Cycho Librarian

Well folks, I've decided to take a run at NaBloPoM o . I know, that probably doesn't sound like a very good idea, given my track record so far on trying to post at least once every week. Posting once a day for the entire month of November is going to be quite the challenge. Oddly enough, it seems to be some strange sense of guilt over not posting weekly that has driven me to try this. Man, I've got issues. In principle though, I think it's a great idea. Let's get as many people as we can to write something once a day for a whole month. For all our problems getting kids to read and write, we're still the most literate society that the world has ever seen. Things like this can only serve to help that trend. And you really can't underestimate the power of the Internet in allowing this to happen. The Internet is very quickly becoming the great leveler. I see kids from all sorts of cultural and societal backgrounds in the library daily using the Internet ...

I was thinking about live blogging the World Series tonight. Not because I'm a baseball expert-- I know many people who are much more knowledgeable about baseball than I am. I just thought it would be fun. So I was going to start out critiquing Francona's decision to field Ortiz. Mainly because Youkilis has shown that he can hit well, Papi seems to have been a bit of a slump lately, and I have worries about his ability to field with his numerous aches and pains. I was also worried about Ellsbury leading off. Well, my worries about Ellsbury were quickly settled. The kid's amazing. I can't believe that he's only just come up. But for the first two innings it looked like I was right about Papi. Plus Fogg was looking unhittable, and we seemed to finally have a game on our hands. Then the third comes along. Not only was I clearly way off base to worry about Francona's lineup, but what looked like it might be a game got blown wide open. I do feel a little ba...

I would not describe myself as a Black Sabbath fan. I definitely don't fit the profile of your average Ozzfest attendee. And frankly I have very little patience for that demographic. I just don't think that they appreciate music. Yes, I am a snob. But even though I'm not a fan, I do enjoy a lot of the music that Black Sabbath put out in the 70's. You have to admire rock music that can be transcribed for marching band and still sound cool. But seriously, it's remarkable how many of their songs like "War Pigs" have entered our cultural consciousness, and their staying power is phenomenal. The fact that a several current bands have covered the song is a testament to that. One of my personal favorites is the Dresden Dolls' version, which I think they only do live. You gotta love a "Brechtian punk cabaret" duo covering a song like that on keyboard and drums. This morning on the drive in I was listening to Cake's cover of " War Pig...