Hero to librarians everywhere (Friday WTF)

It's Friday, and I have a lot of work to do, so here you go:



By the way, when you use the library, please don't reshelve your books. We don't like that.

King Kong @ Your Library (Friday WTF)

This was National Library Week, and I forgot to mention it before now. I am a disgrace to myself and my profession.

Since I don't really have time to do a proper post about it, I'll just dedicate this Friday WTF to my comrades in arms:



Apparently the job market for librarians hasn't changed much since the late 60s.

Skippy's Fake Holiday File: Charlie Chaplin's Birthday

Today is an extra special one of my Fake Holidays. It's the 120th birthday of the great Charlie Chaplin.

ABOVE: from "The Kid", Charlie
Chaplin and the future Uncle Fester

When I was about 8 or 9, my grandfather, appalled that we didn't know who Charlie Chaplin was, rushed the Marmoset and I to the video store to get a copy of The Gold Rush. I thought it was just about the funniest thing I had ever seen.

To make a long story short, Chaplin was a genius several times over, and if you haven't seen any of his movies you really should try them. He was great for a very wide variety of reasons, but here are two of the big ones:

1. The Potato Dance


2. The Dictator Speech

The Daily Marmoset: Now with more Hope

A friend recently showed me a great website: Obamicon.me. To demonstrate the thoroughly awesome power of this site, lets take a picture of our beloved namesake, the Pygmy Marmoset...



While the Pygmy Marmoset is already one of God's noblest creatures, it seems to be lacking a certain something. But run it through Obamicon.me, and...



Presto! A political icon we can all get behind.

BONUS FEATURE: A little something for all you Wire fans out there...

EDITOR'S NOTE: We cannot really claim credit
for the work of genius you see above. This loving
tribute to the great Omar Little is a reproduction
of someone else's creation, which was briefly spotted
somewhere online a while ago, and couldn't be found again.

Beware the Archivist

As a light-to-moderate fan of computer games, I always thought the Diablo games were fun, but I never really got that into them. So when I heard that Diablo III was coming out soon, I wasn't all that impressed. Mostly I wondered why Blizzard was spending time on that when I've been waiting almost a decade for Starcraft II.

But all that changed when I saw one of the new character classes: ARCHIVIST

ABOVE: The flip-flops are
an interesting choice. But I think
I met this guy at SAA a while ago.

Unlike a disappointingly large number of my colleagues, I realize that this is an April Fools joke. But I so desperately wish it wasn't.

BONUS: click here for a hi-resolution image of the Archivist in battle. I think I found the new wallpaper for my computer.

Books: the final frontier

Few people know that before he went to Starfleet Academy, James T. Kirk briefly considered a library career.



Unfortunately, his MLS program didn't have enough half-naked green women to keep his attention, and he soon moved on to bigger things. It's probably for the best, really.

But seriously, folks, that video reminded me of an especially good Penny Arcade from a few weeks ago:



I love the Internet, and not just because my job wouldn't exist without it. But the more I use it, the more I appreciate the simple genius of good old fashioned paper.

Who Watches the Watchmen? I did. (Friday WTF)

I went to see the Watchmen recently, and I do have to say that it was a surprisingly good movie. I read (and dearly loved) the book by the great Alan Moore a few years ago, but I really didn't think it was humanly possible to turn it into a decent movie.

Anyway, this Friday WTF video beautifully shows what I was basically expecting from the movie.



God help me, but I think I would have loved that show when I was 10.

Speaking of which...