How I spent my weekend...

Help a mother out

I was talking to my Mom earlier this evening and she told me, rather loudly, that she was running out of blogs to read. In fact, she said that she needed me and dooce to post more often because she just didn't know where else to turn.

Well, readers, I kindly mentioned to my Mom that she should hit up some of the links in my sidebar for some quality reading material. But it got me thinking...What blogs should my Mom be reading? And where can she find them?

There are just so many out there and the Internet can be a scary and overwhelming place (and boring, too). It's not like going to a library where you can judge books by covers and make a selection by browsing the shelves. Like the world of books, in the world of blogs things are hit and miss. For every great blog there are probably fifty horrible ones. Heck, you might even think this blog right here is horrible! In which case, I bid you farewell.

I choose blogs based on links on the blogs that I already read. I'm a big fan of clicking on links and letting the Blogger that I already read and love lead me to things that they read and love and so on. Occasionally I will take a look at recommended links that pop up on my Google Reader. To me it's a bit of a connect-the-dots process. And it can sometimes become quite overwhelming.

How do you find good blogs?

Do you have a search strategy?

Where should my Mom start looking?

And am I missing out on anything?

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.

Too many things in my head

I've got a ten page paper to write by Tuesday. Ten pages doesn't seem like enough pages and it will be a bit of a struggle not to go over. On the other hand, ten pages is a lot less pressure than the twenty pages that I thought I was going to have to write. In addition to that I have four pages to submit to a group paper and a few slides to complete for an accompanying Powerpoint presentations. My topics are film ephemera for the long paper and innovations in staff training for the short bit. Fortunately both topics have resulted in good reading including "British Film Posters: An Illustrated History," which I had a hard time not reading straight through.

And I can't focus. So, I will share with you a few things that I've been enjoying over the past week or so.

Milk - I got a preview pass from work to see the new Gus Van Sant movie. I have been anxiously waiting for this movie ever since I saw photos taken from the set (mmm, James Franco). This movie is good. I mean, really good. The performances are amazing. I love when you can watch a movie and completely forget that you're watching actors play roles. Sean Penn does an amazing job, as do the rest of the cast. I put a hold on the documentary "The Life and Times of Harvey Milk" at the library because I want to learn more about Milk (and I can't believe that I haven't seen this yet!). Needless to say, I was incredibly moved by this film to the point of tearing up (a couple of times). It opens next Wednesday, the day before the 30th anniversary of Milk's assassination.

Kath & Kim - I only made it through half of the first episode of Kath & Kim, but Sean insisted that I watch it again with him the next week. That, and Lydia posting about it on her blog were enough to make me sit through the second episode and look forward to every new episode since. Molly Shannon and Selma Blair are over-the-top hilarious. They make the greatest facial expressions and their delivery is deadpan and perfect. My friend Jen leant me her boxset of the original Australian series which I plan to watch ASAP.

Kale - I'm still loving the kale! Also, who knew that posting about a nutritious, dark green leafy vegetable would generate such a flurry of comments on my blog! I will post about vegetables more often, I guess.

MGMT - There is a part of me that thinks I should think is band is lame. It's the snobby part of me that makes funny of hippies. But I can't help myself. I really like them and I listen to their album much more than I care to admit...except to you, dear blog readers. I'll leave it up to my cousin to wear the feathers in her hair though because she's younger than me and as much as I enjoy their music I don't see myself getting all hippy-nu-rave anytime soon.

Times New Viking - Last night I wanted nothing more than to go to bed, but I'm glad that Sean convinced me to go with him to watch Times New Viking and Deerhunter (well, we left a few songs into Deerhunter but whatevs). Times New Viking were fantastic. They were a lot of fun, totally energetic and a pleasure to watch. Sean told me that they reminded him of The Clean, who we both love, and I definitely hear it. Also awesome was the guitar player's look: tall, lanky and totally 90s college rock. Amazing.

This weekend I've scheduled a few social events to break up the monotony of working on my final school projects. I don't remember it being so difficult at the end of my BA. I suppose it's because the last semester of my BA was just me and my pile of notes relating to community, commodification and the public sphere. This time around there are people counting on me for my contribution to my group project. Also looming is the job search which will immediately commence after handing in my last assignment. Jeesh!

For good measure and because they are one of the best bands ever, here's a video by The Clean to cap this post off.

Okay, another video by The Clean because I love them THAT much. Also, I think this is the first song by The Clean that I ever heard courtesy of a mixed tape from Sean.

Specificity gone too far

Journal of Protective Coatings & Linings
The voice of SSPC: The Society for Protective Coatings