A few weeks ago, I accidentally nuked the content at biblyotheke.net when I ssh’d in to my hosting server and accidentally deleted the wrong directory when I hit enter after the auto completion of “biblyotheke.net” instead of finishing it out with “biblyotheke.net.old.”
Oops.
For some time, I’ve been whinging on my existential crisis (of sorts) in regards to my writing and social networked life. While I was hemming and hawing publicly, I started some backend work by pulling down the content from modgirl.net, which contained work from 1996-2008 as well as content from other blogs and my LiveJournal, in the attempt to start organizing it into a better searchable and indexed listing of writing with an idea to get it consolidated into a single location at some near future date. (So what I was whinging on about for the last several years, but at a task was to be done at leisure rather then rush, while I worked out my “issues.”)
The accidental nuking of the content at biblyotheke.net turned out to be an awesome way to for me to make an executive decision to fasttrack the content to biblyotheke.net and decommisioning modgirl.net and shesgotplans.net. Ergo, problem solved. So here is the haps of what is upcoming in the next few months:
Starting immediately, I’ll be cross-posting content to both sites, but biblyotheke.net content will now be posting to Twitter/Facebook/LiveJournal while content from shegotplans.net will not.
I’ve imported the content from shesgotplans.net over to biblyotheke.net over the weekend and I have been working, on and off, to straighten out the links, tags, categories and images over there. A lot is still broken, but should be fixed soonish.
Once everything is fixed, I’ll be implementing 301 redirects from shegotplans.net over to biblyotheke.net to handle off-site links so they are not (that) broken.
If you follow me using RSS feed, you will want to update your feed link to biblyotheke.net/feed since content will be duplicated on both sites starting immediately.
I’ll be updating on progress by using sticky notes on both blogs on where I’m at over the change over.
After everything has been fixed on biblyotheke.net, I’ll stop cross-posting to both blogs and will remove the duplicate information on shesgotplans.net.
As always, if you have any questions or shit is broken somewhere, email me at lisa at biblyotheke dot net.
x0x0x
In the mid-late ’90s, I ran a mailing list, “chaingang,” whose sole purpose was to forward links and bits and bobs to interested parties. This is the 21st century version of that mailing list, compiled weekly.
Third of adults use smartphone says Ofcom report – Article at the BBC on recently released study illustrating the rise of technology useage. What was striking to me is that buried at the end of the report was the notation tha radio grew 2.9% since 2009 and listeners listen to over 1 billion hours a week (assume in the U.K. only due to how BBC article is written)
Why Texting Is the Most Important Information Service in the World – The more I an do on my mobile (pay bills, send money via Paypal, take pictures/video, program home electronics, access files in the cloud, etc etc), the more I wonder what else I can do with my mobile. The possibilities are endless.
[infographic] A Librarian’s Worth – I am a librarian and I approve of this infographic.
MTV Turns 30 Today – On August 1, 1981, I was 9. And MTV launched at 12:01 AM. The first 24 hours available here
In the mid-late ’90s, I ran a mailing list, “chaingang,” whose sole purpose was to forward links and bits and bobs to interested parties. This is the 21st century version of that mailing list, compiled weekly.
This is a slightly edited post that I originally published over at Excessively Diverting last week!
I am beyond thrilled to announce that my Etsy shop, Excessively Diverting, and the Etsy librarian collective known as Team Librarian are heading to Maker Faire: Detroit this weekend, July 30-31.
To celebrate this awesomesauce, Team Librarian is having a weekend long sale (Saturday through Monday)! Visit participating vendors in Team Librarian and use the coupon code MAKERFAIRE at checkout to get 15% off your order! Please Note: You will need to use the coupon code for each vendor you visit as Etsy does not allow you to stack the cart with items from various vendors!
If you’re heading to Maker Faire: Detroit this weekend, our booth is located inside The Henry Ford, so please come visit! Lastly, here is the current list of sellers who will be selling their wares at the Team Librarian table at Maker Faire:
In the mid-late ’90s, I ran a mailing list, “chaingang,” whose sole purpose was to forward links and bits and bobs to interested parties. This is the 21st century version of that mailing list, compiled weekly.
Podcasts: Who still listens to them? Me me me! Interesting article on perception vs reality of podcasts and podcasting. This topic is also slated to get written about as a Le mie Passioni piece because I love them so much.
In the mid-late ’90s, I ran a mailing list, “chaingang,” whose sole purpose was to forward links and bits and bobs to interested parties. This is the 21st century version of that mailing list, compiled weekly. [No chaingang for July 11.]
Jane Austen manuscript fetches $1.6M USD at auction. Wow. Yay Jane!
Dillards’s Fires Guy For Eating Two Hotdogs – Um, yeah.
But Mr Darcy, shouldn’t we be taking precautions? – Various links have been going around about a new “study” done by a psychologist who argues that all romantic fiction is ethically corrupt for failing to use safe-sex and that women who read that claptrap are missing out on the bigger picture of life.
(Le Mie passioni, Italian translation of “my passions,” is a an occasional series of things I really, really love.)
Magnus coneflower (foreground) and phlox peppermints, July 9, 2011. Gardening
As we slip-side towards the middle of July, summer is finally taking hold of us here in Michigan after a long, desolate winter and a very odd spring. I explained to TheHusband recently that my need to be outside and doing something, anything is more towards getting rid of the cabin fever syndrome that is still a carryover from winter, when we could barely leave the house, then actually wanting to accomplish (despite best intentions) something on our grounds. Sad, but true. Our veg garden, photo taken from the garage roof, 05/24/11.
TheHusband and I have been at gardening odds at each other since the snows have melted: He’s only interested in working in the vegetable gardens while I distinctly remember that I wholly promised with all my heart to work on the flower gardens to get them cleaned up and prepped for the season. This may not seem like a bad trade off until you take into consideration that we have nothing BUT flower gardens: There is not a single blade of grass, in sight, on our entire property. The previous occupants was a gardening maestro, even my mother-in-law noticed that under all the nearly rotten foliage were rare and expensive plants. The problem, however, was that the previous occupant planted them willy nilly, perennials on top of perennials with the ground cover filled in with creepers such as nettles, English ivy and archangel to fill in the holes, that it is literally a needle in the haystack to get to the good stuff. Our job, my job really, was to sort out the rot, figure out what is underneath the weeds, the creepers and the trash to see what was left behind. Wisteria to be composted.
Our first forays into the gardens in the spring, we got easily overwhelmed with all the work that needs to be done. We slowly cleared out English ivy tap roots that weighed in as much as 30-40 pounds and were settled along the brick of our garage, I pulled wheel barrel after wheel barrel of ivy that was settled around the urban garden landscape and part of our backyard. TheHusband chopped down and uprooted junk trees and bushes that were strangling the more expensive flora and blocking out their sun. But it seemed for every weekend worth of work we did, we discovered that more work had to be done.
While our veg garden beds were laid out years ago, the wood used to build the containers is all rotting and will need ot be replaced next year. English ivy is so dominant in our yard that it is also strangling the vegs and before we build the new containers in veg garden, we’ll have to till the fuck of the land to cut up all of the English ivy roots. For weeks now we’ve been hiding in our house, attempting to ignore the wild jungle that is our yard. Every once in while, one of us will kick the other into action to go out and do something in the yard whether it is to water it, tend to the vegetables, chop up some compost or weed.
But again, the more we do, the more overhwlemed we become and the cycle continues to repeat itself. TheHusband suggested a week or two ago that we just say fuck it and hire a landscaper to have them clean out the weeds, the creepers and the ivies and get it looking good again. If that didn’t work, if it would be far too time consuming or expensive, hire them to tear the hell out of yard, till it back to the soil so that we could start afresh, design it the way that we want it. All of this costs money, something we don’t have right now as unexpected costs keep becoming, well unexpected. And personally, I don’t see the point of hiring someone to come do the work we can do it ourselves. Yes, granted, it sucks; it’s getting to be unbearably hot, but if I can weed a fairly large section the yard in under a few hours, think of how much I can get down with a few hours a day?
And I don’t mind the weeding – there is a zen like state I fall into when I’m out there working. I took a stand and pointed out that part of this problem was our own fault: If we only worked a few hours a week on it, instead of few hours a month, the amount of work would not seem so terrible. So we’ve decided that I would be in charge of the weeding and the planting and TheHusband is in charge of all the removing and the chopping. After my declaration of war against our garden, I spent the last week, a few hours after work each day, working steadily on our front yard. It is beginning to look clean but definitely more bare with the ivy and the creeper gone but now we can fill those bare areas with non-aggressive plants and other pretty flora. I’ve also discovered brick pathways, long covered up by the ivy and extra dirt, that there is a method to the previous occupants madness and it is up to me to decode it.
I’ve also realised, as I keep working outside, that I like weeding so much because not only is it to some degree meditative, but that it is also very much like being Indiana Jones. I keep finding so much stuff in the ground, besides trash, such as Indian arrow heads, broken pieces of random pottery, hat pins, old gardening tools, and accouterments. I keep a little bucket for non-composting items that need to be removed and it sometimes is a virtual treasure trove of strange and wondrous items.
I thought about creating a new Tumblr entitled, “Things found in my garden.” I’ve stocked up on wife beaters, 45 SPF, hair ties and even bought a pair of Crocs. My pasty skin is getting brown for the first time in years and freckles are appearing on my face. While our vegetable garden may not yield much this year, our fruit bearing cherry tree is struggling and the yard looks like a war zone, soon it will look beautiful and I can say it was all done because of me.
In the mid-late ’90s, I ran a mailing list, “chaingang,” whose sole purpose was to forward links and bits and bobs to interested parties. This is the 21st century version of that mailing list, compiled weekly.
Epic ‘Doctor Who’ Infographic Shows History Of The Companions! – I became a Doctor Who convert with the 2005 reboot and have a minor obsession with the series.
Prejudice and Pride: Singing Jane Austen’s Song – I tumbled about this the other day: Kate Harrad gender swaps the characters in Pride and Prejudice, reimagining the classic in a wholly new and wonderful way.
Middlebrow: The Taste That Dare Not Speak Its Name – The author argues that the populous as a whole is neither high nor low cultured, we’re just average. And we love it that way.
In the mid-late ’90s, I ran a mailing list, “chaingang,” whose sole purpose was to forward links and bits and bobs to interested parties. This is the 21st century version of that mailing list, compiled weekly.
U.K. Visit History – Verra interesting interactive site by BBC History Magazine, which breaks down by region, category and eras of historical places of interest around the United Kingdom.
Zero-Packaging Grocery Store to Open in Austin, Texas – Annoyed as balls that Grand Rapids cannot get a Whole Foods OR a Trader Joes, so excuse me while I sit here and stew.
Three Cups of Tea Author Greg Mortenson Sued for Fraud, Deceit, Breach of Contract – Fairly old news (from May), but we sold hundreds of copies of his book when I worked as a bookseller. Interesting opening to the idea of fake memoirs and what value, if any, they have. Remember James Frey?
MGM Television Partners With The Team Behind “The Tudors” For Viking Series – With my passion for period dramas, medieval history AND mythologies coupled with an awesome production team, this is going to rock socks.
God damn you, Veronica Mars! I’ve just finished watching the entire series over the course of a few months and my panties are currently in a twist over the final episodes of season 3!
How many nights in the last several months have I stayed up far too late into the night, regardless of my responsibilities the following day, because each VM episode that ended, ended with enough grab that I had to immediately start the next one? How many times did I shake an angry fist at the end of said episode? Loads. How many times did I ween myself off for a few days so I could prolong that sweet, sweet Veronica Mars injection, in the hopes to keep the high going for as long as possible? Too many times to count. And how many times, whenever whatever is holding my attention ends, have I wept like a child? Too fucking many.1
But not all shows or books or bands are created equal or even better, can sustain keeping the content compelling for long periods of time. Case in point: years ago when I got hooked into the Laurell K. Hamilton Anita Blake series via my friend Keth who promised I would love the kick ass, no holds barred female lead. Keth was very much right. I gobbled up LKH’s backlist and eagerly awaited each new arrival with near baited breath. But somewhere around books 9 or 10, the kick ass, no holds barred female lead turned into a spineless, walking sperm bank. Anita Blake can’t get out of a damned car without fucking 15 of her closest and dearest friends. And it was not that I was a prude to sex scenes by any stretch of the imagination (I also read LKH’s Merry Gentry series, where sex figured prominently in the landscape as well as I have been a purveyor of Penthouse Letters and other magazines/books for years, where sex (act or discussing of) is in your face. Literally. ), but the whole damned story stopped existing and the books became (in my opinion) general fodder for LKH’s sexual fantasies. Plot? Gone. Editing? Gone. Character development outside of the cut and paste from previous books? Also gone. The LKH love affair is over.
And I digress. There are probably a multitude of reasons why I had not seen Veronica Mars during its original run, ranging from for a number of years in the ’90s and ’00s when I was either without cable or without a television.2 Or perhaps at the time the idea of watching a spunky, Nancy Drew meets Parker Posey character just wasn’t my bag. Whatever the initial reason is immaterial because now I know and now I have gorged and like all junkies, I am left feeling despondent on the lack of Veronica Mars crack in my life. But here is what is interesting to me about Veronica Mars and all the other shows that seem to end far too early: their continual current cultural relevancy and their fan bases, years (or even decades) after the shows demise. Look at Star Trek fans for chrissakes, still waging a war on episodes that happened over 40 years ago. The Veronica Mars solar system is no different. One can currently discuss the happenings of Mars and Neptune on Television Without Pity while checking against the full episodes currently available at TheWB or on Netflix. Or if you’re feeling inclined, you can peruse the Veronica Mars fanfiction over at fanfiction.net or read vaguely scholarly articles on the series via the book Neptune Noir.3
AND THIS! This is where the problem get perpetuated even more so! It is not enough to just watch the show and go, “Gee, that show was terrific!” No, I need to spend hours on the Internet reading commentary and analysis of episode by episode. Veronica and Piz? Hell no. Veronica and Logan? Hell yes! I need to read the pairings, the clues that I missed, I need to ponder if I need to re-watch the show so soon after finishing it to keep the high going. I want to delve deep under the surface of the show as pure entertainment and frame it as a cultural commentary. I also knew that I was heavily invested when I started dreaming that I was dating Logan Echolls.
Tapping that vein.
When our phone lines got cut due to construction recently, I told TheHusband that I wanted to get VM on DVD to have on hand in case of (another) apocalypse. He looked at me likes I was crazy – and to be fair, we spend so much of our viewing time via the on-demand features of UVese and Netflix, that we have not watched a physical DVD in months so his reaction was not totally out of line. But I think this also says something about not just of my own interests but also of the state of current television when purchasing and rewatching DVDs of expired shows sounds a whole lot more entertaining then watching the current crop of “entertainment.”
So then, of course, after much wailing on Twitter, I was tipped off to the methadone venison of Veronica Mars in the form of Party Down.
And the cycle repeats itself.
1. Shows that have ended far too early: Pushing Daisies, Firefly, Spaced and Wonderfalls to name a few. The first two are available on Netflix Instantqueue and Spaced is on Hulu for when I need to tap that vein.
2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in all of its 90s glory, is another fine example of missed during its original run television. Though to be fair, I have started watching the BtVS via Netflix’s Instantqueue, however, I’m only up to season 2. But interestingly, I have seen all of Angel. (It’s David Boreanaz, hello!)
3. The book is selling for $1.99 on Kindle. I bought it. I am not ashamed to admit it!
