"It sounds like the worst TV show ever. It probably cost $10/episode to make."

I am too young to remember it, but a bunch of my co-workers just started reminiscing about a kids' show called Tales of the RiverBank that aired on Canadian TV in the 1960s. Based on the Wikipedia article it sounds like the best thing ever.

The program had human voices in sync to the actions of the live animals thereby giving the impression that the creatures were going about on purposeful, intelligent activities.

In other words, they used LIVE ANIMALS. And then DUBBED IN VOICES. The character descriptions are also great: "Roderick the Water Rat: Hammy's best friend. He is cautious, resourceful and owns a small motorboat. In the Canadian version of the series he is named Matthew 'Matty' Mouse and acts as something of a mentor to Hammy."

I am cautious and resourceful. I wish I owned a small motorboat though.

Off to search for clips on YouTube... oh, and go to a meeting or something apparently.

The state of things.

Woohoo! I finished two books I've been bogged down in for awhile: Dave Eggers' short story collection How We Are Hungry (reading since July!) and Alberto Manguel's The Library at Night (started reading in DECEMBER). It feels good to have both of these behind me. It's not that either of them was boring, or not worth reading--otherwise I would never have finished them. But they were both kind of formidable, in their own ways. Now I'm reading another libraries book, which I actually got from the library (which makes it a library library book, or a library² book, or a meta-library book): Rory Litwin's Library Juice Concentrate. (Note: I've been planning to read LJC for awhile, and now seems like an ideal time because I am finished my degree, I am finishing up my summer job, and I am trying to make the transition to "Professional librarian." I am interviewing for jobs. And in these interviews, if anyone happens to ask me what I am reading, I will be able to say, "Oh, Library Juice Concentrate," and they will know that I am Serious. SRSLY. I dream of a job interview where someone asks me what I'm reading.)

This is my last week of work, and it feels like it. I have to wrap up my project and hand over what I've finished. On Thursday I have a farewell "lunch with the librarians." I will have to delete all my firefox toolbar bookmarks. Also, the sense of fall is palpable around campus. There are scurrying new undergrads, many of them WITH PARENTS, everywhere. This is one of my favourite times of year, the scurrying time, but it's tinged with a kind of sadness too, because I get older every year, and those undergrads stay the same age. I miss that textbook-buying frenzy, the evaluation of new classes, the feeling of carrying one's entire life around in a giant backpack. I also miss having parents, although I still have parents, but they live in another country, and even when they lived in this country they never accompanied me anywhere. I'm getting more used to working--especially the having-money part, and the weekends-and-evenings-off part-- but I don't know if I will ever reach another point in my life where I am as contented as I have been for the past 7 years, going to university. Wow, that's morose. Well, come on, work world! Prove me wrong!

James and I are ordering mucho shirts from threadless, where all t-shirts are $10 until Sept. 3. I'm getting The Sound of Silents and Playground Love. DO IT.

it's raining more than ever...

Sundays are such a drag. They pretend to be part of the weekend, but they're really not, because you always end up spending them getting ready for the week anyway--doing laundry, dishes, ironing, vacuuming, whatever needs to be done so that Monday can arrive without crisis. In my case, this means preparing a handout about Knowledge Management. Sunday breaks my heart, every week. The good news is that after this coming week my class will be over, and I will get about 10 hours a week of my life back, and hopefully I will become a nicer person and stop snapping at my boyfriend on the phone for no reason.

I watched the first few episodes of Fraggle Rock with some friends last night, and I can't believe I never watched it before--it's sad to think that I lived 24 years of my life without the awesomeness that is Fraggle Rock. Deprived childhood/teenage years/early adulthood alert! In fact, Lost just keeps messing with me, so I might break it off for good and take up with Fraggle Rock. I love those crazy singing Muppets, flying through the air, and I am feeling my tolerance for ambiguity plateau. I might've just been sleepy, but this show even seemed to have more than its share of angst and nihilism, for a kids' show. I don't remember what it was, but SOMETHING that happened in one of the episodes we watched yesterday was a perfect demonstration of the idea of hegemony. (Also, side note... does anyone else notice how Bob the Builder seems to have some eerie similarities to the Doozers?

AND:



Ahem. And they both live for building. I mean, I'm not a conspiracy theorist NORMALLY, but this is a little too coincidental, if you ask me. Check out those toolbelts! Aside aside: I don't know about you guys, but I'm suspicious of Bob the Builder. I mean, I know he likes to build, but he goes too far--his ENTIRE identity is constructed [heh] around the idea of being a builder. Can we build it? Yes we can, Bob, but I'm not sure we SHOULD. Maybe you shoud get a hobby, or some friends that aren't from work.)

I'm having one of those days where I am in a perfectly good mood, until I have to interact with other people, and then I suddenly realize I am grouchy. In fact, even my blog (with the theoretical, one-sided human contact it represents) is making me grouchy. For that matter, benign children's TV characters are making me grouchy. Screw you, internets. I know you don't take my Doozer/Bob theory seriously anyway.

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Currently listening to: Rihanna - Shut Up and Drive
via FoxyTunes

died from being boring

Did you leave a brown 70s-style polyester jacket at my house? I was cleaning out my closet (like Eminem... It's a metaphor, but that actually happened) and I found it. I swear I've never seen it before, except it seems like something I would buy from the thrift store. Anyone? Anyone?

How the bottles get broken

A nostalgaic version of Oregon Trail that uses a firefox plug-in to play in your browser. Pretty hot. YOUR WHOLE PARTY HAS DIED OF DYSENTRY, dumbass!
The Great Canadian Wishlist is a CBC initiative (on Facebook! Weird), asking Canadians to vote for their most important wishes for the country. The pro-life and pro-choice wishes are neck and neck, since that's apparently the only political issue we can get out of our desk chairs for.

My neighbourhood is full of broken glass, and I always wonder where it comes from (as I cautiously cut a wide swath around it in my flipflops). Last night I solved the mystery. At around three in the morning, aimless youth have bottle fights in front of the convenience store, and throw bottles at each other. They insult each other in inordinately loud voices, and wake me up. The bottles shatter, and little bits of glass enter their skulls, impeding their brain activity and thus making it even more likely that in the future they will throw bottles at each other.

all this useless beauty

I have been thinking a lot about the past lately, and I hope this is not going to turn into some kind of giant emotional episode, but I am not making any promises. Winter is not giving up the ghost, and I am listening to Elvis Costello, and I just finished this book, which was the best book I have read in months but also, simulaneously, the emotional equivalent to being kicked in the kidneys. I mean it. I have literally spent the past hour crying. So I am not in a position to make promises.

When I was small my grandmother lived in a high-rise, and her mail would be in this tiny metal cubby in a giant bank of tiny metal cubbies in the lobby. When I stayed over at her house, one of the greatest pleasures of my day was going downstairs to check the mail. I would perform this task an unnecessary number of times each day. In retrospect, I think it was a combination of factors that combined to make mail-checking so fun for me: 1. I have always liked cubbies of all sizes. 2. because the door was solid metal, you never knew if there was going to be mail inside until you opened it. 3. this task involved me being entrusted with keys, and riding the elevator alone, so it felt like an adventure--not on any kind of Indiana-Jones-scale, but still, I was 7.

At the time the thrill of checking the mail could hardly be matched. What happened to me--I became an adult and nothing fun is fun anymore? I lost track of that, not the mail-checking specifically, but the capacity to be incredibly pleased by the mundane. My standards were gloriously low in those days. I now live in a high-rise myself, and my mail arrives in this tiny metal cubby. I should be down there checking it RIGHT NOW. You never know when there is going to be mail.

Choose your own entry... adventure. Blog. Thingy.

OK, I know my whole generation has this nostalgia for Choose Your Own Adventure books that can barely be sated. This entry is thus just a drop in the bucket. But I am doing my best...

There is a CYOA Wiki in which you can add pages. Much like the original CYOA books, literary quality is not guaranteed, and declines the further "in" you go.

Jeremy David acts out the will of the website reader, implementing the CYOA model into his own life! And hilarity ensues!

From Something awful: Choose Your Own Adventure Books That Never Quite Made It. My favourite is entitled, "In Soviet Russia, The Adventure Chooses You."