Dougma (dŭg·mə) n.

Figures I was sitting on the couch when I read this instead of at work, or in the computer room, or.. well anywhere else in the house. That meant I had a choice of grabbing highlights (which counts as a magazine…) and leave me reaching over and putting my hand on the book next to me (there is always a book within arms reach in my house.. just not always mine).

“I’m feeling right bad about this.”

From Death of a Dreamer by M.C. Beaton.

Meme from James Tauber, Greg Newman, Justin Lilly and Brian Rosner:

• Grab the nearest book.
• Open it to page 56.
• Find the fifth sentence.
• Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
• Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

Just to drive the point home, this is a picture of the half wall behind the couch looking into the kitchen:

50 points to whom ever knows what 'orts' are... (no googling...)

The world of fantasy has suffered a great loss in the passing of James Oliver Rignley Jr., also known as Robert Jordan, the prolific author of the Wheel of Time series (among others). Robert Jordan was the third fantasy author I read, behind Tolkin and Eddings.  As such his words have left an indelible mark on my perception of both the fantastic and reality. His works over the past near two decades have punctuated my experiences; adding a period to freshman year finals, a comma to wedding preparations, some hyphens to long nights watching over a new born son. Though I have never met the man, he has enriched my life and changed the way I view the world. A world that is a little less magic, a little less vibrant, with his passing.

James Tauber just made an announcement concerning Potter Predictions; If you haven’t voted in the last 5 hours, please do so now, as over 250 new predictions have been added:

As the book is about to be released, I wanted to let you know what is going to happen on the site the next few days.

As of just under an hour ago, I closed the submission of new predictions. Voting on existing predictions is still open, though. I encourage you to go back to http://potterpredictions.com/ soon and vote on the predictions that have been approved since you last visited the site.

Voting will be closed some time between Thursday 11pm EDT (GMT-4) and Friday 9am EDT so the next 24 hours or so will be your last chance to record your votes.

At some point after the weekend, results will start being published. You’ll want to avoid the site from Friday night until you’ve finished reading the book Given that it might be controversial whether some predictions came to pass or not, we’ll probably poll members for their opinion in ambiguous cases.

I hope you’ve had as much fun using the site as we had building it.
And, of course, I hope you enjoy the book!

James

James has been adding features to the site almost daily. There are stats including sure things, fat chances, most obscure predictions, and my favorite, most controversial. Not to mention group and friend management, tags, and you can compare your choices with anyone else. You can compare your predictions to mine. At last count, there were 519 members, almost 400 predictions, and well over 40,000 votes! The site is beginning to slow a little as votes are being made at about 10 a second (rough wall clock estimate for 5min to account for django caching). About 250 predictions were added just today. Even though James claims to have closed the adding of predictions there seem to be another 20 new ones sense I started typing all this.

UPDATE:

No, I’m just approving ones submitted prior to closing. -James

WOW! I mean WOW! James Tauber has done it again, and no doubt I will be wasting enjoying my time on his latest site Potter Predictions. I love his cats or dogs site and reveling in the predictive Potterness. Of course it’s built on his Quisition framework written in Django. I added one prediction, and have a few others to add. I need to create a group and invite friends…. and to pick a name for the group before all the good ones are chosen. Gah, so much for working on my project tonight!

Once the book is released the stats will be closed and the results posted. I can’t wait… I soo want to know what people think. I need to e-mail the penny-arcade folks, tyco will go nuts for this!!!

[UPDATE: I got group Gryffindor!]

Bibliophile (bĭb’lē-ə-fīl’) n.

1. a person who loves or collects books, esp. as examples of fine or unusual printing, binding, or the like.
2. A lover of books.
3. A collector of books.

NOTE: The adj. form is bookworm. While ‘bibliophilia’ has recently entered the common vernacular, it is not an accepted form.

I am a self professed bibliophile. It is a trait which appears to be hereditary. As proof I grabbed my cell phone, snapped some pictures, created a new tabblo account for the site, and in under a minute I had something which looks like it took hours. I do love tabblo! I was planning on adding a ‘books’ page to the site this week in celebration of National Library Week. Unfortunately a stomach virus threw all schedules out the window as childhood ailments often do. The Worcester Public Library has a fantastic children’s reading program with music and local artists every Friday morning from 10:30am until noon with a playtime afterwards. Our son picks out ten to twelve books and we end up reading each at least three times over the week. This week is special in that all activities will be accessible to the deaf and hearing impaired.

10:30am Just Drop In Sing-a-long & Storytime
Kids of all ages are invited to. The program will take place in the Children’s Room ‘Ellipse’. Enjoy picture book stories, nursery rhymes, poetry and live music with instruments provided for children. Each week’s program is followed by an optional playtime for which the library provides coloring sheets, book displays library and literacy information for parents and children, toys for play and ambient music. The program is free, for ALL AGES and is open to the public, no registration required, just drop in ! Come early for best seats! Kids can bring their own instruments to help mr. frank play songs! Call the Main Library at 508.799.1671 for details. If the Worcester Public Schools are delayed or cancelled ‘Just Drop In’ our program will be cancelled for that morning.

Read the rest of this entry »