#22

Try as I might, I saw very little purpose in any of this. I dutifully followed each link hoping to find something interesting----no luck. Also, by this time next year, most of this will be old hat or greatly modified or replaced with the current fad, so why stress. I made a tumblr account which was surprisingly easy, but who in the heck would be interested in what I posted. Heck, I'm not even interested in what I posted. I tried to post a video but backed off when I found out I would have to sign up for yet another account in yet another website. I am as caught in the world wide web as I want to be.

Nearing the End---#21 Video

This has definitely been my favorite project so far. I discovered You Tube before 2.0, and if I had time to squander online, this would be my drug of choice. I checked out the other video sites mentioned on the 2.0 blog, but none holds a candle to You Tube. In fact I couldn't find much interesting on any of them. Of course, I am looking only for something to watch, not to post, or to edit.

You Tube once was the source to answering a reference question I could not have answered any other way. Also I have a patron who loves George Raft and told me he used to dance, and she has a video with a short segment where he is doing the tango which she watches over and over. Did I ever have fun telling her about You Tube and was delighted when I found three short clips of George Raft in all his sultry dancing glory. We watched them in silence, but the George Raft charisma was still there.

On a serious note, I am trying to help do my part in spreading the word about the troubling drugging of foster children with high powered psychotropic drugs meant only for adult mental patients in hospitals. This drugs are used on even very young children to control behavior and make them sleep. (Often the sleep and behavior problems are caused by other drugs or by the trauma in their young lives.) Anyway, I found some interviews on You Tube with foster children who have aged out of the system and were willing to speak frankly about their experiences. I then emailed these videos to an Oregonian reporter who is doing articles on this subject. Let's say a picture is worth a thousand words.

On a lighter note, I like You Tube best for music videos. One of my favorites is that darling Nikki Blonski who starred in Hairspray. If I need to get going, watching and hearing her sing "Good Morning Baltimore" is a real day starter. For a sweet romantic mood, try "I can hear the Bells."
Or for a sexy, romantic rhumba to rival George Raft's tango, try the couple from "Strictly Ballroom" dancing to Doris Day's "Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps." Anything a video nerd like me wants is at their fingertips via You Tube. And you don't need to sign in either!

Happy Camper

Podcasting, or simply casting and hoping somthing gets hooked

This project turned out to be fun, but I would need much more time to really explore. I could not figure out how iTunes works but I finally did find the link to podcasts. I downloaded iTunes to my computer, but I don't know where it went. At any rate Firefox can't find it, so I couldn't listen to any poscasts there.

I went to podcasts.net looking for something that wouldn't put me to sleep and unfortunately settled on a 17 minute recording of four or five women talking about romantic deal breakers. It took these ladies 3-4 minutes to finally cut the small talk and get to the subject. After all that they never said much interesting and continued to chitchat. I could have read it in two minutes and wasted much less time. There was an interesting short podcast from the American Bar Assn on how to do quick and dirty research in 30 minutes or less on free websites when the client can't be billed (at which point they apparantly use the expensive databases.) Anyway the ideas weren't bad, but they would do better to call their local law librarian or public library in my opinion.

I used yahoo.podcasts to find the Legal Underground podcast on depositions. Here is a goldmine for anyone having to be on a jury or anyone filing a lawsuit pro-se or anyone called as a witness in court. It helped me get inside the mind of the lawyer. I haven't read anything quite so specific to the lawyer since I haven't access to legal journals. The lawyer spoke quickly and to the point which I appreciated.

Happycamper

#19 Music and other audio

Music is not a big thing with me. I don't listen to the radio and couldn't match up the artists and music from much past the 60's. Sad, I know. I recognize some of the songs; I just don't know who sang them. After all I used to listen to lots of music in the car and roller skating when my kids were teens. However, I have to say that last. fm is great for suggesting similiar music. I put in some really old rock 'n roll, and it brought up artists I used to like in my past life, commonly called youth. Also you can't listen to the whole song, just a clip unless you join.

The sound effects site had limited sounds, and I couldn't just listen to them. They have to uploaded, downloaded, or emailed.

I did have a good time on the internet archive looking at cartoon and animation videos. My favorite was a one minute presentation on Fair Trade using Sims---very well done. I think youtube is a lot easier to use though.

Mango languages could be very useful, even in a library. I started out with Russian, but it was not clear what was going on. I then switched to German which I know a bit about. I think a person could learn enough for a trip if they went through all the lessons. There is lots of repetition.

Happy Camper