silveradept | Happy Solstice, everyone!

We’re officially in summer now, or something, even though the weather has been much more like summer since April and May. It was also hatching day for

bladespark , so happy day there. And one of my housemates got interviewed and was offered a job teaching kindergarten in Colorado, so yay and happy there. Another person I know got a job, so there should be one there for me, eventually. I just have to keep looking for it. I may feel like the last person in my circle of friends to get a job, but it will arrive. I still haven’t hit the forty mark yet, so I have to keep trying. And I’ve had interviews, so I’m not just totally repulsive to everyone.

There was a letterboxing adventure today, to pick up two more that I didn’t get around to the last time I went out. The first came pretty easily, and with a little help from a fellow letterboxer from Ohio, whose stamp we collected and gave over, we found the second one. That was quite the neat outing, all told, and didn’t take too long. There was also ice cream afterward. I think that

annaonthemoon is going to try her hardest to find the five gallon buckets that the family buys when we get together for herself, because I think she’s an ice cream addict. Addict, I say!

Going onward to the linkies, police arrested several protesting a gay pride event being held in Jerusalem, as the police were doing their best to ensure the event went off without incident. At least one of those arrested had an explosive device that he was planning on planting along the parade route. Admittedly, a pride parade in Jerusalem does seem to be asking for the conservatives of all three religions in the city to show up and protest. But, the police did their job in making sure that the event was able to run smoothly, and for that, bless them.

Okay, I have to admit, this is a fairly novel idea. Even if it looks silly. Christian Condoms, printed with verses and some innuendo. If you’re going to sanctify your sex, maybe these condoms can help keep you safe. Or you can use them as protection against such things as someone possibly paying $1 million U.S. for the first post-jail Paris Hilton interview. Or the parents who would name their child "4real", after the shock they received upon learning of the child's existence. I understand wanting a unique name, but really, I think that idea belongs in the Vault of the Lame. It’d be like calling your kid THX 1183.

Xerox is set to roll out semantic-based searching, trying to guess what you really mean when you type in your query, so as to provide much better results to you. If it succeeds, people will still need librarians to find the things they want - it’ll just be with a potentially more advanced query. Technology is wonderful, but it’s still literal. Once technology can interpret all the complexities and suss out what people really want, then the librarians can wonder whether reference service will drop off.

J.I.V.E. Magazine hits the nail on the head in describing the complex and terrifying reality of Star Wars fans - Star Wars fans hate Star Wars. They love the idea of Star Wars, but they absolutely hate the execution of it. Whatever form of execution it’s come in - movies, video games, books, et cetera. Which, I admit, describes things pretty well. For all its successes, the things that suck pretty hard about the Star Wars franchise really make things loathable.

Politically speaking, the American people think their elected officials suck. There’s still a surprising 26% that approve of the current occupant of the White House (and we’d like to know who they are, ourselves), and 14% for the members of Congress, who are probably supported by many of the same people. Considering how much vitriol has been slung, as well as the likely reason that Democrats are in the majority in the Congress, it’s a wonder both of those numbers still have two digits in them. Of course, with random samples, there’s always the chance that someone will show up who supports the way things are going - after all, it could have been the CEO of a company that benefits from current policy. According to Alternet, that's a lot of people, with as much as the government lets contractors and private corporations do its business.

Certainly not helping his approval any, the current occupant of the White House vetoed another bill that would fund new stem-cell research. The ever-eloquent occupant provided a choice quote about his particular decision.

In the maneuverings of those who wish to be the next occupant of the White House, rumors abound that Colin Powell will be joining Barack Obama's campaign.

Residents at Eastern Michigan University are not particularly happy about the way that the school neglected to tell them that a death reported was a rape and murder, even when they suspected it was so at the beginning. If they didn’t know that there was someone out there, they couldn’t very well take precautions. It’s a wonder there weren’t more women raped or killed in this incident.

Library stuff! First, the good, which is thirteen book/library related hacks from LifeHacker. And then, there’s the bad. What looks to have been a promising summer reading program from the Pickens County Library system in South Carolina has been scrapped because of anonymous phone calls threatening to picket the library. There may have been other threats, but they’re not mentioned in the SLJ article. The program had elements like astrology, palmistry, yoga, tie-dying and Zen garden work. The callers may have all originated from a single Baptist church, but in any case, the program is canned. Jesus' General takes the incident to the logical conclusion, politely asking in his own way for the rest of the ungodly materials to be scrubbed from the collection. The account of this is incredibly infuriating, as much as the course of action taken by the library may be the correct one. Asking pre-schoolers and their parent to walk through a picket of ravenous Baptists would probably not be a smart idea, and the harassment that followed would probably not encourage parents to return. What’s really sad is that all of those activities mentioned on the article would be rather fun to do. Even for people whose parents would then decide never to return because it offended their religious beliefs. I would suspect those parents have already left, however, because the library continues to make Harry Potter available to the kids. Anyway, if you ever wondered whether a small group of dedicated lunatics can change things to suit them, look no further. They can. Now it’s just a matter of deciding which lunatics get to do the influencing.

Neil Gaiman gives all young men, including the shy ones, hope by offering How to Talk to Girls. More of a story than an advice list, it still shows off quite a few ways of getting in well with the people at a party. (I suspect I’d end up having much the same experience that he did.) For something a bit more practical,

cmpriest offers up a primer on how to talk to complete strangers - especially if you want information from them. It would serve as a handy guide for people on how to approach their librarians, too.

My Cool Thing to end tonight is a flash video of a "singing" Tesla coil, which provides its own light show to accompany the sound. There may be some recognizable chiptunes in the video provided, if you’re familiar with early Famicom software.

Okay, time to go to bed and sleep some. At least the weather’s been being nice, in the sense of not making it up to the 95/95 sequence yet.