I will be out of town for Halloween, check back after Monday. In the mean time, enjoy this odd juxtaposition of Hello Kitty and The Blair Witch Project. Happy Halloween!

The concept of having a "Rat Shovel" is so very Baltimore.

For Halloween, here's a Haunted Dollhouse.

Jessamyn has updated her classic Naked Librarians page.

After lurking for well over a year, I've finally got myself a membership to MetaFilter. Not like I've posted anything yet, but it would say dipolemoment.

Some excellent information on Daylight Saving Time.

There are some new Library Blogs over on the left. A special shout out to Loopy Librarian, who links to me!

This weekend the American Dime Museum and MICA are hosting a post-neo-sideshow.

Blogger was hacked this morning. I'm so glad it's back!!!

di-pole Moment is a spanner that never gets tired and looks like a fish.

Well, I've given up on teaching my cats to use the toilet. Now I'm all about the new "crystal" cat litter. It's just silica gel, the stuff that comes with your shoes, that you shouldn't eat. If you know of any discount silica gel distributors, let me know.

Some medical librarian heroics.

Did you know that the inventor of the Phillip's head screw, Henry F. Phillips, was from Portland, Oregon?

Ohhh, I feel famous. Library Stuff linked to me!

This Saturday's Trading Spaces had Vern perpetuating the myth that you can keep Betas (fighting fish) in containers with plants without ever having to feed them or change the water. This is entirely false! It's not so much that I'm concerned with the well being of the fish as I am outraged by the misinformation. I'm not the only one.

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Memepool had a whole entry devoted to librarians on Tuesday.

My favorite fruit, Pomegranates, are in season!.

I stumbled upon Map Bureau via BlogMapper. The default map seemed so right it took me a minute to think "Hey, why are they using the mouth of the Columbia River?" Turns out these high tech, interactive mapping folks, are in Astoria, Oregon. They've got a lovely set of maps including:

Lewis & Clark in Oregon and Washington

Dredging Deposit History

Dams and Salmon

Lewis & Clark in the Columbia-Pacific

and my favorite...

The Flower Stands of the Clatsop Plains.

How I Tried to Resign from Google Answers but Found I Was Already Fired, an update.

Set it in the past, and put it on PBS, suddenly soap opera watching becomes respectable. I'm watching The Forsythe Saga.

I really am quite impressed with microsoft Reader, which allows me to read e-books on my iPaq. Finding books I'd bother to read is another thing. I'm unlikely to pay for books, or read bestseller types. University of Virginia has a nice collection of freely available, interesting texts at their Electronic Text Center.

The Ten Page Press zine (with it's series "All the Libraries in the World and Mine") deserves special mention for using the phrase "gemeinschaft gap".

Another Librarian Zine: Thoughtworm.

Consumed with work. Will return after The Event.

Dungenous vs. Blue Crabs The Portland Oregonian reports on Baltimore crab.

Like the new look? Computers picked the colors.

Words That Soak Up Life : A Reading Compilation Zine naturally contained a number of suggested readings. In order to make some sence of them all, I created a tiny bibliographic database (yes I am that dorky). Here are the most recommended books, each being listed by more than one contributer to this zine.

Their Eyes Were Watching God /by Zora Neale Hurston

Ex Libris /by Anne Fadiman

A People's History of the United States /by Howard Zinn

The Golden Compass /by Phillip Poullman

Catch-22 /by Joseph Heller

One Hundered Years of Solitude /by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Book of Questions /by Pablo Neurda

In the Time of Butterflies /by Julia Alvarez

The Passion /by Jeanette Winterson

You Can't be Neutral on a Moving Train /by Howard Zinn

The Timeline of Science is a nice resource for the last 1000 years of scientific thought. It is interesting to note that finiancial support for this stite was provided by Pfizer.

Even though I'm not very good at it, I like the Bookworm Game because of its library theme, and the fact that there is no time limit.

I finished The Case of the Crumpled Knave, in less than twenty-four hours. I now understand the appeal of the mystery genre.

Jessymyn West has an excellent article about her experiences with Google Answers. It pretty much sums up why I never bothered to try to become a "Google Researcher". I get enough abuse from patrons at my day job.
[via Librarian.net]