Shakespeare MMO

I have always shied away from online multiplayer games due to the addiction factor. However, Arden: The World of Shakespeare sounds right up my alley. It's not out yet, but I'll be watching for it.

According to this review on CNet, "players can expect to trot around in 17th century regalia, buying ale in Elizabethan taverns and joining guilds aimed at toppling dukes and earls." All in a massively multiplayer online game. It doesn't get much better than that!

Thanks to: Librarian in Black

Play Fantasy Congress!

I saw this and had to post it. Now you can play Fantasy Congress. It's like Fantasy Football for nerds!

From their site:
"As in other fantasy sports, you - the Citizen - draft a team of real-life legislators from the U.S. Congress and score points for your team's successes. Join a league and compete against other Citizens, or form a league of your own! Play against your friends, family, bloggers, fellow politicos, or even a sitting U.S. Senator (one could be playing incognito, you never know!). On weekends, move Members of Congress into your active line-up or off your team to strategize for the upcoming week of legislation!"

wheeeeeeee!!!

Thanks to: Robert Ambrogi's Law Sites blog

It's.... HypnoToad!!

Just wanted to spread a little HypnoToad joy today!


Thanks to: my friend Chad

More free image hosting: thumbq

Here's another free image hosting site: thumbq.

I like this one because it lets you host multiple images on one URL. Also, the site's a good deal less cluttery.

Thanks to: Library Stuff blog

Free image hosting: Image Shack

Use Image Shack to host your images on the web (for free of course). This is handy for generating a quick URL to an image. You just browse to your image and click "Host It." No passwords or email invitations required to share your picture!

This one was so cool, I put it into the latest issue of my Law Library's newsletter.

Thanks to: My pal Frank!

Make your own toolbar

Conduit offers a way to make your own toolbar for searching the web, a particular site, whatever. It's pretty nifty, although (like so many other downloadable toolbars) it looks like you may end up with some toolbar buttons and programs you may not necessarily want. Still, it's kind of a neat way to make your own toolbar and share it with others.

Thanks to: DALLNET blog

Easy image resizing

I've used Irfanview for a number of years to resize, crop, and edit images. It's a free download and offers a lot of functionality for working with your photos.

I came across ResizR on another blog this morning and thought it looked pretty handy. You don't have to download anything; just browse to the image on your computer and use the little slider to change the size. It also lets you rotate the image. This could come in handy if you have an image you want to resize and say, you're not on your own computer.

Thanks to: http://www.inter-alia.net

Marie Antoinette!!!

So I'm superjazzed about the new Marie Antoinette movie. Big hair. Big dresses. Fans. Pretty Pretty Pretty! And a killer soundtrack!

Official Site: http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/marieantoinette/index.html
IMDB Site: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0422720/

I hear they based it on this biography written by Antonia Fraser. Think I'll try to read it before I go see the movie...

Squirl - catalog your collection of... whatever

Everybody collects SOMETHING. One man's trash is another man's cheesy Barbie doll collection, I guess. Maybe it's the librarian in me, but I can't help but be drawn to cool tools that allow you to classify and organize your stuff. Squirl is a FREE site that allows you to organize and share your personal collections on the web. And it's social, so you can meet other people who collect the same stuff you do.

Al Gore to speak at Special Libraries Assn annual conference

According to this press release, former VP Al Gore is going to deliver the keynote address at the SLA annual conference in Denver next June. Now I've been planning on going to the AALL conference in New Orleans next July, but the idea of seeing Al Gore is mighty tempting...

The Drywall Chronicles - Day 4

Finished at last!

Logan sprayed the final layer of texture on the ceiling today and put the house back together. It made a real mess, with little flecks of popcorn spray on the fireplace, walls, etc. Glad it's over!

The Drywall Chronicles: Day 3

Today I sanded down the ridges left from the joint compound and then primed with a spray primer.

Next it was time to spray on the popcorn acoustic texture. This was a freakin nightmare. Here I am covered in goo and I only got HALF of it done. I think I over-applied it. Oh well... So it looks like I'll be heading back to Home Depot tomorrow for another couple cans to finish up.

GoodSearch - search engine benefitting charities

Apparently, when you search using the GoodSearch search engine, it generates money for your favorite charity. And if you don't see your charity listed, you can add it to their listing. Interesting concept...

From their "About" page:
Where does the money come from?
Search engines make most of their money from companies that pay an advertising fee when users click on links during a search. At GoodSearch, we've developed a patent-pending way to track and direct these search-generated proceeds to charities. In other words, a portion of advertiser dollars (and not your own!) earned as a result of your search, are now passed along to the organization you've chosen to support.

The Drywall Chronicles: Day 2

So I got up this morning and taped everything and then spread 2 layers of joint compound over it.

Now I have never mixed up joint compound before and was a bit taken aback by the instructions on the packaging: "mix to desired consistency" was not particularly enlightening. The internet was not helpful here either. Why doesn't anybody write instructions in terms that women can understand? Do they think only men do handy projects like this? What about men who maybe have never done this sort of thing before?

Anyway, for all you gals out there who need to know: Mixing up joint compound is like cooking. You always add dry ingredients to wet! Mix up your joint compound by first putting a little water in the bottom of your pan. Then, just like in cooking, add in your compound powder one scoopful at a time, stirring constantly. Make it the consistency of thick frosting. There you go.

Hicks Cam

So I had my head stuck up through the ceiling a lot. I kept having flashbacks to the movie Aliens.

The Drywall Chronicles: Day 1 continued

So after we cut the hole, then we had to bolt this big chunk of sheetrock up there. Logan had to do this part for me. I just don't have the upper body strength to hold up the drill like that.

The Drywall Chronicles: Day 1

Thanks to my good friend Chad, I was able to use this handy guide throughout the project. It was pretty helpful, if not extremely detailed.

This is the 2' x 2' hole we had to cut to accommodate the new piece of sheetrock. Cutting through the ceiling is a lot harder than it looks. Not only is it tiring, but it's also very messy.

The Drywall Chronicles

This weekend we said goodbye to the unsightly hole in the ceiling of our "library" room. The hole was left by the plumbers who had to cut through the ceiling to fix a leak earlier this summer. I was determined that we could fix this on our own (and save some money to boot). So Violet and I took a trip to the Home Depot yesterday and bought some sheetrock, joint compound, a buncha tools, and some spray on popcorn texture for the ceiling that I can't wait to play with. ;)

To honor my new handygirl status, I have been chronicling the project with photos.

Catalog your own private library!

Create an online catalog of your private book collection with Library Thing! Enter up to 200 books for free, as many as you like for $10/year or $25 for life. You can also write reviews, see what other people are reading and what they think about books in their own collection.

Netflix gives you feeds!

Did you know that you can get RSS feeds from Netflix letting you know when new movies are released? Get the feed at: http://www.netflix.com/RSSFeeds?lnkctr=mfRSS

It updates several times a week.

Farecast - airfare predictions

Want to know when it's a good time to book that flight? Farecast has a nifty little way of predicting whether an airfare is going to go up or down in a few days. Just plug in where you're departing from and where you're going to and it'll tell you if it's a good time to buy your tickets.

Thanks to: http://www.inter-alia.net/

Check out my new blog!

Hey yall!

So I decided to make my own blog. I probably won't be posting about anything of great import, (hell, I don't even know if anybody will be reading this thing anyway) but it looked like fun so what the heck.

I'll probably post a little about the kids, writing, librarianship, cool web stuff I come across, etc.

Let me know what you think!