Jennerousity

I'm moving to a new blog. http://j3nnerosity.blogspot.com/

We have Rock Band 2. You can read about it here.

Strawberry Nerds are much better than their Grape cousins.

The Edmonton Public Library has started carrying video games for the Wii, XBox 360, and Playstation 3 consoles. As far as I can find out, this wasn't advertised except through the EPL blogs. I found out from the signs posted on the hold shelves stating that video games were being held at the information desk. They have about 150 game titles, fairly evenly split between the three consoles. At this time, they're limiting the collection to games rated Teen and younger.

My immediate knee-jerk reaction is "oh noes! lie-berries are for books!!11!eleventyone!!". But my snobbery is beaten out by what an interesting idea this is. It's been more and more common for public libraries in the UK and other parts of Europe to have video game collections and it's working well for them. I'm sure there will be squawking as there was when they introduced theatrical films (as opposed to only documentary, educational, and culturally important films) and then more recently graphic novels (as opposed to "real" books) into the collection. There's an archaic but still sometimes present line of thinking that libraries ought to be stocking only what people "should" be reading or viewing, things that will make them better, smarter, more moral members of society. Boo-urns to that, I say.

It's mostly common now for public libraries to subscribe to the Freedom of Information side of things. Libraries stock what patrons want and pass no judgement upon them for it. As I understand it, the library is taking the position that video games can be considered forms of art (both visually and musically) and recognizes that games are increasingly heavy on storytelling. Really, why not branch further away from more traditional forms of art, storytelling, and education? The only caveat I would add is that money shouldn't be taken away from the book budget to buy video games.

This knee-jerk reaction was also tempered by how this benefits me. I was never much of a gamer until recently, but I'm still wary of trying new games. Now I can try same games for free to see if I want to take the plunge to buy them. I don't know how much I'll take advantage of the collection, but I like that the potential is there.

The second reaction was wondering how they're going to combat theft. Video stores frequently won't let customers rent video games without a valid credit card on file. If you don't have a valid credit card, they won't rent games to you without enough information to send you to collections should you make off with their stuff. Sure, I can steal two bestseller novels from the library which would cost as much as a new video game brand new, but the resale value on used books versus used video games is quite different.

I don't think there's much need to be concerned about existing cardholders who know if they want to keep borrowing stuff from the library they have to return things and can't rack up their fines beyond $15. No, I think the people who check them out are fairly likely to return them. The problem is the people who steal items without checking them out. I asked at the information desk about the games since David and I couldn't find them in the AV section. The librarian told me that the first day when they put ten games out at this branch, all ten were stolen. They're now switching to holds only, so the games remain behind the counter and a hold must be placed and processed as normal. There's a limit of one game at a time per account, they may be checked out for one week, and the overdue fee is $2 per day.

I'm interested to see how this works out.

I'm in Vernon until Monday having an early Christmas with my dad. Last December he had to have our beloved Symba put to sleep. She was my favorite of all the dogs and I miss her. Dad has been saying all year that he doesn't want any more dogs, this is it, just Candy, Keeper, and Tigger until it's all their time to go.

The other day I got an IM from my dad "Got a new dog. Named him Brandy. They said he was a (something something) mix, but he sure looks part pit bull to me." I met Brandy last night when I arrived and he looks like he's definitely part pit bull to me, too. He was a bit growly with me and I didn't care for it, but he's only been here a week and it was the first time a stranger has come in so he wasn't sure what to do. The other dogs all crowded around me to say hello so Brandy figured I must be okay. He even tried to sleep with me, but he was too big and restless so I kicked him out.

I wasn't sure what kind of reaction I'd get from him when I came out of my room this morning. Dad's not here, and he understands that Dad is the alpha in this house, so I was a little extra unsure. Now that I've slept here, he seems to have decided that I must be of the higher members of the pack and he wants to be best friends with me. The first thing he did when I got up was trot over and offer me what's left of dad's watch, which he'd chewed up yesterday. He's about 10 months old and wants to chew up everything. I haven't had to be so careful of my belongings here since Symba was that age. Also like Symba, Brandy thinks he's small enough to be a lap dog. He's wrong.

Among the many things going on, David planned an anniversary surprise for me. December 6 was the one year anniversary of our first date. We met for lunch at Ricky's, then we went out again that evening to the mall to browse some stores and have a late supper at Jungle Jim's. December 8 was our first big night out together. He picked me up, we had dinner at Tony Roma's (we shared the Kickin' Shrimp, which is when I started eating shrimp), went to see The Golden Compass, then drove around for a while until we found ourselves playing pool at Finnegan's pub.

Despite claiming that he wasn't going to make a big deal of our anniversary since it was right after my birthday and right before Christmas, he went ahead and planned a night out. I had no idea where we going, but I knew we were dressing up for it. David wore his suit and I wore my new black dress. We looked very classy. We stopped in for an hour at his office Christmas party, at which we were lavished with compliments. After we left and were on our way to the surprise I was given three clues to the evening's plan:

1) Elephants are indirectly related;
2) There might be someone named Sam there;
3) Tom Hanks would approve.

David said they were obscure clues and he'd be surprised if I figured it out. The second part of the clue game is to connect the clues once I find out where we're going. After the long drive to the west end, we ended up at West Edmonton Mall. As we were walking in through the Bourbon Street entrance, I asked if we'd gotten all dressed up to go to Jungle Jim's (which I maintain would have been funny). We ended up on a red carpet going into the The Red Piano, a Creole restaurant and dueling piano lounge. It didn't take me too long to associate the clues: 1) Ivory; 2) Casablanca; 3) Big.

We shared a nice meal, though David was spending a bit of time texting someone. I found out later he was texting his coworkers at the office party for suggestions on a romantic song to request. Later, when the piano portion of the evening started, he made his request along with a gratuity to the pianists. It took a while, and the less dominant of the two pianists kept pushing for our song but the one running the show kept shooting down. Eventually they played Can't Smile Without You dedicated to us on our first anniversary, with the apology that it wasn't the song he requested but hoped they picked one we'd like. I asked David what song he had picked, and the suggestion that had come from his coworkers was You're Beautiful by James Blunt. While it's not a bad song, it's really not a song to be judged by the title. It's a love song about as much Every Breath You Take is.

It was a really nice night and a wonderful surprise. I'd go back to The Red Piano again for the experience, though perhaps not to dine. The food was good, but there wasn't quite enough variety of things I like.

I'm at work watching Nosferatu (1922). I got it from the library because of a discussion on older films with special effects that still hold up. This one got a couple mentions and I was curious.

It's surprisingly compelling, but I don't how much of that is the novelty of watching a silent film rather than the merits of the film itself. I've never seen a silent film before, only short parody clips of them. It's very entertaining and I'm realizing that the parodies I've seen haven't been too far off the mark. It's really hard to watch a silent film and still be somewhat productive, though. I'm not used to having to actually watch since I very often rely on listening with occasional glances at the picture.

We were in an accident this morning on the way to our soccer game. Most importantly, no one was hurt. It was a minor crash in the grand scheme of things, though perhaps not as minor to the pocketbook. No other cars were involved, we just came around a corner hit an icy patch, and slid sideways. The car hit the curb hard, with the front driver's side tire being the point of initial impact. The steering wheel now spins loosely and freely, so something about the steering mechanism and front-wheel drive is now very broken. Hopefully, it will be one of the less expensive things to fix but we won't find out until Monday.

We were unable to call any of the parents on the soccer team right away to tell them we weren't going to make it, but that couldn't be helped. Some of the parents stepped up and got the kids on the field, so the kids on the team didn't miss out on their game. David's ex did call to find out what was going on and ranted to me about how David is a [expletive] lazy [expletive] who can't do anything [expletive] right, and what the [expletive] is she supposed to tell all those [expletive] parents asking her what the [expletive] is going on. "Tell them the coaches were in a car accident and can't make it. It's pretty simple."

Another surprise date! On Thursday, David told me not to make any plans for Saturday night because he had a surprise for me. I love his surprises. He told me that the surprise was something relevant to the early days of our relationship, that I was familiar with the venue, and that he wasn't sure how to get there and had no idea where it was. The first two clues led me to strongly suspect that we were going to see Hairspray at the Jubilee Auditorium; The 2007 film version was the first DVD we never finished watching together. Twice. I've also been to a few plays at the Jube. However, David has been to the Jube with me twice before so that didn't fit the last clue. Turns out he just hadn't connected that he'd seen HMS Pinafore and Spamalot at the same place.

Hairspray was great. As much as I loved Spamalot, this may be my new favorite. I loved the music and the dancing, David liked the racist tones and sexual innuendo. Part of why I may have enjoyed it so much was that I didn't really go in with any expectations. For many plays I go in with high expectations and preconceived notions, but that wasn't the case with this one. I didn't know enough about the play, nor was I sure I was even going, nor did I have a lot of time to mull it over. This play had nothing to live up to so it was able to set its own bar.

Because of the positive themes of being happy with who you are and good race relations it's a really popular play to take kids to, but I bet a lot of those parents didn't go in really being aware of the innuendo. The mom sitting next to me gave a surprised laugh at a "stiffy" joke and then faced awkwardness when her tweenage daughter asked why it was funny.

The black mark on the evening: Parking at the Jube was a mess. They finally have the new multi-level parkade open, but there's only one road leading out because of all of the construction still going on. We were on the second level and got to our car fairly quickly, but it was still a total clusterfuck. We had to wait for 20 minutes not moving at all.

David said that next time we're going to the Jube, we'll park in his downtown parkade spot and take the LRT. It's really nice to not have to mentally add "if there is a next time." I have the best boyfriend.

Conversation heard this morning in a coffee shop between a nice old man and the nice but ditzy barista:

Barista: So, what did you do for Remembrance Day?
Man: I was in the honour guard at the Butterdome service.
B: Oooh, cool!
M: I've been doing the honour guard for the last 20 years.
B: Fun! Do you enjoy doing it?
M: Well, no, but I have to do lots of things I don't enjoy. Remembrance Day is not about enjoyment.

He was kind and nothing in his tone came across as lecturing, it was just a simple statement of fact for him. She was looking uncomfortable and and awkward, so at that point I bailed her out and commented to him that it was an important and special thing that he does and other brief small talk about Remembrance Day while we waited for our orders to come up. I thanked him and wished him a good day.

Although the turnout at the service I went to was the largest I've seen in several years, it's unfortunate and a little disheartening that the overall trend in attitude seems to be that November 11 is losing relevance and is becoming just another day off from work or school.