#19--On Being David Borders

100% on the wiki quiz. And I didn't even have to reference the wiki.
OK, so maybe I did. Just kidding, I didn't. Or...
You know, I really wish the note-takers for the managers meetings would put something juicy in there. I mean, they're interesting-ish reports, but some side/foot notes or funny commentary (maybe Gail is picking her nose?) would be greatly appreciated.

• If I were David, I would type up an entire fake manager's report, because it's "funny." (I will admit, though, the recent parody communication agreement was quite good.)
  

• If I were David, I would stop wearing turtlenecks. (The only exception to this is if you pair it with a beret, unclip your garters, and invest in bongo drums, ya beatnik.)
  

• If I were David, I would not wear my cellphone in a case on my belt loop anymore. Quit showing off, we all have cellphones.

• If I were David, I would try to be more enigmatic by not posting constant updates about my feelings to the Facebook world. And no more van pictures. And no, I don't want to go to Sunday school with you.
  

• If I were David, I would attempt to be more subtle and clever with my "books in the mailbox" humor. Irritable Bowel Syndrome? Coping with Impotence? Really, David?
  

• If I were David, I would work on not crying so much in public. I know it's hard, but my next suggestion may help stem those tears, buddy.
  

• If I were David, I would stop losing FF matchups in such a pathetic fashion. "BLOWOUT!" (compliments of Jordan)

I'm just glad I'm not David, is all I'm saying. It must be frustrating to see the world through those glasses.


(This picture is really creepy. Let's pretend it's David.)

#18 2.0

I actually found Zamzar to be a little confusing. I converted it, received the email, and downloaded the file....? But I converted it to a weird format and realized that I wouldn't be able to successfully embed the video from the hard drive. I think I'm probably just being a little thick.
Anyways, in the overall spirit of this blog, here are a couple videos, as promised:
(I don't think I've returned to the Muppet theme enough, so now I will overcompensate)

#18--THE FRENCH

So, I didn't finish in time for the drawing.

I don't know if you guys have heard, but--breaking news--scientists are scandalous too!
(You know, Newton versus Gottfried Leibniz style.)

Read the scandal--thanks to TinyURL:
http://tinyurl.com/yjow23b

In other hilarious science-related news:

"On Nov. 3 electricity from a substation was knocked out briefly to part of the superconductor refrigeration. Although no damage resulted, the scientists would have lost one day for sending beams of protons around the collider had it been running. CERN said feathers and baguette crumbs found at the scene indicated a piece of bread dropped by a bird caused a short-circuit in the substation. 'The bird escaped unharmed but lost its bread," CERN told its employees. "The incident was similar in effect to a standard power cut, for which the machine protection systems are very well prepared.'"

"No! Not in the supercollider! The French are always trying to sabotage us, just because we're smarter and more attractive!"

On a similar topic...
What did the French existentialist seagull say?
"Pourquoi?! Pourquoi?!?"
(Imagine me flapping my arms and making funny bird noises)

I am waiting for Zamzar to send my converted file to me:
Stayed tuned for The Muppets Bohemian Rhapsody.

#17--Low fuel and follow-through

Everyone seemed to like the library job posting link. It was pretty cool as a portal to other library websites, but if you scroll to the bottom of the home page, you'll notice that it hasn't been updated since May....
I went to the library blogs. I liked info-fetishist's blog--great name and I can get behind that woman's caliber of nerdy academia. Using sentence diagrams to create level upon level of irony is something I can appreciate. And I hate diagramming sentences.

I don't have a lot else on this one, so I will tell a story:

My "Low Fuel" light turned on today....procrastinator. It was around noon; every pump at the closest gas station was occupied. I assessed the situation and decided to pull in behind a maroon Honda Accord with a crooked yellow bumper sticker that said "Flipped!" There was no one in or around the car--so I assumed that some young man wearing a backwards ball cap and a shirt with shiny writing on it would come strutting out of the gas station soon enough and peel out of the parking lot--leaving me and the pump in his over-confident dust. It seemed like the quickest option.
So, I'm sitting. Sitting. Sittttting. Finally, an elderly gentleman leaning on a cane exited the store, and I knew. He belonged to the Honda, and the Honda belonged to him. He didn't have any coffee or scratch tickets in his hands; he had simply prepaid for the fuel, I realized.
This was the slowest man in the world. But he looked like a very nice, interesting man. So, I watched him hobble to his car, open his car door, press a button to open the door to the gas tank, and very slowly fill his tank.
At this point, I had watched other cars get in line, their owners make gasoline purchase, and move along with their lives. There were empty pumps around me, but I decided that by choosing this pump I had, in fact, made a commitment. Why be so stubborn?
When he finally finished, he waved and smiled at me. I waved and smiled back. BUT WAIT, WAIT...as he's opening his car door, he gets a phone call. And Lord knows you shouldn't drive while talking on a cell phone!

It was worth it.

#16--Open Source: A Sappy Love Story

Open Office is great, especially with how much Microsoft Office 2007 annoys me ("but it's prettier!"). File compatibility bugs are pretty much all worked out, it is integrated cross-platform, and for all intensive purposes, capabilities are functionally the same.
Sure, we all want the CS4 Design Premium Suite.
Options:

• Download it illegally and go to jail where you won't be able to use it and your friends won't think you're so cool anymore.
• Pay for it, you rich punk. ($1,799 before tax, upgrade for $599)

OR you can go to osalt.com (Open Source as Alternative) to research what open source options are out there to patchwork together your own suite. You can even name it something cool, if you want. So download Gimp, Cinelerra, CinePaint, Jahshaka, KToon, and OpenLaszlo. Call it "LLM Suite 3000+" (patent pending and making it to the playoffs since 2009).

Right now in school, I am working specifically with MySQL 5 and Apache (both open source) to build web-based databases that will interface with HTML through PHP. It's amazing what you can do for free.

The subculture around open source is fascinating, too. It's a movement that hasn't been fully recognized. These people are like punks before it died, but they're smarter.

#15--Clipping right along...

...ha...ha.
Do you know what's cool about Clipmarks, I just found out? It shares your clips with everyone and ranks them by most popular clip. Very interesting, because not only can I save favorite pages, but I can also browse through other weirdo's favorite pages. So, be careful what you clip if you don't want strangers to judge you, I suppose.
Debbyski is a big fan of "Is Doomsday Coming?"
Euphoriajoca is into "10 Weirdest Animal Friendships"

But seriously, Clipmarks reminds me--in a backwards way--of StumbleUpon, of which I'm a big fan. There is a community aspect similar to Clipmarks, but it takes you to sites you might like based on the interests criteria you specify. You can thumbs up/down, share, and save sites. I've spent hours lost in the depths of the Internet thanks to this tool.
http://www.stumbleupon.com/aboutus/
Read the section called "Combats Information Overload." The coolest thing about this program is the smart technologies behind it. How can something described as an "intelligent browsing tool" with a "recommendation engine and database" not be sexy?
Blog about your experience. ......ha....ha (And we come full circle)

#14--Who wants to debate literary theory? Not me! But Melody, if you want to...I'm ready.

A couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to help a lovely mother/daughter duo figure out how to download an audiobook through Overdrive to their iPod, from start to finish. They had been having trouble for weeks, and finally came in to see if they could get it to work on our download station.
To learn the process, I had downloaded a couple books to my laptop before, but I don't have an mp3 player/iPod, so I hadn't been able to step through that part yet.

The problem? When transferring audiobooks to iPods for the first time through Overdrive, you have to change a setting in iTunes under the iPod external device drive. The Overdrive media console and iTunes don't want to work together at first. Surprise surprise. So, I have actually had pretty good experiences assisting patrons with the downloadable audiobooks, meaning I've had successful experiences. But that doesn't negate the fact that it's a....process.

Personally, I don't like listening to books. I tried again recently, got 30 minutes in, and realized that I had no idea what was happening and had just wasted 30 minutes. It also could have been that I chose a pretentious postmodernist author, and that in fact NOBODY knows what he's talking about. And so it goes.
This is the second time that Melody has appeared in one of my titles. I bet Melody is a modernist. Now I want to debate literary theory. Fantastic.