“If we weren’t all crazy, we’d just go insane…”

Life has been crazy lately. Busy, but beyond that: crazy. I blame the raspberry lollypops and smoke inhalation from Friday, but that might only explain part of it… So to salute this, tonight there’s a bit of a theme here in the Liberry – we’re exploring the crazy and kooky out there in Internet-land (which yes, I realise, is a big enough tautology to trip over.) In all their slightly-disturbing glory, don your straightjackets and embrace this week’s giggly lunatic links…

1) The best kind of Crazy is a Philanthropic Crazy. Actually, the VERY best kind of Crazy is a Philanthropic Crazy who dresses like a Viking warrior… yeah, meet this guy. His name is Hercules Invictus (really, it is) and he goes to schools and libraries, dressed like something out of a movie, and has various mythic activities that ‘encourage children in several positive ways’.(Actually I think they’re so stunned by a grown man dressing like something from Hercules and Xena for a living they completely forget how to misbehave). Think of him as that weird creepy uncle you never liked visiting, plus Battleaxe… actually, I think it’s kind of sweet. Plus it probably makes fundamental religious nuts uncomfortable, and I really love that!

2) Have you read “I Was Tortured By the Pygmy Love Queen”? How about “Drawing and Painting the Undead”? (Or indeed, my personal favourite, “If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs”…) Get stuck into the year’s craziest titles with the BookSeller.com’s shortlist for the Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year. Guaranteed to raise eyebrows when reading on crowded trains! Or at least give you a good 2 minutes of chat-up-the-bookish-girl/guy-at-work ammunition…you’re welcome.

3) Finally, the creme-de-la-creme of the Crazy world, care of the kind folks at YouTube: the Crazy Cat Lady. This one’s a crazy Russian cat lady too – double points! In one way, it’s sort of sweet: but see if you can get the image of the crazy cat-flinging Simpsons lady out of your head!

“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself (and your website) have altered…”

Yay! Students are back (and they HATE the new website, big surprise!) Noxious library lollypops are entering gaping freshman (freshperson) mouths across campus, and I’m thinking about painting coloured footprint trails on the floor so I don’t have to explain where ID-Card pickup is again for the millionth time. Gotta love it! And gotta love this week’s Liberry treats!!

1) Regular readers will know how much I love sharing disgusting food with you all, and vomit-inducing-yet-strangely desirable is probably my favorite category in the weird-food stakes. This week’s offering? Deep-Fried Oreo Cookies. One. Two.Three. Heart attack!

2) I love international students, they make work fun. Here’s a “Found” poster from another state from some kind international students who ‘found’ what they thought was someone’s cat… (Note: non-Aussie readers, you’re quite excused if you don’t get it. Drop me a line in the comments here, and I’ll send you a wikipedia page which might shed some light. Suffice it to say, that ain’t a cat…)

3) Finally, another puppet-library crossover, this time from Muppets Tonight… a colleague commented she has a professor in her department who’s a lot like this when it comes to the library!

I hate being cold and I hate being wet…

LiberryDwarf is over the constant rain. My shoes are damp, it’s still summer as far as the air conditioning is concerned, and I have icicles forming on my toenails. ‘Nuff said. Here’s some links…

1) Still in its infancy, but potentially very exciting – particularly for the lazy and indecisive among us. Finished a great book, want something similar but don’t even know where to start looking? Try What Should I Read Next – pop in your book’s title and author, and based on other people’s reviews, booklists and recommendation’s it’ll give you a to 10 of similar books to try next. A bit like WhichBook.net which I blogged about way back in January 07, but sans annoying sliders… hateful sliders… and not a Rankin book to be found!

2) The Liberry’s all about weird games, you might have guessed if you’re a regular reader. Today we combine two of my biggest loves Captain Planet style in the awesome-yet-frustrating Zombie Kitten Attack game…

3) I’m a big fan of mashups. I’m also a big fan of horror movies. Wow, it’s totally my day for fantastic combinations! Remember a little flick back in the 80’s called “The Shining”? Did you see it? Would you have seen it if the trailer had looked, for instance, like this…?

“You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art (or blog stats) to see your soul… “

I love my blog stats. (Yeah, 90% of that quote is GB Shaw, the rest is me.) I think that’s absolutely the best bit on WordPress – blog stats. 56 people visited this humble little blog the other day, and none of them were me! How exciting! Plus, you get to see the awesome Google search terms people use to find your blog… “boys corsetted”? “blank digestive system”? When have I ever blogged about those? Hehehe…priceless!!

In honour of blog stats, I was going to bring you a collection of Stat-y links… but I got bored with the idea. That’s far too much like work. Try these on for size instead!

1) You know the Liberry brings you the very best in Lol(insert noun here)… Lolcats, Loltapirs, the works. This week, for all you fellow liberrians out there, we have – no, not just LolCats, my friends, but LolCataloguers. The particularly slightly-odd socially-repressed ones in a, well, slightly-odd socially-repressed profession. Cataloguers are what other librarians pick on… and LolCataloguers is Exhibit A.

2) Dig bad poetry? No, not the sad emo teenager type – I’m talking about that immortal form of couplety, Nantucket-laced humor, the Limerick. Find yourself the perfect limerick – by topic, or even by word, at the The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form… ehem…

“Who’s been reading my blog? Lots of losers

And perverts and unemployed boozers

(Their brains soaked in highballs).

So what? They’ve got eyeballs,

And bloggers, it seems, can’t be choosers.”

(No offence or anything!! )

3) Finally, they’re asking me at work to help on a project to “attract young people to be librarians”… hey, why not just show them this? (Note: Remind me, I MUST give this the MST3K treatment before I die!)