Adventure Reading

Just in case you are getting bored during your summer break I am providing you with a link to the 100 best adventure books as assembled by National Geographic.

Gamers and their Avatars

A photo essay. It cracked me up. I love Metafilter.

Weird

The strangest thing just happened. This homeless guy that comes into the library every day just bit Melanie on the hand. I had to walk him outta here physically with a little help from a guy from circulation. He kept trying to bite us as we were walking him out. He would talk, just try and bit. It was weird. After we got him outside he started chasing patrons in the parking lot and one ran up near the intersection of Colony and Morrison. The homeless guy ran in front of a car and got nailed and he exploded all over the road it was really gross. Melanie's hand is starting to turn read and the 911 number is busy. We are going to try and take her to the emergency room.

Holy Cow

You're not going to believe it. I just got back from lunch and Melanie has been walking around biting people while I was gone. She bit Charlie and the new librarian, Catie and a bunch of patrons on the second floor. We have tied her to a chair with an extension cord and she keeps drooling all over herself and slurring things like "Eat you! Blurrgle! Eat you!" It's kind freaking me out.

Gets weirder

So, we got Melanie tied to a chair and shes' really starting to freak out. Biting out at every person that gets near her. We still can't get through to 911 and those that Melanie bit earlier are starting to get sick and a couple of the old men are getting in a fist fight. The two men turned out to be acting like Melanie and they were fighting over a dead body. While the two crazed old men were fighting one of them ripped the head off the other. The severed head is still chomping away at thin air. Still can't through to 911 and if everyone that Melanie bit is going to start acting crazy, I am getting out of here. I'm heading home right now.

Holy cow

I just got home and I just had the strangest drive of my life. The roads were deserted. All the library employees downstairs agreed with me that we should all go home because there were other people milling around outside trying to bite people and business inside had really trailed off. I didnt' bother to set the alarm. I left a message on Williams voice mail. Let him go by there and clear out the freaks and try to lock that place up.

The only people I saw on the road were behaving like Melanie ad the fighting old men. At stop signs they would rush the car. I stopped stopping at stop signs. Wendell, my roommate, has been off all day and he has been scanning the news and he had the door barricaded when I got home. He made me talk in a complete sentance before he'd let me in.

More information here.

Whales are really old

This is amazing. Too bad the whale had to die for this information to become known. The article from Washington Post has a picture of the whale killing device.

Zombies?

What no response on the zombie blog thing idea? No one wants to write about an imaginary zombie takeover?

A link or two

On June 13th we are going to pretend the world is coming to a zombie end and we'll blog here like we would if we were actually trying to warn each other. Read about the project here.

Harry Potter stamps?

Just in case I haven't convinced those that have listened. Another positive review for Un Lun Dun by China Mieville.

A science fiction writer asks if Harry Potter is really fantasy.

Meeting tomorrow

Hey guys, just want to let you know that we are meeting tomorrow at 6 pm. See you there.

Meeting

I sent out an email but I wanted to cover all the bases. We will not be meeting tomorrow because the library is closed. We will be meeting next Thursday at the usual time, 6:00.

For anyone that hasn't heard Lloyd Alexander died last Thursday at age 83.

There's not much I can really think of to say. The world is a poorer place.

Damn it.

A crossword puzzle

If you have absolutely nothing else to do check out the crossword puzzle I will link to below. I created it for our adult summer reading program and it was really hard to do. I had no idea creating a crossword puzzle would be so hard. I almost cried a couple of times. There a few rules of crossword puzzles and I broke two of them. The whole puzzle has to be connected. This one consists of two distinct halves. Also all letters must be in two words. There are two letters in this puzzle that only appear in one word. As difficult as this was I can live with my two little cheats. Enjoy, if you will.

Crossword Puzzle!

New Tolkien book

I'm sure you are all familiar with that new Tolkien book. Has anyone read it? I have it sitting on my desk here at the library. I see that it is selling real well.

Love them internets

I haven't read this yet but it was linked to by David Brin and it's a speech given by Vernor Vinge. That's about as confident as I can be about a blind link. The speech is about the future of man. I am going to print it out and read it. Enjoy.

Oh yeah. He talks about the singularity in the speech. It's a concept pretty new to me and here's a definition from the website that has the text of Vinge's speech: Singularity

Defined by Vernor Vinge as the postulated point or short period in our future when our self-guided evolutionary development accelerates enormously (powered by nanotechnology, neuroscience, AI, and perhaps uploading) so that nothing beyond that time can reliably be conceived. The Singularity is a common matter of discussion in transhumanist circles. There is no concise definition, but usually the Singularity is meant as a future time when societal, scientific and economic change is so fast we cannot even imagine what will happen from our present perspective, and when humanity will become posthumanity. Another definition is the singular time when technological development will be at its fastest.

Haiku T-shirt


Just a suggestion.

What I did for my spring vacation

I bet you guys are wondering how my vacation in Michigan is going. Well, for one thing, I jumped off a moving swing for the first time in about twenty years. I didn't even hurt myself and out jumped an eight-year-old. Pretty good form, eh?

The Amazing Petitions of Wonderfullness

Mr. Mack's Portrait in Classrooms:

Who a better role model? Whose a more handsome face? Indeed, who but Mr. Majchrowicz is admired so by students and faculty alike? Our school, though quite excellent, is in need of an incentive to study hard, and this is the man for the job. Of course, we cannot waste Mr. Mack's precious time by taking him from his classes, so the student council has come up with a solution. They have decided the best course of action is to produce a well-done portrait of him for every classroom to hang above its board. These visions of magnificence would be accompanied by one of his many inspirational quotes. How much more incentive do you need to do what is right? Sign here if you agree and want to help carry out this plan.

(For the love of god, don't actually do it! The man already has too much support. I need to crush him. Now, you're more than welcome to print out the below and post it on every available space. :D)

School-wide Propaganda Plot:

Is it not true that history repeats itself? I'm sure everyone remembers the "Sanders" fiasco of school year 06/07. Sanders was a military psycho who subjected all us students to hideous uniforms and grueling hard labor. Now a new threat has risen, in the seemingly innocent seventh grade LA teacher, Mr. Majchrowicz. Oh, yes, he seems quite charming,but he has now uncovered his sinister scheme to my third block class. We all saw him for what he is and were very distressed. He aims to replicate an old method of former Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong. What method, you ask? One of tyranny. Of communism. Mr. "Mack's" sordid plan is this: to put an image of his own face in a place prominence in every classroom, accompanied by a corruptive quote to plant in the students' minds. Our naive and unblemished children do not deserve this. This man's more than questionable role models say clearly his intentions-- to take over AG middle with awful, communism-esque ideology! Nip it in the bud, the saying goes. We must rally together to stop this infant tyrant. Please sign here:

'Cause communism's evil! An update: we have a new word in the dictionary nowadays.

Mackism (n)- the complete and utter rule of Mr. Mack over room 206. Not to mention the "Mr. Mack is the best" posters. The man is MAD. He's snapped. (Or he has too much time on his hands.)

Anyway, I'll post my Spring Break and morbid death poems later. All who mock them will suffer a very morbid death themselves. Blah.

Meeting this week

Hey guys, I sent an email out a few days ago that informed you that we are meeting this Thursday instead of our usual fourth Thursday of the month. That is this Thursday, the 19th of April. That is just about exactly 48 hours from the time I am currently typing this message. There will be a special door prize given to the first 15 teen writers that come through the door. I haven't decided if the twelve year old get a prize yet or not.

So it goes...

I'm sure everyone has seen that Kurt Vonnegut died today. I figured I should be mentioned him because this wouldn't be much of a writers group blog if we didn't acknowledge the passing of one of the great writers and thinkers of the last fifty years.

One of the best experiences of my life was sitting in the audience at Spirit Square for about an hour listening to Kurt Vonnegut speak. This happened back in the early 90's before some of you were even born. I remember telling my friends afterwards that I felt I had sat in the presence of a truly wise person for the first time in my life. A remark that probably would have given him fits of laughter since to him man was anything but a wise animal.

Peeps! Peeps! Peeps!

OK, this has nothing to do with writing but how can I resist linking to a contest for dioramas with peeps? How could I not link to that? How?

China Mieville

Hey guys, if you remember I mentioned I was reading Un Lun Dun by China Mieville. I finished a few days ago and I really enjoyed it. He plays around with the whole idea of the young person having adventures in a fantasy world. If you are interested there is a nice interview with him on Youtube where he talks about this book

Sneaky little devil

I came across an entry on Metafilter a few weeks back that I wanted to share. A photographer named Bill Sullivan goes around New York City and takes surreptitious photographs of people as they go through daily life. The images show people honestly and show vulnerability. I'll call them poetic. I'd like to try that some day. In fact I already kind of do it when I can. My particular strategy is to do it from a moving car because, even though non-commercial street photography is legal, you can get beat up over it.

The Family Nietzsche

Ever wonder what would happen if you paired ranmdom Nietzsche quotes and random Family Circus cartoons? Me neither but someone has.

Here's the only thing I've written lately: my haikus! (Actually, I take that back. If you want to read the comics I've written lately, just click on this lovely link. )

In the Heart of the Sea

Whale rammed the Essex.
No food is left, it's time for
Cannibalism.

Harry Potter

Scar on my forehead.
Voldemort is quite evil.
I gotta kill him.

Ed
Who is this Ed guy?
All that really matters is,
He has a ponytail.

There ya go. I think my favorite is the Harry Potter one...