No way.

Stephen Colbert is going to be at the New York Comic-Con. That convention is getting cooler and cooler every day, I tell you.

DDRing librarians from ALA Midwinter

Remember David Lee King from the tie video I used for Task 6? He had uploaded a video of it taking him 14 times to get his tie done correctly. Well here he is (with Michael Porter) learning to play DDR at ALA Midwinter. Look familiar? :)

Hah! I'm on YouTube!

So. Ever wanted to know what happens at a convention? Not satisfied with my "a great big geek party" answer? Well the YouTube movie below is made up of still shots taken at ShadowCon, a convention in Memphis that I went to a few weeks ago. I'm actually in two of the shots, once at the beginning and once at the end, so you'll need to watch the whole thing to get to the proof that I really did drive all the way to Memphis just to visit with boys in kilts.

4 Things

Switched this from e-mail to blogs, because it's less inbox cloggy this way. Welcome to the world of internet memes. :)


4 jobs I've had:
Babysitter
Auto Parts Sorter
Archivist
Librarian

4 places I've lived:
Rock Hill, SC
North Myrtle Beach, SC
Bradenton, FL
Deleware, OH

4 favorite TV shows:
CSI
Firefly
House, MD
The Daily Show

4 favorite foods:
Perogies (my family is Polish, and therefore, crazy.)
Fettuccine Alfredo
Taco Salad
California Rolls

4 places I would rather be:
The Beach. (Pick a beach. Any beach.)
The Faire. (Someone reminded me we've got 18 weekends till opening. Bring it on!)
Closer to my friends. (Unfortunately, I've got friends all over the place, so this is some sort of mythical location which puts me close to Austin, Toronto, Columbus, Los Angeles and Louisville all at the same time.)
Someplace I studied in College. (You can just set me down somewhere in Europe and I'm sure I'll find someplace worthwhile.)

File this under things I never thought I'd do, EVER.

So today, on the circ desk, I helped some girl with her greek homework. Yes, I actually -used- that knowledge I gained during my Ancient Greek class in college.

Only on Friday, folks. :)

tech challenges, or, "Oops, that didn't work the way I wanted it to..."

So. I thought that I'd be cool and use a poll to see who wanted what for the tech challenge prizes. After all, I didn't really need to know who wanted what, I just needed to know how many of each prize I needed. So I set up a poll. The first poll site I used set up the poll in a form of javascript that made it impossible to embed into blogger. I couldn't put it in the layout, and I also couldn't put it in a post. They just wouldn't play nicely. So then I moved to another site. This one worked better, and I got the whole thing set up and posted. Then the problems began.

First, the poll used IP addresses to track votes, and make sure people didn't vote more than once. As a result, many of you who tried to vote at the library got a message that said you had already voted, instead of the poll itself. Once I figured that out, I knew to suggest voting at home so there would be a different IP address. I thought I had figured everything out.

Then today, while trying to get votes finalized and figure out exactly how many of each prize I needed, I realized that more people had voted "successfully" than the results were telling me. I went to add someone else's vote to the poll, and while the site told me that it had counted my vote, nothing new was showing up on my poll results. So apparently, the poll was telling some people that they had voted successfully when the exact opposite was true. (Not a lot, just enough that I had trouble figuring out whose votes had gone through and what blanks still needed to be filled.)

The result: I spent the evening filling in the blanks by contacting people the "old fashioned" way. By telephone. :)

Technology hype:

There's been a bit of a kerfluffle on one of the library blogs, discussing the problem of hype. The blogger mentioned how sometimes, we get so excited about something new, that others feel it's difficult to voice the problems they have with it.

So here's a hint: Don't get caught up in the hype. Don't be afraid to get excited either. New toys are always worth getting excited about. They make our lives easier, and make us better at what we do (or what we need to be doing). They allow us to do things we never thought of doing, and that makes them exciting. However, not everything is going to work for everyone. Try new things, and if it doesn't work out, put it aside. Don't be afraid to decide that something isn't for you. Don't feel pressured because "everyone else is using it". It isn't worth stressing over.

2007!

Happy New Year!