my costume - here's a clue...

i'm a big fan of the 1985 movie clue, and what better place than a library to dress up as one of the classic characters. i'm dressed up for halloween as mrs. peacock, in the library with the lead pipe.

#9 - exploring feeds + a thrilling halloween

there was a lot of variety offered in the links of #9's exercise: some were news feeds that led me to some very current topics relating to local politics, while other links let me search blogs on a variety of topics. one of my favorite feeds was from the chronicle of higher education which lets you follow articles about campus architecture.

i use google's blog search alot when i want to find out about a recent event tha may not be covered in the mainstream media, like thrill the world, an annual worldwide attempt to get 200,000 people to simultaneously perform michael jackson's choreographed "thriller" dance. check out the video from this year's san francisco attempt, and then head over to thrilltheworld to start learning the dance and join next year's record:

#8 - RSS and Google Reader

i finally got around to creating my Google Reader account, and was surprised to learn that my friend's blog has 91 subscribers! wait till she hears! i also added boing boing, apartment therapy sf, and sfgirlbybay, some of my favorite daily addictions. i was pretty easy to get it started (a few wrong clicks, always follow directions!). i already have some rss feeds on my home computer, like nytimes and sfgate, but i'll have to think of something to add.

more of #7: fontifier & lifehacker

i havent' tried this yet, but i've been dying to for awhile. the site fontifier lets you create your own font based on your handwriting. just download a template and write in each character, scan it and upload and fontifier will generate a font for your. it costs $9 if you decide to keep it, but free to test. see these instruction from lifehacker (another great technology site i will give a shoutout right now).

if someone out there does please show me what the final product looks like!

[UPDATE: got a tip in the feedback about the free font generator at yourfonts.com - save yourself $9! thanks, my!]

#7 - blogging tech: instructables

i think that instructables counts as technology, so i'm going to blog on. this is a site that has used user created content to build a how-to database of a million DIY projects. whereas MAKE is a bit too technical for me, instructables breaks down projects in ways that anyone can understand. users upload images, detailed interactive instructions, and downloadable PDFs to help you do-it-yourself.

the range of projects is impressive, and although i think i can handle the homemade chai latte and the ipod to stereo hookup, other projects, like this DIY LCD projector, are totally beyond my techno-bilities.

more of #6 - map maker

there are way too many fun things to do on big huge labs, and i know i should move on already. i just needed to add a map from their Map Maker. apparently i need to do a little more traveling, though. here are all the states i have visited (Colorado shouldn't really count - it was a 30 minute layover). i've got to work on planning that cross county drive. my europe map is a little more impressive:


i browsed our own library shelves in the G-GA section (Library of Congress speak for geography and cartography section) and found a few titles worth checking out:

Geography and Maps: an Illustrated Guide
Cities of the World: a History in Maps

both of these books are filled with great examples of historical maps and the different ways maps are used.

#6 - flickr fun

i love maps, and flickr maps lets people geotag images and place them on a world map. try typing in your own zip code to see how other people see your world or explore someone else's.