A Wandering Eyre

In which I discuss four movies via a Movie Roundup, all spoiler free:

Mr. Rochester and I started the weekend out with Super Troopers, an old favorite full of silly comedy.

On Sunday, we went to see X-Men: The Last Stand with some friends. My gripes are similar to Jenica’s, but overall I thought it was good. I wish that we would have gotten to see more of some of the characters and I ached for others’ plights, but the plot did not leave much room for “how this all makes me feel” development. I think this is the general complaint that I have heard from others. It was still worth the money and apparently many, many other people thought so as well.

I love Jane Austen and have seen, I think, all of the adaptations of her works. Even some of the not so great BBC versions from loooooong ago. The previous statement does not include the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice because we all know that is an achievement in literary transfers to the screen. I am talking more about this. All of this blathering leads to me admitting that I have finally seen the newest version of Pride and Prejudice which came out last year and stars Keira Knightly, Mathew Macfadyen, Donald Sutherland, Judi Dench, and many others. On the whole, I liked it. The important elements were there and, though Colin Firth will be Darcy forever, I enjoyed Mathew Macfadyen as Darcy. This newest version made great pains to emphasize, in the setting, the gentry farmer quality of the Bennett’s life. There was much less emphasis on letter writing and many of the scenes with Wickham and Charlotte were left out. Sir Lucas as well is completely absent. Regardless, it was worth the money to buy it and will sit proudly next to my other Austen based movies.

Mr. R and I also watched the 40 Year Old Virgin, which was a supreme disappointment. I was expecting something hilarious, like Super Troopers or Saving Silverman, but what I saw was a date movie with a little more sexual “jokes” than normal. While the message is good, “It’s not all about the sex you know,” the movie tried to walk a fine line between cute and funny, failing a little at both.

–Jane, now owns a movie she will never watch again

Post Secret, the website that has me mesmerized every Monday is on the road and coming to Houston next week. I think I will have to be there.

–Jane, which secrets are your secrets?

Bootcamp has been getting a lot of press. As a student, I have some thoughts on what and how we are learning. As a student, I have decided to wait until it is completed to share my thoughts.

(ANFSCD) On a side note vaguely realated to the above, there are some very interesting things going on in behind the scenes of librarianship at the moment. Like I said in my previous post, I love librarians. Lo, to the person that believes they can idly place challenges before us and have them unanswered. We join ranks. We rise. We conquer. It is the way of the world.

–Jane, And Now For Something Completely Different

Teresa Koltenburg has a post about Bootcamp up on the ALA Techsource Blog. I have a small quote there about OPML files and I manage to not sound like a complete idiot. Hooray for me! One small step.
I was actually very interested to see what my fellow students had to say. There have been some frustrations with the course on many levels, but we are all learning.

My group, whose wiki can be found here, is working on different ways libraries can integrate their services into major search engines. We had a phone conference on Friday with Michael Stevens and Jenny Levine. After our instructors left us, the group continued to talk for another 20 minutes or so about technology, libraries, and where things are going. It reminded me of the reason why I love librarians so very much. Regardless of whether we agree, we are always looking to improve things for our users. Like doctors, we look for better ways to serve, better ways to help people.

–Jane, helps

While listening to The Signal, I heard about this and had to go in search of pictures. What is not cool about legos and Serenity? Nothing! The very best part is that this wonderful Browncoat offers “bags o bricks” with all the things you need to make the “snack sized” version. I, of course, think that I now need this. Alas, I will never get it and it will be added to the list of Joss related things I want.
–Jane, at least someone is crazier then me

The big news in H Town today: Lay and Skilling are found guilty.

–Jane, chalk one for the little guys

You know, I am a very bad typist. Horrible actually. I type fast but very inaccurately. Sometimes I will find mistakes in posts after I have made them live and I quickly hit the “edit” button to fix them. Unfortunately, Bloglines, seems to always pick up these error filled posts much faster than the ones that are perfect.

Hence, some of you got the IT post with two errors. My apologies.

–Jane, dictionaries and spell check were invented for a reason

I know that many, many technology problems can be summed up by the following:

• User Error
• Handy ReBoot

However, I am not an idiot when it comes to technology. I know that sometimes I just can not figure something out or I mucked something up. I am always willing to admit that I am at fault, but I know to reboot and retrace my steps. I thought my IT guys knew this about me, but they still tell me to reboot no matter what problem I pose to them. Problem with the internet? Reboot. Printer redirecting for no reason? Reboot. World War Three pending? Reboot.

Is it laziness on their part because they do not want to come to my office or a belief that anyone outside of their department is a computer idiot? Maybe it is a combination of both.

Hey guys. I already rebooted before I sent in the Help Desk ticket. I would not ask you for help if it was something simple like that so just come look at my machine and stop screwing around. Ok?

I think this is endemic of the disconnect between IT, within or without, and the library. Sometimes we seem to be speaking the same language and then suddenly, one group starts speaking Klingon and everything goes all to hell.

–Jane, borghel

YouTube is one of the great examples of the read/write web. Yes there are things on there that might be bootlegged, but there is a lot of original content as well. I wonder what it would look like if a library let people “remix” their content. Would it look like Hennepin Library allowing user comments? Maybe you would be able to blog a book directly from the catalog?

I know that we talk about these kinds of things all the time. It still bounces around my brain pan whenever I start dabbling in some new and fun tool or site.

–Jane, found this Firefly video

I finally feel like I can breathe a bit, so today it is back to work as usual.

My library has a new Content Management System for our web page that allows the staff to be in charge of their own pages and content. The web guys (well, gals and guy) are just tickled that they do not have to fix words, change hours, and manage the minutia of our site. The staff are happy because we now have the control!

I am holding two training sessions for the staff on how exactly this thing works. Do not touch the red button or everything will explode! I managed, through some cajoling (whining), to get a wide range of staff levels to attend. I hope they go forth and spread the good word.

In the process of making the handout, I learned how to use a new program called SnagIt. I have seen it mentioned before. You can get a 30 free trial and I highly recommend it to people who teach. Excellent features that allow you to manipulate and add things to your screen captures. The captures come out very clear as well, which makes them perfect for handouts and presentations.