"How did YOU spend your summer break, Señor Cosby?"

Trying to learn how to do this, kids:

In other news, you can tell I'm getting tetchy to go back to school.  All my blog posts are imaginary conversations.

AWWWW!

This is the sort of thing that makes me just love the Internet.



I dare you to watch this and not smile. It's got EVERYTHING that makes a youtube video great--a baby monkey AND an iPhone.

Edited to add: Credit where credit's due: http://gizmodo.com/watch-this/

Why I love my friends: A holiday post

Those who know me probably refer (hopefully lovingly) as a Nerd.  The capital N was intentional, and well deserved.  I'm getting too old to be one of the cool nerds; hopefully I'm old enough soon to be considered retro, and thus cool again.  That cycle gets shorter and shorter, so it shouldn't be long now.

As a result of my friends' knowledge of my nerdliness, I have received a few really, REALLY nerdy holiday gifts, with which I am inordinately pleased.

Exhibit 1:

This is, as you can see from the title, a fundamental bibliography of Don Quijote.  During my graduate class on Don Quijote, we read the Murillo edition, and would refer frequently to his footnotes for cultural clarification.  For our term papers, we were encouraged to consult this bibliography as a great starting point for finding source information.  The Bibliografía was no longer in print, though, and essentially impossible for a graduate student to acquire.  We all borrowed our professor's WELL-worn copy, and were grateful for the chance.

Since then, there have been an amazing number of times when I've wished I could pull up some quick articles about Quijote on some theme or another.  I've thought longingly of this bibliography, wishing I could refer to it just to see how much research had been done on the topic as of 1978.  And now I have a copy.

I know, nerdy, right?  But, admit it: kinda awesome.

Exhibit 2:

This, friends, is an ocarina, which is sweet enough.  But wait, there's more:

It's an Ocarina of Time!  This is a genuine replica of the instrument played by the intrepid hero Link in the video game classic The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time.  I played a few scales on the ocarina, and it has a good sound to it. 

I know, awesome, right?  But kind of nerdy.

The best part about this is that these came from different friends.  They're appealing to my nerdy nature from all sides!

Thank you, guys.  They're great.

NB:  I already had a Don Quijote tag, ready to use.  That's cool.

Deep thought

It's difficult to type a research paper when the cat continually leaps from the computer table to your lap, all the while licking your hand.

Zoom zoom zoom

Things that didn't die tonight because my car is sweet:

3 horses
1 coyote
1 neighborhood cat
3 neighborhood teenagers
1 neighbor who was burning leaves in the middle of the night
Any number of unseen deer

Ad Hoc

Latin for "making it up as you go along."

Couldn't have happened to an apparently nicer fellow

The ALA announced its award winners for 2009. Neil Gaiman (may the winds of inspiration ever fill his lungs!), my favorite fiction author still drawing breath, has won the Newberry medal for 2009, for The Graveyard Book.

My heart leaped for joy at the news. I enjoy his writing a great deal, and thought that The Graveyard Book had a particularly smoky flavor. And I know I'm in good company. It's like being a fan of some sport that has an annual contest, a giant affair in which many thousands of people gather to watch the best in the sport compete. And deep inside, the fan knows that the outcome doesn't really matter, because s/he gets to watch the greatest. But when the fan's chosen team wins unexpectedly, the fan feels part of something greater than him/herself, even though s/he had absolutely nothing to do with any of it. (If I could have thought of any sport that had some kind of annual contest, a "Super Fest" or a "World Prize" or something, this metaphor would have worked out a lot more smoothly. A little help, sports fans?)

I haven't read EVERYTHING Gaiman's ever written, but it's a close call. Some of the older comic books, the occasional children's book, probably an introduction here or there. I read his blog a lot. It gives me an artificially close sensation to him--a man I've never met, a man I'd recognize and leave alone if I saw him in a coffee shop so as not to disturb his coffee-shop experience, seems like a friend of mine. And from everything I can glean from his public face (which occasionally includes blog posts under duress, probably a test of character of some kind), he seems like a nice guy. So, it couldn't have happened to an apparently nicer fellow.

Congratulations, Mr. Gaiman.