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Getting lots of nice LibriVox-related email lately!

From a fellow in Finland:

Thanks once more about the librivox, it is a amazing system and I have really enjoyed listening the books. MP3 books give totally new possibilities. And at the same it is also back to the basics or original story telling way like it was before the radio or TV

From a lady working in Qatar:

… I listen to the librivox stories at night when I’m trying to go to sleep. Night is when it’s worst — I lie there wishing I was home — and it’s nice to have something to get my mind off of it. I finished your “Secret Garden” a few days ago and I’m working through “A Little Princess.” Something about this place is making me want to regress to my childhood.

From a gentleman, aged 55:

I absolutely love Librivox and I can’t thank you all enough. I would like to download your books onto CDs so that I can play them on my CD player while I work.

From a lady:

This is such a great cause, I’ve had a stroke recently and cannot hold a book to read it, I can however, listen to audio CD’s.

From a father:

Thank you for your LibriVox recordings. My family has had many good hours of listening. We especially enjoyed your reading of ‘The Secret Garden’, but also have listened to ‘Swiss Family Robinson’, ‘Sherlock Holmes’.

I’ve always been a reader — but find listening proves helpful in getting through some books (like Moby Dick).

From a mother:

We live in Singapore, and wanted to let you know how much we have enjoyed… continue to enjoy…your recordings.

Our 6 year old, Jackie (Jackson) has listened to Our Island Story and some of the Baum books on Librivox.org, and, in fact, after a hard morning at outside play and Primary 1 (first grade) he loves to sit down on the floor, construct something (out of cardboard, leggos, etc) and listen to you read a story

From a lady:

I don’t know you but i listen a lot to the audio books you read. I live in
the netherlands. So i’am not very good in Englisch. But i listen every day
on the way to my work to story’s. So my english improved every day a little.
And i find it a lovely way to start a day. I like the little princes and i
just listen to the secret garden.

Thanks, everyone :)

(if i’ve quoted you and you’d prefer not to make your words public, let me know and I’ll take them down)

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I whipped up another pair of socks from the rest of the Marra. Four-round stripes, the misocrafty short-row heel, and, as an experiment, 8 stitches added evenly in one round before the heel and then taken away after:

I think they’re very cute with my Crocs:

And last night I started my Wavy Triangles Scarf while we were watching Rome:

I charted the pattern first:

It made me really happy to start working on this scarf because it reminded me of going with Christine to the Yarn store in Montreal! I skipped the fancy tubular cast-on because I tried it out and it’s icky, it stretches out but doesn’t stretch back which is bad thing for a scarf if you don’t want splayed ends.

Just woke up, gotta write this down before I forget, though I know there’s nothing worse than hearing about other people’s dreams.

We were in Canada, helping Hugh and Christine move. I went out to a little store, and there was a grizzled old man there, maybe 65-70. Somehow I found out that he was ApeLad (drawer of hoboes, monkeys, lolcats, etc. His work shows up on boingboing all the time). We talked for a while, and I got all giddy and excited because I had met ApeLad, and I ran back to the house to tell Hugh, because I knew he’d want to meet ApeLad, too. Hugh was out but Christine was ironing sheets, so I helped. There was an aquarium in the kitchen, and a miniature lynx was diving in and trying to eat the fish.

So random! Why on earth did I dream about ApeLad? I’ve never given him a thought before. Now I see that he’s on twitter… I wonder if I should friend him. I find it creepy when unknown people friend me… but he can always block me if it weirds him out.

What makes google so cool? Here’s a new service they’re working on:
http://labs.google.com/goog411/

I just used it to get the number of my local GameStop. It worked like a charm. The googlebot operator was helpful, polite, and spoke perfect English. He understood my request, and was willing to connect me to any one of 11 GameStop stores. As it turned out, the very first one was the nearest, and he connected me right away. For free. Chew on that, Phone Company!

Get your own Daemon at http://www.goldencompassmovie.com/!

Feeling a bit better this morning. Still sick, but definitely a bit better. Rockola posted a few photos from the Sgt. Pepper show! Here’s Henry playing keyboard in Penny Lane:

And here he is cueing the audience in Sgt. Pepper:

Yes, that’s a librivox t-shirt he’s wearing :)

it’s tuesday evening. i’ve been sick since the middle of sunday night. bob and chloe came over on sunday afternoon, which was great fun. introduced them to curb your enthusiasm. then sore throat struck in the middle of the night. sore throat is gone now, replaced by stuffy head, congested chest, general misery. bah.

Three more chapters for you:
06 – The Rise of the Franks
07 – Franks and Mohammedans
08 – Charlemagne

Bob Dylan is responsible for all the hit songs of the past 35 years. This video proves it!

It’s Saturday morning. Last night was Rockola‘s long-awaited performance of the entire Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, plus a set of other great Beatles songs. The show was fabulous. The 1,915-seat theater was pretty darn full, and the audience went absolutely NUTS for the show. I think 4 or 5 songs got standing ovations, and there was cheering and riotous applause for every song. Chloe and I sat in a box at the side, so it was easy for her to run backstage when necessary and also easy for Henry to run out from backstage and sit with us when he wasn’t performing or getting ready to perform.

The day leading up to the show was fairly stressful. I won’t go into details, but let’s say that that particular theater is not a happy place. Henry and I arrived about 2:30, and he was able to join in the rehearsal for most of his songs, and had a fine time listening to the band and playing with Celia. There were some orchestra kids that he enjoyed talking to, as well, especially the young fellow, about Henry’s age, who played the bells on Penny Lane and When I’m 64. I did small chores for the band and sat around and watched the kids, etc.

The show started a bit late, but I think that was a good thing because there were still people buying last-minute tickets and finding their seats right up until it started.

When the lights finally dimmed, the crowd went nuts. The band came on and the crowd went nuts again. They started with Revolution and it was a great choice to start with — super high energy, good hard rock. It really got the show off to a roaring start. Um.. highlights of the first set… Henry and Ceila danced during Ob-La-Di, which was the cutest thing ever. Henry played keyboard chords in Penny Lane. What else did they play… Strawberry Fields, Savoy Truffle (great big beefy horn parts played with gusto by the orchestra kids), Lady Madonna, a couple of earlier songs which rocked hard, etc. etc. I’ll probably think of more later.

Then there was a break, and then they came back on to do the Sgt. Pepper album. Henry and Celia held up “Applause” “Laugh” and “Cheer” signs during the first song to get the audience to provide those sound effects at the proper times. Henry NAILED the timing; I was very proud :) Everything went great. The audience just loved the harpist in She’s Leaving Home, and Celia’s big bass harmonica in Mister Kite. Henry’s Horse costume looked great when he came on to Dance the Waltz — he and Celia danced all around during that instrumental break, and there were a couple of other little girls with circusy outfits and streamers — it was a wonderful effect! The whole album went great, even the very difficult Within You Without You. For an encore they did The End, and Henry got to run on and play chords on his guitar and sing “LOVE YOU! LOVE YOU!” right into the mic. He was the happiest little boy in the whole world. He says doing the show was 99.99% fun, and the only un-fun part was being too hot in his Horse costume :) He even helped tear down the stage after the show before we left. He was very pleased to be able to help.

Thank you, Rockola! Rock on!

I’ve finished recording the Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling. As with all LibriVox audio books, you may download them for free, copy them, share them, whatever. Enjoy! I love these stories. I remember my sister reading them to me when I was very small. I confess that I’ve never liked The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo, but the rest are wonderful.

Podcast subscribers, I’ll be sending this one out after The Story of the Middle Ages is finished.