There goes my childhood

I was eating a packet of raisins the other day and said to the people I was with "do you know how to make a whistle out of the box" - neither did - but another friend came up and she did. So we both tried...

Calamity! The redesigned box doesn't allow any airflow!!! No whistle...

I miss the whistle...

A story to touch your heart

Sports is often used as a metaphor to life. You know, you can't go too wrong if you keep your head still, and centred over your body... but, sometimes, it teaches you about life. Fair play. Team-mateship. Sharing. Goal setting... I could go on.
But this story transcends all the pat analogies you can make. Playing fair with fouls - read it. Watch it.

The final (license to play) post

As requested - my thoughts on the journey (yes, I've done the survey, too)...
Of the tools explored, would any of them be of use to my customers?
Not really. I use other sources for book recommendations - I like Library booklists - most of the time, I'm looking for thematic material...
Animation - nope. Don't have computers with enough time for customers to play with any of the tools.
Family tree - don't get any granny-hunters in my area.
Social sites - nope...

For my work?...
As above re lit sites... social & family tree...
Animation - in my non-library working lives, maybe... but not goanimate or animoto...

For me, personally?...
Family tree might be fun
Animation - see above
Others - see above.

Of the programme overall... the sites were ok, but their irrelevance to my working life made it a bit pointless. I know the social sites - Digg, etc - are designed to filter your internet experience - but there's just too many hoops to go through to make them useful for me. Too many sites / log ons / passwords to remember.
I had enough time to complete the programme - but I also did parts at home. Some of my colleagues are struggling to finish. There's just not enough unrostered / free time in their working lives to complete the tasks. The situation isn't helped by the slowness of some of the sites - and the many steps you have to go through to complete the task. Yes, goanimate was fun - but if you really wanted to explore / play / exploit it - you needed a solid 2 hours time. And hardly any of us get that at work.
There's the embedding on the blog - an issue for some, too...

In my other working lives, it's a struggle to build a sense of community in a virtual world. Getting computer-literate people to use google docs, for example, is almost impossible. Getting them to visit a blog with info relevant for their jobs - nearly impossible. Sometimes - getting them to read emails is impossible... I think we're all just tech'd out. If you're a techie-inclined person (like I sorta am) then all well and good - but I'm reaching my limit, too. I don't want to spend any more time than I need on a computer. I'm happy visiting the sites I know about, discovering the occasional new one - but I like finding them myself, or having them recommended by a real friend - not some virtual one who thinks it might know what I like.

It was a nice diversion for me, and a chance to win stuff (assuming I haven't scuppered my chances by being honest...) - but I'd rather see our training time and budget spent on things that have a relevant to most staff's day-to-day working lives.

And now, I'm off to help a colleague try to complete the programme themselves...

Stumbling around

Off I set on my discovery - exploring bookmarking sites.
Did the typical librarian/Libran/anal-retentive/control-freak thing and played all the introduction thingies for each site... Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon & Newsvine...
I didn't dig Digg, Reddit was too simple for me, Newsvine was too newsy (& US-biased), so I subscribed to StumbleUpon... and stumbled upon an issue... to get the true value & experience of my subscription, I need to download the toolbar. Can't download & install at work - and I hardly stumble upon anything while I home, just use my favourites... I already have a google toolbar, and an internet security toolbar - any more and I'll only have toolbars, and no screen...Iin conclusion, none of these was right for me - so I haven't gone much farther. So my discovery is... I'm not using these sites.

Animated thinking...

As requested, my thoughts on week 4 of the programme...

For quick and flashy - but with hardly any info - animoto will work. But you need patience - and a good connection speed. To use to the greatest purpose, you'd need to join. 30 seconds is almost nothing.

For fun & silliness, but slow, too - goanimate will work - and you can add info, and change the speed of the slides, so people can read things

For different fun - and speed - and info - and, actually, ease of use, range of music and styles - onetruemedia.

That's it - my thoughts on this part.

When would I use it? You never know - a couple of these might end up being used for promotional purposes for AnyQuestions/UiaNgaPatai.

Onetruemedia

In the world of girly-swots, once I finished with animoto & goanimate - I played with onetruemedia, which I'd seen used in other places. I had a play there, and came up with this one...

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

GoAnimate

Here we go again...

GoAnimate.com: AnyQuestions users guide


Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

My thoughts... it's slow. Very slow. I wanted my own backgrounds - and it took an age to upload, not helped by the fact they only have single file uploads. But it was fun - and time-wasting...

Youtube fun

Heard on the radio this morning that it was Falco's birthday.... so, for those who remember it...

Animoto-d

Here we go... some fun and games!
Issues:
slooooownnnnnessss....
Posting to blogger - as soon as I went into the post to edit my comments, the html coding vanished... and the copy & paste embedding code didn't work, either...
black background - bloody hard to read...
But very cute...

Will play with other toy, I mean tool, later...

Animoto

Loving lit

As anyone who's read my blog knows, I read books, not Literature*. So exploring the Litlovers site was a bit difficult, given the task:

Think of a book that would be a good one to discuss in a book club. Check out the Litlovers site for resources about the title and tell us what you found.

So, after struggling to think of something I'd read that might be on the site - and I could remember - I actually found something! Of course, The Guernsey Literatary and potato peel pie society. And I wonder. Did I think about any of these questions while I read the book? Nope! Just enjoyed it. And that's the problem with book clubs and serious Literature - how the enjoyment of the book becomes secondary to reading things into it.

In my life with Storylines, I've been editing the year book. One of the articles is Wayne Mills' speech "Reading aloud is allowed" - and he questions the way we kill relationships with literature by questioning what we've read - making it a school exercise - that we advantage literacy at the expense of literature. [see Daniel Pennac The rights of the reader, and Waiting for a Jamie Oliver].

Yes, some books make me think - but that's not why I read them. Being told what to read, with an expectation that you will think x, and respond y, is enough to make me NOT read them. Have I read Austen? Bronte? Hemmingway? Nope! Yes, I've read Beowulf, and Chaucer, and Shakespeare, and Frankenstein - and enough to write essays on them. But, I've read them for enjoyment - and re-read to answer my essay!

I don't read critically - so I will totally & utterly suck in a standard book club. And that's why I didn't take any of the litcourses...

*See Ranty McRanty #4 and Ranty McRanty #4 part 2


Moving on to Authors on the Web... visited authorsontheweb.com - very much a marketing tool - and no authors that I can raise the slightest bit of interest in, really. Again, Literature...


So I thought I'd try out Bookreporter.com - quick scan down the list, and my comfort read authors aren't there... I clicked on the link to Markus Zusak - and got an error message... so tried Bill Bryson - and it didn't show me much of anything!


Out of this family of sites - I would use Teenreads.com - and do use it. They have an active link for Markus Zusak. And, I've added a link to teenreads in my litlinks area...


Next new site - Bookjetty... between Goodreads and Librarything, my reading sites are quite well covered, thank you... but in the spirit of adventure & joining in - I have joined. I've added a few books. See their pretty covers all widget-ed down the bottom of the page...

Embedded families

So, after playing with that family tree stuff the other day, and embedding my family tree (all identifying features removed) in my blog I started thinking about families and embedding.
How embedded am I in my family?

I found this definition: To be part of, and firmly, or securely surrounded; lodged solidly into.

And that's how I feel. Part of something - securely surrounded and lodged solidly. It's both a comfort and a constraint. You know there's someone there, when you hit the bottom - someone who knows where you're coming from, and can surround & support you.
A constraint because you have to go a long way - and be stronger than I am! - to see if you can survive without them. And, sometimes, because you don't want to rock the boat - threaten the structure of your surroundings - you keep your mouth closed, and be who the family see you as.

My immediate family (sibling-types) have always lived in the top half of the North Island - driving distance. I'm damn sure it comes from my childhood, when we clung together as our world spun on its access. Yeah, we had some major rifts - but we came out united. Things are different, again, as we hold on when Dad, a major foundation stone, died. And the fall out has been pretty extreme.

Over the last couple of months I've watched my nephews break free. JimmyJames, first, off tramping around the country for an indefinite period. He's figuring stuff out. And well the hell not!
AJ's in the Navy - basic training and needing letters from home. [note to self - must write one!]

And, Saturday, I was grateful I was working so I didn't have to see Joshie off at the airport. He & his boys are now beginning a new life in Australia. And those of left here are trying to cope. We've had an email with the saga of the airport with 2 toddlers and luggage!

How did my great-great-grandparents (add more greats for some bits of the family) cope when their children and grandchildren moved to the other side of the world - with no email, texts, phone, skype...? Kia kaha & arohanui Kath.

My crazy-as family

Look down... can you see it? At the bottom of the page? A small snapshot of (a very small part of) my family tree...
As requested in Week 2 of our play & learn - I've been exploring genealogy sites... My thoughts, gathered through the hour or so spent on each:
Both let you have four (possibly more) marriages for a person - the family tree programme I bought doesn't. That's a plus for my family tree...
My heritage is a bit of an arse when you stuffed up some vital info at the beginning - tip! start from the top, really! I started from me - all well & good - but then that meant I couldn't change my mother's biological father...
Geni - navigating was a bit easier than My Heritage - and you could change the info, which was a bonus. What I didn't like was the limited options, in comparison to My heritage, for relationships - Married or Divorced...
My heritage let you choose things like 'single parent'...
But in my family-land I ask: what about separated? What about divorced, but got back together & didn't remarry? What about hushed up family 'secret'? My heritage, at least, gives you the option for 'single parent'...
What about adoption? Any space for that?
Our family & social dynamics are so fluid and variable that programmes like these need to take these things into account. We don't fit in 'Mum, Dad, 4.2 children...' any more.
I have 2 relatives with 4 marriages; 2 with 3. I have relatives with adopted children - in and out (as it were); and pretty-much-permanent-foster kids. I have relatives of 'different' genders (yes, My heritage adds that option - so I could try that...)
Oh, and they do let someone be married to more than one at a time...
Anyway - will keep me amused for a while - and my family too, I'm sure...
Now... does this explain why I'm poor - look how many people I buy presents for! And my memory - keeping them all straight is interesting, to say the least.
PS Family - feedback & details for tree welcome, especially all those names I forgot!!!

Welcome back to blog land!

Well, the incentive to win stuff has meant some old friends have returned to the blogsphere... yay Fi! And welcome to mad hamster land Lexicon...

Imponderables

Why is my flatmate watching the Aliens 'squilology' (his term) for the nth time when there's a LIVE international cricket game on?!?! Hence my computing while listening to RadioSport (the bonus, of course, is that the commentary on the radio is better than TV)...
I LIKE cricket and would LOVE to be watching it now...
Hmmm... it must be true love... but he did start watching the movies before his girlfriend arrived.
That's something I'm very much looking forward to when I - finally/eventually - go back to living by myself: choosing my own TV shows, and not having someone else randomly changing channels. You know, just because I happen to have left the room for a second, doesn't mean I'm not watching that programme!
I'll miss the fresh produce from the garden, tho', as I have a black thumb. I will try to grow some veges, but I'm not holding out much hope...
But I will very much enjoy the lack of noise not of my own making. I think working in a very people-oriented environment makes me cling to every moment of quiet that I can.
Anyway - about another 1½ hour of cricket to go - maybe they'll give up and go to bed before me, even tho' I'm working tomorrow...
Sleep in on Sunday - and off to Wellington! The year begins in earnest...

Ranty McRanty #6

Moving on from footpath rage... there's public transport - really BUS, rage...
Assuming you made it to your bus stop in time (you realise, of course, that the bus will be running late on the days you have RUN for it) and you wait, patiently, with your bus pass in hand. Then the bus arrives and you queue politely and patiently - while trying to stand your ground against the people who just showed up & pushed their way into the queue - assuming there is only one queue. Some bus queues can be two-pronged. Then, before you, will be the person who - for reasons known only to themselves, but possibly involve the fact their lineage might include lesser demons from hell - wait until they're actually facing the driver before hunting in their bag for their purse/wallet/bus pass/money... a process taking unnecessary time...
Sort it out...

Youtubing...

I know it's not Valentine's Day yet... which I ignore anyway... but just heard this song and did a hopeful search... love it...

Ranty McRanty #5

Enough of road rage - it's hard for me to be involved, seeing as I don't drive - but footpath rage... don't get me started!
If you don't know where you're going - please don't try to orientate yourself by walking out of a shop & stopping immediately in the flow of traffic - try in the doorway of the shop - not in the middle of the footpath!
Why did they make the footpath's on Queen Street wider? So they could fit more human snails walking x-number abreast down them!!! Because, you know, I'm now running late for my bus because people made me late! Either a staff mate didn't take over on desk in time, or a customer couldn't decide what they hell they wanted. Sorry - I do have a life - and an hour+ bus trip home... If I miss this bus, then I'll be getting home about 2 hours after I finished work. How's that for fun!!!
Or, maybe I'm trying to get back to work after my lunch break so I don't do to the people on desk, the same that was done to me. Yeah, be late, I don't mind having a 40min break... because I'm conscientuous, and will make sure you get your hour... maybe more, because you've been held up in footpath insanity.
Please don't change your mind - and direction - randomly, making the 20+ people around you swing & all squish up...
Actions like this make us all pissed off, and adds to the joy of life... Just makes me so joyful to be at work in the city...
Note to self: will not moan about work and workplace from now until they stop reading in a couple of months. Just had to clear my system.

We're back playing online!

Well, my best beloved, many moons ago in blogland I began my life as a Mad Hamster in order to win free stuff from work (am currently using said free stuff to play background music in my otherwise, mercifully, quiet office) and now work has made more opportunities to win free stuff by playing on the web, and writing stuff up about it...
Note to self: be even more careful about what I rabbit on about...

Speaking of rabbits - bunnies all over the show this morning at Western Springs... bunnies, bunnies, bunnies... Maybe one fine morning (soon, because the sun is getting lazier these days!) I'll catch the 6am bus, get off at Western Springs & take bunny photos, then climb on the next bus heading to town... Maybe...