Well I'm still watching Stargate Atlantis—in fact, I'm almost finished with it—and it is still alternately fabulous and ridiculous. (Potentially spoilery to the end of paragraph, if you care.) For example, gate team goodness if fabulous, Rodney suddenly fancying himself in love with Keller is ridiculous. Because clearly he is in love with John. Anyway... Aside from the writers constant inability to acknowledge the slashy not-so-sub-text, I though Sam Carter's abrupt departure at the beginning of season 5 was weird. I assume she left to go to Sanctuary, but it still would have been nice if she didn't just lose her job suddenly (especially since based on the reasoning Elizabeth should've lost her job a bunch of times).

Other shows that are, you know, not already over yet? Well I recently mainlined the entire run of Eureka just in time to watch the last three episodes of this season live. (TV! When it actually comes on! With weird breaks for people to sell me things!) I started watching Eureka on Netflix when I finished Buffy, and it only took me a couple episodes to be completely hooked. I love that it celebrates being smart and creative (including showing over and over again that's there more than one type of intelligence) and has great relationships between the main and supporting cast members. If you've never seen Eureka, it's basically all about smart people teaming up to fix wacky problems caused by scientists at the top-secret research facility in town, with a side of personal problems and Jack's talking house. (And sometimes Jack's talking house has her own personal problems.) The romantic relationships on the show are generally well done, but it's some of the non-romantic relationships that impress me the most. In particular, I always enjoy scenes with Jack and Jo. They've really come a long way from butting heads when Jack first became sheriff to being close friends and adopted family by the current season (Jack is basically Jo's big brother).

(Slightly spoilery paragraph again... forewarned!) I friend had told me how not cool it was that this season was basically a reset... but it's really not that at all. Yes, the timeline changed, and some very essential things are different, but I think it's been really interesting seeing how the main cast copes with the changes. Everyone's had some good and bad. Take Fargo: he lost his girlfriend, but got an awesome job, except he doen't feel ready for it, and everybody hates him. He really matures grows into the position though. (And the addition of Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day to the supporting cast give him great people to play off of.) And again, Jo. Guh. Her life really sucks and she's pretty much floundering, but she gets to mess up sometimes without being portrayed as this awful person. I do really hope things get better for her next season.

A.D. Skinner, he is in everything. Specifically this episode of SGA that I'm watching, and one of the recent episodes of Leverage, which I just caught up with the other day. Another awesome team show. (I guess that's my thing right now?) I always especially enjoy Parker and her joy in crazy things like jumping off buildings and Elliot's gruff demeanor and his very distinctive... everything. But it's on hiatus now, which is sad. :(

Oh, but actual fall TV? The only thing I'm currently watching/listening to at work is The Sing-Off. It's a music competition that's actually about music. Yay! Some of the groups are seriously good, even if you're not normally an acapella fan. This season there are more groups in the competition, which means more episodes. Woot!

So, wise flist, is there anything in the new crop of fall shows that I should be paying attention to? I have been meaning to try out Ringer, since it's Sarah Michelle Gellar, and I hear Jason Dohring's supposed to appear.

Someone (*cough*d4ni*cough*) sent me a message on Last.fm the other day, which reminded me of its existence and its OMG STATISTICS. I have sunk into an all new spiral of obsessing about what I'm listening to, and I've spent more time than I care to count over the last two days tidying up my metadata in iTunes. Because, you know, it's really important that I correctly separate the massive "Alternative & Punk" genre out into "Anti-Folk" and "Piano Rock" and "New Wave."

None of this is helping me write a term-paper proposal for my classification theory class. Oooh... sudden thought! Maybe I should write about classifying music! I could talk about how it's hard because the categories are all nebulous and overlapping, and compare the genre type tagging versus classification by musical feature, like my fave "extensive vamping" from Pandora. Hmmm.

You know what would be great? If I were as good at organizing my actual life as I am with metadata. Just sayin'.

Tonight in class we watched this documentary called Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu about the last night of hot metal typesetting at the New York Times. (It was in 1978; after that they started using computers.) We've all heard how print newspapers are dying, which I think is a shame, so I thought it was pretty cool learning how the type was produced and put together to print the pages of the paper. Yeah, I'm a big nerd. I know it.

"etaoin shrdlu" is a pre-qwerty character string from the keyboard on a linotype machine. Apparently there is an operational one at a museum in Baltimore that they'll let you play with if they're not busy. I kinda want to go there.


Photo by splorp on Flickr.

In other news, I've been in the new apartment for a week and things are going well. We got internet (and cable) hooked up and it's sooo much faster than the DSL I had before. To celebrate I've been watching lots of 30 Rock and Merlin when I should actually be working on my final paper for History of the Book. I'm sure it'll come together though. These things always do. Now if only this cold/sinus/allergy thing I've got would go away!

Also, new layout! I liked the old one, except the text was too small and too light, and I got tired of trying to fix it. I'm debating changing the color scheme, and maybe the font, but I don't know.

I've been giving a lot of thought to what I want to do when I grow up when I finally graduate from library school. As usual, I can't seem to make up my mind, but lately I've been leaning back toward my original plan to work in an urban public library. I think this is partly influenced by my academic library seminar, which has reminded me that I don't really want to be a part of the "publish or perish" tenure system or spend my entire life in committee meetings. It's also partly influenced by kit_the_brave's posts about her library, which remind me how much fun it is working in a public library.

( I found myself a hypothetical job! )

Slightly related: I've looked at a lot of other current job postings, and I really think I need to brush up on Spanish. I love Italian but it is not useful/marketable like Spanish is. I'm not sure where to start with that because a) I'm too super busy with my regular classes to take Spanish and b) I'm crap at language learning on my own. Anyone got any tips?

Several of my friends have started library blogs, so I'm wondering if that's something that I should do. There don't seem to be many students here at Maryland who are involved in the "biblioblogosphere," but I hear it's a good way to make connections with other professionals and share new ideas. I just don't know that I have anything all that amazing or original to contribute. *shrug* We'll see about that one.

First off, we have this gem from last week's Washington Post on how today's college students aren't reading the beat poets, and are therefore idiots. Basically. I think it's just yet another round of "kids these days" BS. Today's young adults aren't less involved in radical politics because they like the Twilight books; there are loads of other societal factors effecting that.

What you see at the next revolution is far more likely to be a well-designed Web site than a radical novel or a poem. Not to be a drag, but that's so uncool. For those of us who care about literature and think it still has a lot to offer, it's time to start chanting, "Hell, no! We won't go!"

Well, yes, literature does have plenty to author. But just cause I don't really care for Kerouac doesn't make me dumb. You have your classics, we have ours. Okay?

In better news, the New York Times reports that book sales are up in Europe thanks to the recession. Books make for inexpensive but high quality entertainment. (Even French translations of Twilight. If you couldn't tell, I don't like being judgey about what people read. Even if Twilight is kinda lulzy.)

And in the Guardian, "Librarians are necessarily heroes and warriors - albeit in disguise." I would so love to work at the British Library, even if they have misplaced some of their books. And can I just say that the Guardian has a much better books section than most U.S. papers? (Actually, many U.S. papers are ditching books all together. Sad.)

***

This has nothing to do with books, but the SciFi Channel rebrand? EPIC FAIL. SyFy? Seriously? I like io9's assement: "I mean, it's the same name! Just spelled stupidly!" Do they think people won't notice? For current science fiction fans, it's insulting. And for non-fans, well, what exactly has changed? I like some of the alternate options on io9, like "The Why Isn't Battlestar Galactica On Anymore Channel" or "The Look, Just Fuck Off Geeks, We Don't Want Your Kind Round Here Network."

My late birthday presents came from Amazon yesterday! Dad gave me cash, so I ordered Doctor Who Series 1 on DVD and Duffy's new album Rockferry. :D

Five day weekend coming up! Mom is moving back from Phoenix, and since she's coming through KC on the way, I decided to go home with her. Monday is Memorial Day and I'm taking Tuesday and Wednesday off to spend in Columbus. I haven't seen any of my family since I moved here in February, so I'm pretty excited.

David Brooks writes today about the cultural cachet of geekdom. He says, "in a relatively short period of time, the social structure has flipped. For as it is written, the last shall be first and the geek shall inherit the earth."

This morning I discovered GraphJam, thanks to a post at The Park Bench. The graphs there are more fun than anything that I remember from math classes. (Calculus, if I recall, was all about a man walking away from a lamppost.) ( Tears for Fears as a Pie Chart )

Sadly, there is no Battlestar Galactica or Doctor Who tonight, and no more Moonlight ever! Whatever shall I do? There is that Bollywood movie from Netflix though... :)