Head Tale - Yet Another Library Student's Blog About Me
AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Search
This Month
March 2010
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30 31
View Article  Music Monday (Okay, Tuesday) - "I like to chug it so it feels really danceable"
Q TV from CBC Radio has a new (?) series where they get their guests to explain how to play one of their hits.  Here's Hawksley Workman being entertaining as always in explaining how to play "Safe & Sound":

View Article  And the Oscar for Most Wooden Performance In A Workplace Promotional Video Goes To...
View Article  Music Monday - "I got a letter from the government the other day/Opened it and read it/It said they were suckers/They wanted me for their army or whatever"
When I was in England in 1995, this song (and the album it appeared on) were consistently rated at or near the top of the "best of" lists for that year by the NME, Melody Maker and Q.
View Article  Music Monday - "We are the 'what' in 'what's new'."
The Olympics are over and the reactions are all over the place from claims from a perhaps unexpected source (Dave Bidini, not the National Post) that Canada has been changed for the better forever to claims that the debt will weigh down on our citizens for decades

Anyhow, for today's Music Monday, I thought I'd re-visit one of the most pleasant surprises from the Opening Ceremonies two weeks ago - a slam poet captures Canada...


View Article  Saturday Snap - Archival Footage of "Sask Sampler Book Archive Launch"
I recently bought a gizmo to convert old VHS tapes and other analog signals to a digital format.  As I was getting it set-up for the first time, I picked a couple clips I had from around ten years ago - one where I'm featured fairly prominently and one where you get to see my backside!  

Here's one from when I worked for the Saskatchewan Publishers Group circa 2000.  Two interesting things to note - even back then, I was talking about the information economy and the role of books in it.  And the place where we held the launch?  The Dunlop Art Gallery at the Regina Public Library!  (Oh, and Shea makes a cameo as does one of the best hairdos of all time!) 

And here's a clip from a press conference held by the Amnesty International G8 Observer Team during the G8 Summit which was held in Kananaskis Alberta in 2002.  My only appearance is a brief shot of me with my back to the camera standing between two women, one in a white shirt and one in a green shirt, around ten seconds in.  But the guy who does most of the talking is someone I got to sneak into a protest site with along with a carload of reporters from the Independent Media Center.  Good times! 
View Article  FTRW 2010 - ChatRoulette
It's not book related but nothing says Freedom of Expression like the newest buzz site of the Internet, ChatRoulette.   The site is exactly what it says - you hit the site and you see a chat window for yourself and one for a random person somewhere in the world.  As soon as you get bored (which is usually fairly quickly - basically as soon as you see the other person's face...or they see yours), you click a button and see someone else.  Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat.

(I did it just now and got hung up on about five times in a row, had a brief chat with two guys who were watching the Canada-Russia game and saw one set of fingers making hand puppets.  Contrary to my previous experience with web cams way back in the late 1990's - and frankly what I was expecting here - every second person wasn't trying to show me their penis which was nice.  Perhaps if I was female?)

So it's not all people freely exposing expressing themselves as you might expect - there's humour, love and even puppets!  Oh, and you might see the occasional vagina as well.

(via MetaFilter)

[2010-03-05: The Daily Show adds their hilarious take on ChatRoulette.]
[2010-03-15 - Piano Improv ChatRoulette is pretty funny.]
View Article  Music Monday - "But like the rise and fall of a country squall/I'm getting ready to fade away"
Hard to believe that today marks two years since Willie P. Bennett passed away.  Fred Eaglesmith has apparently started covering a Willie P. song at the end of his concerts as a tribute to his long-time sideman... 
View Article  Friday Fun Link - Winter Olympics Begin (February 12, 2010)
Not sure if you heard but apparently the Wet & Rainy Olympics are in Canada this year and the opening ceremonies are tonight. 

The Olympics are once again a lightning rod of controversy and having them on our own doorstep has perhaps brought this home in a way that doesn't happen when they're in Italy or Japan or even next door in the US.  

Even Vancouver's libraries aren't immune, a controversy having stirred around a directive from VPL's marketing department about which sponsors to use during the period when the Winter Games are happening and which to avoid as well as asking staff to put pieces of tape over non-sponsor logos on things like electronic equipment.  (I wonder if they were asked to do the same as what happened at the last Olympics when black tape was apparently placed over the logo of the urinal maker in the bathrooms at Olympic venues since Moens or Delta or whoever weren't the official plumbing sponsor of the Olympics!) [Edit: or worse]

I'm mixed in my feelings towards the Olympics.  I like the idea of what they're supposed to represent - the pinnacle of athletic achievement taking place on a global stage for international competition within international cooperation.  But I'm not naive enough to dismiss the rampant commercialism and corporatization of the Games  which has long replaced the ideals of the games as the most important thing.  That's not even mentioning the massive expenses associated with hosting the Games and long-term debts that are always incurred (I think Calgary 1988 was the only modern Olympic Games - summer or winter - that ended up being debt-free at the end of it.) 

I've got lots more thoughts but I won't get into them there.  I will say that I also have mixed thoughts about nationalism and patriotism.  But one of the places where I don't is in regards to the Olympic hockey tournament.  So Go Canada Go and here's a little clip to get your blood stirring, not least because whoever picked the song chose a great under-the-radar Canadian songwriter named Mike Plume...(ffwd to 2:57)

View Article  FTRW 2010 - Music Monday - Ten Most Controversial Music Videos of All-Time
I know I could get my entire month's worth of Freedom to Read Week Month "Music Monday" clips out of this list but I'll post them as a group since that's how I found them. 
View Article  Saturday Snap - RPL Joins SILS (from local CTV station)
Used a poor man's hack to get a clip from our local TV news about RPL joining our new province-wide consortium onto YouTube.  Sorry for the crappy sound...

My web site dedicated to four great Canadian singer-songwriters (but currently only featuring guitar tab for two of them - Fred Eaglesmith and Hawksley Workman.)

free counters
www.flickr.com
This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from shealisahammond. Make your own badge here.