New Music For The New Hockey

It's been a while, yes? Yes. So what prompts me to post? In a word, music. In two words, hockey music. In three words, new hockey music. More words than that and we'll all be bored. So, without further ado, the lineup:

1. Styx - Renegade
2. Powerman 5000 - Action
3. Metallica - Fuel
4. Limp Bizkit - Rollin (Urban Assault Remix)
5. Lunatic Calm - Leave You Far Behind
6. 10 Years - Actions & Motives
7. AC/DC - Back in Black
8. Chevelle - Don't Fake This
9. Avenged Sevenfold - Nightmare
10. Caged Elephant - Ain't No Rest for the Wicked
11. Rob Zombie - Superbeast
12. Seether - Like Suicide
13. Skillet - Rebirthing
14. System of a Down - Aerials
15. Prodigy - Invaders Must Die
16. Breaking Benjamin - I Will Not Bow
17. Muse - Knights of Cydonia
18. No Doubt - Hella Good

All of these songs had to have the requirement of having good sound. For some of them, their sound is what puts them here (see No Doubt and Caged Elephant). For some, it's their action-oriented lyrics (see Powerman 5000 and Rob Zombie). Styx made the cut because of a rather memorable jumbotron video at the Igloo that celebrated the Steelers' Super Bowl victory while spurring on Pens fans to cheer on their team for what would end up a Stanley Cup victory. Prodigy made it because IMD, much like Limp Bizkit's Rollin remix, gets the blood pumping in anticipation.

As a basic way of summing up the new album, it's a much grittier and angrier sound. There are tracks you don't play around people with virgin ears (Rollin', Nightmare), and tracks you don't play around old people (Don't Fake This, Like Suicide, well, just about all of them).

Even though a turn-around in goaltending play requires my team to score more goals (something I can't quite help out with from the net), the music may help to get my mind into more of a focus for games. And if more focus helps with those strange odd-bounce goals, then so be it. Look out virgin ears, you're about to be violated.

Labor Day

More photos! Of what, you ask? Of donations, I say! Welcome to my increasingly besieged world of work. Besieged by none other than books, of course. Mustyd, dusty, and not-so-trusty books.

Let's have a little photographic tour!

1)This is what I see for over 7 hours of the work day. Every now and then, things conspire to get me out of my paper cage, but this is pretty much it.
2) When circ clerks or anyone else who is trying to get my attention from the doorway leading to the public area, this is what I see. Do you see that tiny dark sliver of color center and below the lights? Not the dark splotch sitting on the server cabinet, to the left of that. That's the top of the doorway. When I first started weeding through the donations, I tried to keep a clear sight-line so I could see people coming and going in case any of them needed to get my attention lickity split. With all the donations received since that time, a sight-line is no longer feasible.

3) Up next is what I would see if I was to look a little behind and to the right, which is where the book keeper is situated. See where the BWI tower is? On the other side is supposed to be an open space in the partition for her and I to converse through when money questions and issues are discussed. Usually.

4) This is looking from the kitchen to the staff entrance. Two boxes thick of donations. All slated for the book sale coming up next week. All keeping me isolated from the rest of the building. That little box sitting on the floor? Old ratty-tatty paperback donations that are now slated to be recycled. Hopefully into some product that doesn't encourage packrats to hoard them for 30 years before giving them to people who still don't know what to do with it.

5) This is looking from the direction of the circulation desk. See that bookshelf hiding behind it all, between the two windows? When I'm standing up, my head is as high as the binders sitting on top of the shelf. When I sit down: poof! Where'd I go?

6) This last photo is the back of the wall that makes the background to my monitor-viewing experience. In other words, instead of seeing a blank white surrounding, I see a multi-colored and multi-fonted wall of cardboard packaging. The door to the left is the fire exit from the staff area, and so I work harder to keep this path clear, which leads to build up on the length-wise portion.

So. About donations. I think it's nice that people would rather give their used property a chance to be useful again as opposed to just pitching them outright without a thought as to their condition. But there are always exceptions to the rule, so let's observe a few:

1) The donator who gives libraries everything, and I mean EVERYTHING! We've gotten old faded plastic toy sets in these boxes - stuff that probably sat on a toy store shelf no less than 30 years ago. And they are always missing pieces.

2) The donator who gives libraries nothing but old musty discolored books. Thanks patron. What we really need for our collection is to start a section of musty books. Maybe we'll shimmy in between the sections of mildewy books and smelly books.

3) The donator who gives libraries oodles and oodles of childrens books - all at least 15 years old and more than 'gently' used. I'm talking about sharp creases across the covers, a whole crayola box's worth of crayon drawings between the pages, and even portions of pages torn right out of the book.

I kind of want to create a whole new section of library books for these people, solely for their browsing pleasure. It will consist of a pile of wet books heaped in a corner of the bottom storage closet.

Random Thoughts Before Labor Day

It's been awhile since I've put up a post, so I thought I would ramble for a bit to keep the electronic cobwebs from building up a'la Indiana Jones fashion.

I don't really have any focal point for this post, but I do know the next post will be ruminating over the nature of donated books and what that means for me. There will be photos, so be anticipatory!

Other things on my mind? Hockey, of course. NHL season is upcoming - about another month for the regular season to start, and the Pens get to kick it off with their first game in the new building against the much hated Philthy Flyers. Not sure if I'll be going to it, but one can hope. My own personal hockey season at B'ville is still going rocky. I'm doing something wrong but can't figure it out. I mean, I know what I do wrong when I let up goals, but I can't seem to break a mental or physical block with regards to ammending my play. It's a bit frustrating at times, but at least during the last game, I was more patient with it as opposed to the previous game. Maybe not falling behind by 8 goals helped.

Also, a notion that I wasn't going to post until I got a bit further with the progress, I've taken to a peculiar delusion that I can try creating, or at least laying down a framework, for a role-playing game. Odd, you may think, and I really can't fault you for that. If I get more ideas on paper and details worked out, maybe I'll let y'all in on what it's about and what inspired me to go that route.

It sort of scares me, to be honest.

Next time: Super-Dimensional Defensive Donations!

Music That Is Hockey

Remember how I mentioned the new hockey soundtrack for my mind in the last post? Well, here's the start. Listed directly below is the soundtrack I used for the winter session where we won it all and up through the current time. I threw in some lyrical tidbits where they're present.



1) Pro Victoria by VNV Nation

2) Sentinal by VNV Nation

3) Action by Powerman 5000

4) Indestructible by Disturbed; Every broken enemy will know / That their opponent had to be invincible

5) Fuel by Metallica; So give my fuel / Give me fire / Give me that which I desire

6) Hit Back by Hate Dept.; I found my own way to hit back

7) Points of Authority by Linkin Park; You love the way I look at you / While taking pleasure in the awful things you put me through

8) Knights of Cydonia by Muse

9) March of the Pigs by Nine Inch Nails

10) A Song for the Deaf by Queens of the Stone Age; I saw you comin', I heard not a thing

11) Freuer Frei! by Rammstein

12) I-E-A-I-A-I-O by A System of a Down

13) My Favourite Game by The Cardigans; It's fine the way you want me on your own / But in the end, it's always me alone

14) Bodyrock by Moby

15) One Man Army by Prodigy ft. Tom Morello

16) Hey Man, Nice Shot by Filter; They think that your early ending was all wrong / For the most part, they're right / But look how they all got strung

17) Push It by Garbage

18) Man or Animal by Audioslave

19) I Like the Way by Bodyrockers

And that is that. I was going to take the time to post the new soundtrack just below, but it's been a few days since I wrote everything above this sentence, so let's just post this one and see what happens next, capice?

I Don't Remember - Honestly!

Hmm, wha? No, seriously. I don't remember what I was going to blog about. But I've been wanting to blog, so blog I will. How about a blog about remembering what I wanted to blog about? That's as good as anything, I suppose.

Let's start with what it's occured to me to blog about. List style, for sure!
1) Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
2) The Body by Stephen King
3) Hockey soundtrack changes
4) Thoughts on the upcoming NHL season, Penguins in particular
5) Thoughts on the nature of patron donations - but this would be highly edited, since I wouldn't want to get in trouble with work, now would I?
6) Formation of musical tastes - or distastes, to some of you
7) More thoughts on anime - probably looking at specific titles or subgenre within that category
8) Cars - more precisely, why I hate my car and what future options may or may not be
9) Explanation for the way libraries work - very likely a painfully long post that will bore you people out of your skulls; good for killing hangovers, maybe?
10) Some philosophical loftiness having to do with the nature of men and women, or conflict development, or why chocolate covered peanut butter filled pretzels is a food made in heaven

Honestly, I think I pulled the last four selections or so out of my ass. But I really wanted to have 10 items on that list.

Now if only we had a never-ending coffee creamer dispenser at work...

Eye To Eye

Got some photos for you folks. Just like I promised. The video will have to wait, though. I'm hoping to convince Sweetheart to take some video of my hockey games - 30 second snippets and the such.

Here goes:

Above is one of two book shelves that my father and I built for Sweetheart. It's among the few birthday gifts I got for her, although this one had to wait a few weeks after her birthday, but they're in her room and are being lovingly used, as I hear it. The shelf spaces are 13" high, giving her plenty of space for picture books of most sizes, bar oversized Skippy Jon Jones storytime books.

Above is a cake that Sweetheart and I baked for the Dessert-A-Month event at the library, which can be won via silent auction at Moon Township Public Library's annual Wine and Cheese fundraiser event held each Fall. Not trying to sell the event, but it does raise money via donations for the library, so I'm not going to shut up about it, either. This cake has a story all its own. And the story revolves around the buttercream frosting that was whipped up for it. In a sentence, if you're going to use buttercream in large quantities (anything bigger than a cupcake), then you better have a refrigerator unit nearby; buttercream is what happens when icing hits the slip'n'slide on hot summer days.

This here is a photo from my first game this current session at Bridgeville. I'm the goalie. Laying down on the job, er something like that. The guys in orange buzzing my net are my teammates. I don't have an orange jersey for 2 reasons: 1) goalies are not required to wear the team color, and 2) I don't think I would look as sexy with an orange jersey and white/black/silver pads. And the moment I splurge on orange/black/white pads will be the moment I play for a team with a different color.

Finally:

This is my first horseshoes game ever. Seriously! Almost 30 years without ever playing a game of horseshoes. Sweetheart's uncle was surprised. But I think he was also secretly pleased to have a good reason to demand that a game be played. This was during Sweetheart's birthday party.

So there you have it. Some of this year in photographic form.

Book Review: Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

Okay. So it's been a week. And I still haven't gotten back to that L5R discussion. But as Sweetheart told me, no one will really miss it, and I'm forced to agree with her, since I don't think I've found my audience yet - or have they simply not found me?

So it's a book review, instead. As I mentioned last post, I started on Cherie Priest's Hugo award nominee, Boneshaker. Boneshaker is touted as a steampunk novel, which, to me, is a bit misleading. It's more of a sci-fi horror/action/steampunk hybrid. There are zombies (horror), gun battles and chase scenes (action), and airships, strange inventions, and some late 19th century setting (steampunk). But the steampunk aspect is much more passive than active; steam-based technology isn't really there (although there are some inventions sitting around that use electricity), the airships are purely there as a deus ex machina to get characters to where they need to be, and the geographical setting (frontier Seattle - when Washington state was still Washington Territory doesn't exactly inspire the Victorian monolithic sense that old timey London or Chicago do.

Even the inventions play a rather minor role in the story. The most prominent role is the Boneshaker itself, which is only used as a narrative device to set up and explain the story's setting, and then it shows up at the end as an unused piece of machinery. Other inventions such as mechanical masks and some anti-zombie weaponry are there but are never the focus.

A brief summation of the plot is in order: 16 years prior to the storyline, an inventor creates a mining device for use in excavating through the Alaskan tundra when the machine goes on a rampage, destroying downtown Seattle and looting banks along the way. As a nasty side-effect of the sudden opening of the earth, a gas seeps out that kills inhabitants who breathe it in and then reanimates them into zombies. Seattle is walled off. The inventor's wife, Briar, gives birth to a son, but hesitates telling him about his father. Ezekiel decides to prove that his father wasn't a criminal by sneaking into the walled off section of Seattle. Briar finds out and goes in after him, setting off the events. Both Briar and Ezekiel have run ins with air pirates, Seattle inhabitants who eke a living in underground habitations, and a mad, mad doctor who controls a signifcant amount of power in the walled city.

All that said, I enjoyed Boneshaker a lot, and here are my reasons:

1) Characters - the two main characters (again, based on narrative perspective), Briar and Ezekiel Wilkes are good dynamic foils of each other. Where Briar, the mother, is much more guarded and jaded about life due to her past relationships with her father and husband, Ezekiel, the son, wants more options and is willing to stake more to find out why his mother is so guarded. As the story progresses, both characters go through similar hardships, both physically and mentally. This works out perfectly in the end when the two are reunited. The side characters are appropriately fleshed out for their roles in the story, and a few even get you rooting for them when bad things happen.

2) Pacing - the pacing is absolutely wonderful! There wasn't a point when I thought to myself, "The story is really dragging" or "Wait! Too much is happening! Must reread last two pages!" I think the action-based transitions from one section or another help out a lot with this. It's certainly easily managable and explained with the presence of hordes of zombies to chase characters from one place to the next. Add in some unfriendly human factions, guns, and a poisonous gas, and things can really move well.

3) Setting - despite my grousing about how the setting isn't conforming to the typical steampunk mold (and no story ever completely conforms to the genre mold unless it's making a new genre), I found the setting of a frontierstown-turned-haunted-wasteland to be interesting and posing of its own problems and story benefits. The most notable such benefit is that the timeline has the Civil War continuing longer than it really did (and well explained as being due to bad luck on the Union side of things), meaning no Federal government presence to trip up the plot. In fact, this a specific device, since several characters are looking forward to the immenent inclusion of the Washington Territory as a state so that they can get Federal aid in trying to stop and cleanup the poisonous gas.

I could probably list another few areas, but time stops for no man, and my hour of being at work before my scheduled hours has run out.

I'm hoping to work in some photos and maybe a video for the next post, so stay tuned!

Book Review!

Huzzah! Today's post will be a book review! A welcome deviation from the usual (and a happier post than the last, no less!).

The subject of this review is The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. It is, as of this writing, one of the nominees for the Hugo Award, one of the more popular awards for the science fiction novel. The voting is actually taking place in August and may have already zipped by for all I know. What I do know is that the novel selection for the Hugo has yet to be announced. The Hugo actually is given out to all sorts of media types.

Anyway, The Windup Girl. Yes. Actually quite short by sci-fi standards at 360 pages (I think the average sci-fi book is about 600, or so it seems...), it follows several characters who are all connected at some point throughout the story. TWG, as I will refer to it, is plot driven to the point where it doesn't seem like the characters are dynamic unless the plot requires them to be dynamic. Out of five main characters, only two at best, one at least, are dynamic. Emiko, the inspiration for the title, is a created being who genetically mimics humans, otherwise known as a windup, is the most dynamic, which is interesting, because she's the last main character to be introduced and doesn't get a lot of 'exposure' (she starts off in a whorehouse) until the second half of the story. Meanwhile, the first and second characters introduced, Anderson and Hock Seng, are perhaps among the flattest characters outside of a one-chapter villain that I've ever read. Especially Hock Seng. Then there's a character I can't even remember what her name is, whose dynamicity extends only so far as the last two pages in the book. Jaidee is sort of dynamic, because he doesn't really change until just before he dies (and then he haunts what's-her-name, since she is promoted in his place in government organization).

As for setting, TWG is quite different and hard to believe until it's read, so that's a big plus for sci-fi selection. It's future earth but after several military and natural disasters have ravaged resources to the point where calories have become a commodity. Anderson is trying to find new species of foodstuff that can survive so that he can have his genetics company make a profit. There are also several genetically modified creatures that play a prominent role in the local flavor of the story.

By the end of TWG, the only character any hard information is given up for is Emiko, whereas Anderson has a definite ending, if you know what I mean. Hock Seng and what's-her-name are given implicit fates (as far as we can tell...), and then Jaidee is already dead for half the story, but you never know if he finally departs for the next life. I say next life, because the story gets a lot of local flavor out of Hinduism and Buddhism as well as italicized sayings in Hindi or Thai. Therefore, there is a lot of mention about the next life among the native inhabitants. Anderson is an American, Hock Seng is a Chinese refugee, and Emiko is, essentially, a piece of discarded Japanese technology.

The language in TWG is bland in that trying-not-to-be-bland way. You know, as if simpler words that easier and quicker to process wasn't enough of a hassle when writing the book, but the flipside is that it sounds like any other authors' attempts at trying to 'freshen' up vocabulary in that very romanticized notion of how we believe Shakespeare revolutionized the English vocabulary with twisting words into new usages and / or meanings.

Overall, I'd give TWG a 3.5 out of 5 (or a 7 out of 10 for you more precise literary worrywarts), since the ending is unforeseeable until it happens (although I'm not so sure that's a good thing or not) and the plot was good enough to get me to read more and more as it moved along. The characters were flat, but the story worked well enough with such (strength of story or weakness of storytelling? You be the judge) and ended up with the uber-realistic conclusion - one of one part hope, five parts misery.

My current read, the steampunk genre novel Boneshaker by Cherie Priest, is also up for the 2010 Hugo Award, but it's already better than TWG, and I'm not even 90 pages in, yet. I already have in my head two actors for the two main characters - Charlize Theron as the mother and Max Records (Max from Where the Wild Things Are) as the son. Fun fun!

I'll try to complete the second part of the L5R post next time. Stay tuned.

Breaking News: Bumper Stickers Reveal Thoughts Better Left Unknown... Usually

I'm going to interupt my current theme of L5R (not that it was going anywhere, having been last touched upon a whole week ago...) and bring to you, my avid (or not so) readers, the only thoughts you need to have about bumper stickers. My thoughts.

Obviously, I saw one recently that has put a bee in my bonnet (if I wore bonnets, anyway). But I've seen a few over the last year that I think are worth mentioning to convince you that the vast majority of bumper stickers are better left unprinted, much less posted on your car's ass for all to witness your stupidity.

Let me clarify what I mean by the term 'bumper sticker'. I'm not talking about sport team logos or those silly elliptical acronymed vacation spot stickers such as 'OC' or 'OBX' or 'CRU' (that last one is for you local folks! Enjoy!) I am referring to those stickers that are trying to make a point that you would normally just say with your mouth or write in a blog or, better yet, an editorial in a newspaper. What? You're not sure what that is? I know, I know, newspapers are a rarer commodity than they used to be, but I digress. I shall present for you some evidence! Behold!

1) Don't Re-elect Anyone - this first example is actually, in my mind, sort of a proper use of bumper stickers - to put forth an idea that most people never think about. This sticker actually got me laughing when I saw it. It was a refreshing change from the political campaign bumper stickers or obvious ripping on the poltical party that you happen to be opposite of (have you noticed that no parties use bumper stickers explaining their positions, just ripping down the oppponent? No wonder both parties are so low...). For once, a truly bi-partisan message designed to get the average American shmuck to think about why and how they vote. I actually hope it gets people thinking about how all those congressional pet projects tend to come from congressman who are up for re-election... hmmmmm.

2) If You Have A Problem With My Flag, Call 1-800-leave-america - ooooh, so witty! How long did it take you to think of that one? A minute? An hour? No, that's giving you too much credit - it's actually a waste of time to think about how long you thought about it, isn't it. Especially when you, douchepacker, are driving a Korean vehicle. If you're going to be so damned single-mindedly patriotic, maybe you should back up your message with the context and buy the typical American automobile to back up your typical angry defensiveness. I'm not bashing the American flag - just you're inability to think about why you're offensively defensive.

3) This next bumper sticker has no words but a pictogram of a gas pump turning it's hose into a noose. On the back of a Ford Expedition. If you're not sure what one of those looks like, let me help with this link to Ford's information about the Expedition. It proudly spends 28-33.5 gallons (depending on the model) of 14 mpg efficiency. Hmmm... let's do the math. That's between 400 and 470 miles in an average tank. Let's take a smaller vehicle, and to be fair a smaller American vehicle (the Cobalt) and what does it get off of 28-33.5 gallons? We'll assume the a realistic 26 mpg as opposed to the bloated EPA estimate of 35 and it still gets between 750 and 870 miles out of the same amount of gallons. Oh, that 14 mpg? That's an EPA estimate. Do that math again, and the Expidtion is actually closer to 10 mpg for the average shmuck. I think the bumper sticker is a cry for help, actually...

4) Jesusa; my faith, my country - just saw this one not an hour ago. It was surrounded with gun-nut stickers such as Gun Control Is Using Both Hands and Insured By Smith & Wesson and etc. It doesn't help he was going 5 under the speed limit on a 2-mile straight. Of course, that's probably the only way anyone knows what he thinks, since he probably offends everyone in a 50 foot radius when he opens his mouth and causes USPS stock to drop in whole percentages when he writes mail. Firstly, the gun-nut stuff. Dude. You live in Beaver County, full of suburban rednecks and hunting grounds. Of course you're against gun control! Only an out-of-stater would assume you hate guns before witnessing your plethora of multi-colored stickers. As for the Jesusa sticker. I have no problem if you want to claim your support for your faith and your country - the first amendment guarantees that right to claim support for whatever you wish and to not be oppressed because of it. But to blend the words Jesus and USA together is just absolutely, ridiculously, and nonsensically hypocratical!

I'll come out and say it clearly so that there is no confusion at all. I am a Christian. I know what I believe and why I believe it and I am able to defend it while knowing that not everyone I talk to about it will believe or understand me. That's to be expected, even if I don't have to like it. So. When someone claims to be a Christian and then distorts what that means, it's hypocratical. Jesus has nothing to do with being American or being patriotic to any particular nation that exists. Jesus' messages and actions were actually intended for everyone who hears of them to benefit from them. Not just Americans. I'll go another step further and say that Jesus supports no political party, especially not the shambling congressional mess that the Republicans and Democrats are. He does not throw his weight behind any one country or another for their virtues or failures. Sure, some countries in general may be more pleasing to Him than another, but that does not affect what He will do. So if you're going to be making religious claims, fine. But keep them tied to religion. If you want to explain how your religion affects your patriotism, by all means do so. Don't hyphenate your dubious allegiance with a five-word phrase that will never do you, or anyone else for that matter, any good. You've all the makings of a disaster - the ignorance to not explain what needs to be explained while reinforcing known prejudices.

So what does all that mean about bumper stickers? If it doesn't say what you want it to say, don't use it. If it's simply beating a dead horse, don't use it. If you're just using it as a form of defensive one upmanship, don't use it. Instead, learn how to constructively express yourself in social settings that may benefit someone as opposed to alienate.

Legend of the Five Rings Gaming

Welcome back to the madness that is known as the Spacefaring Librarian!



Today I thought I'd ramble a little on the nature of Legend of the Five Rings, or L5R for short. What is L5R? How does it work? Can it bake cookies? Should it be taught in school?



L5R is a fictional setting used as a basis for several gaming methods, most notably role-playing (rpg) and card-playing (ccg). There are also several board games based on the setting, but they're much more low-key and only noticeable to those who are already steeped into either the rpg or ccg or both (like me). I first ventured into the L5R universe way back in 2006? I can't remember precisely. A college buddy and I went to Phantom of the Attic in Pittsburgh to browse the collection and maybe pick up some games or what-not. My eyes fell on L5R's ccg (oh, I should explain what 'ccg' means, shouldn't I? In a moment.) packs, emblazoned with samurai in action. I've not played a samurai-based game up to that point, and I'm also quite enamored with ccg and rpg games that have lots of cool pictures of characters, armor, weapons, and settings.



Before I go any further, 'ccg' is an acronym for two things: 'customizable card game' and 'collectible card game'. My personal definition sticks closer to the former, since the object of the game is to put together a deck consisting of at least 80 cards out of a range of possible cards, which are purchased either individually online or in packs of random cards. Got that? Good.

Back to what I was saying. My buddy and I purchased some packs and went back to his place and attempted to play a game as we went through the directions, which were at best murky. At that time, the online resources for the game were hard to locate and decipher. Fast forward 3 years later, another college buddy of mine who lives in Ohio, and of whom I visit on a regular basis, loves to play games of all sorts. When we get together, the range of things we do go from just catching up to watching movies to playing games. We had played several other ccgs in the past, games that are now no longer being produced and based on Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. I decided to take out a couple of L5R decks to his place with instructions printed from online. It was a hit. It happened that the production company, AEG, was creating the next edition for L5R a month after I introduced the game to my buddy, and we went in on the new set, inspiring him to get one of his buddies into the fray as well. We've gone to several tournaments in the last year and make it a point to get together when expansions come out.

Oh dear, this post is getting long, isn't it? I guess I better cap it off here, where there's a good seam in the topic. I'll take on the rpg aspect next time. Maybe I'll actually get around to discussing what I feel for L5R? I'll definitely answer the question of its cookie-baking abilities and educational value.

Stay tuned!

The Planetary System of Anime pt.2

Ah, welcome back to our tour of anime-ism according to your captain!

I write this as I play Robodefense on my Droid X, so this post may have a few obvious fracture points in terms of the flow of the diction, just so you know.

Okay, as I mentioned previously, this post will have more to do with the animes I don't like and why. I'm not sure if this will thrill or depress those of you who do not like anime, since you will either like it all the more for the thrashing or be even more despondent that you're reading the bad stuff according to one who generally likes it.

The confusing stuff out of the way, let's take a dive:
1) Desert Punk - Here's an anime that's not necessarily bad so much that it's just bland. But it's bland in a way that it tries to appeal to the pubescent male with fan service (provocative, and usually unrealistic, depictions of female characters). Mmmm, not so much my thing. Bland, that is. As for fan service, it's strange to say it, but there are so many gradations of how far it can be taken that there are times where it can be effective without being offensive, but it all depends on the type of anime being viewed. In serious actiony animes, it's useless.
2) Dragon Ball Z - To be fair, I never watched a DBZ episode in my life. But then again, to be fair, I've been around enough guys in college who have watched too many episodes, so I know enough about it that I would not like it for the following reasons: character design way way way too uniform (I think 75% are different from each other because of their skin / hair color / facial hair presence - body type, hair style, eyes, mouth are all pretty much the same), there are so many fight sequences that they all resemble each other - a bunch of guys punching each other through mountains and into outerspace just so one (or both!) of them can hurl balls of blue lightning at each other, and then just general abundance of episodes that you'd think the creators were hoping to make them into currency.
3) MD Geist - Ugh. Just ugh. This is what happens when you have bad graphics, bad plot, bad dialogue, bad everything! And it's done with so much masochism that it's ridiculously immovable for the weight of its man parts, but in a bad way.
4) Neon Genesis Evangeleon - Finally, this may confuse some of you who know me. NGE is more of a mix of good and bad for all but the final two episodes of it series. One can almost overlook the flat characters and shoddy background design and lackluster dialogue thanks to the many and yet different mech-styled fights that take place. Then the final two episodes happen. All while not properly finishing the plot. It was like the director was about to sit down and write the baddest ass mecha fight to ever take place and then got up to get a glass of water of forgetfulness. When he sat back down, he whipped up some psycho-analytic poop on a stick and promised viewers it was chocolate-covered cotton candy, which is probably one of the most sugar-concentrated confectionary even devised to keep dentists up at night. People didn't like it. He decided to amend that by creating two 90-minute long features that both rehash what happens in the series and then make the final two episodes look harmless by ending the characters and storyline in the most depressing and confusing way unimaginable.

Now, I could easily do yet another post about common (and sometimes odd-to-Westerners) themes that anime gets bogged down in, but I think I'll hold that off for a while yet.

Next time with the Spacefaring Librarian, we'll visit something far far away (but not so long ago).

"

The Planetary System of Anime pt.1

Ah, yes, my fellow intrepid spacefaring followers. Today's quest sees us exploring anime from my perspective. This could get quite long-winded and convoluted, so consider yourself forewarned.

Anime and myself go back about 10 years. Maybe a bit further back than that if you want to know when I first saw such a thing. My brother was in high school at the time, so it couldn't have been any later than 1995. It was Akira, that much ballyhooed anime of its time, being considered futuristically plotted, beautifully drawn, and amazingly satisfactory. It was also made out to be some animated equivilant of Blade Runner, but that's for another day. I was completely mesmerized! Biker gangs dueling it out on super-highways opened the story before the actual story happened (essentially: pissant biker runs into pyschokinetically altered boy who spreads his powers to pissant who goes on a rampage to be the baddest ass to ever live just to be shot by his best friend with a laser bazooka) and military destruction glossed over to look like a social commentary about the evils of scientific progress and communistic thinking. Or maybe not, but the slow parts are confusing.

Anyway, the anime bug laid dormant for 5 years before coming out to play again when I got to college, where I made friends with some guys who were very much into the anime scene. Thus I was launched a little further into the madness, where I would borrow DVDs from one of them. It wasn't until after I graduated that I started my own anime collection. At the moment, it's not some huge monstrous collection (mostly for lack of money and the proper amount of time it takes to watch it), but I would consider it well managed with very few duds. I like to do plenty of research, i.e. reading reviews, watching youtube trailers, maybe catching an episode online, in preparation for purchasing anime, so that explains the relative lack of duds.

That out of the way, anime is an interesting audiovisual genre. Yeah, there are a lot of different topics and stories told through it - it's not all ninja robots with superpowers ogling their female counterparts with utterly unrealistic expressions. Granted, those themes do make up the bulk of existing anime.

I'll tell you what I like, and then next time, I'll tell you what I don't like. See, I'm preparing you for my whiny self in advance. Aren't you happy now? So. What I like. I'll list a few series / films that I have with brief explanations:
1) Sword of the Stranger - a stand-alone film that is beautifully designed and with a pretty good, if simple, story. Nothing revolutionary story-wise, but the use of both Chinese and Japanese language instead of one language to represent two national mindsets was quite refreshing, and it's great for the action buff with all the samurai action going on with the requisite amount of blood being spilled (or at times, sprayed) to fulfill the anime equivilant of wanting to watch Die Hard.
2) Planetes - a single season series (26 episodes) about the story of garbage men in space. It's the future, and space-tourism has taken off with undesirable side-effect of cluttering Earth's orbit with deadly debris that threaten tourism and space-based industry. A very good interweaving of character, personal histories make the very centralized storyline in the second half of the season a very riveting watch.
3) Eureka Seven - a two-season mech series about a boy with a destiny (as most mech series are about, anyway), a girl with a mysterious and not-quite-human origin (another staple of mech series), and a militaristic system of government that attempts to harness the oft-misunderstood powers that govern the girl's existence and the boy's destiny (yep, another staple of mech series). So I like something that's bland? Well, no. It's actually quite good with very dynamic central characters (characters that stay flat throughout 20+ episodes should be in a zombie series... as zombies!) and some pretty good visuals and with a bit of a fairy-tale ending - but you want it to happen!
4) Princess Nausicaa - of course I must include on this briefest of brief lists a work of Hayao Miyazaki, and what better than the epic quest of a tree-hugging princess who seeks to stop the greedy imperial princess and her pet crawling world killer from destroying yet more pristine sunset settlement estate. Okay, so that was an extremely cynical and skeptical summary that I do not resonate with at all - I was just being snarky (surprise! no, no surprise?) The story of Nausicaa isn't the most brilliantly drawn, but it is 26 years old. What it does have is surprisingly realistic emotions and reactions to events that are, most unfortunately, exceedingly rare in anime. I will just go on and risk a blow to my manhood by saying all (except for Porco Rosso) of Miyazaki's films have made me cry.

I think that's enough for today. And next time, I will go into detail about the animes that have made me want to cry for the opposite reasons.

Silly Randomness or I Feel Like Posting Something Before Five Days Have Gone By Without

Thursday morning. Harumph.

I'm starting to not become a fan of Thursdays. Don't know why, but I suspect it has to do with knowing once I'm off work, I worry about nothing but the game ahead of me. Tonight's game is at 7, so you'd think I would worry less about it as opposed to a 9 game time, but all that worry just gets more concentrated per cubic minute. Don't ask how it's possible, just believe that it is.

I was going to open the photos with this blog with a shot of bug-bitten left foot. But then I thought that would be a bit much for the first photo. Maybe I'll make that the second photo, but then it may not be bug-bitten at that point. Lucky you.

And because I have nothing else to add (see title above, if you would), I will say that libraries whose computers are managed by a bunch of network administrators will always have irrate patrons because sometimes the library staff can only fall back on the much detested but true reason for why something doesn't work or why some setting is tamper-proof being: "I'm afraid there's nothing we can do at this time, because it's an issue that the tech support people need to deal with directly." Of course, the irrate patrons are always the same ones with the same problems on the same computer (there are over a dozen, buddy, pick a different one, would ya?), and they always act surprised or super-frustrated as if they never in their wildest nightmares imagined a computer dedicated for public use would fail to work for everything at all times.

Next time, we'll be spacefaring to a planet that has something to do with anime. Don't worry - it should be palatable for those allergic to such things.

Celebrating Things

Yesterday was my girlfriend's birthday. And I was a gentleman and took her out for breakfast, to work, picked her up from work, and we went out for finger food and drinks at a resturaunt called the Cadillac Ranch, which is located near a behemoth of a Giant Eagle (grocery store for those of you not in the Pittsburgh region).

Cadillac Ranch, by the way, was pretty good. We ordered pulled-pork sliders and chicken fingers. I ordered a Bloody Mary as my first drink. I'm not sure, but I think I use the Bloody Mary as an initial guage of how well I'll like a drinking hole. I've had some good smooth Bloody Marys as well as some strange ones. Among the strange are those served from 1902 Tavern, who had some horseradish floating in that thing, and Harris Grill, who was so kind to include a garden in my drink! Seriously, there was at least a slice of lemon, a celery stick, a large leaf of lettuce, some green olives, and something reddish in nature - maybe a carrot stick or small tomatoes? Honestly, I asked for a drink, not a reason to buy a plow. But for all I know, it was a vegan that served the drink. Regardless of the weird ones, Cadillac Ranch served a good, spicy Bloody Mary with the only downside being the amount of ice included. I'm not sure if that's what the midget straws are for, but they help keeping the ice from ambushing my face when tipping that tiny little tumbler back to get the last of the drink. On Wednesday, I'll be visiting Calico Jacks on the north shore with the Sweetheart to visit her bartender friend. I'll get to see and experience how she makes the Bloody Mary.

It was a good birthday for the Sweetheart (or so she informed me at the end of it all), food paid for, visited the new Barnes & Noble on Settler's Ridge (I was surprised that it's not two-stories - the space is high enough for it, and nothing is small in that plaza, anyway), and only had to drive her car to inspection before being whisked off to breakfast. The previous evening (Sunday), she had a small party at her parents' house, which was enjoyable. I got to play horseshoes for the first time (all her relatives looked at me like I had 5 eyes and oozing sores when they heard I never played it in my brief 29 years of existence). The day before that, it was Sweetheart's godson's 1st birthday party, and there were a lot more relatives at that one (I guess turning 1 is more exciting than turning 22). The weekend before that was Sweetheart's grandmother's birthday party!

My dad wonders how large her family is with all the birthdays, graduations, and holiday get-togethers there are. He's acts like he'd believe it if I told him her family adds random strangers for a reason to have gatherings! But it's fun; I enjoy all the hubbub and excitement that comes with a large band of relatives with a slew of the next generation being born and raised.

Well, I suppose that's enough stargazing for the morning. As Sweetheart confided in me yesterday when reading my latest blog post, this blog is not Droid X friendly. But she still finished reading it, anyway. Hurray for persistence!

9.5 is the new 2.4

So it's been a few days. Very well. It's also been quite busy, but that's okay. It's how most people keep from dying from boredom, anyway.

So, I've already tacked on the labels for this post before I even got into it, so there's a guideline, yessiree. No digressing sideways, upsidedown, invertedly, oops I'm already doing just that!

First item on the agenda: hockey. Notably, roller hockey. It's one of my favorite pasttimes, but don't remind me of that when winning is hard to come by. When winning is hard to come by, then analyzing roller hockey becomes the favorite pasttime. I've been playing at the Bridgeville Rollerplex, goalie for the Cluster Pucks. Last time we played, we went 7-3, won all playoffs games to win the championship, and I went 2.4 goals against avg (gaa) in the regular season with a 1 gaa in the playoffs. I managed to garner 2 season shutouts and slammed the big blank against the best regular season team in the playoffs. Granted, my defense was amazing - a notch or two above all the other defenses, even if our offense was sort of bland.

This season, through 2 games, I've let up 19 goals! Jimminy-friggin'-cricket, what the bat-crap is going on?! A few things, really. Let's put 'em in a list, but I'll leave it to you to figure out how significant it is, since the Droid X topic is chomping at the bit. And the reasons are: 2 previous d-men don't return, 4 new faces affect team chemistry, current d-men are re-learning which goal they're supposed to protect, there's a gap between "Cluster" and "Puck" whereas last time it was one run-on phrase (kind of an apt analogy for the way the d-men are moving), music before the game? not so much, rt. 79 between Cranberry and rt. 22/30 too intense, Mondays before - Thursdays now, much too humid in all that goalie crap, and added 10 lbs of bacon sees waistline as an ideal place to raise the baconlets.

Second topic: Droid X. Yes, I went all in recently on acquiring the new Droid X, Verizon's recent answer to Sprint's HTC Evo and Apple's iPhone4. I'm on my second Droid X. The first one decided it would develop a screen problem (think ADHD of technology) within 7 hours of activation and found itself back in a box and in the manufacturer's hands not long after that. Replacement showed up Thursday, and so far so good, it's still paying attention. Obtaining one's first 'smart phone' is a good way to develop one's own version of ADHD, btw, as all the new bells and whistles compared to the 2 year-old flip phone clamor for attention. This here blog will be snazzed up sometime soon when the photos and videos start rolling out, giving you people some blurry visuals to feast your eyes on. Yes, blurry. I never had a proper camera before the Droid X, and it's supposed to be the equivilant of a normal digital camera, so we'll see.

Third up: book review! I recently read Catherine Fisher's Incarceron, a YA read that was quick and relatively enjoyable thus far. Thus far? But didn't I finish it? Why, yes, I most certainly did! But it's book one in a series (trilogy most likely), but the books have already been released across the pond in the UK, so the follow up books will be fairly short waits. The next one is slated for release in the US in the Fall.

But who cares, says you, what about the book? Yes, it's an interesting read. I've not read any stories based on an isolated prison that is sentient. The story is about a boy, Finn, who lives inside the prison, known as Incarceron, and is convinced he was born on the outside and thus goes on the quest to find a way to escape. On the outside of Incarceron is a girl, Claudia, who is about to be married to a jerk of a prince and who finds out that Finn may be the long-lost thought-of-as-dead legitimate heir to the throne. Hijinks ensue. It's an enjoyable story thus far, but there are far too many questions left to be answered, as it should be in a series, so my final impression will hinge on how well Fisher addresses those questions.

I would say that it's a story propelled forward by plot, notions of right and wrong, and questions of identity. The characterization isn't all that strong, even though there are a few blah twists, which seem a bit sloppy in my opinion. I guess those twists may take on more significance later on, but it's my experience that they don't. Hopefully Fisher will prove me wrong. I think the biggest question I want to see answered is how Incarceron came to change it's behavior from it's original 'setting', if you will, and turn from a benevolent chaperone to a sadistic justice-above-all entity. The social implications of the Incarceron's original purpose certainly add a moral quandary flavor to the story, and it's done well enough without becoming gratingly repetitive.

And that's today's journey at the Spacefaring Librarian.

Does This Make Me An Addict?

I know, I know - a third post in one day?!

I guess it's one of those days, which is probably how over half the blogs that exist have come into being. It's strange. We are surrounded with numerous people throughout the day from fellow commuters to coworkers to friends and family. And yet we feel compelled to create a blog to express what we really think. And it's not so much 'hiding' behind the mysterious cloak of the internet - most social programs actually encourage us to say who we are, and most of us take it on good faith that we'll be safe saying who we are when venting thought streams online.

Why is that? It's not necessarily because we feel that there are not enough opportunities to talk to people, is it? No, I think it has to do with communication practices among peers. (Listen to me, I sound like a professional! Don't make that assumption, by the way.) I think people used to be able to simply listen to the other person finish their thoughts without interruption, but now with the constantly updating environment that the digital world offers, actual interpersonal communication is mimicking digital communication.

Please don't interpret that statement as some kind of 'the internet is bad' mentality. I think it just goes to demonstrate the effectiveness of the digital methods that it inspires an entire lifestyle. No one can post a comment these days knowing that the last published comment they read before starting to compose their response will be the same comment that shows prior their completed response. And people get used to it. Unfortunately there are still juvenile delinquents typing 'First' when a brand spanking new news item or facebook status is posted.

Careers and individuals have, as a modern community, come to the point where the computer and its access to the internet have become the focus not just for entertainment but also for basic information needs (online newspapers), work functions (in my case, connecting to OCLC to check bibliographic records), and social interaction (why, blogs, of course!). And like anything else, you spend enough time focusing on it, it becomes the center of the focus. It vies for attention along with family members, religious beliefs, friendships, hobbies, you name it - it's jostling to be the first place we look at during any given moment.

Sure, this view is approaching the issue of changing communication practices pretty deeply - almost more energy than it's worth devoting to it, really. Oh, the point I'm trying to make!

Yes, the point I'm trying to make is that one of the major factors for the blog existing is that the internet (as if it's something sentient...) has made us all a wee bit twitchy, like squirrels on crack, when we converse with each other. It seems to have noticed its error and offers us the blog - an outlet that allows individuals to express fully developed thoughts (even if very few of us actually DO put forth fully formed thoughts). The only difference is that now instead of engaging the audience face-to-face or via phone, you get to pick a larger pool of people to make up your potential audience. And to make up for that lack of intstant guaging of the audience, web 2.0 was born to allow the audience to talk, or shout, back. Which usually works well with short posts, so that thoughts don't get too carried away.

That's obviously not this one.

Libraries As Buildings

Egad! Less than 6 hours later, episode 2 is upon us!!!

But seriously, it's not that bad. Or important. Probably.

I figured I'd start laying the groundwork for fleshing out views on all things library (that I know of, anyway). In order to breach the specific topic that I have in mind, I will start with saying that if I had an opportunity to advise all hopeful librarians-to-be prior to applying for positions, the following advice would be dispensed:
"When you go for an interview, ask about pests, leaks, and smells."

You may be clucking your tongues like hens and tsking like appalled nursemaids, and I would initially agree with you, since it would seem rude on the face of it to ask a potential employer about their building problems. However, it is something that will affect the hopeful librarian-to-be should they land the position. Afterall, a job has an entirely different appeal once situated under a leak, and if that leak happens to be above a drop ceiling tile, then you may want to invest in a safety helmet along with that umbrella. And bugs? Never mind that your window that looks out upon a beautiful, awe-inspiring vista of green hills, trees swaying in the breeze, and gaily floating butterflies (or another industrial complex, for that matter) seems like it's been properly sealed against the elements, the bugs will find a way to invade your space. One would like to know if ant traps, ant sprays, and thumb-squashing is a requirement for performing a job uninterrupted.

Of course, you may be the Bear Grylls type and therefore heartily embrace all possible extreme situations that require you to act in way that forces coworkers to squeamishly squirm upon observing your behavior.

I suppose an interviewee could broach the subject by asking about the age of the building and its past history. A 50-year-old brick-and-mortar structure that used to be a frat house would present certain likely structural issues than, say, a 12-year-old converted end-of-the-world shelter. And then there's the issue of who's responsible for upkeep of the facility. Do the employees perform cleaning duties? Do repairs come out of the library budget if the building is owned by local government (a common situation in Western Pennsylvania)? If renovations are to be made, how much of a hassle is it to implement from start to finish compared to the necessary hassles of enacting renovations?

These are not issues that most hopeful librarians-to-be will think of, because they are usually just anxious to land a job.

From personal experience, 50+ year-old former club houses maintained by local governments should give an employee pause.

Or in the expert method of Bad Translator, "Government buildlings, libraries, the poor". There's a sort of correlation there.

Itinerary for the Spacefaring Librarian

Welcome to my new blog!

Of course, that's up to you to decide if you feel welcome or otherwise. If you do not feel welcome, please do not bother me with that sentiment, as I am unlikely to do anything about it.

So what is the Spacefaring Librarian? I suppose a better question to ask would be what can you expect from the Spacefaring Librarian. You can expect observations, both mulled over and unthought through, about the following: libraries, books, technology, sports, social, political, religious - pretty much anything that isn't the deep psychological ramblings of my mind. I've done that blog before on Xanga, which may or may not still be in existence. My pyschological ramblings are actually quite boring. It's how I fall asleep at night - wondering what I'm thinking. It's remarkably effective.

I should tell you now that I am related to Imperfection Personified. So you may see references to that blog or possibly even the stand-alone blog, Digressor, of whom I am also related.

There. Now that's out of the way, stay tuned for the next episode of the Spacefaring Librarian!