In my spare time

There are some advantages to being underemployed, but the one that I'm enjoying the most is having time to just read and read whatever I want pretty much whenever I want. Now, I've been reading quite a few books, but I've also been reading lots of articles and whatnot online. Unfortunately, despite spending much of the last decade using a computer I'm still not used to reading long articles on the computer. However, if the item is worth reading I usually stick to it.

I've been enjoying reading one of my favourite bloggers blog from the Sundance Festival. If you don't already read Evany's blog then you're really missing out. It may be updated somewhat sporadically, but when it is updated it's like treating yourself to a nice dessert or drinking a warm cup of fancy tea. It's also like chatting with your sister (assuming you get along with your sister) or a funny girlfriend. I enjoy her sense of humour and way-of-putting-things so much. In the Sundance posts I was particuarly charmed by some of the terms she uses to describe mouths including "sandwich flap" and "sore smiler".

Also cool and not dependent on staring at the screen at length is a round-up of archival recordings and clips to commemorate the birthday of my favourite computer, the Mac, by my source for most things newsy, CBC. Take a look and listen, but be warned that I couldn't figure out how to pause the radio clips and it was a little annoying when I wanted to not listen to the stories right away.

The Guardian has been chronicling the 1000 Novels that Everyone Must Read and fortunately they have an RSS feed. I have subscribed to the feed and I'm slowly making my way through the genre-specific posts. I'm not going to lie, it's a bit overwhelming to be faced with a list of so many alledgedly brilliant books. I don't know if I will attempt to go through the list, but it's nice to see that I've read a few and the summaries provided by the Guardian have alerted me to some others that I probably should make time for. Good thing I'm a librarian!

Those are just a couple of things that I've discovered over the last week or so. Of course, my daily fix comes via my Google Reader, which I am afraid I am slightly addicted to. On the plus side, I'm able to subscribe to job postings and relevant library-related blogs so I don't feel like I'm being completely frivolous when I spend a huge chunk staring at my computer while sipping endless cups of tea.