Yeeaaahhhh...

So the NetLibrary thing was pretty much a dismal failure in my book (pun intended...ha!). What a complete waste of time. We searched all kinds of random topics and several favorite authors and came up with nothing. We then picked several very well-known authors, even though they weren't ones we were interested in reading, and still had a hard time coming up with anything that was even in the list. In the time I spent typing in all those ideas, I could have walked out to the stacks and found most of them myself. I don't even check out books on tape or CD really...I'd rather just read the actual book and listen to MUSIC on my mp3 player, assuming I can figure out how to actually do THAT! So now I'm going back to the fun music websites from last week, and I shall live there happily ever after. *cheesy grin*

Oooooo...

This was the funnest lesson ever...once we got past the legal stuff, of course. Legalese really makes my head hurt...a lot. I will say that I have been quite confused about all of the music downloading stuff, and I'm a little nervous about how I'll actually handle this once I have the pretty little gadget that comes at the end of the course. I can just see it...poor, innocent, well-meaning little me, just looking for pleasant little oldies songs to brighten my day, and suddenly the 3MPs (3 Music Police) are pounding on my door waiting to throw me in the slammer right across the hall from dear sweet Paris. (Lord, save me!!) Ok, now I'm afraid to do anything with the gadget at all...paranoia is such a drag.

So anyway, the music sites were totally a blast! I didn't like Grokker much, but LivePlasma was so pretty and even a little mesmerizing...kind of reminded me of my Lava Lamp. Oh, the colors, the colors...

LastFM was AWESOME!! A whole radio station of my very own, programmed with the artists I like and similar ones. This was especially fun for me, since Orlando lost its FM oldies station a few years ago (it went Spanish...don't even get me started.) There's an AM oldies station, but it's a little fuzzy at times. This could be a nice alternative if I'm at home and want a fix...of course I'll have to get out of my dial-up Internet phase in order to truly benefit from this, or it'll take 45 minutes to get one song. Maybe this can be my inspiration...hmmmm.

Honestly, I wish you could have seen Ms. Balogna and me as we sang and danced along to the fun music...truly a scene not to have been missed. Just ask half of the Circulation department! hehe

Oh, one more thing about the whole legal thing...all I could think about during that entire section of the lesson was Weird Al's "Don't Download This Song." If you haven't heard it, look it up on one of those music website thingys and give it a listen. It pretty much says it all! :)

Hmmm...

So that Flickr thing was interesting and all, but I sure am glad that someone else provided the pictures, since I personally have yet to enter the digital photo age. My ol' 35 mm is still up and running (barely!). On the other hand, if someone had lent me a digital camera, I probably could have come up with some more interesting photos to upload. But I guess they served the purpose, and they did give a nice outlet for the ever-present sarcastic comments that are just waiting to burst forth from my little mind. *tee hee*

Thank goodness also for teamwork, because (meaning no disrespect to the tech people who made this all possible) without it I would not have found this nearly as entertaining or mentally tolerable. Work in general is always more fun with a buddy anyway, especially since I don't really whistle very well. Thanks to my course partner Jujubalogna for keeping me sane and helping to inspire (and tweak) the aforementioned sarcasm.

Hippy logic...that's pretty cool there, cat. Who the heck is Tony Alva anyway? Now if you want to talk about Tony Orlando, we might have some potential there. I suppose that theoretically I could use all this wonderful Learn 2.0 knowledge to find out everything there is to know about Tony Alva, but the clock and my tummy say it's lunchtime, so the burning curiosity will just have to wait.

Woohoo...

So this week's lesson was definitely less stressful than the other ones, and this is probably the first time I've come through it without feeling like a complete idiot. My computer use in general is pretty much all about playing, so this was more my speed. The Blufr site was kind of fun, and even a little educational too, and it's really all about making learning fun, isn't it? I wasn't particularly interested in signing up for accounts on most of the other ones, though I might be tempted to try the game one later. I don't drink, so beer and wine sites don't do anything for me at all. I have a cat, and I love her dearly, but I don't think she needs her own website.

I didn't actually do the adventure activity right at this moment, but I would guess that I've done that sort of thing for years...my main "hobby" is going to concerts, particularly oldies acts/groups. One performer I've followed for a number of years is Peter Noone, the original "Herman" from Herman's Hermits. His website, www.peternoone.com, is quite a community, with blogs posted by Peter himself, and forums and chat rooms for fans to communicate with each other. I think that sort of qualifies as a type of Web 2.0 thing. Thoughts?

Speaking of concerts...I tried something new over the weekend and saw Weird Al Yankovic perform at Cypress Gardens. Highly entertaining, and totally fun!! I would definitely like to see him again!! White and Nerdy and proud of it, baby!! :P

Well...

I really had no idea that there were so darn many websites devoted entirely to books and the finding and reading thereof. Honestly, I'm starting to feel more and more old-fashioned here. I'm pretty much just impressed that the catalog is computerized (though I really do miss those old card catalogs with the cute little drawers). Looking at the book sites was cool...I did especially like the clever names like Shelfari and Book Mooch, and I can see where people with a WHOLE lot of time on their hands would have some fun with that stuff. I'm definitely not quite that much of a techno "geek."

The blog suggestions said something about "link and share"...if I had any idea how to do that I might consider it, but I don't recall that from any of the previous lessons, so we'll just skip that altogether so that my brain doesn't explode.

In other completely unrelated news...I saw Davy Jones last week, which pretty much eclipses everything else in this entire blog. So there. Davy rocks!

Sooooo...

Well, I've heard of MySpace...jumped on that bandwagon a while back, for whatever that's worth. YouTube...yeah, I've heard of that too, but haven't really done much with it, since I'm still in my Dinosaur DIAL-UP stage. Them video thangs take ferever! All of those other websites looked nifty and all, but if I really took the time to browse through them and see everything they do, I'd never go outside again and breathe the fresh air and see the pretty flowers and...I dunno...have a real life. I'm white enough already...I need a little sunshine once in a while. I think I'm going for a walk now.

Seriously, this lesson confused me a little bit. I guess the Web 2.0 applications thing just means that there are tons of things out there that people can use to find what they need and then tell everyone they know (and even total strangers) how cool it is that they found it. Ok then...thanks for sharing.

Oh, and by the way...I must have missed the award ceremony for that whole Person of the Year thing. When can I expect my trophy to arrive? Who knew I was that awesome? (I did...and maybe my mommy too.)

Ummmm...

Yeeeaaaaah, so I'm definitely a Google person...the whole Keep It Simple, Stupid thing totally applies to me. This RSS business is WAY too much of an information overload. Ow, my head hurts. And could somebody please tell me what the heck a Grokker is anyway?? When did that actually become a word? I thought I was doing well when I dipped a toe into the whole MySpace thing, but now I realize how behind the techno times I actually am. And for the most part, I'm pretty much ok with that, but I guess I'll press on so I can get the gadget that I won't even know how to use.