New Baby in Town

I am happy to say that on September 18th, at 6:05pm, Sophie Rousseau was born.

She is 7lbs 5oz and 20 inches long.

All is well with her and mommy.

I guess it’s back to 2AM feedings and more dirty diapers.

30 Days of Night… Graphic turned Celluloid

The one luxury we have when the vampires attack is that daylight will come.  If we can just hold out long enough, a couple hours, the sun will rise and the vampires will have to find shelter.  For those brief times of sunlight, we are safe and can build our defenses for the next attack.

But what happens if you live so far north that sunlight doesn’t come for 30 days?  How do you rest and regroup.

More so, how do you survive?

 The graphic novel, originally written by Steve Niles takes place in Barrow, Alaska.  When the winter season hits in this small secluded town the sun will disappear for 30 whole days, thus leaving its residents in total darkness.

And that’s when the vampires hit.  For 30 days the vampires feast upon the residents of Barrow, forcing them to live like rats in hiding.  For the few survivors, including the Sheriff and deputy, they must find a way to stop the vampires and save the town.

On October 19th, the horrors of Steve Niles creation will come to the movies.

I can remember reading the graphic novel and thinking how genuinely scary the premise was.  Just think about the freakiness of all the vampire movies before this, where people have to fight to survive until daylight… but take the daylight away (i.e. the vampires’ greatest weakness and probably your best chance for survival) and it doesn’t take long to see how desperate the situation is.

If the producers of the film are able to produce the spirit of the graphic novel, this could be on seriously scary film.  I for one can’t wait to see it…

but I can wait to watch it in the daytime!

But the truly great thing about this is that, once again, the movie industry has turned to the vision of a graphic novelist for their next blockbuster!

The Mystery Chronicles by Joe Nickell

In general, I am a sucker for any unexplained phenomena; X-files, Cryptids, Paranormal, Unsolved mysteries, etc.  Not that I actually believe in much of it but I greatly enjoy reading about it.  Probably because it then enjoys me the pleasure of spouting off some randomly obscure information to people who could really care less.

By the way, if I ever happen to trap you in a corner and start  speaking of such things…  the information tends to be easier to swallow with a liquid.

So, when I came across The Mystery Chronicles: More Real-Life X-Files on the library’s shelf, I was pretty psyched.  Especially since the author, Joe Nickell, is one of the leading researchers for the Paranormal.

The aims at dispelling some of the more popular para-mysteries such as the Spontaneous Human Combustion of Bernard Hess, the Amityville house, the Nazca lines and crop circles.  In this sense it was an interesting read as most of the writing in this subject tends to be done to perpetuate phenomena, even when the facts are contradictory.  In this sense, the book was an enlightening read.

But the writing felt more like it was done in the spirit of self-promotion.  Once the mystery was presented Nickell would proceed to discuss himself and how he personally plays into dispelling the phenomenon.  So reading it was as much about Nickell as the topic in discussion.  There was a bit of bragging throughout the pages.

Which got a bit tiring and I found myself skipping paragraphs of Nickell’s career in order to get to the meat of evidence… and the book became a fairly quick read.

Honestly, I could only recommend this book to the more dedicated para-junkies.  Some of the chapters would be obscure references to the casual reader and I can’t seeing it being enjoyable for them.  That said, the more invested fan of the paranormal would definitely get some enjoyment and enlightenment from reading this… if not, definitely a lot more familiar with Joe Nickell’s career.

2007 Summer Reading Program in Review

This time of year is always a happy and sad time for me.  I’m sad because the summer is so close to ending, and I have an annual tradition of regretting not doing more outside.  But then again, I am happy because the frantic pace of our Summer Reading Program is over… and that means I can actually take a moment to relax a little, perhaps breathe a bit as well.All in all, it was a great summer for me.  This was the first time that I had full reign of our teens’ Summer Reading Program.  I packed it with programs, volunteers, last-second planning, fix-ups, movies and an occasional-running-with-scissors moment… if you know what I mean.But how did it all go?  What worked and what didn’t?  Let’s review it in a hot/not fashion.Hot- The average number of books read by teens who signed up for the Summer Reading Program was 18!Not- Actual number of participants in the Reading Program was down.Hot- The “You Never Know What You Can Do With Duct Tape” program.  We made wallets, cell phone holders, a couple flowers and even attempted sandals.  It was probably my most attended program on a week to week basis.  By the way, if you try the sandals, make sure you don’t accidentally expose the duct tape adhesive to the hair on your toes… Yowwww!Not- The whole “YNK” theme.  Maybe it’s just me, but it seemed silly.  People may have used the theme but few actually used it as “YNK” (and not without having to clarify what YNK stood for).  Hot- The End of Summer lock-in.  It was the first after hours party we had at our library.  The teens ate about 8-feet worth of subs, partied heartily and every single one of them was actually picked up on time!Not- The one single teen at the party who decided to push the boundaries and threw her piece of cake into the face of another person.Hot- The Shoprite Deli.  Originally, the store lost our sub order for the party.  So, Dan, the Deli-guy, made good by not just making 10 subs but only charged us half-price because of the mix up. Not- Shoprite in general.  But hey, it is where we have our account.Hot- My teen-volunteer coordinator’s ability to have all but 5 of our teens complete the required number of hours and set a record for most volunteers sign-up and completed.Not- The teen volunteers constantly referring to me as “Hey Mister!”Hot- The song “Hey Delilah” by the Plain White Ts being constantly played.Not- Fergie’s “Big Girls Don’t Cry” being constantly overplayed.And finally….Hot- Our brand new Teen furniture finally came in!Not- Gaylord messed up the color of the furniture and has yet to fix it.  But they did offer to let us keep the furniture they sent us in lieu of having to send the right ones.So, how do I rank the summer on a whole?  I’ll go with an 8/10.  Better than average but let’s leave some room for improvement.