Monday, February 16, 2009
Li'l Leaguers
Due to an excellent suggestion by the League's own JMD, we now have a new category! "Li'l Leaguers" will mostly be about superhero and sci-fi stuff such as books, videos, etc... your kids may enjoy. It will probably also occasionally dole out advice on what you may want to avoid as a cautious parent looking to delve into superherodom.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Li'l Leaguers: Superman and Batman in Kid's Books!
Hey, I know there are a lot of Leaguers out there who've got young super-heroes of their own.
It seems Stone Arch Books is publishing a line of children's superhero books featuring The Man of Steel and the Caped Crusader. Art is in the style of the JLU/ Bruce Timm animated format.
Check them out here.
If you buy them and need help pronouncing villain names like Mr. Mxyzptlk, just lemme know. I would have freaking LOVED these as a kid.
It seems Stone Arch Books is publishing a line of children's superhero books featuring The Man of Steel and the Caped Crusader. Art is in the style of the JLU/ Bruce Timm animated format.
Check them out here.
If you buy them and need help pronouncing villain names like Mr. Mxyzptlk, just lemme know. I would have freaking LOVED these as a kid.
ComicBook.com
I want to salute the guys at ComicBook.com. They're building a new site and are picking up RSS feeds from comic-related websites and blogs. Rather than merely grabbing my RSS feed, they actually wrote me and asked if it was okay.
It is more than okay. I am pleased to see some people with some basic manners working on a comic-related site. So, unless they suddenly do something awful, the guys at ComicBook.com are officially blogrolled here in the Comic Links section, and they have my salute.
Go click on their site and see what's what.
Should be interesting to see how it goes for these guys.
Valentine's Day
Valentine's Day was nice. Jamie and I don't do much for the day, partially because I'm a little cynical about the industry that seems to double in size every year around the holiday, and partially because (after 13 years of together-ness) I don't think Jamie wants any of the stuff you get at Walgreens. And neither of us want to go to some restaurant and stand around waiting for a table in unpredictable weather for two hours.
We stayed home and Jamie made a wonderful meal. And we got to spend the holiday with Lucy Goose, who was kind of up in our grill because she'd been smelling the spaghetti-preparations all afternoon.
Jamie got a card and a few candy-related items from me. Some of which Lucy Goose got into and ate last night. So... there's that.
Rockin' Sunday
Today was pretty darn lazy. Took Lucy to the park to run her for a while. She Almost immediately lost her ball when she became distracted.
It was sunny, 72 and breezy today, so the park was packed. The past two times we've been I became a little misty eyed as I know how much Mel loved it there, and both times, Lucy has run up to dogs who share Mel's silhouette from afar, only to stop short a few feet from the other dog when she realizes its not him.
I, myself, was a little sad when I said hello to a Golden who wasn't quite as big as Mel, but shared his same, broad shoulders and thick, mid-winter coat. Hit a little close to home, which was odd, because it was triggered completely by touch.
When we got home, I grilled up burgers and Jamie and I watched the end of Star Wars Episodes I and II, and as its been years since I'd watched either one, it was mind-boggling how bad those movies really are.
I did some chores and then headed over to Jason's for a while where Reed, Jason and I played some music. Its been months since I picked up my bass. Honestly, I'd sort of decided it was going to find a home in the back of a closet somewhere or under the bed, but I had a great time this evening. So look for future tours of the band I was informed would be named "Reed, Jason and Platypus".
I want to salute the guys at ComicBook.com. They're building a new site and are picking up RSS feeds from comic-related websites and blogs. Rather than merely grabbing my RSS feed, they actually wrote me and asked if it was okay.
It is more than okay. I am pleased to see some people with some basic manners working on a comic-related site. So, unless they suddenly do something awful, the guys at ComicBook.com are officially blogrolled here in the Comic Links section, and they have my salute.
Go click on their site and see what's what.
Should be interesting to see how it goes for these guys.
Valentine's Day
Valentine's Day was nice. Jamie and I don't do much for the day, partially because I'm a little cynical about the industry that seems to double in size every year around the holiday, and partially because (after 13 years of together-ness) I don't think Jamie wants any of the stuff you get at Walgreens. And neither of us want to go to some restaurant and stand around waiting for a table in unpredictable weather for two hours.
We stayed home and Jamie made a wonderful meal. And we got to spend the holiday with Lucy Goose, who was kind of up in our grill because she'd been smelling the spaghetti-preparations all afternoon.
Jamie got a card and a few candy-related items from me. Some of which Lucy Goose got into and ate last night. So... there's that.
Rockin' Sunday
Today was pretty darn lazy. Took Lucy to the park to run her for a while. She Almost immediately lost her ball when she became distracted.
It was sunny, 72 and breezy today, so the park was packed. The past two times we've been I became a little misty eyed as I know how much Mel loved it there, and both times, Lucy has run up to dogs who share Mel's silhouette from afar, only to stop short a few feet from the other dog when she realizes its not him.
I, myself, was a little sad when I said hello to a Golden who wasn't quite as big as Mel, but shared his same, broad shoulders and thick, mid-winter coat. Hit a little close to home, which was odd, because it was triggered completely by touch.
When we got home, I grilled up burgers and Jamie and I watched the end of Star Wars Episodes I and II, and as its been years since I'd watched either one, it was mind-boggling how bad those movies really are.
I did some chores and then headed over to Jason's for a while where Reed, Jason and I played some music. Its been months since I picked up my bass. Honestly, I'd sort of decided it was going to find a home in the back of a closet somewhere or under the bed, but I had a great time this evening. So look for future tours of the band I was informed would be named "Reed, Jason and Platypus".
Friday, February 13, 2009
Cooking with The League
This one is pretty close to how things go down at League HQ on a crazy weekend night. And also fits neatly with how I think about food.
In Brightest Day....
in case you hadn't heard, there's all kinds of colors of Lanterns these days, not just Green ( I also HIGHLY recommend the Green Lantern titles right now). Which color are you?
Go to Quizilla and then report out. Simon and I are Indigo, FYI. Or at least how we see our heroic selves.
I did try it again, and I got "Green", which is awesome, but... anyway, its fun, and its a quick primer on the corps as they stand today
Harry Potter
I am not a "book design" geek, but found this interesting. Stolen from Marshall's blog.
It's just someone goofing around, but its neat.
Hot Velantine's Day Tip
If its getting late and you forgot to get something for that special someone, who doesn't love a good e-Card and a few sticks of Spearmint gum?
This one is pretty close to how things go down at League HQ on a crazy weekend night. And also fits neatly with how I think about food.
In Brightest Day....
in case you hadn't heard, there's all kinds of colors of Lanterns these days, not just Green ( I also HIGHLY recommend the Green Lantern titles right now). Which color are you?
Go to Quizilla and then report out. Simon and I are Indigo, FYI. Or at least how we see our heroic selves.
I did try it again, and I got "Green", which is awesome, but... anyway, its fun, and its a quick primer on the corps as they stand today
Harry Potter
I am not a "book design" geek, but found this interesting. Stolen from Marshall's blog.
It's just someone goofing around, but its neat.
Hot Velantine's Day Tip
If its getting late and you forgot to get something for that special someone, who doesn't love a good e-Card and a few sticks of Spearmint gum?
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Still in Aggieland: Day 2
Today's symposium was really, really good.
I have to go to Minnesota to present, and I had no idea how I was going to frame my presentation, but now I think I know. I'll make KP write it, but whatever.
I remembered today that it can be both a great pleasure and incredibly frustrating to sit in a room full of academics/ scholars and discuss technological applications. However, the climate has changed inexplicably since 1997, when I first started working with faculty to implement technology into their teaching. At the time, e-mail addresses were just becoming common among instructors (they didn't want them, because then students would, you know, TALK AT THEM).
The purpose of the symposium was to discuss the transitional period we're in where traditional print forms of scholarly communication (ex: journals) are coming to an end, and the era of open access (ie: free and Google-able) scholarly communication will be the norm for faculty/ academics/ scholars. Printed journals have always been the mode of communication for presenting research, but higher ed institutions have been shy about what it will mean to have that material exist outside of expensive journal subscriptions that usually only wind up in libraries or professional collections. In short, it means people might actually find and read their work who are not researchers. It means its a lot more likely that in five years that when you Google, say, "Thermopylae", you might get legitimate, peer-reviewed research just past the Wikipedia entry.
Good stuff.
And that's sort of what my organization does, as well as preserving other tools for scholars to use for communicating with other scholars. And, of course, we're a library, so hosted repositories for all this stuff.
Faculty tend to be a bit uneasy about giving up on traditional communication. And they're in a unique position to be as slow to adopt as they like, because they're really their own self-policing organization. But when a top-tier school like Harvard throws down the gauntlet, and they have, it means everyone else will soon fall into line.
What I learned today, which had left me very confused about how all this works, is how the financial picture works. And the reality is, there's a lot less money changing hands in all this journal printing than I'd assumed, so the opportunities for going digital are a lot better than I'd hoped. Which also raises some questions about a possible adoption of an open conference and open manuscript system.
So, anyway, that's what I'm doing for a living these days. Beats digging ditches.
I have to go to Minnesota to present, and I had no idea how I was going to frame my presentation, but now I think I know. I'll make KP write it, but whatever.
I remembered today that it can be both a great pleasure and incredibly frustrating to sit in a room full of academics/ scholars and discuss technological applications. However, the climate has changed inexplicably since 1997, when I first started working with faculty to implement technology into their teaching. At the time, e-mail addresses were just becoming common among instructors (they didn't want them, because then students would, you know, TALK AT THEM).
The purpose of the symposium was to discuss the transitional period we're in where traditional print forms of scholarly communication (ex: journals) are coming to an end, and the era of open access (ie: free and Google-able) scholarly communication will be the norm for faculty/ academics/ scholars. Printed journals have always been the mode of communication for presenting research, but higher ed institutions have been shy about what it will mean to have that material exist outside of expensive journal subscriptions that usually only wind up in libraries or professional collections. In short, it means people might actually find and read their work who are not researchers. It means its a lot more likely that in five years that when you Google, say, "Thermopylae", you might get legitimate, peer-reviewed research just past the Wikipedia entry.
Good stuff.
And that's sort of what my organization does, as well as preserving other tools for scholars to use for communicating with other scholars. And, of course, we're a library, so hosted repositories for all this stuff.
Faculty tend to be a bit uneasy about giving up on traditional communication. And they're in a unique position to be as slow to adopt as they like, because they're really their own self-policing organization. But when a top-tier school like Harvard throws down the gauntlet, and they have, it means everyone else will soon fall into line.
What I learned today, which had left me very confused about how all this works, is how the financial picture works. And the reality is, there's a lot less money changing hands in all this journal printing than I'd assumed, so the opportunities for going digital are a lot better than I'd hoped. Which also raises some questions about a possible adoption of an open conference and open manuscript system.
So, anyway, that's what I'm doing for a living these days. Beats digging ditches.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Behind Enemy Lines
I'm at TAMU. That's Texas A&M University for those of us in the university collaboration business.
It's very... open here. The buildings are very far apart. Neither UT nor ASU were designed with so much... openness in mind.
The dinner tonight was very nice, and the folks we met were friendly (we being me and Kristi from my office), including a special guest who was sort of accidentally seated with us.
I guess Kristi worked at the TAMU press in undergrad, and so she ran into old work colleagues and family friends. It pays to bring KP with you on trips. I will remember that.
I am tired.
Have a good one.
It's very... open here. The buildings are very far apart. Neither UT nor ASU were designed with so much... openness in mind.
The dinner tonight was very nice, and the folks we met were friendly (we being me and Kristi from my office), including a special guest who was sort of accidentally seated with us.
I guess Kristi worked at the TAMU press in undergrad, and so she ran into old work colleagues and family friends. It pays to bring KP with you on trips. I will remember that.
I am tired.
Have a good one.
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