RSSS anxiety!

I have always thought that those little RSS (real simple syndication) boxes on websites were cute - they looked cheerful and potentially useful, I thought, and then I busily ignored them and went on my way.

And yes, I found out today, they really are useful - using Bloglines, I chose a few popular feeds that interested me and also cut and pasted a link from CBC into bloglines to get their RSS feed as well. There they were - cute little feeds just waiting to be read. Easy, quick, awesome, right?

Well, sort of. What I didn't count on was the anxiety produced when I suddenly saw all this information waiting to be read. I'm a librarian, I should enjoy having all this information to read, shouldn't I? But. it. was. just. too. much. information. I can't read it all! Even if I did have time to read it, I would then spend time wanting to buy/read/see/eat/wear/know all the things I was reading about, producing even more and different anxiety. It's just too much!

I may have to go back to my pre-RSSS state, or maybe just take it one feed at a time...too much excitement at once!

Imagine All Those Images

I love pictures of people and things. A glossy spread in Vanity Fair, a coffee table book on restoring city apartments, boxes of old photos in a junk shop - other places, other faces, other anything that I don't see on a regular basis really appeal to me.

So imagine how much I enjoyed Google Images, an entirely different and very easy way to look at photos of almost anything, using a simple search box to type in keywords. I found photos of my favourite hotel in Vancouver (The Sylvia), my favourite musician (Beck) my favourite cafe (Cafe Sabarsky in New York) and my favourite yoga position (shavasana). The range of photos available offers lots of choice, and I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of Canadian content - something I was originally skeptical about. I also like that each image lists a link to it's origin, often a website that is interesting in itself to browse.

Probably the only drawback to Google Images is that visuals of more obscure places and faces are not always available, and that a search will yield results that have no connection to what you are actually looking for. However, I've found this doesn't happen too often, and I'm usually pleased with the photos that are retrieved.

Facebook I hate you, Facebook I love you

I've had a Facebook account for a few years now, and like any relationship, it can be good and bad.

Facebook is good in that you can find people that you actually wonder about and would like to talk to again. I recently connected with a grade school friend who now lives in San Francisco, and whom I haven't see in 20 years. She let me know she was coming to Canada to visit last summer and we were able to spend a couple of hours catching up on each other's lives.

Facebook is bad in that people you never wonder about and never want to talk to again can also find you. This includes the jerk from high school that you still dislike 20 years later who suddenly wants to be your "friend" when you were never friends, not even in person, or that tiresome narcissist who feels the need to share ten times a day the minutiae of her life, in which you are never interested. If it weren't for the "block" option that Facebook provides (a very satisfying yet somewhat passive aggressive way to deal with facebook reality) I would be very tempted to get rid of my Facebook account altogether.

But of course I can't do that....how would I keep track of all those birthdays I need to keep track of without the birthday reminder? How would I feel smug about all the books I read without the visual bookshelf? How would I know when the Flight of the Conchords is going on tour without being their fan on Facebook? I know I am probably wasting my time with all of this, but I can't seem to stop. Ah Facebook, I hate you, Facebook, I love you - now, what am I going to write in my status line today?

The Wonders of Wikipedia!

Being a librarian (I seem doomed to want to start all my posts this way) I believe in the power of the written word. I believe that the written word is good and necessary, and can't imagine changing it once it has been written down somewhere.

So imagine my consternation at the suggestion that I visit Wikipedia (which I have often done, no big deal) and edit one of the articles I found there (big deal - it's the written word! How could it possibly be changed by an ordinary someone like me?)

Fighting a small amount of panic (only small amount of panic, it's not open heart surgery, for God's sake) I found an article on my favourite movie, Moonstruck (the best movie of all time, how could anyone resist feisty Cher and passionate Nicholas Cage and obstreperous Vincent Gardenia and long-suffering Olympia Dukakis?) and immediately discovered two small grammatical errors in one of the first paragraphs.

Hesitantly I clicked on edit and fixed them both, thereby discovering that I may love the written word, but I love the written word even more when it is spelt correctly and in correct grammatical form. I was hooked! I went madly through the rest of the article, correcting grammar and sentence structure at breakneck speed, and adding a few details about the movie I thought should be included.

This was a very satisfying experience and one I just might repeat (and yes, I have thought that maybe I don't get out enough). After all, there's bound to be a few spelling mistakes in the Wikipedia article about my second favorite movie, Blade Runner (brooding Harrison Ford, sad Sean Young and crazy Darryl Hannah) that cannot remain uncorrected. I owe it to the written word.