Worst Birthday Cake. Ever.

This is wrong on so many levels. 

Luckily it wasn't the cake, and she had a good sense of humor.

Rambling Review: The Totally Geeky Guide to the Princess Bride

You know how you're supposed to set your writing aside & let it ferment a bit before you go back & edit it? Well, this only works if you don't FORGET about it, like I did with this post I wrote a looong time ago.

WARNING! Contains spoilers. If you haven't seen the movie (Inconceivable!), go watch it before you read this. The rest of you, read on...

I LOVED this book. Let me 'splain. No, is too much. Let me sum up.

The Princess Bride has been one of my favorite movies since I was in junior high. I can still remember the first time we watched it, trying to puzzle out who the Man in Black was (I still can't believe I didn't know it was Westley. “I'd know it if I watched it for the first time today” my adult self tells my childhood self – yes, my adult self is a bit petulant and pouty, and mostly jealous that she can't watch it for the first time again) I then bought the book and the soundtrack as soon as I could. I still have both, although they are in dire need of replacing. I've already replaced the VHS version of the movie with a DVD after I discovered one day that the sound on the tape was like listening to the dialogue underwater – it had simply been watched too many times. For years, my brothers and I have often left each other at the end of visits, phone calls and e-mails with “Have fun storming the castle!”

So, when I was online one day and tripped across The Totally Geeky Guide to The Princess Bride by MaryAnn Johanson, my thoughts immediately flew to the bookstore giftcard my brother and sister-in-law had given me for Christmas. How perfect to spend it on THIS book, I thought! (It didn't take the whole gift card – I used the rest to start my Neil Gaiman glom. I think he might be my next new obsession.)

Reading the first chapter was like finding a new friend who also loves The Princess Bride and really wants to talk about it. This has happened before, in real life, although those conversations never really turn into the philosophical breakdown of the movie that comes with this book. They're usually more of a goodhearted volley of quotes, almost as if we want to see who can bat quotes back and forth the longest, where no one really wants to win. The game is so fun, you'd hate for the other person to lose and cause the game to end.

This is what Johanson refers to as “The Princess Bride Test,” saying “drawing upon the movie for commentary on life, the universe, and everything is reflexive, almost unconscious on the part of any fan of the film. The movie's philosophy is as attuned to our own that quoting from it is totally natural; in fa

ct, we only ever realize we're testing a new acquaintance when he or she fails the Test...” (Did anybody notice the Douglas Adams reference? It tickled me. She's truly a kindred spirit, I think.)

FAILS THE TEST??? I don't think I've ever met one of those people. I don't think I want to. I mean, this is The. Princess. Bride. It's not Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which is one of my other favorite movies, and in somewhat the same vein as The Princess Bride. I would say that Rosencrantz is to Shakespeare what Princess is to fairy tales. And yet, not a single person I've recommended Rosencrantz to has come back happy. “I didn't get it” is the most common, and most polite, response I've gotten. Maybe if we were all taught Shakespeare the way we're taught fairy tales, Rosencrantz would get a better reception. How I'd love to say to someone “I've often not been on boats,” and have them reply “Ah, but what you've been is not on boats!”

Johanson has a lot of fun with quotes from the film in two of my favorite parts of this book. The first is “Casablanca, or the Princess Refugee,” the story of Casablanca told entirely through quotes from The Princess Bride. The other is a scene where Westley, Johnny Cash, Agent Jay and Agent Kay have a conversation because they're all (say it with me) Men in Black! If you just snorted coffee all over the keyboard, get thee a copy of this book!

Have fun storming the castle!

Happy Jedi Day!

May the Fourth be with you! ;)

Photo by Hector Pierna Sanchez

Happy May Day!

Happy May Day!, originally uploaded by mdesive.

My first iris of the season bloomed today!

How well she doth look in bondage

In all my whining and moaning lately about how so many really horrible things happen in April (Titanic sinking, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the Columbine shootings, the Oklahoma City bombing, tax day, yada yada...) I nearly forgot one of the great things that happened: Sometime in April 1564, William Shakespeare was born! His birthday is traditionally observed today, April 23, so I thought I'd share a couple bits from two of my favorite homages to the Bard.

The Taming of the Shrew episode of "Moonlighting" was my first (remembered) exposure to Shakespeare. I think I was extremely lucky in that. This show allowed my first impression of Shakespeare to be something fun, so that by the time I got to the "boring bits" in high school I was already immune to them. The first play I actually read was Julius Caesar in freshman English class, and I still think it is one of his more dull plays (granted, I haven't revisited it since then). I loathe Romeo and Juliet, after reading it in class after class through high school and college. My favorites are A Midsummer Night's Dream and Twelfth Night, but Taming of the Shrew always has a special place in my heart. (I also can never, ever hear "Good Lovin'" without thinking of this scene)



In 2005, the BBC aired a mini-series called Shakespeare Re-Told, where they updated several of Shakespeare's plays. My favorite of those is The Taming of the Shrew, starring Shirley Henderson and Rufus Sewell (I have to say I never thought a man could be hot in drag, but Rufus pulls it off...*fans self*...oh, wait back to the blog). Here's a clip from that episode. I'm pretty sure the earlier Moonlighting episode was what influenced my cracked humor enough that I could appreciate this:



(Hint: If you've got Netflix, you can watch the entire mini-series online! Mmmmm, Rufus in heels...oh, sorry)

Happy National Library Week!

see more Political Pictures

Maybe we don't have it so bad...

Spring 09 Blizzards 005, originally uploaded by KSUE.

I've been grumbling because we're supposed to get some snow tonight and tomorrow, but I don't think it'll be anything to compare with what my parents have gotten in South Dakota over the last couple weeks. This picture was taken March 30. They got more today. 

I'll try to remember this when I'm digging out tomorrow.

Twitter founder talks to Colbert

So glad Comedy Central posts these. I got distracted by Brad Pitt in Troy (really, can anyone resist that?) on another channel and didn't get to The Colbert Report until after this, but here it is in all its hilarity.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Biz Stone
comedycentral.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

Will you choose the Red Pill?

I had no idea today was the 10th anniversary of The Matrix until I logged in to FriendFeed this morning and discovered this:



So cool.

I've been playing around on FriendFeed for awhile. I can see it becoming a great tool for me, though at the moment I only have one real-life friend on there. The rest of the people I interact with or just "follow" are very techie people like Robert Scoble (as my friend said, "Well, he's everywhere") or innovative librarians like David Lee King. It'd be great to see how FriendFeed would work with more of my real-life friends on there.

I've tried explaining FriendFeed to people before, and I always end up saying it's like Facebook, but without all the pokes and pirates and ninjas, which I know a lot of people like, but I'm just not into those things. I stay on Facebook because people I know are there, but FriendFeed seems to do a better job of encouraging conversation (Isn't that what social media is about?) over throwing a drink at your friend. If we're going to have drinks, let's get together in real life and have drinks. Those virtual ones just don't do it for me.

If you decide to choose the red pill, er, I mean give FriendFeed a try, come on over and subscribe to me once you've signed up.

And now I think I'll go watch The Matrix...again.

How does Star Wars end?

Think carefully about how you would answer that, then go read this. Your answer may have a lot to do with how old you are. (via Official Star Wars Blog)

Photo by lamont_cranston

My Segway ride

Hubby is so jealous :-)

How tweet it was #illad09

I spent part of the past week in Virginia Beach, VA at the 2009 ILLiad International Conference. Rather than dump a huge, general blog post on all of you, I'm splitting it into some smaller posts on certain aspects of my experience there. Today, Twitter! I couldn't not start with Twitter...

ILLiad is software I use in my job in Interlibrary Loan. It is developed by Atlas Systems, who works in partnership with OCLC. Since we've been using ILLiad for not quite a year, my boss Heather, and I went to the ILLiad International Conference for the first time.

Though I brought my laptop with me, I wasn't counting on being able to use it consistently during sessions, and it turns out I was able to use it in a little more than half of the sessions and other events I attended, but I still turned to pen and paper for the others. I had turned on my laptop just before the Introduction to ILLiad 8 to check e-mail and decided just to stay in my spot on the floor (where I managed to snag the last available power outlet) during the presentation (it looks like ILLiad 8 is going to be sweet, but I'm sure nobody outside libraryland cares, so I won't go on too much about it).

Sitting where I was, I had full view of two of the laptop screens between me and the speaker. I likely never would have looked, but a familiar page drew my eye and I realized they were using Twitter. Too bad I had no idea who they were, and I was way too "Ooooh!" and "Ahhhh" about ILLiad 8 features to want to stop listening and introduce myself to find out who these "tweeple" were right then. Instead, I went to search.twitter.com and typed in illiad, half thinking I'd get a bunch of stuff about the epic and maybe just a tweet or two about the conference.

Amazinginly, of the six or so tweets on my screen, all but one were about the conference. As I scrolled down, I found a few more. They were from about three different tweeple, so I started following them. Before the ILLiad 8 update was over, two of them were following me back. I started keeping Twitter Search open in a tab on my browser and keeping an eye on it while type-type-typing away at my notes during certain sessions (conferences are a place where it definitely pays to be a multitasker and a fast typist).

Almost immediately after I started using Twitter about a year and a half ago, I discovered that it was a great way to follow conferences. People who tweet their notes (or at least highlights) are wonderful when I can't go to a conference I'm interested in (and conferences attended by the people I'm following are likely to be conferences I'm interested in, because I'm following people who are interested in the things I'm interested in - isnt it great that Twitter works that way?)

I discovered something even better at ILLiad 09. People who were in the same sessions as I was would tweet things I had missed because I was still typing something about the thing before it, or an insight that I didn't make, and it elevated my own experience of the session to a level that would not have been there otherwise. And it's impossible get to every session, so being able to see tweets from other sessions was a bonus. It's like getting someone's notes from a class you missed.

Something that became more clear to me at this conference is the importance of having a profile picture that actually looks like you. It would have been nice to be able to spot more tweeple than I did. The people sitting near me in ILLiad 8 update may have been people I started following, but I can't be sure, and I didn't get a chance to talk to them after the session. I did meet @cyriloberlander at the Wine and Cheese Poster Session, but he had the added advantage of having been on the panel for the keynote, so I had put face to name before I ever followed him. So many people's pictures are cartoon characters or something else. Yes, mine is a Kindergarten picture, but I think that's a step up from the Simpsonized picture it used to be. Obviously, I need to bump up the search for a current picture (I'm working on it, I swear, but I'm just so picky when it comes to pictures of me.)

However, a picture isn't total assurance of recognizing people, either. I realized after I got home and had a moment to look more closely at @traubie's picture, that I had seen him several times during the conference and just didn't make the connection. I think if I attend any other conferences, I'll bring a red marker with me and add my Twitter username to my name tag. Maybe if we all do that we'll be able to find each other in the real world and not just on Twitter, or vice versa.

I even found a couple more people today while going back through the search. I can only guess that Twitter was updating super-slowly (possible, but I don't think so) or I just wasn't paying enough attention with all the other stuff going on (highly likely). I wish I would have found some of them (on twitter or in person, or both) while at the conference, especially @geniealisa, who was the speaker for so many things I attended and whom I didn't realize was on Twitter until today.

Overall, Twitter turns out to be a great conference tool, even with the unfortunate tweet I sent which was supposed to be a personal text message to my hubby (no more texting before coffee for me)

P.S. How bad is it that I'm putting a hashtag in the title of this post so it'll be searchable on Twitter after TwitterFeed picks it up?

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

It seems to be the week for "Hey, I loved that book as a kid" type of things. First, yesterday's Google logo of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Now, this:



I loved this book, and the movie looks cute.

The leprechauns are here!

The leprechauns are here!, originally uploaded by mdesive.

They don't like their picture taken, but that's true of most of the Wee Folk, isn't it?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

One of the best things about Easter

(I always wondered where those eggs came from.)

Billy Mays does Shakespeare

This was on The Tonight Show last night. It cracked me up and made me roll my eyes all at the same time.



(And just as I was thinking I haven't had any Shakespeare stuff on my blog lately. Well, thanks, Jay & Billy)

Review: My Little Red Book

I think My Little Red Book by Rachel Kauder Nalebuff was the first LibraryThing Early Reviewers book I've gotten that I was really excited to get. Others have been nice to get, no doubt, but I love that this book even exists. As soon as I pulled it out of the envelope, I sat down and started reading, randomly jumping from essay to essay. I read a few aloud to my 8-year-old daughter, who already had an idea what menstruation is, although in a vague way. Her initial response to the essays was "Gross!" but she soon added "Will you read me some more of those?"

I love that we've come from a time when a girl's first period came as a complete shock without any previous mention of it to the poor girl, to a time when books like this are published. But I know the dialogue still isn't open for some. So many of the stories reflected the heartbreaking impression that "I am the only one this is happening to." Even girls who have been educated can have that feeling. As the editor says in the video below, "That's when no one talks about it, and that's when it matters most." I think this book could be a lifesaver for some girls.

The stories range from 1916 to 2008, from Nazi Germany to text messages. The updated version of Gloria Steinem's essay "If Men Could Menstruate" made me laugh out loud. "Men would brag about how long and how much," she writes. (The original essay is included at the book's site here.) I think it's great that several YA authors, Meg Cabot included, submitted their stories. The one thing missing is an essay by Judy Blume. As her books were an important part of so many of the stories, I would have loved to read Blume's own story. 

I was struck by the contrast in "The Simple Vase, Part I" by Laura Wexler and "The Simple Vase, Part II" by her daughter, Rebecca. The differing memories and emotions about a single First Period were fascinating, and something I will try to keep in mind when the time comes for my own daughter's First. I also had to make a note when reading "Let Down" by Tatum Travers, to not react the way her mother did.

In her essay "Going to X-tremes," Michelle Jaffe says "I discovered that how you react to Your First Period lets you see the beginnings of personality traits that are magnified as an adult." 

Like Jaffe, I don't remember my first period. By the time I got it, I had probably researched it to death and it was a "nonevent," like hers. I'd have to look to see if I even wrote about it in my diary (if I was keeping a diary at that time). I do remember that years before it came, I had discovered "The Box" in my mother's closet. It must have been the same sort of box mentioned in "My Support System was a Box" by Bonnie Garmisa, although her experience was not like mine. I do remember "The Talk" my mom gave me later. She told me horror stories of older women in the family having the "I'm dying" reaction because they'd never been told this would happen to them. I understood I was lucky to live in a time when I got "The Talk." I think my daughter is even luckier. She gets an ongoing dialogue, and this book. 

Kauder Nalebuff explains a little about the book in this video from the book's site:

Mary needs to post on her blog

My friend Cheryl St. John tagged me, so here goes...

The rules: You google your name plus the word needs inside quotes like this: "Mary needs" - Enter that in the Google search bar and then list the first fifteen hits that come up.

These are mine:

1. Mary needs to do this meme. Well, obviously.
2. Mary needs a little lamb. Groaning, rolling my eyes, etc.
   
3. Mary needs sleep. Always, always, always.
4. Mary needs shadows. If you've seen me, you know the sun and I aren't close friends.
   
5. Mary needs numbers. No, no I don't. I run far, far away from numbers.
   
6. Mary needs to do this meme, again. This time, Mary Connealy, a fellow member of the writers group Cheryl & I belong to, did the meme.
   
7. Mary needs to win. It would be nice to do that once in a while.
   
8. Mary needs stuff. Looking around my house, I don't think this is true. Mary needs less stuff!
   
9. "Queen" Mary needs saving. From time to time, yes, but you can just call me "Your Majesty." ;-)
10. "Sexy" Mary needs attention. Who, me?
11. "Saint" Mary needs overtime. Mixed feelings about overtime, and I'm sure I will NEVER be a saint. I'll settle for queen. Hey, why aren't any of you bowing yet?
12. Mary needs a booking agent. Don't I need a band first?
13. Mary needs to be slapped. Wha?!?!?
14. Mary needs to focus. This probably should have been #1. Oh, and it referred to Saint Mary again. See #11, and how come you're still not bowing?
15. Mary needs a bit of independence. Who doesn't?

Mad scientist on Google Maps

A mad scientist zaps his neighbors with a love laser!


View Larger Map

You can also see a parade, a marathon, and a garage band. Supposedly there is also a sword fight and a heroic rescue, but I can't find them. (If you spot them, let me know.)

This neighborhood certainly has a sense of humor. Here's how they did it:

The search engine we've all been waiting for ;)