Happy Spring!

The flowers are blooming, the sun is shining, and I've been wandering around outside in short sleeves. Of course, that's because I'm in the sunny south - here's what it looked like in Edmonton yesterday:




Hee hee!

Book of the Week

I'm going through our paperback order list to decide what to buy for the library, and this title just jumped out at me



Where DO they come up with these?

(and no, I'm not buying a copy, although it is tempting...)

Happy National Library Week, part trois!

Happy National Library Week, part deux!

Happy National Library Week!

Set phasers to do me

Best geeky tagline ever!

Especially since it graces the cover of a book called Cosmic Sex

Statistic I would like to see evidence for

Philadelphia has some interesting ads in it's public buses. On the one I ride to work I often see this one:



Now that's a statistic I find hard to believe - almost 50% of black children in Philadelphia are aborted? Really? Considering the source is the Family Life Educational Foundation, which is a affiliation of some hard-line pro-life groups (according to the City Paper), I highly doubt this is what it seems.

Citizenship

Today a friend of mine became a US Citizen and I went to the ceremony to cheer her on. I have never been to one before and thus have never heard the Oath of American Citizenship before. Here it is:

Oath of American Citizenship

I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.

Wow. That's pretty heavy and something that I don't know that I can say and mean at this point in my life. In contrast, here's the Canadian oath:

Oath of Citizenship - Canada

I swear (or affirm) that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada and fulfil my duties as a Canadian citizen.

Short and much less specific than the American one - follow the law and live up to your responsibilities. Nothing about enemies (foreign or domestic) or abjuring anything or serving in the army. You don't have to give up anything to be a Canadian whereas you have to renounce all previous fealties to be an American. And you don't have to swear under god - bringing religions into politics always kind of creeps me out. Even if I wasn't a Canadian to begin with, I think I could easily say that oath. The American one I'd have to seriously think about.

Things I love today

One of the shows I really got into this season was Journeyman. It starred Kevin McKidd (from Rome) as Dan Vassar, a reporter who suddenly begins traveling backwards in time. It was a well-plotted, fabulously acted, thoughtful show, so of course it was canceled. At least with the writer's strike the network actually showed all 13 episodes produced, which was great because it actually works as a self-contained miniseries in some ways. Anyways, I just found out that you can watch all 13 episodes online at hulu. It starts fairly slowly, but by about two or three episodes in it becomes riveting. The way the backlog built up on my Tivo I ended up watching them all in about a week, and it was just beautiful.

Here's the first episode, and then head over to Hulu to watch all 13 if you want to.

Run, Fatboy, Run

Last night I took my free movie pass and borrowed my friend's boyfriend and went to a preview showing of Run, Fatboy, Run. I was very excited for the movie because of Simon Pegg (and once I realized he was in it, Dylan Moran). Once I found out the director was David Schwimmer I became a bit less excited, although I shouldn't let the fact that I hated his character on Friends colour how I view him as a director.

This was a basic paint-by-numbers Hollywood underdog romantic comedy. Basically - boy leaves pregnant fiancee at alter, spends next five years regretting it, girl meets new man who is perfect and runs marathons, boy decides to run marathon to prove his love to girl and win her back. I'll let you figure out what happens in the end - it's not a surprise. Not as sharp or witty as Shaun of the Dead (admittedly hard to top) or even Hot Fuzz. We were talking about it after the show and the best we could come up with was "cute". A pleasant way to spend a few hours but ultimately forgettable. The best lines came from Dylan Moran (not a surprise) and Thandie Newton spent the movie looking pretty and concerned. Simon Pegg was Simon Pegg - I'd watch him read a phone book, so I enjoyed him in this, even though his character was pretty two dimensional.

In a weird sponsorship deal, the promo people from Wired 96.5 were there before the show giving out Run, Fatboy, Run water bottles and sweatbands and tons of radio station freebies. Not quite sure why a "Hits and Hip-Hop station" was sponsoring this movie, but I did get lots of free swag (which I will promptly try to unload on other people).

RIP Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke died last night.

I remember that my dad gave me Childhood's End to read when I was a kid - it was one of the first science fiction novels I read. Dad and I would have discussions about Clarke's outlook on what the future was like as opposed to other writers such as Asimov. Clarke was one of the authors who made me fall in love with golden age science fiction. His The Nine Billion Names of God is my all time favourite short story.


Clarke's Three Laws, published in Profiles of the Future (1962):

"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

"The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

The Librarian returns

All that is cheesy good fun that you can find about librarian action heroes on the small screen is returning with The Librarian: The Curse of the Judas Chalice. Noah Wylie stars as a mild-mannered librarian (although I don't think he actually has a library degree) who works at the New York Metropolitan Library as guardian of mythical treasures. Of course, every so often he has to go out and retrieve said treasures from that hands of assorted bad guys , always with the help of a feisty female sidekick. The first one, Quest for the Spear, was adorable and silly and cheesy enough to supply a whole chain of Domino's.



The second, which had super-stick figure Gabrielle Anwar (who's way better on Burn Notice) replacing kick-ass Sonya Walger as the femme du jour, was just stupid cheesy.



Hopefully the third will get back some of the sheer irreverence and fun and goofball cheesiness of the first. Either way, you know I'll be with a group of fellow librarians throwing popcorn at the screen and snickering about inaccurately portrayed library stereotypes. It'll be a great time.

Match it for Pratchett update

There's now a website and a facebook group for the Match it for Pratchett drive to donate to Alzheimer's research. Thanks to Neil Gaiman's blog for the info!

Match it for Pratchett

One of my favourite authours, Terry Pratchett, was diagnosed a few months back with early onset Alzheimer's disease. He's just donated 500,000 pounds ($1 million) to Alzheimer's research and it would be cool if 500,000 fans each donated 1 pound in his name to match the donation. I'm going to donate right now - if you want to make a contribution head over to the Boing Boing post to read more about the drive and link to the donation site for the Alzheimer's Research Trust.

Arrgh

I don't remember if I've posted this before, but I was poking around online last night to find out if any of my bands had new albums out, and I found this:



Originally done by the Arrogant Worms, Captain Tractor took this song and made it their own.

New Zealand odds and ends

I've realized that I never mentioned which tour company I went with in New Zealand and I've been asked a few times. Susan and I decided to go with Haka Tours because a) it went all over the place and did a bunch of stuff we wanted to do, in a small group and b) it was relatively cheap. In general we were happy with them - we did have issues with Steve, our tour leader on getting places on time sometimes and the previously mentioned drunken day that pissed a bunch of us off mightily. There were some issues where we were not informed of itinerary changes before we actually got there, and breakfast was pretty paltry. Aside from that, it was a good group of people, we did some amazing things, and we saw a huge amount of the country.

I have found a page in my journal where I jotted down quick notes along the way. In no logical sort of order:

-On some of the mountain roads (that aren't dirt or gravel) there are technically two lanes but each lane is too narrow for a full-sized car (or van) so it's really 1 1/2 lanes. I don't know what would happen if there was oncoming traffic.
-All the hostels have little swap libraries where you can leave a book and take a book. Very handy.
-I need moisturizing cream a lot and am shedding less. Something in NZ is good for the skin!
-Crocs flip flips are wonderful shoes for any terrain, as well as shower stalls
-There are bumblebees everywhere on the South Island
-Toilets have two flush buttons, one for a little flush and one for a big flush
-I'm completely addicted to peanut butter and nutella toast for breakfast
-They don't have gingerale (that I've seen) but ginger beer is popular in bottles
-Sprite is called lemonade (either that's a kiwi thing or it's a British thing I picked up from our group)
-There are a ton of one-lane bridges on the main highways
-There's road construction everywhere!

Book of the Week

I spent the weekend reading the new book by Stephenie Meyer, The Host



Sebethis got the prepub at ALA and lent it to me - the book actually doesn't come out until May. I started reading at 10 pm on Saturday and couldn't put it down. Literally - I finished at 5:30 am Sunday morning, which pretty much shot my weekend, but it was worth it. I'm no good at booktalking, so I'll just steal the description fro Stephenie Meyer's site:

"The Host takes place after a bodysnatchers-style invasion of the earth. We (the humans) lost. Our narrator is Wanderer, one of the invading "souls," who struggles to navigate all the bewildering challenges that come with living inside a human body. She was forewarned about these challenges—the overwhelming emotions, the stunning physical responses, the glut of senses, the too vivid dreams and memories... However, there was one challenge Wanderer didn't expect: the former tenant of her body, human survivor Melanie Stryder, refuses to fade away into oblivion the way she should. Melanie lingers as an angry presence in Wanderer's head, holding on to her human secrets and filling Wanderer's thoughts with visions of the man Melanie loves—Jared, another human who still lives in hiding. Unable to separate herself from her body's desires, Wanderer yearns for the man she's never met. Outside forces combine to make Wanderer and Melanie unwilling allies, and, working together, they set off to search for the man they both love. It's possibly the first love triangle that only involves two bodies."

I loved this book and urge you to go out and read it when it comes out (or find some lucky person who got a prepub and beg to borrow it).

True Dat

Things that happened while I was gone

A house blew up. Seriously. A house about two blocks from mine blew up a few weeks ago. Turns out there was a crack in the gas main under the sidewalk in front of the house and it leaked in and boom! Thankfully no-one was hurt as the homeowners were out, but their poor cat died.

Back Home

I'm home, and pretty much over my jet-lag. I'm going to be updating my travel diary over the next few days in chronological order, so scroll down (or check the blog if you're getting an RSS feed) and find them on the day I actually wrote them in my low-tech spiral notebook, now lovingly transcribed for posterity's sake.