Seattle Can Stop Feeling Special, We All Gotz Amazon

I feel like it was just yesterday I reported that Seattle and the King County library system were taking Amazon for a test drive.  Now everybody has it.  Well, when I say we all have Amazon, I do not mean every library has access to Amazon ebooks, just the 11,000 or so that deal with Overdrive for their books.  Read more in Amazon's press release.

Can you smell that?  Like a summer breeze, I tell ya.  Fresh off the ocean of dreams and kissed with a rainbow.  Welcome to the future, people of Earth, because Amazon became a time machine.

Facebook Has More Photos Than Anybody

The photography blog 1000memories did some number crunching and found that Facebook has nearly 140 Billion photos in total at a rate of 200 million photos uploaded per day.  That is nearly 10,000 times the size of the Library of Congress photography collection.  Holy crap, check out the article here because the numbers are truly staggering.

What does that mean though?  Our archives, our history, is becoming digital more and more each day.  Our photos have moved from physical albums to online ones, our records are either scanned or typed directly, our books are on non-existent bookshelves.  And you know what?  It has made us more present.  We are more as a people.

Chances are, most of you did not build the house or were not the first person in your apartment.  Have you ever looked up your residence in an old city directory?  Seen the name of the person who lived there?  Just a guy, right?  A name on a piece of yellow paper in a dusty book.

Think about how our grandkids (or kids if you start getting busy now) will look that up.

You are your grandkid.  You have the address of your home.  You put that address into the ether and find a list of names of people who lived there.  You pick a name.  That name is on several social networking sites, but one in particular seems to be from around here.  Sure enough, he lived in your house and there are pictures of a Halloween party tagged there.  As you go through the pictures, vowing to clean up that corner a little better, you see a couple dressed as Jack and Jill making out.  Her face is visible and tagged.  Its your grandma. But Jack is most def not your grandpa.  Ewwww.

Welcome to the future.

Banned Books Returned to Missouri Library. Sorta.

A little more than two months ago, a Missouri school board voted to remove Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut and Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler from the school library and curriculum after one man voiced a complaint.  After a public outcry of censorship, the board has recently voted to allow the books to return to the library, only in a secure fashion to be checked out by parents for independent student reading.  Some, including students, wonder if this is the right choice.

"Jaymes Haney, 17, said he didn't understand why the board acted on a complaint filed by a man who has no children in the district.
"One religious man's complaint and opinion has caused a review and affected 1,500 people," he said of the high school students. "Now they're putting it in the library and putting it in a secure location? Only parents can come in and check it out; it's not accessible."" Houston Chronicle

I am all for this mode of action.  "Wha?!" you say, "the books are there but harder to get to."  Yeah, I know.  They are also placed in a mysterious prison in a library filled with students.  That makes them special.  I read Harry Potter, I know kids will break all the rules to get at something they seem as 'forbidden'.  Plus, if the parents have to give permission to check out books, they know what the kid is reading.  I say the librarian go nuts and put the whole damn library in that section.  Who knows what dangerous ideas can be found in Junie B. Jones? And we all know Green Eggs and Ham is just capitalist propaganda.  Protect the children!

Let's take the words of John Ciardi and make them real again: "The [public] library is the most dangerous place in town."

Community in Conflict, Book Donation Business Told To Move On

Marin, CA library supporters are waging a boring war on book donation boxes placed around their city.  The book donation boxes are placed by the Thrift Recycling Management company, a for-profit venture that recycles the items.

"Of the books collected in the bins, approximately 25 percent are resold, another 25 percent are donated to nonprofits, and the rest are sold for their value as pulp, [TRM co-founder Phil] McMullin said." MarinIJ

"Friends of the Library" groups complain that the books take away donations to libraries that could be used to fund the library through book sales or replace old library copies.  TMR has been under suspicion for not being as charitable as they claim, selling most of the items instead of donating them as they claim.  Marin Independent Journal

Okay, in this corner we have people profiting from old hippie ideals about saving mother earth.  They weigh in at approximately the size of capitalism and are looking to make a buck on the feelings that people are doing good by the planet by recycling.  They have made millions.

In the other corner we have people looking to enrich their lives by saying the library can benefit from a cubic ton of old National Geographics and books that may or may not have been pooped on by a rat.  These people may or may not collect and sort the materials donated to the library, but do feel a sense of satisfaction when they vote to buy a computer or maybe that god-awful book shaped reading furniture for the children's department when they meet once a year.

Solution:  Put the bins at libraries.  Allow the library system to sort the materials it wants and give the for-profit the leftovers.  Or just let the company do what it does until the Oregon Department of Justice shuts them down for being a fake charity.  Or a five on five deathmatch, Friends VS Thrift in a winner take all pay-per-view for the fate of the county.

Seattle Gets Kindle Library eBooks

The Amazon Kindle, which we have never mentioned before, is beginning beta testing in Seattle for their Kindle Library ebook lending program.  The lending program, which works like this, partners with Overdrive to provide Kindle editions, or the AMZ ebook format, of various items.  Thisismynext contains various links to successful use of the system.

Yep, that's the next story I got.  First watermelons, now a test for an ebook checkout that technically already existed but is now expanded.  What's everybody think about that?  Excited about the Kindle editions?  Thinking about planting your own improbable library victory garden?  Let me know, I guess.  I'll be here.

A Watermelon Threatens My Way of Life

On apparently the slowest news day in the history of mankind, Oak Ridge, Louisiana librarian grew a watermelon.  Seriously, this is all I have to offer.  Okay, here we go.

Carolyn Files knew she had a watermelon vine on her hands but did not expect it to eventually bear fruit.  It did.

"LSU AgCenter crop specialist Terry Erwin said traditionally, watermelons are planted in the late spring and harvested in July and August. Fall melons, Erwin said, are uncommon in this part of the state." bastropenterprise

 That's a quote from the article about this miracle vine, kids.  The newspaper researched it.

I give up.  Have a nice day.

Top Ten Worst Movies I Have Ever Seen!

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Exhibit A

Welcome to The Top Ten Worst Movies I Have Ever Seen by Banned Library for the Worst Movies Ever! Blogfest.

Oh, how I love a good bad movie.  Gore, schlock, random nudity, bad characters and dialog that allows my friends and I to become the cast of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and pop jokes off at the screen.  I love those movies in a dirty way.

But then there are other movies.   Movies so pretentious, over done or just so horrible that you say, "What the fuck is this shit?"

I did not include any sequels or remakes on my list.  That was not part of the Blogfest rules but something I added because I feel a bad sequel or remake is a particular form of bad movie.  A bad sequel, like myself, can be seen as inferior because it is compared to its greater, older brother.  I want these movies to suck on their own merit, not in the shadow of others.  I also have great luck in avoiding bad movies, so this list does not include such gems as Battlefield Earth or Norbit. 

So here they are: The 10 Worst Movies I Have Ever Seen.

 

10. Vanilla Sky

I put this movie on the list for a definite reason: Cameron Diaz.  She wrecked this movie like she wrecked that car.  But she is not alone in the suckage that is VS.  Cruise acts his way into a paper bag and the plot is as forgettable as it is twisty.  The only part I remember liking about this movie was Kurt Russell.  Okay, maybe naked Penelope Cruz, but that was before you could see her naked in anything.  A too-long, boring movie about a guy that does not like his face.

9. Magnolia

Oh, holy hell, how I wanted to like this movie.  I remember renting this with my roommate 10 years ago and having to pay extra because it came on two VHS tapes.  Yeah, that was just the start of the night.  Then, half way through we take out the first tape and excitedly discuss what we had seen and what it might mean and we put in the second tape and blah.  Just blah.  Beautifully-shot, well-acted and quotable as hell, but a bore-fest that fell flat in every way as it reached the end.

8. Batteries Not Included 

 I hated these little robots.  I was about six when I walked out of the theater and pronounced this the worst movie I had ever seen.  Note at this point I had loved Back to the Future, Transformers: The Movie and Secret of NIMH, so I knew what I was talking about.  Cocoon meets E.T. with some B.S. added in takes this movie out of charming and into banal.

 

7. The Island of Dr. Moreau

To hell with this movie.  Yes, I was watching this movie as part of a bet that I could stay in the mall from opening to closing (14hrs), but even I almost walked out of this endurance test of a movie.  The makeup was horrible and borderline grotesque, especially on an overweight and over-indulged Marlon Brando.

 

6. Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter  

 Little back story here:  My friend and I had this movie as a running joke for 2 years before we finally tracked down a copy.  We walked into the video store and as I reached for a copy of Buffy Season 4, I heard my buddy say, "Say... Do you have independent titles?" Then he asked the clerk if she had this movie.  Apparently, someone had ordered it, but never come to claim it.  I now know why and my buddy has attempted give this movie away no more than 12 times.  Here's the plot, in case you almost want to see this:  Jesus Christ is brought back for the rapture, but before that he has to kill all the vampires who are killing lesbians to wear their skin so they can walk in the sun.  He does.  The end.  This is the only movie I have ever said would be better with nudity, because at least then there would be something you would like to see on the screen.

 

5. The River Wild 

 This is the first movie I ever walked out on.  Plot? According to IMDB: "Meryl Streep takes on a pair of armed killers while navigating a spectacularly violent river."  Here's a little tip, if a great actor or actress is in a wildly dumb premised movie, don't go see that movie.  Unless it has Nicholas Cage.  Only Nick Cage can pull that off.  I will see any movie with a plot that starts, "Nicholas Cage..."  He is the only actor alive that can navigate those waters.

 

4. Cool World 

 This Roger Rabbit on crack might as well have been filmed while it was being drawn.   Nothing about this movie is enjoyable, from the erratic acting to the poor animation.  When Brad Pitt is your straight man against an animated Kim Basinger named "Holly Would," you did something wrong, movie.

 

3. Hostel 

 This movie has everything I hate about these so-called "horror" torture porn movies.  #1, Scary is not the same as grossed out or uncomfortable.  I do not have the fear that weirdos will kill me for sport if I go to another country.  I DO have the fear that a shark will eat me if I go swimming in the ocean (thanks, Jaws.) #2, I have to like someone if you want me to care when they die.  Why is that hard to understand?  #3, If a death is on screen and you don't care what I think about the person dying, make it memorable.  I've watched Freddy, Jason, and others kill lots o' folks and had a good time doing it because it was meant to be fun (slashers are more comedy than horror).  If I want someone to die in a realistic way, I will watch your mom's wedding night video, Eli Roth.

 

2. Garfield 

 I hate Mondays and Garfield.  I heard "Bill Murray as Garfield" and was there.  Then I walked right the hell out of the theater, the second of only three movies I have ever walked out on (River Wild, this one, and the next one).  Milo and Otis had better CGI than this.

 

1. Catwoman 

 Fuck this movie.  Last movie I have ever walked out on, only movie I ever walked out on twice.  I walked back in, saw Berry licking milk or Sharon Stone in plastic face or something and walked right back out.

Honorable Mentions

I include a few honorable mentions because there are movies I hated based on either the pretention involved or the mis-use of the license but do not consider them among the "worst movies I have ever seen" if only because I had a good time watching them.

The Wall - Good in arty way but I can not sit through it.  Even on the best liquid LSD I ever had, I still disliked this movie.

House of 1000 Corpses - A re-tred of Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequels.  There was no fun in this movie to be had, but the gore and characters were very 70s/early 90s horror, which I can respect.  Plus I hated Halloween remake but I can not talk about that movie because it was a remake so I am venting my frustrations on H1KC.

Twilight - I took my exgirlfriend (who was totally on Team Edward) to this moive.  She got very mad at me for laughing during the entire thing.  We broke up.  I regret nothing.  This movie and book series is a horribly awful phenomenon which would have been on par with Airplane! and Not Another Teen Movie if it had meant to be a comedy.

Bebe's Kids - They should die, not multiply.  There are very funny bits of this movie centered around a horrible cast of unlikeable assholes.

Spice World - This craptastic movie came out in a very sensitive part of my childhood.  They had boobs.