What does a girl do ....

when she has three (count 'em 3!!!) weeks holiday and she manages to get the flu by day 4?

Ended up downloading Treasure Island from Librivox and dozed in bed listening to Jim Hawkins get up to all sorts of bother.

The thing is with the "classics" - you 'know' the story, have seen the tv programme/mini-series/movie(s) and may have even flipped through the Classic Comic version or (horror of horror!) read the Readers Digest Condensed Book while staying at your aunties. (What is it about those condensed books - you only ever find them at your auntie's house?) And then you read (OK, listen) to them for the first time and realise you had it all wrong ...

And then you start adding to the list of others you must get around to ... so here's my "classics I really should have read when I was supposed to have read them at school but couldn't be buggered so I'm just going to have to read them now" list (needs a bit of work that title, a tad on the longish side).

Kidnapped
David Copperfield (although my bro says that it "does go on a bit")
Oliver Twist
The Wizard of Oz
Gulliver's Travels
Robinson Crusoe
Peter Pan (aka Peter & Wendy)
Wuthering Heights
The Three Musketeers

Now don't get me wrong, I am a serious bibliophile. I love the touch, the look, the smell, the sheer beauty of a physical book ... but audio books rock in the fact that you can do something else at the same time ... for instance

• drive to work (or anywhere else for that matter)
• knit
• iron (OK - so I don't do that ... not that you couldn't, it's just that I don't iron)
• garden
• wash dishes (and dry them too)
• supermarket shopping (hint: comedies not recommended unless you want funny looks when you start giggling by the brussel sprouts. Nobody should giggle next to brussel sprouts)

So I'll let you know how ole Jimbo gets on ... at the moment Squie Trelawny is really excited because he's got this really cool one-legged guy called John Silver to come on their expedition as ship's cook ... uh oh.

Feed your head

I've decided that the publication schedule of this blog will have to revert to "occasional" - i.e. posts at random, sporadic and varied intervals when I remember what my password is and have something I feel like raving about.

Today's topic - my reversion to childhood - or rather my current plan of re-reading all those childhood classics - but in a Web 2.0-ey kinda way. Which means fantastic sites like Librivox - free public domain audio books.

These are all read by volunteers so be prepared for varied sound quality (I swear I could hear someone doing the dishes in the background of Chapter 1 of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) and a cornucopia of American accents (it's OK - only one reader so far sounded like George W. Bush).

But it's just soooooo cool to be able to sit and listen to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - knowing that I have Treasure Island and Little Women waiting in the wings (and yes, Hamster I can listen to Lewis Carroll and Radio Sport at the same time!)

Hints for the Audiobook download newbie

• leave Dickens until you can find version with British narrators - David Copperfield should not sound like he's just left an Iowan cornfield.


• If you have dial-up - don't fall off your chair with shock/disgust/laughter when your computer tells you that Great Expectations will take one week, four days, 5 hours and 53 minutes to download.


• Don't start casting nasturtiums about Mr Carroll's use of hallucenogenic substances while penning his tome before you check that you have loaded the chapters onto your mp3 player in the correct order.

And if you need explanation of the title of this post ...

I want to be a mad scientist!

Yes, I am one of those people who browse the weird and wonderful stuff around us in newspapers, magazines and the web. And everything now and again, I find a gem.

Check out this article from the Inhabit website - apparently kangaroo farts do not contain methane (nasty greenhouse gassy stuff) and they're trying to find out whether this handy little piece of Antipodean physiology could be transferred to cows?

Perhaps I enjoy stuff like this from a hidden dream to be a mad scientist? And this from someone who ditched science in fourth form (Year 9 for those of you who had the misfortune to be born anytime after Bohemian Rhapsody was released). The most likely reason is that at that age I wasn't particularly interested in my future scholastic endeavours - I chose the subjects that had the a) highest pass rates, b) least psychotic teachers and c) no classes after lunch (my attention span in those days being similar to a mayfly).

Why else would I drop something potentially useful (such as biology or chemistry) for the archaic wonder that was School C Latin? I mean we got to learn all about Caesar conquering Britain - even though he didn't stick around and actually complete the exercise as I later found out, had to wait for Claudius for that (did you know I always thought Claudius' first name was I? Blame Robert Graves)

Instead we translated ancient Latin cookbooks and realised where English food came from (blame Caesar and Claudius? You bet!). I mean, there weren't any recipes for chicken tikka marsala back then - but this 'Roman' food bore a marked resemblance to something Jamie Oliver would harass a school dinner lady about rather than anything Nigella Lawson would toss her hair over.

Anywho - back to Skippy and his (her?) mates. Perhaps we've got it all wrong - ditch the cows and farm kangaroos? Me Mum's an Aussie and says that Skippy can be quite tasty. Mind you there was a war on at the time ... and the kids were told it was smoked mutton. Milking sheds would need to be re-designed somewhat and the standard taranaki gate would be slightly redundant in keeping the buggers contained. Gosh maybe we could plant trees around paddocks to corrall Kanga and Roo?

But this all leads to one extremely vexing question ... how did they find out what exactly is contained in the average kangaroo's fart?

Remembrance of Christmas Past

and Present ...

With apologies to Marcel Proust and Charles Dickens (not necessarily in that order).


My 'fondest' Christmas memories as a child

• my favourite dolls mysteriously going missing just before Christmas and then magically reappearing under the Christmas tree with the new clothes my Mum had spent that last month(s) sewing & knitting
• the Christmas my brother got a new two wheeler bike (complete with banana seat, ape hangers and sissy bar) which meant that I got his old metallic gold Raleigh 20.
• leaving the bucket of water out for Santa's reindeer and then marvelling at the heavy dewfall on the garden on Christmas morning
• realising that being 'allowed' to stay up and go to midnight mass was not becuase I had been a good girl - but was a cunning ploy on the part of our parents to tire us out enough so we didn't wake up at 5am on Christmas morning.
• those wonderful 'auntie' presents you got as a small girl - nice soap, lace-covered coathangers, stationery sets and scented drawer liners.

... and as an adult

• a small child running into the library and breaking the sound barrier by screaming at the top of his voice "MUM, THERE'S A CHRISTMAS TREE IN THE LIBRARY!!!!!!"
• having the sort of job where the wearing of reindeer antlers at work is considered de rigeur
• still getting those wonderful 'auntie' presents - nice soap, lace-covered coathangers, stationery sets and scented drawer liners.

Can I still be cool ...

• if my MP3 player has black headphones instead of white ones?


• if my idea of a Big Day Out is having coffee with friends and seeing a movie on the same day?


• if I have more friends on my Goodreads page than my Facebook page?


• if I prefer books with words instead of pictures - unless they're cookbooks, then it should be the other way around?


• if I don't (and hope to never have to) speak bebo?


• if I prefer Unshelved to manga?

Just when you thought you'd heard everything ...

... the interweb surprises you yet again.

I mean, I'm a serious person. I read books with long words in them (and no pictures even!) I've watched An Inconvenient Truth. And I'm desperately looking for someone to give a goat to this Christmas (my sister-in-law's getting three ducks ... a real bargain at $15 I reckon).

So why am I so tickled to find this podcast?

And why am I not surprised at this website .... or this one?



Maybe it's the lighter things in life that make it possible to do all of the above?

Enough philosophy for now - after all, it's only Monday!

Yo ho ho ho ho ho!

And now for what you've all been waiting for (drum roll please) ...

The Great Mt Roskill Christmas Techtraining Quiz of 2007

And what's more, it's gone all Web 2.0 on us:) Here's the link

Once you submit your completed quiz, it will wing its way through cyberspace and end up on Zoho where I can 'mark' it and send you your completion certificate (no MP3 players sorry!)

The layout is a little strange - so remember to scroll right to see the second column of questions.

You can use whatever method you prefer to find the answers - google, fitch, wikipedia, library resources or leaning over library colleagues' shoulder(s). Collaboration is encouraged.

If you would prefer to do the quiz in a non-cyber format, printed copies are available on request.

The judge's decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into - although bribes are accepted.