It’s such a dilemma. I love our technology toys — the new HDTV, Guitar Hero, the iPhone on our home wifi network. I enjoy playing with them, exploring the features and figuring out how to make it all work together in our house. I’ve always adored television (the writers’ strike is really starting to hurt me!), more so when we got TiVo three years ago, and even more now with beautiful HD. And I think we’re almost at the point where we’ve decided not to wait for the old computer to die: we’re just going to go ahead and get the Mac we’ve been talking about for, like, four years now.

The problem with all these wonderful entertainments is that they’re resource hogs. Between the cost of the phone bill and the cable and internet bill, we could be fully funding an IRA. And the time! Sheesh! In that regard, TiVo is a double-edged sword. Back in the day, if you had to be out when your favorite show was on, you either taped it or not, watched it or not. But TiVo always records it and keeps it in a list, a list that grows and grows faster than you have time in which to watch it. It’s nice to know there’s almost always something worth watching when I feel like sitting down in front of the TV, but there are some shows I feel like I could let go of, only when they’re in the Now Playing list, it’s hard to ignore them. So I feel like I have to “catch up” on TV, and it takes on some of the same character as catching up on laundry or weeding. Not so fun.

And then there’s all the online stuff. Ravelry. Facebook. Flickr. This blog, even. I feel pretty strongly about maintaining an online presence, both for personal reasons and because it’s important for me to keep up professionally, and I want to be a consistent updater. But when there’s been a full day at work and I’m already tired and there’s a ton of TV to watch, me sitting at the computer is highly unlikely.

Some days, I just want to chuck it all — TV, video games, computer, everything. I have this utopian vision of being able to read and listen to music more, going to bed earlier, getting back to a routine, feeling like my responsibilities are under control. I hate feeling like I’m in a time crunch, and the next month or so is going to be pretty stressful on that front (more to come on that). So what can give? If the writers’ strike keeps going, I’m hoping it’s TV, but if the Now Playing list starts to stack up again… I don’t know.

And don’t let anyone tell you differently.

Yeah, it’s a phone, and yeah, it’s an iPod, but what I’m loving most right now about my iPhone is that I can take pictures and immediately email them to my Flickr account. They’re magically online without my having to turn on the computer (which overheats so easily in hot, nasty weather and makes the most annoying alarm sound until it’s shut down or cools off (so until it’s shut down) (we figure it will die any day now and then we’ll be able to justify buying a new computer)), which means they’re ready for blogging instantly.

To that end, enjoy clue 6 of the Mystery Stole. The theme was released last week: it’s Swan Lake. The stole is caught mid-transformation into a swan, so this end of the piece is a wing. It’s looking pretty sculptural right now, but when it’s blocked, the bumps will look more like feathers.

Three big pieces of news:

1. Mike and I have our iPhones! Yay! In fact I’m posting this from my phone. Hi-tech awesomeness.
2. We had a huge Harry Potter event at the library Friday night. Like, 4500 people huge. And we got lucky in the book lottery and got to check out on of the library’s 215 copies. I started reading yesterday morning, and I don’t think it gives anything away to say that Rowling pulls no punches: the action totally starts right out of the gate.
3. I’ve been mystery stole-ing it up, yo.
   
   Here’s what I have done so far. The fourth clue came out on Friday, too. I’m a little disappointed that there aren’t more beads in it — I’ve been really enjoying the beading, especially once I got a crochet hook small enough.

Hopefully I’ll be more prone to post now that I can do it from pretty much anywhere. (Did I mention, “Yay!”?)

I can feel it. I got a very excellent package in the mail today, one that will allow me to take pictures, immediately email them to flickr, and then get right to the ol’ blog (or Ravelry, for that matter) and post ‘em up quick. What is it? Here’s a hint…

I got my Ravelry invite about an hour ago.

I’m pretending that the reason I haven’t blogged in the last few weeks is that I’ve been on strike until my Ravelry invite came in. Clearly not true, but help me out: pretend along with me.

It rocks.

I have a whole lot of photos to take, and data collection and entry to work on, but I’m wicked excited about the whole thing. Wicked excited.

I’m slated to give a presentation to a bunch of librarians next week entitled “15 New Technologies in 50 Minutes.” I’m putting together my list, and here’s my dilemma: What constitutes “new”?

There are technologies that have been out there for a while — blogs, Flickr, YouTube — that aren’t at all new to me or anyone who’s interested in Web 2.0-type stuff, but there are still librarians who haven’t played around with them at all. The actually new things I’ve identified (Nintendo Wii, iPhone, downloading content to my TiVo from Amazon) aren’t immediately library-relevant, but does that matter? Is the point of this session to teach people about tools they can use right now in their jobs? Or is it to familiarize people with the things their patrons might ask about so they don’t look at them like they’re crazy?

Now that I’ve written that down, I think it’s the latter. There’s just too much to say about blogs and wikis and such that’s actually useful on a day-to-day basis to fit in a session this short. So a whirlwind tour it is.

Check out this typing game — it’s definitely more fun than anything I ever used for learning how to type, and maybe I’ll finally get the whole c-v-b row straightened out in my fingers.

I don’t know what the deal with Bloglines is. It seems to handle most of my feeds just fine, and catches updates pretty immediately. There are a couple of blogs it’s weird about, though:

• All of the Salon.com blogs — There seems to be a huge delay between new posts showing up on Salon (in War Room or Broadsheet, for example) and in Bloglines. It can be hours, which kinda defeats the purpose of tracking a current events blog. Last Wednesday was the case in point, between late election returns and Rumsfeld’s resignation.
• ACPLinfo — Every time a post gets edited, it shows up as new in Bloglines.
• This blog — Sometimes posts get caught by Bloglines right away. Sometimes, it’s like they sit for a day or two.

I don’t get it. If you like another tool that you successfully use to access the same feeds on more than one computer, let me know.

A Segway PT, that is. Coolest thing ever.

While on vacation, we took the Segway tour around Epcot’s World Showcase. The first 45 minutes or so were spent inside, getting accustomed to the machine and how it works. It’s pretty awesome — it’s constantly adjusting to where your center of balance is to keep you upright, and moving from one place to another is amazingly intuitive. To go forward, lean forward. To slow down or stop, lean back. Tilt the steering mechanism to the left or right to turn. And that’s it.

Okay, so it was a little more tricky than that at first. We’re used to adapting to how other things move: on a rocking boat, you instinctively shift your weight to accommodate the waves and keep from falling over. The Segway works in exactly the opposite way, using its gyroscopes and whatnot to keep itself balanced under you. So when brand new riders step on, they tend to do the “Segway Shuffle,” the competition between the Segway’s compensation for your movements, and your compensation for the Segway’s. I was not immune to the shuffle, but it didn’t take too long at all to convince my body that it could relax and everything would be okay.

After the classroom portion, we went out on the tour, which was worth every penny. We had a great instructor/guide, it was a beautiful day for riding outdoors, and even though we were limited to “turtle mode” — a maximum 5 mph — it was downright exhilarating. The only really unexpected part was how tired my legs were afterward, until I realized that I had been pretty actively standing for nearly two hours.

Like I said, I want one. It would be the perfect commuting vehicle for me — the library always seems just a little too far to walk to when I’m running late in the morning, but close enough that I feel guilty firing up the Honda. When it comes down to it, we’ll probably redo the bathroom before we buy one, but I want one really badly.

Okay. Yes, yes, I know I haven’t posted pictures. The main issue is that I often post here in the odd moment of break time at work, so when I’m thinking about taking photos, I’m neither near my knitting nor the camera. The few pictures I’ve done lately (i.e. the last three months) have been rush jobs, early in the morning before work, with me popping out the memory card to throw in my work bag and unartfully crunch through a thumbnail maker over lunch. And when I’m at home with the camera, I’m knitting.

Excuses, excuses… Well, I just sent off a short bio for a presentation I’m going to be giving in the fall on blogs in libraries, and since I included this blog in it, I have great incentive to be a better blogger this summer so that all these librarians see fresh content when they come to check it out.