Technical Problems and Harry Potter Poster

I spent almost an hour and a half wondering why I couldn't get a web form to work, and it turns out IT was having e-mail problems and it had nothing to do with my lack of competence with Java Script. I thought I knew plenty to cut, paste, and manipulate, but was getting worried.

Here is a picture of the "Where's Waldo" picture I drew for Harry Potter Night. There's an object hidden in it the students will have to find. I had a lot of fun coming up with every obscure reference I could fit into a single sheet of posterboard. We're expecting this to be the most difficult challenge.

Amazon's MP3 Player

We watched a movie called Saint Ralph last night that my parents have been raving about for months. At first we didn't like it, but when the story started picking up, we got into it. It still ranks a bit high on the cheese factor, but the more I think about it (and I haven't stopped since it ended last night), the more details I draw out. I guess that's the sign of a good movie. During the climax scene, they played the song "Hallelujah," which I have heard on other TV shows before by various artists and I think it's one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. I had looked for it online before, but with such a generic name, and without being able to spell it correctly, I never did find it.

This morning I had no trouble, and to boot I found that Amazon now sells individual MP3's. I downloaded Allison Crow's version for $.89 in a matter of a few seconds and nothing could be easier. I am perfectly happy to pay a dollar per song to be legal and retain my holier-than-though attitude on copyright (I'm kidding, I've still got lots of CD's other people burned for me), but couldn't get the Napster software to work on my computer.

I'm always worried that everyone else in the world knows anything I say already, but I hope it helps some people who are willing to buy individual songs but not tech-savvy enough to use other sites. Amazon's is very easy to use, and they're likely to already have your credit card information, so try it out!

First Podcast

Here is my first attempt at a short and pointless podcast... I'm not having any luck getting it to play through a widget directly from this blog though :(

Outrage on censorship

I hopped onto LISNews for a few minutes this morning and found several stories that caught my attention and got my blood boiling. It's usually censorship issues, human resources, and general stupidity that get me all riled up, and today is no exception.

There is a story in the Wall Street Journal about an author who did a lot of research on one of the prophet Mohammad's wives, then wrote a historical fiction novel about her. The author has had a two-book deal with Random House that just recently got pulled because of stuff flying around the Internet on how offensive her book was. Only one person involved has actually read the book, a professor of Islam (who is not Muslim). The worst she could say about how offensive this book was, was just a scene where the wife consummates her marriage to the prophet. It describes it in a little detail, though much less racy than many of the historical fiction novels I read (my favorite genre). This one woman has incited near-riots by telling a large number of people how offensive the book was, and this in turn was spread by bloggers all over the Internet. For fear of violent repercussions, Random House pulled its offer.

Why do certain groups hold priority in the right to live an unoffended life? I'm going to sound like the privileged Christian white girl that I am in this rant. However, I think it is ridiculous that you can smear feces on the Virgin Mary and call it art or get rich off a poorly-written, poorly-researched book like The Divinci Code that is incredibly offensive to all Catholics, while a person can't write a well-researched historical novel on an important woman in Muslim history. Even if it turns out the research is awful and the writing is awful, bad books deserved to get published if the publisher thinks they will sell.

The KKK is still allowed to march publicly and gets police protection when they do... that offends me, but no line can be drawn between that and less-offensive examples of free speech. I think those people are morons, and go on with my life. To heck with any Muslim, atheist, or ACLU member who thinks it's okay to offend the majority while minorities shouldn't tolerate the slightest, most accidental offense. I do believe racism is a real problem and that it makes many lives a struggle that I will never understand. However, over-reactions such as this example make people like me terrified of interacting with people who don't look like me in a simple, honest desire to not offend them. Isn't that counter-productive?

Smoke-free campus gone too far?

I quickly browsed through an e-mail from Miami University of Ohio for its alumni. At the bottom, there was a news story on Miami becoming a smoke-free campus. This ban on smoking extends to all university grounds, not just buildings and doorways! Has anyone else heard of any other such bans? I respect dry campuses, and I am a cheerleader for smoke-free restaurants, work places, and not having to walk through other people's smoke when I go through a door. However, this means any smoker has to walk off campus to get relief! Miami has about 17,000 students and is a fairly large campus that is surrounded on two or three sides by woods. For students who live on campus, this means they will struggle 24 hours a day, or at least many 40-minute round-trip walks. I guess their bodies will be in good shape even if their lungs aren't (please imagine a sarcastic tone to that).

Give smokers reasonable options (including shelters away from main doorways), but it's not the university's job to force someone to quit.

Banned Books and Pill Pockets

I'm nearly finished with a brief Banned Books animation, plus did an image map for the top of the page... though we're having some strange problems with TLC (the catalog company) where the persistent URLs I used go to a page that looks exactly like our normal catalog, but does not contain the call number. Some are also referring to our staff PAC, which I also don't understand as I never use the staff PAC. Anyway, here is the version of our library's home page with the Banned Books Week animation (warning: it has sound!):

http://www.lycoming.edu/library/index3.html

Cat update: Kim suggested here on my blog that I try something called "pill pockets" to help my cats get their medicine down. I bought some last night and they work wonderfully. They are absolutely genius, I hope their inventor is a rich person.

Tintentod & cat update

I am anxiously awaiting the release of Cornelia Funk's latest book, Inkdeath. While she now lives in the U.S., she is originally German and I believe she writes in German. The book is scheduled to be released in the U.S. on October 7, one day after my birthday! When I was looking this up this morning, Wikipedia said the German edition of the book has actually been out for a year already. If it were French, I would order it now, but I think I am too lazy and awful at German (even if I majored in it), to tackle a 500+ page book. I guess I'll just have to be patient and pre-order it at my local indie bookstore. I hope these books become big after the movie comes out, they are so good and I can't find anyone over the age of 12 that has read them. But when I convinced a friend to read Inkheart, she couldn't put it down.

My younger cat spent Friday morning at the vet getting bladder x-rays. He does not have stones, but that makes his urinalysis results a complete enigma. They are now both on antibiotics, special food, and he's on an anti-anxiety medication to help relieve bladder inflammation (and reduce stress). He seems pretty doped-up to me, and that pill must taste awful because he will do just about anything to keep it from going down. He drools all over the place, spits it across the room (I'm not kidding), and foams at the mouth as if he had rabies. He gets so slobbery, his mouth is too slippery for me to pry open. I even tried coating it in peanut butter last night, and he was not fooled.