Posts filed under 'Uncategorized'
Internet Footnote #3
I heard about this website from one of my fellow librarians at work. Its a great alternative for people who, like me, can’t afford Photoshop. It is also for people, also like me, who don’t need all the extra features that come with photoshop, but still want a good and reliable program for picture editing. When you go to this website, you can also download this software from www.download.com, you will have access to a world of photo editing techniques and features that Microsoft Photo Editor does not have. Many of the features are similar to Photoshop, but not nearly as confusing to navigate. You can layer pictures for supreme editing, crop, color, blur, sharpen, etc. Its a great tool, its FREE, and very user friendly.
The official product description from Gimp:
GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a freely distributed piece of software suitable for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition, and image authoring. It is a powerful piece of software with capabilities not found in any other free software product. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert-quality photo-retouching program, an online batch-processing system, a mass production image renderer, or an image-format converter. GIMP is modular, expandable, and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image-manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.
Add comment December 21, 2008
New look
I went to the optometrist last week to find out that my eyesight has actually improved. I’ve been wearing glasses since I was 6 years old, and to an avid reader, the threat of losing one’s eyesight is really scary.
I picked out a cool new set of frames, a style I’ve never worn before. But now these glasses fit a little too snug behind my ears and I just get a headache wearing them for a while. I’m not sure if I just have to get used to them, because I really don’t want to have to exchange them.
NaNoWriMo is finally over, and I ended the challenge with a whopping 10,206 words!! Whoo!! Now I’m ready to start editing. Overall, its a horrible little story, not very original, but hey, its fun and distracting and keeps me occupied in front of the computer.
1 comment December 2, 2008
In Memorium
The blogging community has recently lost one of its most friendly community building leaders. Dewey from The Hidden Side of the Leaf recently passed away, as her husband let us know through her blog. She was an avid reader and lover of all things literature. Her Weekly Geek series and the monthly Book Carnivals introduced me to a number of books and blogs I probably wouldn’t have come across otherwise. Dewey will be greatly missed in this community.
1 comment December 1, 2008
The cult of Twilight
I went to see Twlight Monday morning with my best friend (the one who loaned me series to begin with). We chose a matinee to minimize the number of giggly teens that would be oooing and ahhhing over Edward.
I was not disappointed by the film, but I found it more comedic than it was meant to be. The lines were so cheesy, the acting was either over the top, or just underwhelming. What was with Jasper’s eyes? I thought they were going to pop out of his head. Edward was sucking in his cheeks rather profusely, and Carlisle’s super blond hair was just distracting. Talk about a shiney object.
There was a lot cut out from the book and that was obviously just to save time. I think the last 1/4th of the movie was actually really good, but so was the last 1/4th of the book, so go figure.
This whole month I’ve been coming across various Twilight review, be it for the book or for the movie. There is one thing I don’t understand.
If everyone who reads the book, agrees that it is a bad book, then WHY ARE WE SO ADDICTED TO THE SERIES?
Nearly every review goes the same way:
Too lengthy, bad writing, bad actors, bad role models, no plot, etc, etc.
If its so bad, why can’t we stay away? Why was it on the Best-seller list for as long as it reigned?
I read the books, hated the books, but kept reading the books. It is the sense of nostalgia we all feel when reading these books, going back to High School crushes, wishing that the cute bad boy would actually be a smushy teddy-bear?
2 comments November 26, 2008
Three Bedrooms, One Corpse - Review
First line: My career as a real estate salesperson was short and unofficial, but no uneventful.
Review:
When we last left off with the Aurora Teagarden myseries, Roe had inherited a healthy chunk of money from a former member of the Real Murders Club that was prevalent in the first book in the series. At the end of book two, Roe had quit her job as a part time librarian and had begun to date the local Episcopalian priest, Aubrey. In this third book, Roe decides that she needs to find a job, if only to occupy her time during the day to evade boredom. While unofficially showing a large mansion to one of the newest residents of Lawrenceton, Roe stumbles upon the dead body of a local realtor in one of the bedrooms. Soon after, there is a slightly murder spree targeting realtors, which Roe investigates, as well as starting a new relationship with the new man in town, Martin Bartell.
For one thing, this book actually had plot and conflict. It was a delight to read, although Roe is starting to get pretty annoying. The constant references to her stunted height and frizzy hair appear on nearly every other page and it really detracts from the rest of the story. But, given that this is part of a mass-market paperback mystery series, I’m not expecting anything fancy. Its a fun read, especially when joining Roe in her conclusions and trying to figure out who the killer really is.
FINAL GRADE: B+
Three Bedrooms, One Corpse Charlaine Harris Berkeley Prime Crime, 1994 ISBN 0425220528 231 pages******************************************
Find this book at your local library
Add comment November 25, 2008
NY Times Bestsellers
Its been barely two weeks and already A Mercy has hit the #5 spot on the NY Times Hardcover Bestseller list. Yay!
The Secret Life of Bees is also thriving well as #2 on the Paperback Trade fiction for 22 weeks, as is Water For Elephants holding steady at #10 for 63 weeks.
I am not surprised to see the Sookie Stackhouse books hogging the top 20 spots for the Mass-Market paperback section. The TV show has revitalized the series it seems. 3 of my friends are currently making their way through the series, and I was lucky enough to be able to borrow the entire series from a friend, so now I don’t have to wait for weeks to get the books from the library. yay!
It was my goal to read 100 books before the end of the year. I am very, very close with 89 books under my belt since the end of January when I first started this blog. Along the way, I’ve met some fantastic people in the blog world, other reviewers, the wonderful people who sit through my posts and the great big world of bibliophiles I near forgot existed. =)
Add comment November 23, 2008
CLA
I’m at the annual California Library Association conference in San Jose today. There have been a lot of interesting workshops and exhibit booths to visit, and I feel quite over-whelmed. I’m still trying to figure out how to apply what I learn here to the library I actually work in. The library profession is leaning so much towards web 2.0 features like wiki’s, but the demographic of my service area has very limited resources to the Internet outside of their 2 hour time-span at the library. There has to be some way to bring resources to this fall-between the cracks group. I’m determined to find it. Paper is not so obsolete.
I’ve attended one session about Subject Guides for the library, a really creative and simple tool to bring all the library resources (book and online) to the library patrons through the website. Next I’m going to a session about the future of libraries and how to prepare, this workshop is being given by the deputy state librarian Stacy Aldrich. That sounds useful for a newbie librarian.
Add comment November 16, 2008
Polygamous borrowing habits
Although I like to think of myself as monogamous in regards to my books, (I can only read one book at a time), I do like to be polygamous with my borrowing habits. I usually walk out of the library with about 5 books each week, and end up returning them all, having read only half. My newest endeavor is racking up library cards. I now have one city and two county library cards, which gives me access to over 50 libraries in the Bay Area. My assumption is that now I won’t have to wait for months to read the next book in a series because one library system only has one copy to share with all its branches, and I’m not fond of buying books in the middle of the series.
1 comment October 25, 2008
Weekly Geek # 17 - Library Quotes
I will dazzle you with 2 quotes today, because I did not get a chance to post one yesterday.
A good library will never be too neat, or too dusty, because somebody will always be in it, taking books off the shelves and staying up late reading them. ~Lemony Snicket
I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I got to the library and read a good book. ~ Groucho Marx
1 comment September 19, 2008
