“Absorbent and yellow and distracting is he…”

"Absorbent and yellow and porous is he!"

Ah yes, Spongebob Squarepants, the invertebrate who lives in a pineapple under the sea, has been making waves as of late. If only Joseph Campbell were around, he would immediately intuit that Spongebob was a Sponge with a thousand faces.

The Sponge with a Thousand Faces.

I have watched Spongebob Squarepants ever since it first aired on Nickelodeon in 1999, and still catch episodes when I can on Netflix, snatching twelve or so minutes to wolf down cereal while I snort soymilk out of my nose from Bob’s ridiculous-ness. That may be a bit of hyperbole, but frankly, the show is pure genius; one that is able to deftly straddle diverse demographics, bringing children, teens and adults together, all to watch the antics of a spineless fry cook sponge and his idiotic starfish bestie, Patrick. It also carries the distinction of being one of the only ’90s cartoons still running, and that is saying something. I own a few seasons, and have always enjoyed the show’s quick pace, the insane animation, the plots involving his terrible driving at Boating School, his job working as a fry cook for miserly Eugene Krabs at the fast food restaurant the Krusty Krab, his wacky friends like Sandy Cheeks (HA!) and Patrick Star, and his cranky neighbor Squidward Tentacles. The names are a hoot, the stories downright crazy. Which is also why I do not understand all the fuss about the supposed effects the show has on 4-year-olds.

Videos & Links from the toilet that is the Internetz.

Yup, that’s right; I strained the flow of chunk stuff that flowed through the Tubes which make up teh Internetz and sifted until I hit gold. And here it is:

First off, funny fan-boy bait for everyone!

Harry Potter in the Hood (NSFW)

 

Hilarious videogame called I’m NOT Drunk!. Propaganda or parody, it is still funny!

Chinese WoW playing gets confused with Real Life

A World of Warcraft Intervention!

An excellent documentary called Second Skin about MMO’s and their effects, is now available. Here’s a little taste, via Kotaku.

Plants vs. Zombies music video! WARNING: Extremely catchy song.

And of course, the effects said video has on a toddler.

Super Mario Bros. protest by “real” Italians. Fuggedaboutit.

College Humor remains hip with their take on social networking via the musical Web Site Story.

Japanese fashion gets a little crazy with the Gyaru fashion trend (thanks Japanator!), and UK Teens emulate it, much to everyone’s dismay. WTF England, wtf.

And Harper College Library has perhaps my favorite Library tour video OF ALL TIME.

Now for the random ramblings in link form, from Japanese mythology to scientific gaming!
Japanese mythological creatures called Tanuki use a specific body part to great effect. Here is some neat artwork, via Japanator.

Gaming is the new scientific frontier, according to this researcher.

The innovative game Scribblenauts deserves a lot of credit, especially from Information Specialists!

UK author Helen McCarthy hips us to Manga Cross-Stitch, a great book for all of the crafty otaku out there!

And according to this msnbc article, screaming obscenities may indeed be a pain killer. Great, so now that’s what I’ll tell the cops at 3am.

That is all.

Playin’ catch-up with links and posts…

Combing the Internetz is hard work! I thinkI may need Valve to send me something from Team Fortress to help kill the crap and save the good stuff.

Team Fortress 2 mail in coupon

Total Eclipse of the Heart. LITERALLY.
Srsly frakkin’ FUNNY! A LITERAL VIDEO TRANSLATION of that most famous and insidious of ’80’s songs, Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler. Behold the glory!

Live Action PITFALL
As part of the 2009 Come Out & Play Festival in NYC, the live-action Pitfall Tournament was a hit. Now that’s total immersion!

Augmented Reality Zombie game
A project from Georgia tech and SCAD-Atlanta brings us a new AR game, which is a composite that mashes up hand-held peripherals, table surfaces, holographic technology, and SKITTLES. Oh yeah, Skittle-Bombs away!

Star Trek/Wars
After I saw the “new” Star Trek, it reminded me of something…but I couldn’t figure out what.

Steampunk Light Box
If any of you have ever had a hankering to start up a DIY project, this one seems interesting and not too difficult.

GUNDAM
Anyone who’s kept up with news out of Japan knows they have a thing for robots, and apparently, the bigger the better, like this life-size Gundam model which stood outside of Odiaba for a few months before being moved away. Pink Tentacle has some amazing night shots!

The Recently Deflowered Girl
Of course we all recognize the work of artist Edward Gorey, but did you know that he tamed up with Ms. Hyacinthe Phypps to create a manners book for women who are deflowered in myriad situations? Neither did I, until now.

Well, I hope this has been as enlightening for you as it has for me. Goodbye.

Been a long time comin’…

…but I been thinking, I send soooo many posts to other folks through private email channels, why not send ’em back out to the masses? So since you (didn’t) ask for it, you got it! I will now attempt to document my backlog of links, thus permanently archiving them in this ephemeral blog post form until the transience of technology erases everything from memory. Oh well, here goes:

The Gay Comics List:
This site is freakin’ awesome! For any fans of GLBT comics, Libraries and Educators alike whoa re looking to beef up their collection and/or awareness, and anyone else who just likes the beef cakes, this is an excellent source.

FUCK YOU, PENGUIN:
Caution, if you like LOLcats, then you’ll hate this. Or you might love it, I dunno, maybe you’re just messed up in the head. Either way, do not drink milk while reading this site, cuz it WILL COME OUT YOUR NOSE.
LOLcats? A dime a dozen.
Raggin’ on pictures of innocent animals? Priceless.

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency:
Of course, who doesn’t like McSweeney’s? Unless you AREN’T a pretentious Douchebag, you obviously worship the site. Well either way, read the Internet-Age Syllabus and Course Overview, before I get angry. And you won’t like me when I’m angry.

FLUTTER:
If you thought Twitter was brief, well, you were right. But Flutter just might be our next Microblogging fix. Or not, you decide.

Well, that’s all for now, but trust me when I say, there are LOTS more to follow, so stay tuned!

MIT Media Lab does it again…

Now you all know that I have a very special place in my heart for Cyborgs, Neo-Humans and TransHumans, being one myself. Most of you out there are cyborgs too, only you don’t know it. Do you use a cell phone? Watch television? Use computers? Drive automobiles? You are the very machine that plugs into these other machines, a meta-machine, if you will. And these things we plug ourselves into are very helpful indeed, but there seems to be a limit, a techno-glass ceiling for just how intuitive these machines are. Well, rest assured that this is all changing. At MIT, they do some amazing work helping us be the cyborgs that we want to be, and this video is no exception. It is touted as a ‘6th-sense’ device, and no amount of explanation will do it justice. So watch the video. Now.

See?! I WANT ONE NOW!

It coulda been us (I’m just sayin’)…

…that we, as Librarians, who work in Libraries, could have seen this one coming, and maybe, just maybe , done something about it. Like buy stock in Google.

I am trying to keep up on the Google Digital Library case, and the arguments are flowing outta this one like Swine Flu

introducing the Swine Flu Dancers!

across the Rio Grande. Orphan books, copyright holders, authors, publishers, censorship, this case has got it ALL!

 

As many of us already know, in 2005 Google was sued by the Author’s Guild (of Calamitous Intent), because they were showing snippets of texts online, which then led to the 2007 settlement (SETTLEMENT!) that ended up covering book holders, so no harm, no foul. Google was able to scan, index, display and even sell all books in print online (sure makes research a heckuva lot faster). Now this sets up Google as the world’s largest digital Library, which, by the way, looks nothing like you might imagine. Or this image, as a matter of fact.

NOT the Google Digital Library

Officially, ALA, ARL and ACRL do NOT oppose this settlement, but are more worried about it than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. The Department of Justice is already investigating the matter, as it stinks to high heaven like an anti-trust matter. Is it? Who knows? I’m not the DoJ, or the AG, for that matter. Who is? You’ll have to TORTURE it out of me.

DVDs are Tired. Move over for the new Holographic Discs!

We all knew that our information storage artifacts have life cycles, a birth and a death. Everything has an expiration date, and some things surprised us with their tiny lives, so ephemeral. Like Laser Discs, the Mayflies of digital storage discs, these LP-sized coasters are severely obsolete, although I can even remember a time when I was watching the Mortal Combat film on one. Like 8-tracks, cassette tapes, mini-discs, CDs and even DVDs, we are witnessing an end to these limiting formats.
As a regular DVD can store 4 (single layer) to 8 (dual-layer) gigabytes of information, and a Blu-Ray can store 25 (single) to 50 (dual) gigs worth of info, what might be the next leap in storage capacity? Would you believe 500 gigabytes? Yup, it’s true, according to GE. Don’t take my word for it, watch the video.

How’s THAT for a slice of fried gold?! Well fellow Librarians, we have our work cut out for us. Time to make some CD and DVD windchimes, eh? You’re welcome, Summer Craft Programs.

Robot legs for you to wear!

Now, for all of you Neo-Humans, CyBoys, CyGals and Transhumans out there, a little mechanical augmentation for your frail, flimsy, human frame of meat is available, fresh from Japan!

Honda Walk Assist Device

Remember, Japan is an aging society. Here is a pretty picture for your edification (you’re welcome, Visual Learners):

Japanese population change 1960-2006

And for those of you who need a little Quantitative Analysis before lunch:

Japan population forecast

In an article by Reuters on this very phenomenon, it is predicted that “by 2020, about 14 percent of the population of greater Tokyo – around 4.9 million people of a predicted population of 35 million – will be aged 75 or older. Currently only around 7 percent of the greater Tokyo area are in this age bracket.”

And according to the CDC, stateside, we will see a marked increase in elderly folks as well.
“By 2030, the number of Americans aged 65 and older will more than double to 71 million older Americans, comprising roughly 20 percent of the U.S. population. In some states, fully a quarter of the population will be aged 65 and older….The cost of providing health care for an older American is three to five times greater than the cost for someone younger than 65. By 2030, the nation’s health care spending is projected to increase by 25% due to demographic shifts unless improving and preserving the health of older adults is more actively addressed.”

Why not invest in technologies that can level the playing field for all of those whose bodies aren’t as spry as they used to be? Why not have an adorable RoboButler who will serve you iced prune juice smoothies, laced with Glucosamine Chondroitin? I mean, stairs are evil and unnatural, granted, and they are difficult to navigate drunk, so why not have some Robo legs to power your husk on up there? I think these are super-neat, and I want. NOW.

Ah yes, Library Thing.

Well, I had tried out Library Thing a while ago in Library School, and it bored me. So here, may it now bore you. Forever.

My Library at LibraryThing

It’s not a bad idea, really, its’ simply tedious searching and loading each book into the account, when I have soooooo many books. Seriously, I don’t have an accurate count anymore, but I *did* just get a new shipment of manga in, and that was 89 new books, and I am now awaiting another shipment of around 250 or so. We’ll see how many I can get into my new OPAC before I go CRAZY. Crazy for MANGA!

Library Humour

Yes, that is correct; I am a Librarian, I work in a Library, and I find inside jokes about my profession amusing.

This should go well when discussing eBook Readers, dontcha think?

Anyway, Wyoming stirred up a bit of controversy with their new Libraries Logo:

Truthfully, I don’t really mind it, but that’s because I am a misogynist at heart (although I AM a male working in a female-dominated profession, but my past two careers were the same, School Teacher and Stage Manager. So there).
Hey, anything for Libraries to remain relevant, right? I mean, we don’t want to force people into our buildings and make them read at gunpoint, but I certainly don’t want to live in a world where I can’t get access to anything and everything I want (although sometimes it seems like we’re already there).

We really do need more Militant Librarians.