My TV-makin' hero, Joss Whedon, interviewed over at the Onion AV Club.
With Buffy, I needed closure, because she, poor girl, had earned it. Buffy is about growing up. Angel is really about already having grown up, dealing with what you've done, and redemption. Redemption is something you fight for every day, so I wanted him to go out fighting. People kept calling it a cliffhanger. I was like, "Are you mad, sir? Don't you see that that is the final statement?" And then they would say "Shut up."
A news story about a giant LEGO minifig that washed ashore in Holland. The story recounts, "The toy was later placed in front of the drinks stall." Good to know.
Looking for off-the-beaten-path philanthropic opportunities? Passionate about preservation? Save a Film lets you make a donation to have an endangered 16mm film (most of them from the 1950s and 60s) digitized and put online, so others can have free access to it! In some cases, the 16mm print in the Academic Film Archive may be the only existing print, ANYWHERE. I kind of want to be a film archivist (when I grow up) so I probably get more choked up about endangered films than most people. Nonetheless, it would make a good gift, too, if you did it in someone else's name. Starting at $110. Here are some of the films eligible for upload.
records management
is such a gloomy prospect
make me a cocktail!
on tuesday evening
a little drunk and sloppy
and still not on task
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Currently listening to: Nada Surf - Mother's Day
via FoxyTunes
So, finished Season 3 of Veronica Mars, thanks to the magic of P2P. Oops, did I say P2P? I meant legal internet magic. Anyway, Veronica is working these cute side-ponytails and knots in season 3, which remind me of late-'80s/early-'90s elementary school and yet are somehow awesome. She is also wearing lots of little tiny jackets and sweaters and VESTS, which is something that I really can't condone. I want all my TV-ladies, whether they are in space, breaking apart rocks, or solving crimes, to dress in clothes that are practical yet comfortable. It's not a fashion show, people. (Oh, of course it is, but I can dream.) Aside from fashion, I have nothing to say about VMars Season 3. The first season of that show was probably the closest thing, in my books, to a perfect season of TV, and then the second season sucked a little bit, and then the third season sucked a LOT, although not enough to make me stop watching, because that would never happen. Hey, TV! Make sense! I was complaining about it getting cancelled, but then as I was thinking about it, I realized I have never really liked all the seasons of a TV show, so maybe it's just as well--the entertainment equivalent of mercy killing. The shows which I have liked the most seasons of (Gilmore Girls and Buffy, at five seasons each) are rare exceptions. TV lacks sustain. It tends to lose its charm, become mired in its own mythology, or give viewers the one thing they want, then have to take it away again because YOU SHOULD NEVER GIVE VIEWERS WHAT THEY WANT.
I also finished Season 2 of Lost and started Season 3. My summer TV project, tackling The X-Files from beginning to end, has completely fallen by the wayside. I'm so embarrassed! What about my GOALS? But this show is like crack. I am obsessed with it for all the same reasons as everyone else, with one additional reason: I am very compelled by underground research stations, especially ones decorated like the 1970s. It's pathological. Little, enclosed, modular spaces obsess me--all the more so if they happen to feature retro decor, or are reminiscent of bomb shelters.
Shut up, I'm cool, and yes, I did do other things this weekend besides watch TV. I also watched some movies (The Bourne Ultimatum and Spy Game, both pretty good). Oh, and I finished Alexander McCall Smith's The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs, and started the third book of the Professor Dr. von Ingelfeld trilogy, At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances. These books are so funny--constrained, mean-spirited, and old-fashioned. And short! I love them. Also, Alexander McCall Smith has the best titles for his books. I don't like the Ladies Detective Agency books that much, but the titles keep getting better and better.
Back to the digital salt mines tomorrow. At least, with a clean apartment and lots of .avi files on the compy, I feel I can face the week head-on.
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Currently listening to: Tom Waits - Little Drop of Poison
via FoxyTunes
James and I saw The Bourne Ultimatum on Saturday, and I have one question: Did Motorola pay to have the V3 Razr product-placed as the chosen mobile technology of assassins everywhere? I mean, can you HAVE detrimental product placement? At least my phone is pink, not grey or black, so maybe I have a slender hope of NOT being a soulless, anti-social psychopath.
Now that I have taken Records Management, and I have seen the error of my own record management ways, I have created a folder on my computer called "inactive retention." In it, I put other folders that are no longer in active use, but that are not ready for destruction or archival storage (which, in the case of my computer, also happens to mean destruction). Unfortunately, I still move these files around in a rather haphazard way, and not in accordance with any kind of retention schedule. (Besides, there is an abbreviation for this type of file use: SO, "until superceded or obsolete.") Still, I feel pretty good about it.
On Friday night I watched Spy Game with some friends from library school, including one in my records management class. We were surprised by the extent to which records management (or lack thereof) figures in this movie. Files are always moving around, being stolen and misplaced! Duplicate copies are being made, but I'm not sure that anyone is keeping track of what office is responsible for the master copy. You know? It's troubling. They should show this movie to recruit people into Records Management. Although that would constitute a trick, since actually the field (as far as I can tell) has nothing to do with espionage, or Brad Pitt. Unless you wanted to develop a file on Brad Pitt, with newspaper clippings. And then manage it.
(Oh: also visible in this screenshot of my documents on the compy is my "jobs" folder, the image for which is a foxy-looking lady shelving in high heels. Although if she's shelving, is she really a librarian? It's hard to say. It comes from the Law Librarians Blog/American Association of Law Libraries photo contest. Also visible is the Cheat's GameBoy-in-a-blender which symbolizes "miscellaneous," since I can think of nothing more miscellaneous than a GameBoy in a blender.)
I'm applying for jobs today, watering plants, listening to the Gothic Archies, and watching TV on my computer. I expect to finish season 3 of Veronica Mars today, and possibly find employment.
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Currently listening to: The Gothic Archies - Shipwrecked (from The End)
via FoxyTunes
This diagram shows my brave ship Josephine, en route to collect some more research data about a shark. Earlier tonight, overcome with greed for better research data, I allowed one of my crew members to get injured by making him dive while he was very tired. Bad Jocelyn! No more research awards for you!
James: Your ship's name is Josephine? Your ship has the same name as your phone?This is one of those conversations that could possibly appear on a stupid-quote website, and people could read it, and judge me. But since no one overheard it, I shall have to post it myself.
Jocelyn [scornfully]: My phone is not named Josephine! My phone is a boy!
James: It's pink!
Jocelyn: My phone and my iPod are in love, remember? And my iPod's name is Josephine! My phone is a boy, because my phone and my iPod are not gay. I can tell, because my phone NEVER tries to make out with my ear.
So, I wrote this extremely funny blog entry at 3:40 this morning, in my head. I was awoken by what sounded like one or more people stomping up and down the street in front of my apartment building, banging tin trash can lids together and shouting a "aaaah-ah!" song. This really happened, and if I had been more awake it might have seemed more weird. The blog entry was about civic responsibility and stewardship, but it was also very funny, and I think it had a STOMP joke in it. (Something to do with the guy being on the waiting list for STOMP, like Tobias and Blue Man group on Arrested Development, which I think is where my sleepy brain got the idea.) I think it might have also had a Nazi-related curfew joke as well. In that tired, 3:40 AM way, I thought, "That was hilarious, I have to remember that in the morning," and then I went to sleep. So. Just pretend you just read a hilarious blog entry, ok? Ha ha!
List: Sound elements for a downtown-Edmonton themed STOMP-type performance*
So last night I was changing the bandages on my injured foot, and something about its rawness and redness and injured-ness compelled me to take a picture. I know, it's gross. It's not like this is the bloodshed blog, so if anyone is grossed out, I apologize. But sometimes I want to post about charming books I am reading about German linguistics professors, and sometimes I want to post about how my feet are torn up and bloodied by my encounters with the world. (And yes, those are my cute plaid pyjama pants. This is a great day for Jocelyn-stalkers everywhere--a picture of my bloody foot AND a picture of my pyjamas!) (Apparently, "pyjama" is not the correct spelling, as the friendly blogger red-wiggly-line tells me. But I have no idea what the correct spelling IS, and also, I have always spelled it that way, so I think I have immunity. We have to grandfather in whatever the new, unknown spelling is. Basically, that is a long way of saying that I am not going to fix it.)
This Monday is Heritage Day, or Have a Long Weekend in August day, and I am getting full civic holiday mileage: missing work AND class. I shall use the extra day to celebrate my heritage, possibly by baking some fortune cookies or belly-dancing. Also, today and tomorrow I am in a very good mood because of the proximity of the long weekend. This morning I felt like that guy in the viagra commercial--not because I got lucky, but because there is a looming long weekend ahead, I get to go see a Werner Herzog movie tonight, and my shark research project is being more than adequately funded. Also, I know this makes me a dork, but I had a really productive, functional meeting yesterday in which many of my problems were potentially solved--most of them by XML. This is the opposite of scooters, it's anti-scooters.
OK, I'm officially addicted to that shark game now. I keep getting antsy because it takes so long to get anywhere, and my crew are tired and I don't want to make them do anything. There need to be things you can buy to un-tire your crew, like massages. And milkshakes. And also things you can buy to attract sharks. Like kittens.
As of today, the library where I work subscribes to the database Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute Standards and Guidelines. We can all rest easy--FINALLY I have access to the resources I need to do my job properly.
Anna Quindlen writes in Newsweek: How much jail time for women who have abortions? Quindlen raises an interesting point, that even the most adamant pro-lifers (or abortion-should-be-illegalers) have trouble advocating jail time for women who've had abortions (if abortion were illegal).
"Is the message that women are not to be held responsible for their actions? Or is it merely that those writing the laws understand that if women were going to jail, the vast majority of Americans would violently object? Watch the demonstrators in Libertyville try to worm their way out of the hypocrisy: It's murder, but she'll get her punishment from God. It's murder, but it depends on her state of mind. It's murder, but the penalty should be ... counseling?"
This Shark-runners game (From Discovery Channel, in honour of Shark Week) is kind of fun. You get to captain a research vessel conducting shark research. It takes place in real-time and the movements of the sharks are based on the movements of real sharks--tagged with tracking equipment. I do enjoy captaining things.
Facebook is updating their servers, or something, and I can't access the site. It's weird how these things become such a habit that not being able to check them is really disorienting--even though I KNOW there is nothing important happening on Facebook. Especially since no one else can log in either.
The final paycheque of the month is a depressing prospect--I pay my bills and have $90 left over to last me until the next one. No Etsy for me. This is contributing to today's sense of weltschmertz. My class isn't helping either--I dread Mondays and Wednesdays, and sort-of dread Tuesdays, as they have too much in common with Mondays and Wednesdays.
Pretty shoes lie. They look at you, all cute and pretty, with their little flower-shaped cutouts and their clunky soles, and they bat their metaphorical shoe-eyelashes. Then you buy them and wear them to work and in the time it takes to walk two blocks to the LRT station, they've worn several layers of skin off in an area the size of a quarter. Why are the prettiest shoes always the cruelest?
Also, since this post is already labeled "mysteries," a little taste of my work-life: How, how, HOW do you convert MARC records into Dublin Core so they can be imported into DSPace? HOW? (If you want to know what all that means, just ask Wikipedia, 'cause I got no patience for your ignorance, internets.)
