This is definitely not a film recommendation

I watched The Killer Inside Me last night.  A conversation in the tea room recently sparked my curiosity, so I gave it a go.  There are only a handful of films that have left me feeling so perturbed (Once were warriors, Nil by Mouth, Lilya 4 Ever).  I admit this is not the most rational review, because in truth I have no stomach for violence.  Suffice to say my husband walked out of the room twice, and he's no wuss!!  It's a pity because there's a good movie in there somewhere, despite the uneven pace and the undeveloped female characters.   Affleck puts in a stellar performance, understated menace in a cool exterior, quite mesmerising actually.  However my residing memory is of brutal violence which is weird considering it's not in that many scenes.  It's the relentless and unnecessarily graphic nature of its' depiction that made it extremely disturbing to watch.  The director is obviously making some sort of statement here; I'm just not sure what it is?  That the calmest of exteriors contain the most brutal beast?   Whatever it is I don't think it works, it feels gratuitous, and I suspect it's actually done for shock value, which is rather sad.  Definitely not one for the faint hearted.

LibraryThing

I signed upto LibraryThing sometime ago, but I've never really used it.  That's not to say I don't like it, I do.  It's just that it's very similar to another product on facebook called We Read(although of course We Read isn't catalogued).  I prefer We Read, because I've 'friends' using it and it cross-references books I've read with what they've read and recommends their current reads to me.  Because I've read similar themed books to them, I get relevant recommendations.  On LibraryThing however I get recommendations similar to the ones I get on amazon, ie nothing I'm interested in.
The virtual shelf is cute and alot less dusty that my 'real' book cases.  It is useful for tracking the books you read over a year, but I actually keep physical written lists of these myself - can't believe I'm admitting to that, old school and incredibly sad.
It's amazing with all the technology available to us, that the pen and paper is sometimes very reassuring, or maybe that's just me?
Library Thing for libraries looks interesting I wonder how much would be involved in setting it up? How cool would it be to have our own library app?

Poignant Twitter

Last tweet from photographer (& Oscar nominated director of Restrepo) Tim Hetherington before he was killed hrs later in Libya(20/04/11):

"In besieged Libyan city of Misrata. Indiscriminate shelling by Qaddafi forces. No sign of NATO."

Film recommendation Catfish

There was a trailer for a film called Catfish on More 4 last night, they are showing it next Tuesday night as part of the True Stories series.  Having seen it in the IFI in the Autumn, and given that it's about Social Networking, I thought I'd recommend it.  I'd advise you not to read anything about it before hand, as it would ruin it.
It is the complete anthithesis of the Social Network, as glossy and stylised as that  film is, this is grainy and low-budget.  It's a documentary about a photographer's online relationship with an eight-year-old child prodigy and her attractive elder half-sister. about deceit and lonliness. Worth a watch especially when it's for free on TV.

(Anti)Social Networking

I already have Facebook and Twitter accounts.  As I have friends/family abroad, I find it an effortless way of keeping in touch.  I'm not a fan of instant messaging and have my account setup so that noone knows when I'm online. Why? Well if I'm only logging on for a minute and somebody starts IMing, how do you get out of it? Will they think you are rude if you just go? I dunno, I just find it a hassle.

Facebook is great for getting alerts to upcoming events.  Dublin writers week, Dublin Book week and the National Library are all great for sending messages.  I find that really useful.  Just 'like' their pages and they send messages and invites to upcoming events.

This is something we could utilise in the library.  I noticed UL use their page quite a bit, for instance when there was snow, they put messsages on their facebook profile.  It is a great way to contact students.  I can't help noticing when walking through the library, how many students are on facebook.

UCD have a cute thing in their photos section, basically when any member of staff goes on holidays, they take a library bag with them, so you can see the UCD library bag on holiday in London, Australia, Paris, New York, it's silly but the photos are cute!

Twitter I just follow people on, I've only tweeted a few times. I don't log into it often.  It is great for big events. The election coverage was second to none, way more accurate and uptodate than TV and radio coverage as you had people at the actual LIVE events giving minute by minute tweetws. You also get some really witty responses.  It is also great for sporting events and if something controversial is happening, it can be interesting to follow the thread.  Vincent Browne for instance and prime time can be good to monitor as it's intriguing to see how others are responding to the show?   In order for it to work in the library we need to get people to follow us first.

Additionally you can link your twitter and facebook accounts which is kind of cool, if you see something amusing and/or interesting on twitter you can re-tweet it to your facebook status update.

Happy Easter!

Tried to do Comic Life thing, but only seems to work for Macs. 
That means I'm finished until after Easter, hope you've all a lovely break. Don't eat too much chocolate.

Wicki-wicki Wild Wild West

Random irrlevant fact:  Ever since I first heard the phrase Wiki, the chorus of that horrendous Will Smith song from the equally horrendous film Wild Wild West (actually I've never seen it, but I don't think I need to!)comes into my head.  It's a dreadful association, and I hope most people don't even know what I'm referring to.  About 6 seconds in if you're curious!!

Back to this weeks task, wikis.  I never knew where the phrase originated from so that was interesting.
I'd never edited or contributed to a wiki before, though I've read them often, especially Wikepedia, despite the fact that it's a questionable source of information.

I setup my wiki account, and posted my thoughts on the 23thingswiki.  SO easy to use, though I fear I could very easily get carried away with adding extra links, it's THAT easy to use.

In a library context I think it would be a fantastic resource.  Just for staff, for instance with an upcoming staff meeting, if something occured to you during the month, you could post it as and when things pop into your head.  Or if you had an idea for an exhibition or any kind of improvement or a suggestion, maybe you could have a link on it, where you can post ideas as you wish.

The one thing that strikes me is the ease at which you can edit other people's posts.  It would be annoying if somebody else deleted something you contributed to before you felt it had been dealt with or discussed.  The fact that there is a feature showing who edited the link most recently would probably eliminate any problems in this regard!