick and all is right with the world again. Dion Phaneuf also had a wicked game with five assists (which makes my pool stats very happy!) and Kipper looks to be getting back to form after a (typical) slow start.
From the Flames thread linked at the start of this post:
Dearest Gary Bettman,
Enclosed is Grandma's Famous High-Scoring Recipe avec Chocolate Chips
1 part league's highest scorer (Lecavelier's Special)
1 part league's second higher scorer (Iginla Deluxe)
Add 6 parts extra sour defense (Calgary Brand)
Add 2 parts chopped up goaltending (Tampa Regular Mix)
Mix thoroughly for 60 minutes (as per NHL regulation cook book)
Serve on a bed of half-melted slush and ice (St. Pete Times Forum Specialty)
Give chocolate chips to people who got screwed in pools
“No, it's just my CLA membership renewal, son.” (Just kidding – it's actually the address insert from the latest Feliciter. And hey, at least I didn't give him the shrink wrap to play with!)
Following up nicely on yesterday's post about Yahoo Answers! (with its passing compliment of Ask MetaFilter), I see today that a MetaFilter user has taken the time to compile and categorize a master list of book-related questions from Ask MetaFilter in Wiki format.
Called ReadMe, I especially like that the first question listed on the page, under the heading “Especially Loved AskMes of the Broadest Sort” is a question you might be familiar with!
Don't you love how things circle and swirl back and forth on each other in the eddies of the Internet?
Anyhow, give it a look – a great resource for book lovers!
