Random Thing #9

Saw this today, laughed a bit self-consciously, and as a prologue to my post, I thought I'd share it (post continues below embed):

Watch Real Life Twitter on CollegeHumor

Yes, I am on Twitter. I Tweet, Re-Tweet, follow and am followed. No Twibes yet, but I know what my Twitalizer scores are (need a glossary - start here with a fun post about Twitterspeak: 66 Twitter Terms You Don't Need to Know).

I have a #BlameDawno hashtag. I signed up for Twiggit, have TwitThis (no jokes about who's the twit, ok?) on my browser toolbar, and use Ping.fm to post statuses on Twitter and Facebook simultaneously. I use cli.gs to track people clicking on the links I Tweet.

If you are a psychologist or psychoanalyst, please don't comment, or send me an urgent email with your phone number for an appointment. I know I'm sick.

I'm on way too many social network sites. Ones I'm pretty much never on include MySpace, LinkedIn, MyBlogLog...haven't been to CoComment in ages, is it still up? I was enticed to join Vox and Discus, but haven't used them. I've Dugg some stuff (and that's what I got Twiggit for). I believe there are dozens of other sites I've signed up for out there, long forgotten, as well.

I just added my beading blog to Technorati, so I'm visiting there again after a long hiatus. I've also registered at a number of forums but only frequent one, (Absolute Write) and I haven't been there that regularly lately, even after a 3 month furlough.

I follow over 100 blogs on my Google Reader, on top of that, although I admit that I don't read every one - sometimes I peek at the first few lines on the feed, othertimes I skip over them. Never miss opening up my daily webcomics though.

So, my obviously serious internet addiction is hereby offered as today's Random Thing. Thank you for reading. Now let's all go to this place called "outside" and look at that bright thing shining up there in the "sky" - they tell me it's "the Sun" and the "light" it emits is good for you - except for "ultraviolet" and you should wear your "sunscreen" when you go "outside".

Random Thing #8

There's a conversation on Making Light (that started off*) about a NYT obit for J. G. Ballard that includes a quote saying “His fabulistic style led people to review his work as science fiction,” said Robert Weil, Mr. Ballard’s American editor at Norton. “But that’s like calling Brave New World science fiction, or 1984.” My reaction to that quote is rather rude, but that's not the point of this post.

There's discussion going in the comments at ML about about shelving books. Some have light-heartedly recommended shelving by color; others share how they shelve their books. Got me thinking about a new random thing to share.

In the past, when we had room for inside bookshelves**, I've shelved alphabetically regardless of genre, also mixing hard back and paperback books on the same shelf. The only exception is my rather large collection of Star Trek novelizations.

While those books are written by many different authors, they are all about Star Trek, so I feel they should all be shelved together (and so do the bookstores I buy them in). They all go in publication order, by show order. So the TOS books, then the TNGs, the DS9 and the VOY (very few). Never bought any Enterprise.

Then there are the ones that don't fit by series (SCE, Excalibur, Titan, etc.) those are by publication order, but each spin off story is in its own group. There are a few other series of stories (Captain's Table series, for example) that also don't fit into the main categories, those too are grouped separately.

And that's #8. At this rate it'll take me years to get to 50.


*many start on one topic and delightfully wander off into fascinating diversions
** right now the shelves and 80% of my books are in the garage

Happy Earth Day

My favorite clip discussing all the hoopla leading up to this year's Earth Day:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Back in Black - Kids' Earth Day
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Happy Belated Anniversary to Elements of Style & Random Thing #8

Somehow I missed that April 16th was the 50th anniversary of Strunk & White's Elements of Style. Required reading in my Freshman English Comp class in college and a handy thing to have lying around in general. I know some disagree, but I'd rather go wrong using Strunk & White's advice than try to muddle through improving my writing on my own. At least I think it sounds better to say "But that's what Elements of Style suggests." than "uh, well, it looked ok to to the MS Grammar check".

NPR did a radio commentary in honor of the anniversary - you can click on this link for the audio (you may need to click again inside the player to start it) or this link to read it - but I think it's more fun to listen to.

Random thing:

When I was younger I went to night classes at a Bible college, taught at a private Baptist Church school and was one of my church's teen group's adult leaders. I loved the Biblical Archeology class best - the whole history of the Middle East region and shards of evidence of the historical lives of the Bible figures was fascinating - and the professor had spent extensive time doing digs at places like Jericho. I also was active in various Bible studies for many years before and after that. So when I heard about a TV show that was loosely based on the story of David and Saul (the story is told in the books of Samuel and others in the Bible), set in a present, but alternate universe, timeline, I thought I'd watch. I rarely catch it on TV, so I watch the full episodes on NBC.com during lunch break or after work. I was chatting about the most recent episode with my husband today:

DH: kings?

me: it's a mini-series

you'd hate it

me: sort of an alt-history loosely based on the story of David and Saul in the Bible and has a slight "homage to Dallas and Falcon Crest" feel to it

DH: i misread that initially and thought it said "david soul", not "david & saul"

and i was very confused

me: heh

DH: an alternate history based on david soul in the bible?

wtf?

jesus & hutch?

me: Jesus & Hutch...you're gonna get hit by lightning

DH: so long as it's cold lightning, i'm ok with that

it's HOT

And that's my random thing.

Thinking about buying Elements of Style? Click here and a few pennies go into Dawno's beading fund...

just signed up and am testing ping.fm

Don't Ever Give Up

Nearly 48, gray hair, matronly figure, never been married, lives with cat Pebbles, currently unemployed and from a 'collection of villages' - nobody expected to be amazed...but they were. Brought tears to this nearly 52 year old who stopped singing back in her 30's eyes, I'm not ashamed to admit.

Three big w00ts! for Susan Boyle's performance on Britain's Got Talent. Embedding disabled on the YouTube for this, please, though, do click through and listen, you'll be happy you did.

Amazon Fail

I am appalled with Amazon's censorship tactic brought to light this weekend on various blogs and Twitter.

So, click this and add the link on your blog, too. Send Amazon a message.

Editing to add: Digital Medievalist's post "Amazon Rankings Reek of Homophobia and Puritanism"

Damn corporate idjits.

Random Thing #7

Found via an article about Vimeo on Slate.


powerlinerflyers from wes johnson on Vimeo.

I've stopped and watched similar displays (with fewer birds and wires, though) and there's something fascinating going on. I don't want to know the science behind it; I'd rather apply an imaginative reason.

Watching this with the music the video creator chose (per Slate: "Johnson sets the video to Yann Tiersen's "L'autre Valse d'Amélie," from the Amelie soundtrack, laid down with startling synchronicity to the images. ") - does it make you think these are living musical notes moving and changing, creating the tune as we watch? Or maybe it reminds you of the holes on some huge organic roll of player sky-piano music?

Random Thing #6

First seen on Whatever, the blogger of which saw it at Gizmodo - the Peekaru.

I have to say, when I had little ones, I probably would have bought this version. It would have looked nicer than the weird slings and carry-things I wore back then - they never matched anything I was wearing and always created a huge mess of wrinkles either on the front or back of my blouses.

That's my random thing for the day.