Hilary Booth... of course!

You're probably tired of hearing me complain about the weather. But darnit, I was hoping to feel like "doing stuff" as in outside in the sunshine, but no, another torrential downpour appeared where there had been beautiful sun for the last day or two. I was humming the line from Guys and Dolls "Likes mud, likes mud, this guy says the horse likes mud," until I watched another horse race on by. And that folks is why I can't get too excited about a possible Triple Crown. Although I was vastly amused to discover Roger Clemens could not even beat the Cubs for his 300th victory. After listening to Kathy Agel expound on the virtues of the Yankees for an hour and how Roger would win it against the Red Sox at Media West, I feel strangely vindicated.

I have posted the first set of icons over at remember_wenn. Bless gpsysngbrd for the nice screen captures. The blank ones are free to be used and adapted and captioned.

Girls only RPG started on Friday with the character generation session, along with discussions about the "game contract", as in what we want and don't want in the campaign. I had never experienced that sort of input before, so I wasn't sure what I could offer in the way of ideas. We're using the new Marvel game system, set in the fictional San Angelo. Which prompted a crash course in "gaming math". I was again reminded of Helene Hanff who wrote "I don't add too well in plain American. I haven't a prayer of ever mastering bilingual arithmetic." After being amused to read a comparison between character generation and Dewey cataloguing, I mentioned this at the game wherein one of my gaming friends retorted "Does this make Gurps the Library of Congress?"

Finally caved in and bought a subscription to Chronicle of Higher Education on a month to month basis. I've found too many interesting articles through that magazine, like the essay contest by Fairleigh Dickinson University on "Academic Libraries in 2012", archived on Dr. James Marcum's website. I love playing "What if?" and "Why not?" It's part of the reason I love science fiction so much. I willingly admit that some of the ideas seem a bit far-fetched, but the writer in me wants to take a spin through that hypothetical world. If the librarians or Cybrarians as one group called them now use VR technology to work with customers, do they work remotely? With wireless connections these days, it almost doesn't even make sense for users to come to the reference desk. I was able to get help from Library of Congress' microfilm connection by a simple email form. Extend that "Ask a Librarian" even further to see what you might get.

(I would *love* an icon from "Go Dog Go" with that caption. I'm just silly that way.)

So it's the first weekend in May when the mind turns to grandiose hats, mint juleps and thoroughbreds bottling thunder in their legs... when everyone suddenly starts worrying about bleeders and blinkers and Charlsie Canty never picks a horse...yes, I'm a Triple Crown watcher, why do you ask?

I went to see X2 last night with my writing fans. I'm glad I bought tickets online ahead of time, because all of the showings for that theater had sold out by 4pm! In deference for a certain friend who won't see it until Monday, so no spoilers, except that X2 was much better than the first movie in some respects. For the comics fans, though, the ending will make you wish for the *next* sequel.

I spent most of the day in Falls Church, visiting Hole in the Wall for Free Comics Day, with followup of ice cream at Caffeine. "Free Comics Day" seemed slightly a misnomer, since the only freebies were the ones on display, but still a nice idea. I didn't appear to have been the only one taking advantage of the chance. Or even the only one who had seen X2 and wanted to see the comic versions. That will either utterly confuse them or bring them back for more.