Finished, and just about to start reading ...

OK, so I started and finished reading Paolini's Eragon. It wasn't a bad yarn (Australian for plot), but I did struggle with concentrating. The problem was that it was raved about by A Person for whom I have little regard for - I'm sure many folk will be surprised to hear that I do not uniformly love all of my fellow mankind. Others of course will not be surprised at that news.

However, my personal feelings for the 'raver' did tend to get in the way of enjoying the reading experience. So now I'm wondering if this might be the case for anyone else, or is it just me? I know sometimes it is [just me]. Now that would be a great PhD topic - "Affective Domain and Reading Enjoyment".

Anyways, although I did struggle on through Eragon, I still purchased Eldest. OK, I'll come clean and admit that I also bought Brsingr on the off chance that I might get that far. Unfortunately I am again struggling with Eldest, for the same reason I struggled with Eragon. I'm maybe a third of the way through it.

I passed on buying Inheritance for the moment. They're very thick books, and shelf space in the Home Library is not infinite. Especially since the Great Cull of 2011 and the disposal of three bookshelves. I'm sure with enough counselling and medication I will eventually get over that particular trauma.

So given I'm not especially enjoying Mr Paolini's offerings at the moment, today I purchased Fifty Shades of Grey. I noticed on Facebook that the publisher is having a competition to win a copy of that book, but I thought "to heck with it" (but not in those words) and just went and bought a copy. I'm planning on starting reading it in about half an hour.

THEN I noticed on Facebook that there's another competition by another publisher to win an author-signed copy of We Need to Talk about Kevin, seeing how the film is now out and all. I think I may have that book around the house somewhere, still unread.

But what is interesting is how the Internet (proper noun, please!) is working through Facebook to push books and promote reading. Although that could be just me. Again.

Beer Review: No, it's not a typo

Perhaps most folk would partake of a suitable wine to help evoke The Muse, but it was a humid night after a hot day here in Sydney town, and Facebook was down for maintenance; with nothing much to watch on TV and no particularly inspiring book to read - or write.

So it seemed the ideal time to check out what's new at our local purveyor of alcoholic beverages, specifically in the low-carb range. Cue in Hahn White, described as a Belgian-style beer. With 0.25g sugar per 330ml serve, it wasn't a bad drop, although the fruity undertones took a little adjustment.

We skipped the orange slice additive ritual in the spirit of scientific research. After all, it just didn't seem quite right to add fresh fruit to an amber liquid that had apparently already been contaminated with health food. I'd not be embarrassed to turn up to a BBQ in the company of a small case of this product.

(And just a note for Those Who Know Who You Are - no, I didn't get free samples, and no, I'm not receiving any remuneration of any kind for writing this.)

Facebook is down for maintainance

There really isn't any more to be said, is there?

I wish I'd written this ....

I'm sorry if you're really busy doing important things, but you really do have to drop everything immediately and read the following article "An Honest Facebook Political Argument":
http://www.collegehumor.com/article/5996384/an-honest-facebook-political-argument

Huge thanks to the original clever author Chase Mitchell, who also has some other pretty good original stuff at the same page.

Educational Value of Facebook?

The passage below is an excellent definition for the Fantasy genre of fiction - but lacks any attribution, statement of authorship, references ... nor paragraph structure.

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in fictional worlds where magic is common. Fantasy is generally distinguished from science fiction and horror by the expectation that it steers clear of (pseudo-)scientific and macabre themes, respectively, though there is a great deal of overlap between the three (which are subgenres of speculative fiction).In popular culture, the genre of fantasy is dominated by its medievalist form, especially since the worldwide success of The Lord of the Rings books by J. R. R. Tolkien. In its broadest sense however, fantasy comprises works by many writers, artists, filmmakers, and musicians, from ancient myths and legends to many recent works embraced by a wide audience today.Fantasy is a vibrant area of academic study in a number of disciplines (English, cultural studies, comparative literature, history, medieval studies). Work in this area ranges widely, from the structuralist theory of Tzvetan Todorov, which emphasizes the fantastic as a liminal space, to work on the connections (political, historical, literary) between medievalism and popular culture.

We are making progress, but by golly - there's still a long way to go.

Look who is advertising themselves ...

I had to read it twice. Yes, it's real. No, I have not included a link.

Note that "this advert is not endorsed by this blog". It was found on the sidebar of a Facebook Page.

The good thing (for me at least) that as I have not yet lost the capacity for surprise, clearly I have not yet become jaded by the "offerings" of the Internet - as well as those other Professional Places Of Which We Will Not Speak. At least, not here, and not now ....

Welcome to my nightmare?

So, here it is almost exactly half-way through the term break holidays. And what have I actually achieved? Well, in terms of time spent moving stuff, quite a bit. You can see that the Green Room - which we originally called the Homework Room in the hope that the name might drop a bit of a hint to the Household Teenagers - has had an enormous amount of 'rubbish' removed, the desking consolidated, and about 5 years worth of candy wrappers swept up.

The childhood experts will tell you that it's "beneficial" to give teenagers responsibility, but I don't' think they'd considered the hygiene perspective. Anyways, The Supervisor seems happy with the progress, although does point out that this part of the garden needs a little work.


Someone really wise (or possibly very good at hiding their source) once said "in order for something to become clean, something else has to become dirty". Which goes part way to explaining why the dining room now resembles something along the lines of a yard sale - but with less order and aesthetics.

There's absolutely no point in telling me that if I didn't try to keep every bit of junk under the pretense of 'archiving realia', I wouldn't be having this problem now. But the good news is that the Home Weeding Project has now build up a staggering tower of boxed culls. Conservative replacement value? Several million dollars. Yard sale value? Maybe ten bucks. Contribution to learning to read in third world school libraries? Priceless.

OK, so what about the Home Office Makeover of the Century? Otherwise known as Yeah, Right ... it's getting less chaotic. Really. A few boxes-full (box-fulls?) of paper have been filed. Unfortunately though, a whole lot more new paper-based documentation has been arriving together with substantial relocation of stuff from the Green Room.

So I guess it would make sense to stop blogging here at this point, and go put some more stuff away - or throw it out. But I've just got to log into Facebook first; I've got stuff cooking in Cafe World, some OCD has probably beaten the cr@p out of me again in Mafia Wars, I'm pretty sure my crop of tomatoes is ready for harvesting over at my Karma Farm ...

The mysterious case of the missing librarian ...

... or, where the heck have I been for the last month. That's an easy question to answer, although possibly not quite as easy to justify. In the never-ending battle to stay abreast with cyber-developments, I signed up with Facebook, uploaded pictures, commented on other stuff, and spent about 3 hours a day 'engaging'. [For those who haven't undertaken the Youth of Today's Social Networking Experience, read 'playing games'.]

After only 27 days, I can report that yes, it's addictive; yes, it sucks the life out of life; no, it has virtually no educational value; and no, it doesn't come anywhere near real-life 'socialisation'. Take for instance the Friends facility. Here you can ask people to be your friend, or they can ask you. But then you get little messages that say things like "6 of your friends hate you". Yeah, OK, maybe it isn't all that far removed from real life. Sort of makes you feel like George Bernard Shaw ... "he doesn't have any enemies, but his friends don't like him much".

There were many things that I didn't understand. For example, in the dedicated advertisement portion of each web page were 3 or 4 ads - with an extra little thougthful link to "more ads". I couldn't imagine why anyone would click on that link, except by accident. But sheesh! What would I know? I'm a Baby Boomer in a Gen Y world. Apparently.

On the other hand, I did find out a number of things about myself that I hadn't known before joining Facebook. I absolutely suck at games where getting money relies on the generosity of people you don't know, and who don't appreciate the gravity of the situtation. But wait! That IS just like real life. At least as far as financing the operations of a library.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. I just want to reach Level 50 in Heroes and Villains before I log out for the final time. And I'mwaiting for a power pack for Dragons. Oh, and I have to find out why the daily income in Metropolis has fallen to $12/day ...