Turns Out Tupac's Not Dead, He Just Really Let Himself Go

Fear not, Cootlings! He is whipping himself back into shape via Fairfield's Fit Club and perfectly safe FDA-approved over-the-counter amphetamines. Check it out: I was reminded I was due for Web 2.0 training by Google Calendars and here I am being productive online and having fun with photos, all whilst listening to the radio on the Internet (WCPE-All Classical because that's the level of Cootiness I've got going over here). I am whipping out three weeks at once, y'all! Jealous? Don't be. Deb N., Ron and that "Jerry" character are all kicking Fit Club hindquarters while The Cootess remains full of excuses, cheese, bitterness and unsightly fat, and, unlike Ronpac, The Cootess does not carry all her fat in Her head and cannot cover Her shame with a jaunty cap or funky do-rag. It's early days yet though and at least I'm doing better than Charles or (and this has just occurred to Me) is Charles playing us all? Is Charles pulling a Verbal? Is Charles really Keyser Soze? Or, better yet, is Charles really Stephen Baldwin? It would explain a lot. Whew! I think all this multitasking is starting to get me ... and the coupons, oh God, the KFC coupons! Are you guys as inundated as we are with demands for the Oprah KFC coupons? In the name of all that's Cootified, does the Great Cootess Oprah know what She hath wrought with this free two-piece grilled nonsense? When is she having a parcel of Librarians on for one of those giveaway shows? That's what I want to know. And The Cootess's obsession with hip-hop figures and cheese: what's that about? Tune in next time when all these questions will remain unanswered.

Qutoable Quotes:
“Due to what has happened so severely when the red shoes hit the runway, I was forced to change my name to Martin Louis the King Jr. Address me as such”

“If I was more complacent and I let things slide, my life would be easier, but you all wouldn’t be as entertained. My misery is your pleasure.”
--Testify, Oh Great Cootess Kanye West!

Week 10: Tags (Stickin' It to the Man)

Well, well, well. Tagging is so relevant to library services it's readiculous. We all know a library is information organized for use and that is what tagging is "good fer". Although The Cootess must admit She tends to use tags, not for efficiency, but to be all cute. But Booby (sic and sick and it stays) del Libro is on to sumpin': let's use these suckas to finally take down that old, dead man-cootess M. Dewey. (A) That dude's turn 'o da century nonsense is totally stale (B) When it come to reigning cootesses, there can be only one. We all know this is going to end with Me and Kanye in the ring, so let's just fast forward, shall we? Let's move this into Webrary 3.0. Too late, already happened. So The Cootess, Bobby and Effie Reader were all working in the salt mines/reference office, our backs to one another as we blog and comment and email away, when Bobby says, "Cootess, I just sent you an email about my blog. You can twitter me what you think." That's when we all slowly turned around and Effie Reader said,"OMG, we just busted through to 3.0." Anyhoodle, all I'm saying is The Cootess West is designing overpriced, ugly space alien tennie-pumps for Louis Vuitton. The least we can do is get delicious with ourselves.

Qutoable Quote:

"The eternal conflict of good and the best with bad and the worst is on."

--Melvil Dewey (but you know Kanye's thinking it)

Weeks 8, 9 et al: Putting First Life First

What can the Cootess say? Having wasted chunks of Her own precious youth on Ms. Pac Man and inane electronic chatter about hairstyles and boys, The Cootess certainly sees the appeal of gaming and social networking. Fortunately, We (oh yes, that is the royal "we") also spent some of our days cultivating a little sumpin' sumpin' called "interior life" and what the kids call "meaningful interpersonal relationships". The way The Cootess sees it, Web 2.0 is like drugs: it can be helpful to maintaining a healthy quality of life, but, if abused, it can be just as destructive. Certainly this was the case with exterior narratives and mechanized communication long before the advent of the Web (The Cootess, though a progressive sort, still frets that movable type may have stolen the soul from the Written Word), but it's a horse that deserves beating because the heart of the Public Library has always been expressed by the equation FULFILLING INTERIOR LIFE + FULFILLING PERSONAL INTERACTION = FULFILLMENT OF HUMANITY and you don't want to be coming up with a goose egg on that one. This whole Web 2.0 assignment has taught me that while She's helping folks with Second Life, The Cootess must always be cautious not to divert energy and resources from First Life because here at the Library, humanity is job one. This sounds easy enough for a librarian, but for The Cootess, the siren song of cyber-realms is always threatening to suck the life out of Life.

P.S.

I'm gonna start a "Libraries: we're not just about machines anymore!" campaign to off-set the "Libraries: we're not just about books anymore!" slogan I keep hearing. Who's with me?

Quotable Quote:

"Humanity comes not from the machine but from the heart."

--The Late Delightfully Crusty Coot, Joseph Campbell

Flick My Flickr and Twitter Redux

Hey, here is a really nice shot of the Greatest Cootess of All Time, Kanye West, performing at the Democratic National Convention. I got this pic from Flickr and it comes from a set tagged "Democratic Convention". It doesn't say which Democratic Convention, so I'm guessing this is the Democratic Convention Kanye put on in his rec room because the DNC refused to put his name ahead of Barack Obama on the guest list.

The Cootess is a fan of Flickr. Having lately been privy to an onslaught of weddings and births, having a central place to post and view pix is quite nice. Also, one could do things like follow Kanye West's adjuct Democratic Convention if one so desired. It would almost be like being there.



Speaking of which, this weekend I actually had some teachers ask me what Twitter is, and after I explained, the conversation went a little something like this:

Teacher: "I just don't get it. Why are people so wild about this?"

Cootess: "Look, I'm not here to sell anybody on Twitter. I'm just an information professional. I don't provide judgement, just information, so get out of my chilli.

Teacher: "But it's so shallow. I understand why 8th graders would be into it, but functioning adults? It's just such shallow communication and who has the time?"

Cootess: "I believe the immediacy and forced brevity are the attraction. I have an article furnished by the Web 2.0 committee you might want to read. Just go on my blog ..."

Teacher: "But I'm right here! This is the problem with this technology culture. I don't want to go to your blog, I don't want you to text me or tweet about it. Let's have an actual face-to-face conversation."

Cootess: "How is any of this relavent to Kanye West?"

Fish for Food+Cootess+Deb N. = Fit Club Frenemies

The Cootess has intiated Phase II of her Diabolical Fit Club Domination Plan: lull the competition into a false sense of security. It looked like I was going to come out on top this week due to the lameness of the competition when, in the eleventh hour, one Deb N. comes in with a five pound weight loss! Are you kidding me with this? Well, The Cootess 'aint no sucka, sucka. You can't be bustin' out numbers like that week one. You better pace yourself, Miss Deb. On second thought, don't pace yourself. Keep on bringing it and by week four you will have collapsed from "dehydration" or "exhautsion" or some other glamorous skinny person malady, and that is when The Cootess busts a move of her own. And you better watch your back, Fish for Food; you think you're smooth with your zero pound loss. Are you trying to out-cootess The Cootess? Puh-leez!

Quotable Quote:

"I'm gonna git you!"

Cootess 2 Fit Club: "I Will Destroy You!"

All you coots and cootesses participating in the Fairfield/HQ/Bookmobile Fit Club need to gird up your loins. With a combo of fierce psychological warfare and a iron will, The Cootess is coming to defeat you. Phase I of my brilliant plan: bulk up as much as possible before the initial weigh in so I have that much more weight to lose. Ask me what I had for lunch yesterday. Well I'll tell you anyway: a box of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese (Kraft Dinner to you Canadians out there), a Tostinos Triple Meat Pizza and four Pina Coladas ... and that was just lunch [insert maniacal laughter here]. As you can see, you will not win so you may as well give up now and pass me the pot o' cash. October, while you foolishly run 10Ks, The Cootess strategizes with loaded potato skins and double fried chicken doodles. Fish for Food, Norah, Effie, Mini, surrender now while you still have your dignity and a modicum of self-respect. Charles, Ron, I think you'll find humilliation tastes far more bitter than chocolate cake, so maybe you should just stick with the cake. The rest of you, prepare yourselves for DEFEAT 2.0!



Quotable Quote:

"Jazzercise is very 'cutting edge', staying on top of everything. I like being involved in something that's on top of everything - something that's number one!"

-- Cootess Christie Pavlovcak of Mentor, Ohio

Pod+Casting=Male Cootess Sour Grapes

Hey cootlings, remember veejay Adam Curry from "Headbangers Ball" on MTV? Wow, you are sooo old. Anyhoo, it turns out that under those flowing flaxen locks resides the soul of a true computer geekin' entrepreneur. That's right, mister man has been fiddling around on the net since the days of Gopher. Remember Gopher? Dang, I told you you're old. It was he who registered mtv.com and established MTV's presence on a little thing I like to call "the web". But he didn't stop there, oh no, and this is where he links up with a little thing I like to call "Library 2.0": that dude who interviewed an only partially surgically enhanced Michael Jackson is one of the dudes who had a major hand in developing a little thing I like to call "podcasting". Here's where things get interesting to The Cootess. So Monsieur Curry goes on Wikipedia and seemingly overstates his role in the invention of podcasting, not giving proper props to the work of other dudes in the course of development and giving absolutely no cred to Al Gore for inventing the internet or Kanye West for inventing everything else. So Wikipedia calls him out and Adam is all, I apologise. I didn't know the full history, and Wikipedia is all, That's O.K. We all make mistakes. Now, keep in mind I am reading about this whole thing ON Wikipedia a couple days ago. I go on Wikipedia this morning and all traces of the "Controversy" article about Adam Curry has been expunged. I know, I know, the layers upon layers of Web 2.0 intrigue are blowing my mind too. I have to say I heart the human drama of 2.0. That is totally what 1.0-1.5 was missing. More importantly, I think we have all learned a valuable lesson here: Never ignore Kanye West!

Quotable Quote:

"For people that dress super-good, this is the music that we listen to. If you don't like it, you probably can't dress that good." --thus spake the Great Cootess Kanye