Marchwords

That sounds like it should be all one word. "Forward noble steed! Let us go marchwords!"

In any event we're actually now gone from March and my total word count is 5989. It seems I wrote an average of 500 words roughly 1/3rd of the days much like in February. Not as good as 3/3rds but better than 0/3rds. And as math that probably makes no sense at all.

Anyway I wanted a picture to define the month and so chose this one--the total eclipse of the moon which I actually didn't see because I was writing some paper or other. To be fair even if I hadn't I'm not sure I would have gone outside because I envisioned the moon simply disappearing from the sky for a time and couldn't understand what could be so interesting about that. Unfortunately it turns out to have been a lot cooller looking than I thought, what with the blood-red moon of death and all, so I learn to regret my general lack of interest and proper education in major astronomical phenomena.

Friend of the Week: Brian (Ahoy, matey!)

Yesterday...

I got paid to play board games with kids for a program our library had. We played the game pictured at the left and another called Power Grid. I was a little worried that I would be there for several hours watching other people play games but I was able to join in the fun. We had a really good turn out so we weren't hurting for people but the librarian said that she had to play last time because they needed enough players.

So right now the only downfall I can see to being a youth librarian is the constant feeling that you're getting away with something.

And losing miserably at strategy games. But I enjoyed it anyway.

Friend of the Week: Tim (Snape Song Vs. Angsty Harry)

A Mysterious Ticking Award, Jeeves, Unicycles, and Merciful Puppies

The Harry Potter Puppet Pals team won the YouTube Award of best comedy video for The Mysterious Ticking Noise (The Snape song).



I was also sad to learn recently that "Ask Jeeves" has been simply Ask.Com since 2006 (I feel so old and out of the loop!). I also belatedly mourn the passing of one of my favorite Internet characters. I just can't understand why they would get rid of him :(

As for unicycles. The other day I seem to recall seeing a man (most likely another college student) on a unicycle. Random sights like these seem more common in Ann Arbor but I feel as if it's harder to enjoy them under the crushing oppression that is grad school.

Grad school and taxes. I so need to finish my taxes. Sigh....

But something to keep me from being too glum is this clip from The Colour of Magic showing the one and only Lord Havelock Vetinari and his little dog Wuffles! Jeremy Irons plays Lord Vetenari. I think Irons is an excellent actor who has strangely never been in a good movie (at least none I've seen him in). Hopefully this is a break in his bad luck.



I should probably add that while The Colour of Magic showed over Easter in the UK it does not appear to have a TV release date for the US that I can find. And no word on the DVD yet either. But perhaps if all us Terry Pratchett fans band together and complain very loudly...

In all honesty Colour of Magic is not my favorite book by any stretch of the imagination but it is Discworld and Hogfather wasn't a favorite either (though I liked it better than Colour of Magic) but the movie was brilliant! (and also produced by the same company). So I have high hopes for this one. I'd prefer if they did Guards, Guards or Going Postal but we can't have everything. I also find the order they've done these films in to be quite odd since Hogfather was done first and that's the 20th book (and the 4th in the Death series) and now they're doing Colour of Magic which is the first (mashed together with Light Fantastic which is the second). So if they do do another there's no telling what it will be numerically.

Better Than a Link...

Too tired to give the awesomeness of The Graveyard Book the justice it deserves so here's a video the man himself reading chapter 4.



But, title of this post aside I think I'll give a link to Neil Gaiman's site all the same because his countdown doohickey actually counts down. For some reason he didn't share the version that does that with everyone else. But I forgive him this small transgression because he's Neil Gaiman.

Friend of the Week: Anonymous (Hint, if you click the "Name/URL" bubble when posting a comment, you can add your name. Or if you don't feel like it, add your name at the bottom. I like giving people the recognition they deserve. :) )

Give...To...Me

*Want. Drool. Cries.*

@_@

Hypatia

While answering a question for my reference class I learned about Hypatia, an ancient female mathematician and astronomer. She has now made the list of historical people I would like to have met along with Hatshepsut and Jane Austen. The other funny thing is that the picture you see of her above is from Raphael's painting The School of Athens which was in my high school math book a bunch of times for Pythagorus whenever we did the Pythagorean Theorum and she's standing right behind Pythagorus but I never noticed her. Of course, so many men in these paintings were too androgynous for me to have identified her as a female. But still, it's strange to think I saw her all that time without knowing it.

Friend of the Week: Mag (yay for historical fiction!)

I'm Henry the Eighth I Am . . .

Well, actually I'm not, but today I saw The Other Boleyn Girl which I liked even though it clearly made great efforts to condense the book. However, as many people who know me already know, my favorite wife of Henry VIII is Anne of Cleves (pictured above).

Friend of the Week: Tim (Yup, though I'd prefer you to comment on my newer posts or at least say something relevant).

Plum Blossoms, February Words, Asian Heritage Month, and Library Wisdom

Here's a lovely picture I took of the plum blossoms in California that I won't be seeing again any time soon.

It also appears I wrote 5903 words for February, and I recently found out that March is Asian Heritage Month (Woot!)

A parting bit of library wisdom for the day:

Do not use animal crackers as bookmarks. If you give a librarian a cookie (in a book), she will throw it away!

Friends of the Week: Heather (Scrabulous) and Mag (Milk and Cheese...beware)

Flickr Update

Yup, I took that picture of what's basically a weed in the Auburn State Park here in California. My camera can be truly awesome at times.

I've really had no good excuse not to update over break. I just didn't. But now I've just updated my Flickr account with loads of pictures from my trip here so hopefully that makes up for something. I was tired of the first pictures on my Flickr account being of my not-so-impressive apartment.

A lot of the new pictures don't have descriptions, but they do have tags to say where they're from. For some odd reason they uploaded out of order though. If anyone knows more about Flickr than I do, I'd love to know what's up with that.

You can view the pictures here.

OR you can scroll down and click on the links called "My Flickr" on the left under links. Yeah, this post is partially just to remind you all I have a link to my Flickr account on my blog.

Friends of the Week: Stephen (Yes, I am a nerdfighter), Tim (Asian ladies), Brian (Pandora does indeed rock) , and Sarah (Asian ladies 2)