Miss Moneypennypincher | Don't buy junk!

My husband likes to joke that I spend more time researching the things I buy than actually using the things I buy.  I guess he has a point.  If I spend my money, it is going to be on the best of something.  There is nothing worse than purchasing a piece of junk.  One of my favorite research tools is Consumer Reports, the magazine that researches and reviews pretty much everything, from juicers to Jaguars.  Growing up, I remember my family subscribed to the magazine and got it every month (and I always thought it was SO boring!).  Now that I have a family of my own, I find myself using the magazine all the time to make sure that I am spending my money wisely.  But, the magazine is not free.  Having access to all that info costs money  What if it is money you don't want to spend?

Once again, the library is at your service!  Perhaps the most obvious way you can access Consumer Reports at the library is to come in and look at the magazine.  Many of the libraries keep copies in the reference section, so that they cannot be checked out.  It's here for your viewing pleasure.

However, maybe you don't want to drive to the library and just want to access the magazine from home.  Should you shell out the $30 a year to get access to consumerreports.org?  You could, OR you could hop onto the library website:

Drag your cursor over "research"

Select "Databases"

Click "All databases"

Click "Masterfile Premier" (and then enter your library card number and PIN)

then "Publications" and type in "Consumer Reports".
Look over on the right ---every issue since 1991.

Voila!  Free access to Consumer Reports from home, for free! You just saved between $6.95 and $30!  Plus, you can use the money you just saved to buy something awesome!  Enjoy!

Joke of the day:
How do you make a money pizza?
----With all the dough you just saved getting Consumer Reports for free from the library!!!

Book Bucket List | My Ideal Bookshelf

A question that I have always found difficult to answer is "What is your favorite book of all time?"  My answer is always something like "Well... it really depends..." and I list a few books that have meant something to me for various reasons, but never really nail down one specific book.  However, Jane Mount and Thessaly La Force's My Ideal Bookshelf has made this task a lot easier.  Instead of asking people for their favorite book, they asked a multitude of creative types - people involved in film, food, books, music, and fashion - for their "ideal bookshelf".  This would be a list of the books that matter to them the most and hold a special place in their lives.  Artist Jane Mount then took the list of the participants books and painted them to bring them to life.  Each painting in the book is featured next to an explanation written by the participant of why they chose the books they love so much.  So do you want to see the books James Franco holds dearest?  Check out page 62.

Ideal Bookshelf of Kathleen Hart
President of Delta College
 by Jean Ramey

For the One Book, One San Joaquin program this September, we are bringing the Ideal Bookshelf concept into our community.  We asked a diverse group of people from our own local community for the books that would be found on their own Ideal Bookshelves. Those lists were illustrated by a number of local artists, from high school students to professional artists,  which will be featured during our community reading programs and at many of our branches this September.  We will also be featuring the Ideal Bookshelves of all of the featured authors of this year's One Book, One San Joaquin program including Nina Sankovitch, Rebecca Rupp, and John Green.

These paintings will be featured together at the Reading Meets Art: My Ideal Bookshelf Art Reception on Monday, September 9th at 6:00 p.m. at the Cesar Chavez Library.  Join us to see what people from our community picked as their favorite books!

Learning | Collective Nouns

I live near the water, so I often see flocks of geese in my neighborhood.  Flock is an example of a collective noun, which is a noun used to refer to a whole group of things. Think of a herd of cattle, or a pack of wolves. One of my favorite collective nouns is an embarrassment of riches. I think that's especially poetic.  

SSJCPL has a veritable plethora of books on English language collective nouns. Some of these books have been around quite a while, but I would like to draw your attention to a new one. It's a children's book called A Crackle of Crickets: A Compilation of Insect Collective Nouns.

Illustration from A Crackle of Crickets. Can you guess which collective noun this picture illustrates?
 Find the answer at the end of this post.

As I pondered the whole idea of collective nouns, I found myself asking a bunch of questions: If the plural of goose is geese, why isn't the plural of moose meese? I have always heard that moose is the plural for moose. Why isn't it meese? Or mooses? And what would Bullwinkle's Mr. Know-It-All think about this topic?

Bullwinkle. Photo courtesy of gamerscoreblog's photostream on Flickr.com. Some rights reserved.

Well, you know me; I couldn't resist a chance to look up another word in the dictionary. In my search for an answer, I discovered that moose is the North American term for elk. This animal is the largest member of the deer family. The native Abnaki people of Maine and Southern Quebec had a term, mos, for this beast; that is believed to be the origin of the English word. 

Moose family, Berlin NH; courtesy northeast_naturalist's photostream on Flickr.com. Some rights reserved.
The Latin name for these creatures is Alces alces americana.

I learned that moose is the most common plural of moose these days, but meese and mooses are acceptable older forms. I remain skeptical about that. I don't think I could get away with playing meese in a Scrabble game.  Plural moose are moose, just as plural deer are deer (not deers.) It has nothing to do with the goose/geese thing.

But if the plural of mouse is mice, what would the plural of mousse be? If only Mr. Know-It-All were here....

Moose mousse. Photo courtesy of Fraser Lewry's photostream on Flickr.com. Some rights reserved.

________________________________________________________________________

Answer to the question about the top picture: a culture of bacteria. 

Wherein Porfessor O Explains The Impossible!

Greetings fanatics of the graphic novel!

In this installment, Professor O is going to try to disentangle and explain one of the biggest mysteries the universe has to offer. It is something that has bothered scientists, scholars, philosophers, and every nerd who has tried to decipher the undecipherable, figure out the unfigureoutable, and generally make sense of what is complete nonsense. The mystery is not string theory (too easy to explain!), not the theory of relativity (please, Professor O could explain that in his sleep), not even the mysteries of time travel.

The Professor will try to explain (gasp) Marvel's "X-Men: The X-Ecutioner's Song"

Here goes:

Stryfe with Cable's face, attempts to assassinate Professor X (one of Professor O's best friends) by shooting him with some techno worm-thing, that overrun's the unlucky professor with a virus that turns him into some sort of robot/android/machine thing. Beast and Moira MacTaggert work tirelessly to cure him.

Cyclops and Jean Grey are kidnaped by Caliban. Colossus and Iceman help, but are attacked by more of Apocalyse's Horsemen of The Apocalypse. All bad. At first all think it is Apocalyse behind this mess, but it looks as though it is Mr. Sinister doing the duties.

Expliaining the innerworking of my time machine is simpler!

Lookit that, its Strable or Cryfe...whatever!

 X-Force sets out to find the would be attacker, as Mr. Sinister shows up and tells the remaining X-Men that Stryfe is behind all the hullabaloo. Cable time travels and shows up from the future and heads to Canadian intelligence for answers, where he runs into Wolverine and Bishop. Cable convinces Wolvie and Bishop he is innocent, explains that Stryfe is behind it all, and also that he and Stryfe share a face. Ugh, Marvel... 

Apocalypse figures out that Stryfe or Cable is the son of Cyclops. He picks a fight with Stryfe and is nearly killed, escaping death by teleportation.

This fight makes no sense.

Stryfe, with obvious parental issues, tortures Cyclops and Jean Grey.

Beast is able to extract the techno worm-thing, only to find Xavier's health is still deteriorating. Apocalypse shows up and convinces them to let him cure Xavier. Sure, why not?

Stryfe recaptures Cyclops and Jean Grey. Cable, Havok, Polaris, and Cannonball track Stryfe to a building with a forcefield which only lets in folks with Summer's blood. Cyclops and Jean Grey are able to escape and also fight Stryfe. Cable knows only he can take out Stryfe, but it means taking himself out too. Why not? A portal opens, Cable and Stryfe enter, where we are to assume they meet their respective makers.

Cyclops has lost his son (Cable) again.Yawn.

There you have it! An explanation on the mathematics behind love would have been much more believable, not to mention simpler. Good luck to all who decide to read this thing, the vast size of the story could only be matched by its incomprehensibility.

Until next time, fellow travelers! Keep reading those comics!!!

 Professor O

4 Kids | Living In a Book

If you could be any character from any book, who would you be? Would you want to be Harry Potter? Perhaps you'd like to be the rebellious Pippi Longstocking from the books by Astrid Lindgren. Maybe you'd like to be Matilda from the book of the same name by Roald Dahl. Or maybe Charlie Bucket from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (another great book) by Roald Dahl.

There are so many great characters in books; it's hard to pick just one, isn't it?

But me? So glad you asked. I want to be Claudia. Claudia from The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg. C'mon...she spends several nights in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City! How cool would that be? The book starts off when Claudia and her little brother run away to the museum to teach their parents a lesson, but then they get wrapped up in uncovering the secrets of a beautiful statue they see at the Met. It's very exciting -- from beginning to end -- and it's definitely one of my favorite books ever. That's why I would like to be Claudia. 

So who would you be? Think about it. Post the name of the character you'd like to be in the comments below.  It's fun to think about...to imagine truly living in a book.

In the meantime, happy reading!

 

 

 

Just Life| Adventures of Tintin

I love Tintin. When I was a kid, I inherited a bunch of Tintin books from a friend of my dad. I felt so lucky to receive them.

So who is Tintin you might ask? He is the hero in the Adventures of Tintin book series.

He is a young reporter with funky yellow hair.  In each book, Tintin embarks on a new adventure. This kid has a knack for solving problems, fighting bandits and saving his friends. I am telling you, he is just that cool.


Tintin books are full of cool illustrations and funny conversations to keep your kid interested. 

Tintin is not alone in his adventures. He has his dog, Milou (Snowy in the English translation) and his good friend Captain Haddock in tow.

Captain Haddock is a blast. He swears a lot and he drinks a tiny bit too much, but he is my favorite character in the book. I think Captain Haddock is the reason why Tintin's books are shelved in the Teen area at Chavez.

 

Picture from us.tintin.com

Here are a few books from this serie that you can find in the library:

The adventures of Tintin. The blue lotus

The adventures of Tintin : Tintin in America

Prisoners of the sun (this one is one of my favorite)

I should introduce Tintin to my kid.  I hope she is going to like him as much as I do. 
 
Signing off until next Monday- Panteha