Tomb of the Unknown Librarian » villainy

Zombie Idol Finalist

/paul — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 03:13:26 +0000

Boy I can’t believe I’m a Zombie Idol (Round Two) finalist in Maureen Johnson’s rewrite the opening, or in some cases the entire literary work except using zombies as characters or settings or all of the above. I chose Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (my version A Zombie’s Adventures in Wonderland).
Read my entry and all the other awesome finalists…

I’m not sure I”ll make the next cut but it was a fun exercise and of course a subject dear to my heart.

http://maureenjohnson.blogspot.com/2008/02/zombie-idol-round-two.html

IU, So you think you can ChaCha?

/paul — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 11:10:30 +0000

The president of Indiana University has made a proclamation that all university employees, including librarians, will use the privately owned search engine ChaCha as the default search tool.

Come Monday, no more IU searches will be powered by computer-driven Google. Only by people-powered ChaCha. Later this month, IU will draft hundreds of librarians and information technology employees to be “credentialed” ChaCha guides for the university’s Web sites.

From the coverage it sounds like only ChaCha will be available and that librarians and staff will be actually working as unpaid guides. The move if successful will increase the “guide” pool for the search engine that relies on humans to generate search results.

They’re calling it a â€œstrategic alliance for research, development and services for the next generation of Internet search tools and practices.â€ If they simply put a ChaCha search box on every page that’s one thing but are they going to block Google or Yahoo, or redirect access to them? I hope information access at IU isn’t being serverly restricted, coopted, and privatized.

By the way, Have you ever noticed that using ChaCha search engine without logging in, the web results are sprinkled with sponsored links. Also they are not formatted any differently than regular results.

[Via the IndyStar]

Wanted: Martian Services Librarian

/paul — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 23:56:36 +0000

NASA will be sending a library to Mars with the Phoenix Mars Lander this weekend. Sounds like they are going to need more than a librarian. They’ll need a min-disc player circa 1995 where writings by Carl Sagan, Ray Bradbury, Asimov, Swift, and other notable visionaries will be recorded. I wonder how they will be indexed. Obviously the purpose of the mission isn’t just to get a small disk of data to the surface of Mars. If the mission finds traces of water or organic materials AND Mars gets inhabited someday, there will be a time capsule of literary genius or a little piece of “earthling” detritus for those future generations of Martians to play Frisbee with.

[via Yahoo News]

The Pirate Primer: Mastering the Language of Swashbucklers & Rogues… no reviews yet

/paul — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 19:08:53 +0000

Pyratecon sounds like an informative and fun weekend of pirate lore and romanticizing villainous cutthroats. The book is probably worth a look Talk Like a Pirate Day – September 19.

Via: CNN | Arrrrr, maties — Pyratecon hits New Orleans

Don’t fear the Reader…

/paul — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 23:26:05 +0000

Satisfy your morbid curiosity or craving for a little dark humor. Here is the promised splattering of grim books, morbid music and movies .
I’d love suggestions if anyone has any.

Books
Stiff : the curious lives of human cadavers / by Mary Roach
MÃ¼tter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia / edited by Gretchen Worden
R.I.P. : the complete book of death and dying / Constance Jones.
The dead beat : lost souls, lucky stiffs, and the perverse pleasures of obituaries / by Marilyn Johnson
Assassination vacation / by Sarah Vowell
Goth Bible: A compendium for the darkly inclined / by
Book of bunny suicides / by Andy Riley

Travel
Where are they buried? : how did they die? / Tod Benoit
San Francisco bizarro : a guide to notorious sights, lusty pursuits, and downright freakiness in the City by the Bay / by Jack Boulware
L.A. bizzaro! : the insider’s guide to the obscure, the absurd, and the perverse in Los Angeles / by Anthony R. Lovett, Matt Marania
Haunted houses of California : a ghostly guide to haunted houses & wandering spirits / by Antoinette May

Fiction
Crash / by J.G. Ballard
A dirty job / by Christopher Moore
A Series of Unfortunate Events / by Lemony Snicket (not just for kids)
Cautionary tales for children / by Hillaire Belloc and Edward Gorey

Music
Murder ballads / Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
Assassins, the original cast recording / music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim ; book by John Weidman
Colma : the musical, original motion picture soundtrack / music and lyrics by H.P. Mendoza

Movies & TV Shows
Better off Dead
Curdled
Delicatessen
Natural Born Killers
Murder by Death
Six feet under
Dead like me

By the way, if you haven’t heard the Nick Cave / Enya version of Don’t Fear the Reaper listen here

Nostalgia Continues

/paul — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 03:09:58 +0000

I went to the Sisters of Mercy show on Wednesday night. In the last year or so I have seen the holy trinity of bands from my high school years, Dead Can Dance, and Bauhaus and now the Sisters.

Overheated amps, underpowered sound system and emblematic out-of-control fog, I’m talking about ‘I got a fever and the only prescription is more FOG, baby.” The performance was a bit lackluster, which is strange considering that it was more rock than goth. Only two guitarists joined Sisters front-man Andrew Eldritch on stage and lontime band-mate Dr. Avalanche (the drum machine) for curious, yet almost indecipherable due to sound problems, rock renditions of Ribbons, Vision Thing, Temple of Love, First Last and Always and many more. Despite the problems with the sound, Eldritch was a bit out of sorts so to speak, a little stiff but quite affable and gracious with repeated thank-yous. In short, he was not quite himself. Blame it on the broken rib he appartenly suffered a day or so before the concert.

The crowd was a fun, familiar reminder that you can’t kill the goth scene, because it’s already dead! Maybe it’s just undead. Good fun was had all ’round.