Meme: Passion Quilt

Solve a mystery, or two...
Originally uploaded by WCPL, Pa, USA

The LG found this little meme and Flickr project through one of her numerous feeds on Bloglines (see the blogroll below at right) and was intrigued. For how this meme got started, click here.
Instructions on how to participate:

3 Simple Meme Rules:

• Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about...and give your picture a short title.
• Title your blog post "Meme: Passion Quilt" and link back to this blog entry.
• Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network or whom you follow on Twitter/Pownce.

Fun to see how it will grow...

Fear late fees no longer!

Not a librarian, but still have stacks and piles of checked-out items cluttering up the dining room table, nightstand, entertainment center and most other flat surfaces? As a librarian, overdue fines are not something I worry about generally, except for the unease I feel when I have to alert someone to their massive fines, that is. For you civilians, though, you may find the Library Elf to be of some assistance. This service, of which the Chester County Library system is a part of, will alert you of upcoming due dates and recently arrived holds. Better yet, it is fully customizable. You can decide how many days from the due date you want to be alerted, and you can receive emails, RSS feeds, cell phone alerts or all three. You can even add multiple cards to one account for easier family card management. And it is completely free.

The only caveat is that you will be sacrificing some of the privacy that we here at the library go to great lengths to protect for you. Something, or someone (I'm looking at you Big Brother), outside of the system is going to be able to see what you have checked-out. If you can live with that, then you may be able to forget paying fines ever again, but you should probably still donate occasionally, right. As far as tasks delegated to elves, this probably falls somewhere between making shoes while you sleep and saving you from Orcs. You decide.

Burnout Paradise

Burnout Paradise (Xbox 360)

E for Everyone

The latest entry into the one the funnest racing franchises is now available for the Xbox 360 and pleases on almost every level. The gorgeously rendered graphics convey a sense of speed that can make you lose your lunch as you climb the varied terrain of Paradise City. The licensed soundtrack offers a little something for everybody, and is made even better with the ability to turn off the tracks you don't want to hear. The city offers a variety of challenges, events and collectibles all mixed into different environments overflowing with personality (although eerily devoid of people). The way the online component is integrated seamlessly into the game is ingenious (it would be nice to see a similar game mechanic in GTA IV). For those hungry for achievement points, Burnout Paradise is not stingy with its achievements. There are enough for every level that with natural progression, you will get most of them. Granted, there are a few for the hard core racer in you. The idea of a racing game set in a sandbox world is hard to imagine, but Burnout pulls it off really well. To initiate an event, just pull up to an intersection and hit LB and RB together.

Unfortunately, this was one of the biggest minuses for me. After, my thousandth head-on collision or missed turn, I really wished for a little bit of traditional track racing. Getting smacked going through an intersection at high speeds can ruin a race, especially time attacks. Because all of the racing takes place in the confines of Paradise City and the surrounding country side, navigation can occasionally be tricky. You are given a compass that points you towards the finish line and your blinkers will blink telling you to turn along with a blinking road sign. Even still, when you are rocketing towards an intersection you can still miss the turn pretty easily, especially when there are more than one roads in the same area. Again, you will be wishing for a track. Your other option is to ignore the blinker and plot your own course, but this requires pausing to look at the map frequently and that really affects your concentration, and you need to be able to concentrate on traffic, obstacles and your fellow racers.

Don't get me wrong, Burnout Paradise is fun. But it can be frustrating, especially when your car is moving faster than your fingers. Or when oncoming traffic meets you coming over a hill. This game will give your reflexes a workout, and that's always a good thing. Plus, downloadable content in the form of motorcylces and night racing is planned for the summer. Before you buy, rent it from the West Chester public library and make sure its the racing game for you.

Friday Break...

Remember Carl Sagan?

Here's his take on the Great Library of Alexandria...

And, in case you thought twitter was a silly waste of time, check out this story from CNN.

Literacy Heroes - live streaming of event 4-18

Couldn't make it to the WCPL 2008 Literacy Heroes Breakfast to find out who the winners are? Courtesy of the Chester County Intermediate Unit, you can watch the event live via the CCIU's internet streaming site: http://ccitv.cciu.org.

Many thanks to the folks there for providing this wonderful service. The students there will also condense the video of the event to a 30 minute program to be aired on Comcast, where you will be able to watch it for free. Look for details on the dates for the Comcast airing.

National Library Week....

Libraries are cool - film directors and scriptwriters have known that for a while. Check out these 18 slides about libraries in movies put together by EW. Then hurry to your library and haunt the stacks. (In case you also feel a shudder at the book-burning scene in The Day After Tomorrow, remember, those were tax law books. The LG has no fond memories of working with those in her Academic Librarian incarnation at a university north of here... )

Friday Break Time: StumbleUpon

If you need a Friday break, check out StumbleUpon and see what you find! Lots of interesting videos, and the Stumble button will queue up a new video, picked at random from their files.

Here's one the LG found today about Stephen Wiltshire.

Enjoy!