I'm racing emo boys and wearing rulers.

Billboard July 8

• Tim, Faith & Busta on the cover.
• "Can Busta Rhymes save hip-hop?"
• This week's featured artist for watching videos is Morrissey.
• Gimme a minute; I'll find the link.
• While MySpace takes forever to do library-related stuff.
• Except now it's Placebo.
• Liars.
• I think there's a Built To Spill video featured on MySpace today?
• "Music videos--the next QVC?"
• But people have always gotten fashion tips from videos, and before that, album covers.
• It's just that now everyone in the clothing business acknowledges it.
• Sleater Kinney on hiatus is sad, but maybe they'll be kickass side projects, right?
• And they're saying "hiatus" instead of breaking up, so that's a good thing, right?
• Right?
• Li'l Steven's all about the Go-Gos this week, a move I can totally get behind.
• Ever notice how no one ever gives the Go-Gos their punk rock due?
• I can't help but think it's at least partially because Belinda's got such a cutesy, round babyface.
• From one babyface to another: I know how it goes.
• You never get to really come across as badass when you look like Belinda, and it's totally not her fault.
• Plus, not being junkieskinny in the LA punk scene had to have sucked.
• And there's a Ramones musical.
• There's news here, because the official site pretty much is useless.
• Sprite's got some new teen video diary thing on their new website.
• I suppose I've got a professional reason to check that out, but Sprite's ad desperation has always annoyed me.
• Weren't they the "Obey Your Thirst" people?
• I remember them doing a lot of that "Don't drink pop because famous people tell you to" BS, meanwhile famous people are in their damn commercials.
• Eh, I'm sure YPulse will cover it.
• The guy who writes the "Making the Band" column looks like the food and wine Queer Eye guy.
• Who's my favorite Queer Eye guy, by the way.
• Aah, Busta isn't going to save ALL hip-hop, just bring back New York City.
• I guess that's a bit more realistic a goal.
• I suppose we have to buy the new Nelly Furtado album.
• grumble

I've been sitting on this, pretending to accomplish things.

Billboard July 1

• So I've cleared all the cds from my work iTunes because I was bored of it all.
• I'm just keeping it for podcasts and fun music blogs, like the one Tiff told me about where Nick Cave covers "Disco 2000".
• Where's my granola bar?
• I'm hungry.
• I've discovered that the Nature Valley lemon yogurt granola bars taste an awful lot like the Girl Scout lemon sandwich cookies, and that makes me happy.
• Remember when Girl Scout cookies had cool names? But you could never remember what the hell any of them were?
• Now the names are more descriptive but less fun.
• I've also discovered the tastiness that is the plout.
• It's a combo of plum and apricot, and a good time.
• Pretty color, too.
• Suit + moire does not = a good idea, Jamie Foxx.
• SOrry that I have to be the one to tell you this.
• Pete Seeger!
• Pete Seeger's in this issue!
• I love Pete Seeger; I grew up on the guy.
• He's talking about Springsteen's thing, which I've also heard good things about.
• From my mom, who I'm apt to trust when it comes to this kind of thing.
• We also both love the Mermaid Avenue albums, and I really need to burn that Billy Bragg double cd I got for her a couple years ago.
• My dad, on the other hand, has spottier musical tastes.
• My favorite Dad music moment is when I was listening to One Foot in the Grave with him around and he commented, with surprise in his voice, on how much it sounded like old folkies.
• Man, One Foot in the Grave's a great album.
• I need to listen to that again.
• I was disappointed in Sea Change, though.
• And you'll notice that I can say that without worrying about the loss of my IndieRockStereotype status, since I talked up an earlier, lesser known album.
• Involving Calvin Johnson.
• Aw, here's Pete.
• Yay.
• Read it yourself here.
• 6 Question is with Chris Carrabba.
• I can't believe he's still around.
• I think Unfortunately Large Pants was a fan.
• Annie Lennox is back in the studio.
• Carrabba collaborated with Adam Duritz.
• ew
• Hey!
• New Pet Shop Boys!
• Have I mentioned this before?
• Feels like I have...
• Anyway, I ordered the stupid Dashboard album for the library.
• Why am I reminded of the argument Marissa and I had over who had to put their initials next to the Coldplay album?
• My little cottage is no longer on the market.
• And I fear it's too far after my birthday for it to have been bought as a gift for me.
• Frank DeCaro's Sirius radio show is counting down the 10 gayest songs ever.
• Love are reuniting for a benefit concert for their singer. It was on June 28. I wonder if it's online anywhere.

I got dibs on Jigglypuff—ALA 2006 bk 3

I believe I’ve mentioned before my crew’s lack of interest in DDR. But I still want to have a gaming program, right? Here’s the new plan:
Super Smash Brothers.*
The weekend after all the freshmen orientations, so I can tell every 9th grader in town in just a few fell swoops. Of course, this plan hinges on the school librarian giving me more than a week’s notice for the orientations. Let’s all knock on some wood, shall we?
Thanks to all the gaming discussion people for helping me out with this one. I’m sure I’ll be bothering you guys for help more and more. And I mean that in the least annoying possible way. And the least grammatically correct, apparently.

Stephen Abram’s millennials thing was interesting and didn’t irritate me the way most generational discussions do. Mainly because it didn’t make value judgments, or act like trends in demographics mean EVERYONE born between certain years thinks and acts the same. The powerpoint is here and the handout is here.
The two hottest things I got from the program: Hennepin County has a catalog search box on their MySpace (and they’re offering the code to add a search box to your MySpace—how cool is that!?) and some libraries have text message reference.
Also, I was amused that, after 2 librarians whose questions for Abram were “…but I read this other thing that said that millennials were born after 3:15 PM June 7 1983…”, I bust up there like, “Hennepin County has the catalog on their MySpace? How do I do that?”

Sitting in the audience of the Quick Picks committee was totally fun, even if I was late because no one was exactly sure when Brent Hartinger was signing. I’d been saying to myself that I wanted to be comfortable with my job and what I’m doing librarian-wise, and then I’d look into committee work, and I think I’m ready to investigate. And I think we all know I can’t keep a secret well enough to be on the Printz or Best Book committees.
And I learned all about this book called Fuck This Book, which consists of photos of “fuck” stickers in humorous places. There’s a website, which is of course blocked by our new filter. Though I would find it HILARIOUS if it wasn’t. This is a great book. I totally wish I could buy a copy for school visits (b/c this kind of thing is great for getting teens to realize that libraries aren’t all storytimes and old people), but I like to think I’ve got better sense than that. The high school secretaries already hate me, and I suspect that the high school librarian already thinks I’m without a moral compass.



*I mentioned this to Lawyer Chris yesterday at Melissa’s dad’s picnic and, I swear, it was like Christmas morning. So don’t think I’m not relying on you to help me with this program, Chris. Also, I’m linking to you b/c I think you need to blog the story about Pikachu and the bully.

wooo, MLS

*ring, ring*
--Information desk, how can I help you?
--A little chick goes, "Cheep cheep." How do you spell that?
--C-H-E-E-P
--Thank you.

I've been taking turkey pastrami for lunch lately.

The latest and possibly worst of the terrible Arby's kids meal toys.





and, just for fun, everybody look at the hamburger stuffie I got in the mail the other day:

Luna was transgendered; Mike’s a lesbian: ALA 2006 bk 2

Dude, what is it with every librarian on the planet but me and Feed, anyway?
Actually, I suspect I know, but that’s a whole post unto itself. For a book with a 2004 copyright, it came up in conversation quite a bit at the 2006 conference. I feel like I could, in fact, discuss the programs I went to by describing how and why Feed came up at many of them. But I won’t. I’ll also attempt to contain myself when I start talking about the Neighborhood Story Project.

Alex Awards Program
I went to this last year and it was really cool, so I figured I’d repeat. And I totally got rewarded for not trying anything new, because Neil Gaiman was there. I’m also terrified now, because A. Lee Martinez (Gil’s All-Fright Diner, which is one of those books I swore I ordered, several times, and yet we don’t have it) was introduced with biographical information from his MySpace page.
Here follows A Little Jessy Professional Nightmare:
“Jessy enjoys picking junk up off the ground, thrift stores, clearance racks, public transportation. Drunkdialing AudioBlogger. "I Saw You" personal ads, and making an ass out of herself. She wants to meet a round little fellow who seems to be passed out from drinking too much milk.”
And, yes, I know that the easy answer is to not have any personal information on the internet that I wouldn’t want used to introduce me to a bunch of librarians. But where’s the fun in that? I also kind of can’t believe the intro’s writer. If I were writing presenter’s biographical information for my sister, I wouldn’t say, “Lara’s heroes are people who stand up for something…Oh, also Nick Lachey,” to a bunch of teachers.
I also noted that I should really read As Simple As Snow. I wondered a bit at Galloway’s slightly awkward (I thought) discussion of his “goth” characters (you know how sometimes you can hear quote-bunnies?) with Neil Gaiman sitting next to him, but, well, I don’t know if I could discuss anything with Neil Gaiman sitting next to me. I do, however, know that I wouldn’t read a passage from a fellow panelist’s work as part of my talk, like Galloway did at the YALSA President’s Program. But then, I was unimpressed by Postcards from No Man’s Land. Oh, and for an Iowa graduate, I was impressed at his lack of Poet Voice.

Audiobook Preconference
There was a contest to be in an audiobook! You had to audition and everything. I kinda screwed it up, which I think I wouldn’t’ve done if I had actually practiced out loud, but it was really fun nonetheless. The woman I sat next to thought so as well. Apparently, we were so excited by the prospect of being in an audiobook that somehow her ALA badge (which you need for pretty much EVERYTHING) wound up in my purse. Which I discovered hours and hours later, right before I discovered that her business card only listed her school number. Oops. Hopefully, she got to the exhibit hall lost ‘n’ found. Let that be a lesson to everyone that obsessively checking for your badge at every turn isn’t just me being insane and paranoid!
There were also interesting panels, like Bruce Coville, Listening Library, etc. talking about producing audiobooks and a couple of the kids from Full Cast Audio talking about being audiobook actors, and actually doing some audiobook rehearsing in front of us, which was super cool. Clips of audiobooks played (I tried to time my bathroom break to coincide with the clip from Feed, but no dice) that totally inspired me to make a mixcd to take on class visits this fall (what song should I “accidentally” add? “I Hate Music”? “Nic Fit”? Dub Narcotic’s “Fuck Shit Up”? [joking—I would never ever do that]). The woman I was behind in the lunch line is currently working on the audio version of Traveling Pants #4 and I tried to pump her for spoilers, but, again, no dice. I’m still terribly excited about reading this one.
Tamora Pierce does this great “I’m a terrible speaker” fake-out at the beginning of her talk, and it totally sounds like Delores Umbridge does in my head.
The awesomest thing from the preconference was the discovery that New York Public Library worked with Listening Library to get audiobook clips on their website. I’m really excited about biting this idea for my library, maybe even on the MySpace page. Kind of like how Ned Vizzini put an excerpt of It's Kind of a Funny Story on its own MySpace.
Some libraries (school ones, I think) shelve their audiobooks right next to the print version. I’m still thinking of the pros and cons of this idea for the teenhole, but I kind of like it. I mean, we’ve got the hardback and paperback copies together, why not the audio as well? My crew don’t go and look at the audiobook section as a rule, so it just might work. I wonder if I could do a test run?
Cool toys from the precon: audiobooks on memory cards and these Playaway things that my library (the one I use, not the one I work for) has and I keep meaning to investigate.
Upcoming in part 3: committees I audienced at, Printz speeches, graphic novels, and more rambly “goodness”.

Yay us; or ALA 2006 bk 1

So, I was in New Orleans for a week. I've never been anywhere where palm trees grow naturally before.

FAQ answers:

• No, I didn’t spend that much time on Bourbon Street. Do I strike you as the sort of girl who would enter a bar called the Frat House, or the sort of girl who would pick a sign up off the street instructing Frat House patrons that dress codes were to be strictly adhered to?
  
• Where I was (downtown-ish and the French Quarter) there was very little damage. There were still signs, like how all the street signs are bent and how, instead of Sporadic City Stench, sometimes I’d get a whiff of mildew. Or how many bright blue tarps I saw instead of roofs as my plane was taking off.
  
• Yes, I went to Café du Monde. I didn’t think that my beloved funnel cake could be improved upon (unless, of course, it’s by Kennywood and involves ice cream and strawberries). I was wrong. I was also wrong to wear a black shirt around all that powdered sugar. And I don’t know if it was just because I had been drinking crappy-pot-in-my-hotel-room coffee all week, but—damn. Best Cup of Coffee I’ve Had In Forever. Like, the kind of revelatory coffee experience your first cup is, or your first espresso. Or when you first realize that beans from different countries taste different. And now I sound like a junkie.
  
  
• Yup, everyone was pretty psyched to see us. In addition to the usual New Orleans tourist shirts (“Don’t Make Me Poison Your Food” and a lot about being drunk) and the Katrina black humor stuff (my favorites being the ones referring to the hurricane as a blow job), there were also “Librarians Do It By the Book” tshirts all over the place.

Mostly, I did a lot of librarianing, with some blatant fanboyishness thrown in for good measure. Everyone will be pleased to know that I didn’t embarrass myself in front of Sara Ryan, despite my giant Straight Girl Crush. Hopefully I’ll be equally lucky if I’m ever in the same room as Beth from The Gossip. Hopefully I will also actually have the balls to speak to her, since I didn’t with Sara Ryan.

I also bought my very own copy of Geography Club (and had it signed!), so expect me to be forcing that on all of my friends soon. Like, at Stacey et al’s housewarming party this weekend. I’d also have kickass Brent Hartinger temporary tattoos, but there was a summer reading mixup while I was gone (actually, back when I approved a form I shouldn’t’ve) and we were running dangerously low on prizes.
I also got some good gifties for some folks, and will be guest-blogging in Claudia’s Room sometime soon re: meeting ANM.
Lots of ARCs too, of course. I’m really trying to keep track of what I read with LibraryThing. And I’m chomping at the bit for my package containing, among other things, New Moon and Vampirates. Snurk.

More pictures are at my flickr account (see the badge thing over there?) and more actual conference detail is forthcoming.