random musings from a serialist
Here’s a blogga. There’s a blogga. And a tiny little blogga.
I’m a bit behind on reading the librarian blogs (despite my resolve to keep up with them), so it’s probably all over the librarian blogosphere by now. If you haven’t seen Brian Smith’s tribute to librarian bloggers llama song take-off, what rock have you been hiding under? …Oh. Probably the same one that’s been giving me some shelter. [thanks Library Man]
Despite getting a decent night’s sleep, I woke up a bit groggy the next morning. But I manged to find some espresso and a muffin and went to learn about herbology. Unfortunately, the herbalist was late, so most of the session was lead by the pharmaceutical expert.
Despite getting a decent night’s sleep, I woke up a bit groggy the next morning. But I manged to find some espresso and a muffin and went to learn about herbology. Unfortunately, the herbalist was late, so most of the session was lead by the pharmaceutical expert.
A sweetented crunchy reference book for breakfast reading.
Milking That Crazy Cow: a Century of Cereals begins with a forward by Alan Snedeker, a creative consultant with a long carreer in writing jingles, advertising copywriting, and promotion design. He tells brief vignettes about what worked and what didn’t work with cereal branding and promotion in the years that his agency did creative work with cereal companies. This part of the book was the most interesting to me because it put the book into context. Snedeker makes the point that most breakfast cereals in the United States exist only as marketing tools to get kids to make their parents buy them a particular kind of sweetened grain cereal.
This past weekend I did something that I’ve wanted to do ever since I was a geeky teenager. I attended a science fiction convention, or con as it’s more commonly known. I’m sure you’re all conjuring up visions of storm troopers and Klingons, and while there were a few of the latter, they were more … Continue reading “there and back again: part one”
This past weekend I did something that I’ve wanted to do ever since I was a geeky teenager. I attended a science fiction convention, or con as it’s more commonly known. I’m sure you’re all conjuring up visions of storm troopers and Klingons, and while there were a few of the latter, they were more of a minority. In fact, it seemed like there were multiple cons happening all at the same time.
I re-read 4:50 from Paddington (or What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw) by Agatha Christie because I had recently watched a new production of it staring Geraldine McEwan, which had some different details from the version with Joan Hickson, and I wanted to check them against the original. Of course, by the time I read the book, I had forgotten the two movie versions. Expect a comparison review at some point in the future when I have time to watch the movies again.
I’m not much of a writer. I don’t sit around pondering my “craft” and thrilling over perfect sentence structures and exquisite word pictures. Nevertheless, I do want my readers to enjoy what I write. It’s been a while since I had a formal grammar class, and English was never my favorite subject. Thus, Lori Mortimer’s … Continue reading “rules for the blogger/writer”
I’m not much of a writer. I don’t sit around pondering my “craft” and thrilling over perfect sentence structures and exquisite word pictures. Nevertheless, I do want my readers to enjoy what I write.
It’s been a while since I had a formal grammar class, and English was never my favorite subject. Thus, Lori Mortimer’s response to John Scalzi’s suggestions for nonprofessional writers is more useful to me that the original essay. Scalzi uses accessible language, but Mortimer explains why a rule is important to follow. Both are worth reading, particularly if you’re a lazy writer like myself.
This isn’t really on the list, but I had to take time to write it anyway.
I’ve been struggling lately with feeling overwhelmed by everything I have to do, and not knowing where to start. I realized yesterday that I need to do something to organize my tasks and give me short enough goals to feel like I can accomplish useful things every day that will get big projects done.
I had a stack of professional literature on my desk that needed to be read and then routed on to the next person on the list. Since I get annoyed with my colleagues who hang onto routed journals for weeks and months, I started by browsing through them and reading the articles that caught my eye. One such article was Aaron Schmidt‘s Product Pipeline column in the NetConnect supplement to Library Journal. One of the shiny new tools he writes about is Ta-da Lists, a free online resource that allows you to create lists of things to do and check them off as they get done. As with any Web 2.0 gadget, each list can be shared with others and it also has an RSS feed.
In the afternoon, I spent some time catching up on my librarian blog reading. I’ve resolved to try to stay on top of my Bloglines subscriptions. Steven Cohen’s comment a couple of weeks ago about spending approximately an hour a day keeping up with his 600 feeds every day inspired me to try to keep on top of my 150+ more regularly, particularly since I was a week behind on reading them when I saw his post.
Part of my feed-reading catch-up yesterday included Jenica Roger’s Thinking Out Loud. Last week she wrote about her day in time increments, many of which involved adding and removing items from her to-do list. Her physical to-do list with space for doodling and concrete evidence that yes, something was accomplished today. I’ve never been much of a to-do list person, but something clicked when I read that post, and I found myself over at Ta-da Lists creating an account and making my first digital work-related to-do list.
So far today, I have had the pleasure of crossing off five items and adding two. In a way, my tasks and projects have become a sort of personal competition to see if I can clear off the list before the end of the week, and that is exactly the sort of motivation I’ve been looking for. A hearty thank you to Aaron, Steven, and Jenica for your inspiration!
Happy Birthday, Chris! I hope you’re enjoying your lifetime membership to LibraryThing.
Happy Birthday, Chris! I hope you’re enjoying your lifetime membership to LibraryThing.
I’m hopping on the Frappr bandwagon. Go ahead, add your self to the map. You know you want to. Incidentally, in case anyone was wondering, I have nearly fully recovered from last week’s illness thanks in part to a course of antibiotics over the weekend. Aside from some sinus junk and inexplicable tension in my … Continue reading “frappr”
I’m hopping on the Frappr bandwagon. Go ahead, add your self to the map. You know you want to.
Incidentally, in case anyone was wondering, I have nearly fully recovered from last week’s illness thanks in part to a course of antibiotics over the weekend. Aside from some sinus junk and inexplicable tension in my jaw, I’m fine.
Today I felt well enough to read a book, although not well enough to leave the house beyond getting the mail out of the box. One of the things that annoys me about being sick is that I have all this time between naps to read the numerous unread books in my house, but I never feel like reading any of them when I’m ill. Of course, the book I chose to read this afternoon isn’t from my vast collection of unread tomes. It’s one I discovered in the juvenile literature section of my place of work on Sunday when I was hunting down an Ursula Le Guin book.
A Book Dragon by Donn Kushner is the story of Nonesuch, an English dragon who learns how to make himself small enough to fit between the pages of a book. One particular book, specifically, that he is guarding. Over time, the book ends up in a modern New England shop, and Nonesuch takes on the role of protecting all of the books in the shop as well as the humans who live there. This is a young adult book, but not so dumbed down to be dull for adults. The glimpses into human lives passing in front of the eyes of the dragon are an added treat for anyone familiar with Anglo-Saxon history.
