Corrections

Apparently I am an even bigger idiot than I had previously thought. The BF has informed of very slight yet somehow important errors in my description of Del.icio.us. I guess it too is a bookmark-sharing web site, but is in some way different than Furl. I do not claim to understand the nuances here, I am just reporting this.

More PSAs

Well, I finally saw Brokeback Mountain this weekend, after months of wanting to see it and then for some reason or another never quite getting around to it. It was worth the wait. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal (or whatever, too lazy to look up how to spell his name), were excellent. Superb. Delicious. I've never been a fan of Heath's acting or looks, but I was completely turned around on both counts after seeing this movie. (Of course, the cinematography made even Wyoming look pretty.)

So anyway. Back here in Reality Land there have been some interesting developments in my life, some of which I am not at liberty to divulge just yet (but no, I'm neither engaged nor pregnant). I can tell you, however, that I get the dubious pleasure of doing a library instruction class next week, which I'm not exactly looking forward to but which will look good on the resume. I just hope I don't end up looking and/or sounding like a retard, both of which are real possibilities for me when it comes to public speaking. If you went to library school with me, you know what I'm talking about.

But neither of the above things are the point of this post. The point of this post is to get the word out about some new FREE web services that are coolio (brought to my attention by BF.)

Last Fm
This thing is really cool - it lets you type in the name of a singer or band that you like and gives you a list of similar singers/bands. If you download the appropriate doo-hickeys (which I am aware are actually called plug-ins), you can then listen to a bunch of free music! How do they get away with that? You don't actually download any of the music to your computer. Also, near as I can figure, which isn't very near, you can't actually request any certain songs - you listen to "stations" whose content you don't have much control over other than by choosing a general genre. Eventually, the idea is that you build up a personal profile of music and then the smart little program will play songs in your station that you like. I haven't quite figured out how to make this all work yet, but it seems like a neat idea.

Del.icio.us
Lets you build you own little personal web space, with XML feeds, photos, etc. I haven't tried this one out yet, but it seems intriguing.

Furl
Called "communal bookmarking" - lets you share bookmarks with others, see what other people are bookmarking, look at most popular bookmarks, and search bookmarks on certain topics (I think).

Bloglines
This one lets you host your own blog, plus search other blogs and also acts as a "personal web space" typey thing. This kind of thing appears to be gaining popularity.

Vsocial
A video sharing site. Has some good stuff on it, including clips from SNL skits. I had fun with the Schweaty Balls one.

That's it for today, people. Hopefully I will be able to update you by the end of the week about things which may or may not be going on in my life.

Happy election day, Canada!

The polls are closed, but here's hoping no one voted Conservative! (I wish...)

This is the sound of a dream dying

So I'm reading White Teeth by Zadie Smith, which she wrote when she was 21-22 years old. Smith is 2 years older than me. She has recently published a much-ballyhooed book called On Beauty, which I believe has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize and possibly also the Pulitzer. She is 2 years older than me. And I have come to the heart-sinking, dream-deflating, ego-crushing realization that never, and I mean ever, will I be as talented, articulate, creative and intelligent in all my years on Earth as she was at 21. And it sickens me. I feel like Salieri in the movie Amadeus - I have the passion and the desire to be an artistic genius, but unfortunately just not the talent. Why not me, Lord? Why not me?

*Sigh* So I guess I'll just go to bed (although not sleep, since I've been having the insomnia again), get up tomorrow, and plod off to my meaningless job at the peanut factory, where I will sit in mind-numbing boredom for 8 hours staring at my computer screen like a zombie because I'm too stupid, lazy, and/or talentless to do something interesting with my life.

Not that I'm drowning in self-pity or anything.

Best books EVER, part 2

OK, so I never finished my list of top ten books, not that its important or that anyone cares but its my blog, so what I say goes. (BTW, the post will be apostrophe-free today, since my computer freaks out every time I try to type one. Stupid computer.)

6) The Calvin and Hobbes comic books, by Bill Watterson. If you dont know the joy that is Calvin and Hobbes, I pity you.

7) Beauty by Robin McKinley (not one of the Black Beauty books). I started reading Robin McKinley books in 6th grade - she's a young adult fantasy author - and I still occasionally re-read this one (to my great embarrassment). It's a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, published before the Disney movie came out. Shut up.

8) Dracula by Bram Stoker. I love vampire books; this is of course the original. Yes, I am an unrepentant dork. What of it?

9) The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. I wasn't sure whether to include this, as I was trying to stay away from children's books - that's a whole nother list. But since I'm reading these as an adult and enjoying them in my own adult way, I think it's OK.

10) The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. I think perhaps the only book on the list I haven't re-read ten bajillion times (aside from H.P. books - they're too new), maybe because I enjoyed it so much the first time that I don't want to spoil that feeling. Also, it's long.

It has come to my attention through the making of this list that my reading habits are slovenly. Books I love I re-read over and over again, thus making it more difficult for me to discover new books. But I think I'm getting perhaps a smidge better at forcing myself to read something new, rather than grabbing the trusty stand-by off the bookshelf.

p.s. You may notice that my apostrophes started working about mid-way through the post. WTF?

Best books EVER

So I was pretty bored one day (you can guess where I was), and I decided to create one of those Listmania lists on Amazon. It's called List for Lit Lovers, and I would point you to it except that I don't know how Amazon assigns their damn lists to searches, so you'll just have to take my word for it. Anyway, that got me thinking about my all-time favorite books. (Can you feel another list coming? Yes, you can!) So forthwith, here is a list of my top ten favorite books ever.

1) This is a toughie. It could be about a 4-way tie but that's wimping out. So the first book that comes to mind when I say "my favorite book" is always Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, probably because it's the first book I totally identified with as a plain, lonely teenager who had never had a date. I've since re-read it about a bazillion times, and while I identify with Jane a little less now, I have to give it props for sparking my love affair with 19th century British literature.

2) I think this one goes to The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler. This was the first Anne Tyler book I ever read, and she's since become one of my favorite authors (if not the favorite). It's funny, sad, poignant. If you've never read an Anne Tyler book, I suggest starting with this one.

3) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Everyone has read this so I don't really feel much more explanation is necessary, although I will say that if the last time you read this was in ninth grade, you should consider picking it up again. It only gets funnier (and at the same time, more tragic) reading it as an adult.

4) Oh, how to choose. I'm going to go with Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen here. Sense and Sensibility may be the better book, but as far as favorites go it's definintely gotta be P & P. Elizabeth, Darcy, the Regency period....it's got everything.

5) Bridget Jones' Diary by Helen Fielding. This is where my snooty, high-falutin' English major facade breaks down. I'm sorry, it's just hilarious, OK?

My brain is getting tired now, so I'll finish the rest later on. (Plus I also need to go home and look at my bookshelf to refresh my memory on the books I've read). Stay tuned.

And now a public service announcement

If you haven't seen it yet, check out this Saturday Night Live video. (On the right hand side of the page, mouse over 'Videos' and click on 'Watch' for the first video, entitled 'Chronic(what)cles of Narnia.') Enjoy.

Hint: If it doesn't load in Firefox, use Internet Explorer.

You gotta be shitting me

And now for a completely boring news item brought to you by ALA, straight out of the pages of an A.S. Byatt novel:

London Librarian Finds Byron Manuscript

A University College London librarian has discovered the only known
original manuscript of a poem by English poet Lord Byron inside a book in the
library’s Strong Room Collections. Rare Books Librarian Susan Stead was
doing routine cataloging when she found the 12-line poem—which is dated
April 12, 1812, and begins “Absent or present still to thee”—inscribed in an
1810 copy of Samuel Rogers’s The Pleasures of Memory. “I just opened the
book and there it was,” Stead said in a January 3 BBC news report.
The poem was published in 1816 but there had been no known autograph manuscript of it until Stead’s discovery. The manuscript, which was later authenticated by Byron experts, will remain in the library’s collection, where it will be available to researchers, the Guardian reported January 4.

How completely fascinating. I have lots of things to complain about this week, but how to choose? Sexual harassment or slow-walkers (sort of like low-talkers)?

Sex is always more interesting, I guess. So although I am loathe to talk about my workplace, I will just say that there's this guy who comes into the library a couple times a week, doesn't speak English very well, and is in general very annoying. I made the mistake of trying to be very friendly and helpful the first time I saw him, so now every time he's here he acts very nauseating in a difficult-to-describe way, and either asks me for my personal information or tries to offer me his. I've made it quite clear (at least as I see it) that I have no interest in him whatsoever, but he persists. What creeps me out is that he keeps trying to give me his address, as though I would be stupid enough to go alone to his home, and last time he was here (after I had already refused the offer of his home address) he told me that he owned many businesses and wanted to talk to me about offering me a job. *Shiver* *Vomit* I of course told him that I was not interested.

So my defense against him has been to act as cold, unfriendly, and rude as possible in the hopes that he will eventually get the message and stop coming here, but I hate doing that in front of other patrons because it's unprofessional and sends a bad message about the library. And yet, isn't my personal safety more important? I think so. I don't feel exactly physically threatened by this person, at least not yet, it's just that he skeeves me out. I realize that every woman who lives and breathes on this earth and doesn't live in a cave fifty miles underground has to deal with this kind of thing at some point in their lives. It's just not fair, though.

Just some odds and ends

A lot of possible blog topics have been flitting around my brain, but I can't come up with any one thing that's long enough for an entry so I'm just going to mash them all up together. Enjoy.

First, I would like to propose legislation banning skinny mirrors. From the gym to the dressing room at the Gap, skinny mirrors have become a plague on society. Why is that, you may ask? Though logically you might think I would be in favor of skinny mirrors, I believe they are actually a blight on humanity. For one thing, they tempt you to buy clothes you really shouldn't. I have to admit, I have been hornswoggled more than once into purchasing clothing that I have been conned into thinking make me look svelte and lithe, but which in reality announce to the world, "Fat girl coming through! Make way! Make way!" And then, none the wiser because both of my mirrors at home are skinny mirrors, as are the mirrors at the gym, I go into society perky and confident, thinking I am the shit, when I accentally happen to catch a glance of myself in a realistic mirror. I am then devasted by what I see and utterly confused--which is the real me? The mostly fit and only slighlty overweight image I see in the dressing room, or the chunky and sadly delusioned woman staring back at me in the reality mirror, swathed in clothing much too tight for her protruding fat rolls? People, we deserve to see ourselves as we really are, not as clothing manufacturers and health club corporations would like to trick us into believing we are so they can sell more product. Please, talk to your local representatives about this urgent issue.

The next item on my list--telephones. How I loathe them. I was just reading a letter in Dan Savage's column from a woman who wants to know if all straight men hate talking on the phone as much as straight women love it. It gave me yet another example of how BF and I completely shatter stereotypical gender roles when it comes to relationships. Now, BF doesn't talk on the phone all that much but he does speak to his family on the phone pretty frequently, like more than once a week. I, on the other hand, only use the telephone in order to glean important information from someone who lives more than five miles away, or to make doctor appointments. I do not use the telephone recreationally. I don't know what it is about telephone conversations that I loathe, but I have a few theories. One of the most important is that telephone conversations are generally spontaneous, and no one hates spontaneity more than I. I plan everything, even my trips to the grocery store (this week it will be Monday evening), and I have no place in my life for unaccounted-for events, telephone calls being one of them. To me, recreational telephone calls are the equivalent of an unexpected visit, in the middle of the afternoon, of a relative who lives clear across the country, but who just dropped in to say hello and expects you to quit whatever it is you were doing to chit-chat with them for fifteen minutes. At the end of the conversation they leave as abruptly as they arrived, and you are expected to go on with your life without thinking anything of it. I'm sorry, I just don't operate that way.

The second reason I loathe telephone calls is that someone always calls you when you are in the middle of something else that you'd really rather be doing. So then you have to talk to this person who interrupted you for no good reason, all the while thinking about that other thing you want to be doing. And then invariably the conversation is filled with awkward pauses, which you both rush in to fill, tripping over each other's words, and then the next five minutes after that are filled with even more awkward moments of you both taking turns saying, "No, you go first." I just think I have better things to do with my time. One of them is writing emails. I much prefer emailing over telephoning, because then you can carefully craft your message, perfecting the tone and nuance till you get it just right, and then the recipient has a record of your dazzling words which he or she can then share with others, if appropriate. *Sigh* I'm such a dork.

No doubt you all pity me greatly now, but let me just tell you one thing: I don't need your stinking pity.

Cheers!

(Yes, that's my hand.) Sorry for not posting yesterday, but I was recovering from a wicked hangover (too many crimson drinks, apparently), and it was all I could do just to watch four episodes of The Simpson's, much less turn on my computer and type. So apologies for that. Welcome back - I know I've been gone for awhile, but hopefully you'll like the changes I've made to the blog, and if you don't...well, sorry. I did write one entry on December 24, but it's lame so if you haven't read it yet I wouldn't bother. For my first entry back, I thought I would do the obligatory Year in Review list o' crap. I was going to do a new year's resolution list, but all the things on my list are the same old boring shiznit on everyone else's list- lose weight, get a better job, do something meaningful with my life, yadda yadda yadda - so instead I'm going to unveil my picks for 2005's best books and movies. The books listed are taken from the books I've read in 2005, not necessarily books published in 2005, since I don't often read new releases. But since you all know that I'm an avid movie-goer, rest assured those will all be 2005 releases.

Best Books 2005
1. Blue Shoe/Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott (tie)
2. We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our Families by Philip Gourevitch
3. Murder on the Leviathan by Boris Akunin
4. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
5. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon

While I was making my list, I realized something about myself, and that is that I evidently read a lot of crap. My originial intention was to make a top ten list, but I cannot even think of ten books I've read this year that I would put on a ten best list, even though I figure I've probably read between 30 and 40 titles - just coming up with five turned out to be hard enough. Another thing I realized is that I should probably keep a list of all the books I read during the year, for no other reason than that it would be really cool to have a list of all the books I've read. Especially since the majority of my books come from the library, so I lose track from time to time. Hopefully the "What I'm Reading Now" section of my blog will help a little with that. Anyway, on to the movies.

Best Movies 2005
1. Crash
2. The Constant Gardener
3. Junebug
4. Pride and Prejudice
5. 40-Year-Old Virgin

The hard thing with these lists, especially the movies list, is picking between the most Important Movies/Books, and the most Enjoyable/Entertaining. Unfortunately for lazy-minded people like me, the twain do not often meet, so I tried to mix it up a bit. For instance, Crash was a very uncomfortable movie to sit through (I almost left during the first ten minutes, and if you've seen the movie I think you know why), and it's probably not a movie I would like to see again. But I think it's an excellent piece of art, and makes some interesting and provocative observations about American racial tensions. And then there's Pride and Prejudice, which does virtually nothing new with the whole Jane Austen thing, but it was one of those movies where it was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to see at the time and it wasn't horrible, so it left me with a very favorable impression. Actually, I doubt I would ever not put a Jane Austen adaptation on a top movie list, but that's just because I'm a brit lit geek.

Anyway, thanks for coming back to me, oh my wonderful readers, and I hope I won't let you down this year. (And if you want to put your own lists in the comments, please feel free. I'm also a list geek.) Happy 2006!