Thursday, November 29, 2007

I'm on Facebook now

Yep, there I am. I've been thinking about doing it for a while, because it seems that as long as everyone is so gaga over it, I might as well know what it is.

What it is, is a mess. There doesn't seem to be much of anything there that you can't do in other ways (what is a wall except a cross between email and IM?), most of what is there is pretty lame, and once you have much on your page, it's suddenly as messy as my dining room table after I've left Nick home alone for a week.


So, we'll give it a go and see if it's still worth any time once the novelty of getting new friends wears off. Perhaps I'll fall in love with Scrabulous. For the moment, I'm still feeling that banking is the online activity I like best.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Stupid 2.0 is more interactive!

Yesterday was the SLA libraries 2.0 talk from Stephen Abram. Not much new, and I always leave these sorts of 2.0 talks wondering "who cares?" I mean, it's just more ways to be just as we are. So, now I have a facebook account, on top of my IM account, on top of my personal blog, on top of my work blog, on top of my Bloglines account, on top of my Flickr and YouTube accounts, on top of my Citeulike and Delicious accounts. And does this actually make my life easier/better/more interesting? Not really.

And does it make us any smarter, or at least better informed? I'm still waiting to see evidence of that. I think of my great grandfather reading the Congressional Record on his farmstead in rural Montana, and boy, that's a lot more informed than your average Delicious user. Just think, in 1860 when the Confederates attacked Fort Sumpter everyone thought the war would be quick, easy, over in a month or two. Now, after the invention of the telephone, the interstate highway system, email, cell phones, IM, Twitter, and on and on, the vast majority of Americans believed in March 2003 that war would be quick, easy, over in a month or two. Seems to me we just get to spread our flawed opinions in a slightly faster, and more digital manner. So we learned of the 2005 Tsunami in minutes and it took hours for people to hear about the eruption of Krakatoa? Did that really change anyone's response? (Oh, I would have cared, but this news is six hours old!)

French class seems much more informative and useful. And it's SOOOO 1.0. We actually sit around a classroom, read from a textbook, and attempt to form sentences in front of each other. C'est la vie! (Which reminds me, I do intend to practice my tiny bit of French in a blog post one of these days. Beware French speakers, there will be butchering of your tongue!)

Monday, November 26, 2007

What a busy month!


Seems like a whirlwind! I barely got back from Orlando and I was out the door to New York. Back from New York and it's time to drive across Wisconsin for the holidays. Add in oral surgery (boy, fake bone is expensive and painful), and you've got one packed (and expensive) month.

That's why I don't feel bad about letting Nanowrimo slide. I beat last year's total, so at least that's good.

So, here's me at the New York Public Library.

Monday, November 5, 2007

Friday, November 2, 2007

5,000 baby!

I can barely believe it! I've made it past the 5,000 mark on just day two. If I can push ahead to a strong finish this weekend, I may actually be able to finish my 50,000 by the end of the month without spending the entirety of Thanksgiving writing.

And, let me tell you, writing this terrible prose is almost as bad as reading it.

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Will it work this year?


Once again I'm trying to do NaNoWriMo. We'll see if this year is any better than last. I've already beat last year's total, but that was pretty easy with only 1600 words in last year's novel.
It's certainly terrible this year, but it's more fun to write. So maybe I'll get to 25,000 this time. I'm not counting on winning yet, that's for sure.