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The Plot Thickens

The Plot Thickens

June 12, 2007 by Betsy Bird

Dear Diary,

Day One:

In the jungles of School Library Journal’s website our first day passed without incident.  Granted, there were some truly frightening incidents but my faithful IT guides got us through the worst of it in one piece.  I’ve already lost some dear friends along the way, I’m afraid.  Colonel Blogroll was the first to go.  Next went the brave Lady Sitemeter and her valet/lover/ballboy Technorati Jr.  And certainly we’ve seen no sign thus far of the elusive RSS Feed we came to find but I have faith that our quarry will be in our midst any day now.  For now, the rains have come.  I must leave you again.

Day Two:

The RSS Feed mocks me.  It has not appeared and I can’t imagine how much longer we can continue without it.  Sometimes at night when my dreams come again I can almost hear it snickering in the dark.  Mocking me.  We thought we were out of the worst of it, but certain factors have come to our attention.  A particularly vexing ad banner has been shadowing us for a day now.  It’s difficult to sleep knowing that that beast follows our every move.  Indeed, my guide has mentioned nothing of its presence, but I can feel its hot sticky breath on the back of my neck wherever it is I may go.  My companions have also drawn my attention to my appearance.  "What’s wrong with your neck?," they ask.  I feign ignorance, but there’s no denying that my neck looks odd these days.  Photographs taken of me (particularly photographs of the head shot variety) appear to show either my chin resting on an odd brassy hand or my neck swollen to great glandular proportions.  How do I tell people that in such photos I am, in fact, resting my head on the statue of a duck?  Perhaps something must be done.  Tonight, we feast upon some supportive comments and in the morning, the RSS Feed will be closer still.  I must teach myself patience and continue the hunt.

. . . . diary trails off here . . .

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Sometimes You Just Can’t Steal A Fellow Blogger’s Post

June 12, 2007 by Betsy Bird

Particularly when they’re better at reporting on something than you are.  Flee me and go read the Big A little a piece on England’s brand spanking new British Children’s Laureate.  I can’t imagine a person in the world who’d be displeased that the winner is (dum dum da dum!) Michael Rosen.  His Sad Book is a masterpiece while his We’re Going on a Bear Hunt saved my life during Preschool Story Time yesterday.  Talk about range, eh?

Why am I sad that I can’t post pictures on this site quite yet?  Because you can bet your sweet bippy I would have begun this post with the photograph found at the bottom of his website.  Scroll down until you see it and then tell me that wouldn’t have killed.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

I’m Not Entirely Certain That This is the Brightest of Ideas

June 12, 2007 by Betsy Bird

I’m as big a Harry Potter fan as the next guy, don’t get me wrong. But am I the only one who finds the whole Make Your Own Death Eater Mask part of the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix website a bit… gruesome? Kind of makes people play the part of Death Eaters, does it not? And do you really want to pretend to be a member of that particular organization with your very own one-of-a-kind mask? Icky icky ook.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

A Sketchy Character or Two

June 12, 2007 by Betsy Bird

Deep shame filters through my soul.  Shame based on the fact that because I fell down on the job you, gentle viewer, may have never seen the pen-and-ink wizardry of one Ruth McNally Barshaw.  Perhaps you never saw her remarkable encapsulation of the 2007 SCBWI Conference or knew that she penned Ellie McDoodle: Have Pen, Will Travel. I’ve been a fan of Ms. Barshaw for years via her great Sketches of Famous Authors. Yet it wasn’t until I read the recent Oz and Ends post What’s So Funny in Ellie McDoodle that I discovered that she’d drawn the Kidlit Drink Night held during that time. Jeez o’ marie, this woman has talent. Check out her fabulous (and eerily accurate) pics of such luminaries as Meghan McCarthy, Linda Sue Park, Cheryl Klein, Tim Bush, Rose Kent, J.L. Bell, Barry Goldblatt, and more.

And she visited the Donnell Central Children’s Room too! Hooray! Props to my co-workers! Props to Pooh!

Check out her blog for more info.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Fuse Gone Corporate

June 11, 2007 by Betsy Bird

Why, hello there.

Don’t mind me.  I’m just going to poke and prod around the place.  Get a feel for it.  Test the floors.  Check the locks.  Bounce about on the sofa cushions.  You know.  Really dig in.

Change is scary but this is a nice little place for A Fuse #8 Production and I’m sure we’ll all get used to it.  It occurs to me that perhaps there are some of you out there who don’t know me.  If not, howdy.  I’m the newest addition to the School Library Journal blogger circle.  Yep.  Just me Amy Bowllan, Brian Kenney, Chris Harris, and Diane Chen (who, without knowing about this move, wrote a rather nice piece that’s up right now regarding me blogo).  I’ve been blogging for some time through Blogger, but SLJ made me an offer I just couldn’t refuse and here I am.  All shipshape and sea worthy.  As it were.

Okay.  I can link.  That’s good.  My ability to post pictures will come in time.  What does this superscript button do?
Ah. It makes tiny words. Both up and down.  How odd.

I’ll be toying around with a lot of these features this week.  As I do, feel free to give me some tips.  As faithful readers will note, my blogroll is missing.  In time it’ll come.  Plus, eventually my past posts will migrate over to SLJ, but for the moment they are now sitting adrift at my now bereft old site.  Lackaday.

Fun stuff to note.  First of all, my name is misspelled as I write this.  I can’t change that at the moment, but I’m sure that when you read this it’ll be okey-dokey.  I never really understood why people feel the need to put a second "e" in "Betsy".  It must say something about a person.  A spelling Rorschach Test.  Second, you’ll note that my head keeps popping up.  A lot.  It’s a fun picture, granted.  I don’t know if you can tell, but I’m resting my chin on the head of the Ugly Duckling right in front of the Hans Christian Andersen statue in Central Park.  Figured I had to work in some kidlit somehow.  Don’t bother clicking on it, though.  It doesn’t get any bigger.

My spell check isn’t kicking in on this site either.  That’s not good as I have an atroshuss way with words.  Ha.

Aw, who am I kidding?  Let’s do some posts, just for the heck of it!  I’ll crank this puppy up to 100 and see how fast she’ll go.  WOO-HOO!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Jay Goes Walkabout

June 11, 2007 by Betsy Bird

So I’m in my library, minding my own business, and who should walk through the door but none other than newly minted fresh-as-a-daisy YA author Jay Asher!  Such a nice fellow.  I don’t usually note the nice guests to my library on my blog, but Jay has presented a fabulous encapsulation of the 4 Days & 4 Nights spent traipsing about the Big Apple.

There a nice little picture of Jay and myself in there.  What he fails to mention is that I was unable to give him a proper tour while he was there.  A class of sixty-some sixth graders literally entered the room ten seconds after I shook his hand and I had to conduct a Welcome to the Library presentation for them.  Sweet feller that he is, he gave me a lovely Disco Mermaids mug all the same. 

FYI, chickens.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

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