Random Thursday: “HIchop!” “Gesundheit!”

I’m home sick today with a sore throat and the general muscle aches and fever that have been going around the library, so if things get even more surreal around here than the usual Thursday oeuvre, that’s my excuse.

I’ll probably be fine by tomorrow, but just in case, does anyone know if the burning of sage wards off strep throat?  

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First, a Poll

If you read this blog through a feed, could I ask you to drop in and take a look at what I’ve done with the place?

While I loved the old theme, it simply wasn’t wide enough for some of the things I wanted to do, so I searched for a couple of days until I found this one.  It has most of the features I wanted, but it might be a little . . . too much?

Whaddaya think?

Be honest—I can take it.

Suggestions are also welcome, though mean ones will be severely mocked.

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I See a Scary Silhoutte of a Hut

Oola-girl, Oola-girl, better dance the fandango!
Rancor hatch is widening—very very frightening  me . .  .

No, seriously, if you’re secure enough in your love of Star Wars to embrace intelligent parodies—as opposed to my sad efforts—check out Blue Milk Special.

They know what they’re doing and they snark with such love.

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Separated by Uncommon Language

Hey, Downith? What do Canadians say?

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The Federation has Mondays, too

Worth it for the Red Shirts alone . . . 

The Bad Days series is part of Stan Lee’s World of Heroes, which explains the cameo . . . sort of.

(psst, Mike: try Superman—the bit around 1:08 reminded me of you)

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Brief Actual News

The winner of the Libraries are Awesome poetry contest will be announced tomorrow!

Sorry for the delay—it’s been a heck of a week.

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Trekkies, represent

Dude . . . there are no words.  ‘Cause I can’t speak Klingon.

But Jen Usellis can:

As Jane said, “It’s a very [scurfing up a giant loogey sound] language, isn’t it?”

Yes. Yes, it is.

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Brand New Day — Brand New Look

For those of you who might still be feeling New Year’s Eve, yeah, this is Earful of Cider—I decided to freshen the place up a little.

After two and a half years, I just wasn’t feeling the Greyzed barbwire grunge thing any more.   Though I think I’ll keep my Avatar—I’m still partial to my playing card.

This theme is called Bold Life—I’m hoping it’ll work as a sort of foreshadowing for the rest of the year.

To that end, I have a couple plans that I’ve been putting into place the last couple of weeks.

I have a budget in place and have taken a pledge to use only my debit card except at the gas station.

I’ve also made up a list of steps I’m taking to improve my general health—my weekday curfew was the first and that’s gone pretty well so far.  Regularizing my treadmill usage is next—to that end, the first thing I did this morning * was take a walk.  For now, every other day seems like a possible minimal goal.**

I’m planning on spending more time with the kids doing non-electronic stuff, too.  We started this weekend, with a small, local comic book convention.  The kids weren’t sure they wanted to go, but they ended up wanted to stay.  And, I might add, shatter my budget into oblivion.  Can’t say I blame them—I had to leave a whole box of Tank Girl behind, which was tough enough without finding a motherload of Maxx the next row over.^

We also started what could become a new family hobby, courtesy of Lyra, who is smart enough to use pre-colored baking clay instead of white clay and acrylic paint,  so she doesn’t have to scrub purple streaks out of her kids’ new pants.

But we all had a good time anyway, and I ended up with a little dragon*** named Grinkie, whose color scheme was the only option or full coverage of the beastie. Still, she has a kind of amateur middle-school fingerprinted rustic charm:

     

The writing goes without saying, though I’m planning to put some of the lessons I learned from Pigeon to use on the next project.  I’m keeping a Project Bible for one thing, and making chapter goals for another.  I’m trying something new in the way of genre, as well—we’ll see if it’s just a palate-cleanser or something good.  Either way, my imagination is sparking—so many possibilities!

So . . . What do you think of the new theme?  And how late did your day start?

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* Okay, the third thing, because I can’t tolerate more than five minutes of awake time without brushing my teeth—and the first thing I did should go, forgive the pun, without saying.

**Note to self:  budget socks.  And a heavier sweatshirt hoodie—the garage is flippin’ freezing.

***Not a camel, an alligator, an afghan hound, or a dinosaur, which should have been obvious before her horns went on.  I’m just saying.

^Yes, I discovered comics in the early ’90s.  Why do you ask?

Random Thursday, with 76% more Technology Content

After much debate and a desperate e-mail to the fabulous and infinitely patient Sarah Wendell over at Smart Bitches, I’ve decided to get a Sony Touch.  I thought I might spring for the Daily Edition with free 3G and WiFi, but I’ve decided that it’s not worth the extra bucks.  All I want is to conserve shelf space by keeping as many virtual reference books as possible and save on chiropractors by not lugging my manuscript or Netbook around in my bag when I want to make notes or edit on the go.  Don’t need bells and whistles for that.

Besides, I’m beginning to think that WiFi is the root of all time suck . . . Wow—that sounded a lot dirtier than I thought it would.

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My family is on a Shel Silverstein kick right now.

I love all of Mr.  Silverstein’s  work with the sole exception of Runny Babbit.  I’m incapable of reading it the way it’s printed on the page and trying for more than three minutes gives me stabbing pains in my left eye and a queasy stomach.

Naturally, my children adore Runny and his aneurysm-inducing adventures , so I have passed the responsibility for the reading of this book to the other adults in our immediate vicinity, in addition to Fox in Socks* and Amelia Bedelia.**

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I was searching the 1930s newspaper microfilm the other day and caught sight of a one-panel cartoon called The Girls, which features ladies of a certain age and outlook.

In this one, the lady was trying on hats in a shop and telling her impatient husband in the caption, “No, I’ve made my final decision.  Now I have to make every decision that comes after that.”

It may have been microfilm-daze, but that sounded incredibly profound to me.

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Twitter-training this afternoon for the library’s new feed!  Judging from the verbal staff observations around here, it’s just as well our tweets are moderated by the PR department.  Our library already has over 200 followers.  I have no idea whether that’s good or not.

The training was so interesting that I thought about reactivating my personal account, which I let lapse after three days of absolutely nothing to say—stop laughing.

I don’t know if I need to be on Twitter right now—I do follow several people, just not through an account.  Blogs are honestly more my speed.

If my phone could do anything but make phone calls, I might consider trying again . . . but on second thought,  see unfortunately-phrased time-suck comment above.

Plus, there’s a certain observer-mindset that comes with twitter . . .  I’d like to think that if someone fainted in front of me, I wouldn’t be too busy tweeting about it to help them.

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Someone left a gold glitter pen at our public desk a few days ago—we had a crowd of junior high school students on Saturday.  No one called to ask about it so it’s mine.

It has an incredibly smooth flow, which is my excuse for using it for everything from initialing order forms to taking meeting minutes.  I’m planning to go to the office supply store and see if there are any available without the glitter, but if not, well  . . . do they sell navy blue or black glitter pens?

This isn’t a mid-life crisis, by the way—I don’t have one of those scheduled for another forty years.  You might want to stick around—it’s gonna be a doozy.  And mostly likely will not involve glitter pens . . . though I’m not entirely ruling out their use.

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If you hover over my avatar in the left-hand corner up there, supposing I haven’t changed my blog theme, you’ll see the name of the song I’m currently whistling or humming under my breath. 

See?  Who needs Twitter? 

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*Except for the Tweedle Beetle Battle, which in our household is traditionally done in Rock Horror-style chorus.

**After seven years, I’m tired of Amelia Bedelia—but these books  seriously drive my mother up a tree. “She’s just so dumb,” she wails, when presented with one of Miss Bedelia’s adventures by one of her insistent grandchildren.  “Any normal human being would stop and think.”   I believe that my mother’s secret reason for supporting early childhood literacy is so kids will quickly learn to read this series all by themselves.  Silently.