I have no idea.

Although the skate gallery is past Lunenberg -- the more-or-less official end of the tourist area -- it is still on the Lighthouse Trail, so I'm not sure if locals consider it to be out of the way. It's only an hour from Halifax, which is close by a lot of cities' standards. But things are here the way they are.

I was on my way home from work the other day and listening to the traffic report on the CBC. The city is in the process of turning the Rotary into a real traffic circle (it will be called the Rotary for a few generations, I'm sure) so there's a lot of construction at this bottle neck. They had taken down the traffic lights and put up Yield signs just that day, so the traffic reporter was witnessing the mayhem.

"So how does it look down there?"
"Well, as expected traffic is starting to back up in all directions without the lights. There's at least five cars lined up in all directions."


Uh, yeah. I'm not going to take a detour.

It should also be noted that it took me about two months to realize that the traffic lights on the rotary were significant. 90% of the time they show both red and green, which in Halifax averages out to Yellow. Sometimes, during rush hour two of the directions will just show red which obviously means stop, but most people ignore them and treat them as a yellow.

So putting four yield signs affected very little.

So all that is to say, that I have no idea what people around here consider a reasonable drive.

How out of the way is it?

Cate and I had to go to Bridgewater to pick up a coat rack to replace the one that broke in our rental and we decided to go further down the road to a nice bakery we visited when we were here in 2000. It's on a river/cove beside the government warf and obviously picturesque and touristy -- although yuppy locals seemed to be doing brunch there too.

The art/craft coop was there like we remembered it, but Connor and I explored up in the 3rd floor loft and came across the coolest space I've seen since I arrived here. The sign said custom skateboards, but it was a more complete gallery with constructed art (turntables and spotlights with maniquin limbs) a half-pipe for skating, duvets for crashing and big windows (not in the half-pipe) looking out over the water. Their skateboard creations were nailed to the grey, weathered beams everywhere.

It looked like something from a movie -- except you could skate in it.

And, er, there wasn't anyone around. We could have so ripped off an armful of tee-shirts.

Cheers

Coolest. Fashion. Site. Ever.

So Mika had some screen-time today and she asked me to find her a site "Where you can put clothes on girls and change their hair and stuff." Basically she wanted a paper doll game without having to cut the clothes out and paste them to card stock.

So being both a librarian and a man who gets mistaken for being gay way too often -- I'm flattered, but I can't figure it out -- I found the best site ever.

http://www.i-dressup.com/gamelist_by_az.php

If you want to see what Mara Hoffman's spring 2007 collection looks like (including shoes and accessories) or look ahead to Anita Dongre's fall lineup (Robin Hood Chic) or Dolce & Gabbana's fall collection (Gaudy. Like, Joan Collins gaudy) you've come to the right place.

If you didn't realize that Tom Cruise has his own line of fashions well, you can be schooled on his threads. (Mostly inoffensive. Which incidentally was his path to super-stardom. Now he's "largely offensive" and I await the backlash with glee.)

If you have even a passing interest in clothes click through. Trust me.

Cheers

Cate's a geek

'nuff said.

Potter madness

Connor and I had to perform an intervention to stop Cate from geeking all out to some Harry Potter release party at King's College. Yep. So we're making her stay home and watch Oklahoma! with us.

Er, okay. Choose your poison.

Cheers

People just seem to be everywhere.

A few weeks ago I was driving back from the video store and ran into Mark MacDonald from Library School. It was great to see him. He's living in New Brunswick now and working at a public library. He's all shaven and shorn -- no longer fuzzy Mark. That's probably a good career move (I encourage that) but I sort of missed the old Mark.

That same weekend we took a spontaneous trip to Annapolis Royal, waaaay on the other side of the province... about two hours away. We stopped at a roadside diner and our neighbour's kids were there. They live in that area, but again. A random crossing.

Then a few days ago I was driving the kids from somewhere to somewhere else and saw Rod (er, I'm afraid of misspelling his last name) from Library school walking down Quinpool Road. I was in a rush, so I didn't go around the block to say, Hi.

When Pete was here (Hi Pete!) he seemed to run into a student or former student pretty much everywhere he went.

I just can't seem to shake the feeling that people are everywhere.

Cheers

I know, I haven't posted in a while.

Sorry, dedicated readers.

I've been busy with a new contract, a parade of house-guests, a major job interview and well, it's summer darn-it!

The big news is that this is now definitely a maritime year. We were hoping to extend our stay indefinitely, but the dice didn't roll that way. We will be moving back to Ottawa at the beginning of September. Dust off the red carpet and polish the trumpets for the fanfare.

Cheers

PS I'm probably going to have to pull another stunt like the Ewan MacGregor video to entice my fans back after such a long lay-off. Or I could just promise something really fun and enlightening soon, really build up the anticipation, and hope that you keep checking back in long enough that you get back into the habit before you realize that it was all just empty promises.

Damn, did I say that out loud?

How about I just promise to try to post more regularly.

Godzilla Lives!

After an earthquake caused a radioactive waste spill at a Japanese nuclear power plant, I'm expecting B-Movie mayhem to dominate next week's headlines.

Cheers

Ashes and Snow

I know that I dropped a TedTalk on you a while ago, but that site never ceases to amaze. Cate dug this one up, and I should have posted it a while ago.

Note that if you have trouble watching the video here, or want to surf the TedTalk site (recomended) and still haven't figured out that most of the titles in my blog are links, click through... HERE!

TEDTalks : Gregory Colbert

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Gregory Colbert's video, as well as an exhibit of his photography, is permanently housed in an impermanent place: The Nomadic Museum. No worries, though, it will probably never come anywhere near where you live. Since 2002 it has visited Venice, New York, Santa Monica (i.e. suburban L.A.) and now Tokyo. I'm thinking that Canada is pretty far down the list.

Cheers

Printers are liars

A new study commissioned by Epson has found that even the best ink jet printers (not surprisingly, Epson) announce that ink cartridges are empty when they are still 20% full. The study tags Kodak's EasyShare 5300 as the worst. It helpfully tells you that your cartidge is empty when it drops below 64% capacity.

So it's probably best to take that "Cartridge Empty" notice as sort of a heads up that you should get a new one whenever it is convenient. Then don't switch it up until you actually see unacceptably pale prints spitting out of your machine.

Cheers

Hamilton Who?

Okay, so if Balsille does manage to move the Nashville Predators to Hamilton, I hope that he has the good sense to change their nickname. It's obvious what they were trying to communicate, but really is just sounds like 20 guys on the Sex Offender Registry. I can just see the headlines:

"Hamilton Predator Chris Mason Visits Boy's School"

I don't think that would be very good brand management.

For music lovers...

I hear through the grapevine that some people want more updates to the blog (Hi Wayne!). I wish I could. I suppose that I could take 5 minutes every day and just say nothing, or do a link dump more often. I sort of feel like I have too many posts already that are just Youtube clips or links without much comment or insight.

That being said... Oh my freaking God!!

Legendary concert promoter Bill Graham has put a gazillion concert recordings up on his website. You have to pay to download them, but if you just want to stream them they're free.

http://concerts.wolfgangsvault.com/

It is unreal the concerts that are on here. I'm listening to a 1983 Bowie concert from Montreal right now. There are about 450 concerts altogether. There's Springsteen ('73, '88), Stevie Ray Vaughn ('84), Hendrix ('68), Pretenders ('80), U2 ('81, '83), The Cure ('84), Blondie ('78), and a crapload more.

He got out of the business in the early '90s, so there's not much from that era and beyond. But there's a bit of every musical style and taste in there.

Cheers

Bush Fleeced

You know the fact that Bush had his pocket picked in Albania doesn't really bother me. Nope. It's the lingering suspicion that this happens to him all the time that makes me feel uneasy.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but he's incredibly wealthy, moves in the highest circles of power, is not up for re-election, and wears a $50 watch. He just gave up after he lost the first dozen Rolexes to the Joint Cheifs of Staff ("Hey guys, give it back! I know one of you has it.") and started buying cheap Timex.

Cheers

Beginning of the end for Dewey?

I know that I don't often get into the minutiae of librarianship on this blog, but this is a development that I will be following with interest.

Prelinger Library has done away with the Dewey Decimal Classifaction system (DDC) in favour of broader (and quirkier) subject groupings. The Gilbert Public Library in Arizona has followed suit -- albiet with more traditional subject groupings. It is an interesting concept although not terribly revolutionary, in my opinion, given that DDC already maps to subjects anyway. DDC has a finer granulation, though, so when you find one book on a topic, the books around it will be on the same sub-topic and sub-sub-topic.

DDC's performance varies, depending on how well it has been developed for a certain subject (and there are a few factors that determine which subjects work better than others), but the approach could generally be characterized as: leading the browsing patron from the inside-out of a subject. You start with a relatively specific topic, then browse outwards to very closely related topics, and up to more general subjects.

Organizing the same collection by very broad topics would lead the browser from a specfic book to more by the same author (assuming it is a bookstore-like system) then to other authors who write in the same broad category. By increasing the granularity of the subject-groupings, there are more opportunities for connections between works that would take longer to browse to in a more granular system and new-authors on a favorite topic might be found more easily through browsing.

Ironically, I think that this change would tend to increase reliance on the catalogue. In my experience, users aren't very good at finding everything they want in library catalogues (or on Google, for the matter) and usually end up selecting something that is "good enough". When a library patron finds good enough, she or he is going to then browse the stacks for related works that might also be useful.

If the granularity is too big, then finding a "good enough" book in the catalogue will not create any better browsing opportunities than just going to the broad subject area. If you have a fairly focused information need, "good enough" will no longer cut it. Each of the books on a more specific topic will be scattered throughout the stacks. If you do not have a relatively focused information need, then well, isn't one arbitrary system as good as another when you are browsing?

The Prelinger intrigues me because the unique arrangement has a point and a politics. The system is designed to lead the browser through a subject area in such a way as to teach something of the historical and intellectual ebb and flow of the topic. That's cool. I'm not sure it would work with a more general collection, though. Then again, with a broad and general collection, the staff could take turns re-arranging the collection based on their own biases, interests, expertise, sense-of-humour, or whatever.

But for Prelinger's scope and purpose, it is worth tracking, I think.

The Gilbert system just seems like lazyiness. Less effort by cataloguers. No value added for browsers or devoted searchers. Most public libraries that I've been to have compromised the granularity of DDC with signage. I'm not actually a big fan of DDC specifically, and would love to see an alternative make a run at DDC's ubiquity. But I also think that any system is better than no system when you are trying to accomodate a broad variety of information needs and practices.

(via Metafilter)

Cheers

Last word on the tire swing

Apparently, a few days after the tire swing disappeared it was replaced with a new one. Sometime on Thursday or Friday night, the entire tree was cut down.

That is all.

Elimination Dance

1. Anyone who has touched a library book.




(credit: Ruben Bolling's Tom the Dancing Bug.)

Found Objects

A while ago I posted about the tire swing on highway 102 (which has miraculously reappears, in case you were wondering). I have always really liked found objects. As a kid I remember bringing all sorts of junk home. Some of it could be used as a toy or game, but most was just a hunk of machinery or electrical equipment that looked too cool to part with. Maybe most kids are like that.

As an adult, I don't bring the stuff home any more. I've realized somehow that I appreciate objects in the context where I find them. Even pretty stones and shells only serve as souvenirs of a particularly nice walk on the beach, rather than look overwhelmingly pleasing or interesting, once I pick them up and take them away from their location. I mean, they don't start looking ugly but they just don't hold that same facination. I guess, either you know what I mean or you don't.

That's one reason I like Andy Warhol's stuff. Essentially he worked with found objects, and either chose ones that could be de-contextualized wholesale (Brillo Boxes) or he could re-contextualize with repetition (Soup Cans), anachronism (VU's banana album cover), or medium (the movie Empire). I think that's art. It is certainly something that I cannot do -- even under the best circumstances I can't move found objects without wrecking the effect.

Not that I usually want to. Yesterday I was walking back from the office in the rain and in the middle of the sidewalk was a sheaf of human hair. It was as if a woman stood in the middle of the sidewalk and chopped off the pony-tail she had been growing since high school. It was about a foot long, brunette, fine, and rather healthy looking hair. At least it looked that way in the rain.

On the sidewalk of a city street it was facinating. Again, as with all of my favorite found objects, it suggested questions and stories with no answers or endings. It would not be nearly as interesting in a box in my garage and would definitely be more creepy.

Cheers

Dipping into Sience Fiction B-Movie Territory

Okay so, like a lot of people, I've never been terribly comfortable with Reality Television. While they are generally just really invasive game shows, they are well, a lot more invasive than regular game shows. Where the latter are gambling dressed up as a flashy School Fair, the former are gambling with lives as poker chips.

That's still not too bad because the stakes are relatively small -- short term, at least -- and there are consolation prizes. A new show being aired in the Netherlands dramatically increases the stakes.

Yep. Contestants compete for the audience's vote. The winner gets a life-saving kidney transplant. The losers die.

Wasn't this one of television shows in the background in Robocop?

Jeesh.

How campy can it get?

Now you know.



Thanks to Wee Shannon of the West for pointing me in this direction.

Was Bowie still gay in 1975? I can never figure out exactly when he started digging girls. Either way he's not very convincing when he's flirting with Cher. Hmmn. Maybe that's too much to ask of a man.

Funniest comment from Shannon: "I almost didn't recognize [Cher] wearing all of those clothes."

Cheers

Not that I'm getting old or anything...

I have a cold right now. (No, you do care, you just don't know it yet.) So my ears are plugged up more than usual. That got me thinking that my Dad was rather hard-of-hearing when he was not too many years older than me.

So I did what anyone would do. I did a bit of research on hearing aids. And what I found was shocking. Shockingly cool!! I know that it's a bit insensitive, but I sort of can't wait to have an excuse to get the Resound Azure. It is Bluetooth enabled so I could pipe my MP3 player or cell phone directly to my hearing aid. And I bet your fancy-schmancy Blackberry doesn't have a telecoil so you can pick up the audio-commentary at the opera or museum without having to rent big clunky equipment.

You have to clip a gadget on for the Bluetooth, but I figure that in 10 years when I need one the tech will all be enclosed inside the discrete ear-piece.

Bionic ears. That play music. Nothin' wrong with that.

Cheers