Year End Blog

Me and the Libary 

Last November I started becoming enthusiastic about the Libary but it was this year that I made that part of my persona. Here are some of the highlights of this journey:

The Libary is a community centre - embraces the library 

R. David Lankes(don't know how noteworthy he is) who wrote on Twitter: "Bad libraries build collections, good libraries build services, great libraries build communities. " this was reposted by the library. Before reading this I thought VR, Murder Mystery Night, Boardgame Afternoon, where just coincidences but afterwards it made me think "what if the Libary were not a Libary? (in the traditional sense) what if the Libary were a sort of community centre? Then all these things they have been running would not be coincidences but exactly what they should be doing! If the Libary is a community centre then no wonder I find it so thrilling! It the sort of thing I have been looking for". I then correctly predicted the Libary would run an event like FanFest(a Fandom Celebration) and what I thought then become the basis for my speech to the board.

My speech to the board 

My friend suggested that I give a speech to the board, since they normally only hear bad news from people, so I did. They loved it! We are given 10 minutes to present to the board and after 30 minutes(most of which was QnA) I said: "sorry I have to go to my club" and left! Also after my speech, they sent me this letter. A few weeks later I walked in and was enthusiastically called over by Staff member Beverly King(She and some other Staff were at the Board Speach) to Get my photo in the paper. 

Being featured 
I was featured in the Halton Hills Camera Club newsletter in which I talked about my desire to capture the buitey of the world through photography. 

A story about how much I have changed 

It's funny, I really have changed a lot, at the begging of the year I said on Facebook "... but don't worry physical books are not going anywhere anytime soon" and a Libary volunteer replied "The library is way more than a collection of books!" and I was thinking "ok, if you say so" but now if someone said the first thing to me I would say what She said, maybe followed by "but we must not forget the collection of books" 

Eunuastic Patron/Unofficial Volunteer 

A family member called me an "Unofficial Volunteer" after I told her about how I promote the library all the time! The name stuck and now "Enthusiastic Patron/Unofficial Volunteer" appears in my email signature when I email the library!

Converting others to "Libary" 

If you own a bookstore you have a wide variety of books that you can take home(at the price of not selling them) if you want.  So Tom of White Rabbit Books has little need of the Libary but I was able to convince him to get a Libary Card (mainly so he can borrow WiFi to Go) and have converted him to Libary(his words). 

Library Thrills 

They is an Instagram tag "#librarythrills" which the Libary(and sometimes other people) used to use. It inspired me to use it as an expression and now I  have a few "Libary Thrills" 3D bookmarks. They use a purple filament since that is the library's colour.  

Things I did this year 

Now I'll tell you some other highlights of the year, which may or may not involve the library. These are not really in any order, just the order I found/remembered them in. 

Clubs 

As usual I am still involved in many clubs. We did some monthly meetups a Nox Church where we performed improv. As is always the case, clubs and social event at the library are a great way to make new friends, which I did this year.

Winter Reading Challange 

read more here

VR

Here are all my VR experiences(2019 and other years), at the time of writing most of these took place in 2019. 

Escape Rooms 

I did a couple of these with my friends at the library, they are fun and like the Adventure games that I love.  

Improve at The Macking Box 

Read here



Fan Fest 

Basically "Libary Trhills" with another helping of "Libary Thrills" ontop! They were VR. boardgames. carnival events(like beanbag toss), Spiderman and Batman where they and I won a FanFic contest for this Sonic FanFic I wrote. 

3D Printing 

It takes a lot of time but you get custom 3D objects, so I love the result. More info about the Libary's 3D printer can be found here. 

The Fox 

Read about it here. 

Culture Days 

Read about it.

Scanned Newspaper Archives

During the year I found old newspaper clippings that I had saved and scanned them. They are now on Facebook and if you don't have Facebook contact me and I'll send you the ones that might interest you. I also found some others in the Newspaper Archives one of which I printed from Microfilm(Microslide?) and scanned in.

Pathfinder 

I got to play some Pathfinder this year and it was fun. Fyi I don't want to spread myself too thin(with other things) so I don't play anymore.

Year-End Photo 

The receipt is from a restaurant when I had my existing trip in Acton. 

New Years Resolution 

Because people might ask, my NYR is personal, something I only will talk to close friends about but it is a way I will improve myself. 

OTAM

I will be doing cool things next year but without the OTAM rules, it was fun writing this blog, so I will write about them here. The reason I am not doing OTAM is that it can be too restrictive .

Thank you for reading this and 

Happy New Year! 

OTAM Note

For October I don't think I did anything really "new" for both parts of OTAM, so I will either try and find 2 this month or discover something when doing my year in review.

Encore: The Missing Manual Chapter 2: Search

This info will be out of date for HHPL users on October 22nd, 2025.  

NOTE: This info could become outdated and I may not notice.

Got someone on library staff to compile some info about "Encore" searches. This first part talks about "Filters" you can find them on the right side after you do a search. The bottom part of this talks about "advanced search" and you will find the link to this under the search box on the right side. She got her info here, https://elmhurstpubliclibrary.org/encore-catalog/catalog-tips/, so you might want to check it out as well. Thanks, and enjoy! 

ENCORE SEARCHING GUIDE

Filters/Facets

Availability

• Limits search results to items on shelf in the library (both Georgetown and Acton), as well as online. It will also hide/eliminate items checked out by other patrons.

Found In

• You can choose only to see items that cover your search terms: in the title, subject, or author fields.

Format

• Limits to a specific format- e.g. Print, eBook, Large Print, Audiobook, DVD, and more.

Collection

• You can narrow your search results to items found in different collections: adult, children, Georgetown or Acton Branch.

Language

• Allows you to search for materials in English, or French (we do have some Spanish) depending your search.

Tag

• Allows you to look through specific keywords that you can use to browse through additional items in the collection. (e.g. if searching Margaret Atwood, you may see tags such as “women,” “misogyny,” “Canadian fiction”) which are all themes associated with Margaret Atwood books.

Publish Date

• Allows you to limit your results to a specific year. You can limit the range of publishing dates using Advanced Search.

Place

• You can limit your results to items that are about, take place in, or published in a specific location (city, state, country). The place usually comes from subject headings that are generated once you search for the item.

Related Searches

• The catalog offers additional items that are relevant to your search. It helps with consistency in organizing materials- e.g. if you search for ‘ghost’ you might not find all the relevant resources. But you might find the word ‘spirit’ under related searches to represent all related items with ‘ghost.’

Additional Suggestions

• Similar to tags
• Offer more keywords (helpful)

Advanced Searching

Advanced search helps you search across many fields at once. You can combine different requirements for your search.

• For example: You can look for the subject “Women” and format “Print” and language “French” and publication dates “2010-2019” all at once.

Boolean Searches and Why They Are Helpful

When you perform a regular search, such as “art” if you are books about art, you will get a wide range of hits. A Boolean search will be useful if you are looking for a specific type of art-or a specific artist or if you are not interested in books about a specific type of art.

Instead of just going through all the different art books, you can use the NOT operator to exclude specific types of art you do not want to see.

Helpful tip:

After running an initial search, you might get a lot of results that relate to the words you entered but you don’t actually find what you are looking for. By using Boolean operators, you can remove some of those results or add specific words.

For example, consider the art example I just gave: you see lots of art books, so you add +sculpture to see sculpture art. And if you want to remove results that have crafts, you can add –crafts. This will narrow your search.

WILDCARDS (advanced search technique)

• Used to represent one or more other characters
• Most commonly used one is the asterisk (*) typically used at the end of a root word (for example, searching for educat” would tell the database to look for all endings to that root- such as educate, educated, education, etc.
• A question mark (?) may be used to represent a single character. Useful when there are multiple different spellings of a word (for example, colo?r would give you results for both color and colour).

(Not all library databases use these wildcards, so I’m not sure if Georgetown does- you can try, but I didn’t have any luck).

She got here info here form this website and said I should include a link with what She typed up: 

https://elmhurstpubliclibrary.org/encore-catalog/catalog-tips/

Sonic Unleashed Review

Sonic Unleashed Review 

It's no secret that I love the Library but I also love Sonic so  today I am going to talk about Sonic Unleashed 

Story 

The world has been torn apart by forces more powerful than Dr.Eggman, Dark Gia, I never play Sonic games for the story, having said that cutscenes in the story in this game are enjoyable, even if the character "Chip" is  a bit annoying at times.  I'll get back to the story in a bit...

Sonic The Wearhog Gameplay(night) 

Yes, this is "a thing", at night Sonic becomes a "monster" with stretchy arms and legs which he does some challenging platforming. At night he also fights Dark Gia monsters and robots beat-em-up style complete with lots of optional and mandatory(against bosses)  quick time events :P. What do I think about this gameplay? It's not bad but it's not great, read the Boost Gameplay section to find out how this game shines!

Story continued... 

So it seems the story was constructed so that Sega could merge Sonic with the where hog gameplay with the boost gameplay and make it make sense.

Boost Gameplay(daytime) 

In the day Sonic is normal and you can experience the boost gameplay. It is 9/10 - 10/10, he moves fast like a car but is manoeuvrable like a fly. So you end up having to move quickly and puch the correct button to jump/dodge/homeing attack/stomp at the correct time. It can only be described as thrilling! 

Some people complain that modern Sonic has too many "rollcoster" parts where you don't really do much but I love these.

The daytime bosses are "on rails" segments where you have to find "the opening" and defeat the boss while dodging his attacks. (and maybe some other things).

These levels are great and I like to play them over and over again to collect secrets and get a better rank.(ranks in this game go S, A - E, a ranking system which I have adapted and use to rate other things)

Other gameplay 

Town exploration 

Regardless of the time of day, you get to explorer the towns in the game and it's fun to do so, it reminds me of Sonic Adventure. Some characters will give you quests, some of these allow you to play the same levels with some sort of alternative requirement and slight changes. (more enemies which you must beat within a time limit for example).

Other quests require you to travel the world to talk to people or gather things like tea or buying food*. Theses never feel old and sometimes townfolk will have new things to say if you talk to the later, even when you think they were not programmed with additional dialogue.

* With the rings, you end the level with.

To show how interesting townsfolk can be, there is a fortune teller that gives you(not Sonic) a personality quiz and then tells you what thinks of your(not Sonic's) personality. Another woman gives(Sonic or you) quizzes in each town you visit. You gain bonuses for doing some of these things but you get nothing for the personality quiz.

They are also a store where you can purchase extras such as music, cutscenes and concept art. These are also found lying around town and in the levels. You can also buy food to feed to you(Sonic)* or your friend Chip.

* Darn the fact that I mentioned the personality quiz testing your personality is throwing me off. 

The plane levels 
Daytime Sonic and his friend Tails take off in an aeroplane. The whole thing is then controlled by timed button pushes(well, you can hold R2 + L2 if you have been pushing the wrong buttons too fast and run low on energy). I don't like these but you only have to do them twice.

Sun/Moon medals 
You need these to proceed and they are sometimes hard to collect, this is especially annoying at the end of the game. I take a point off the total score due to how annoying it is to collect thes at the end of the game.

Chip's Challange Puzzle 
You get a PS3 trophy(and probably an Xbox 360 achievement) for finding foods that chip likes. Feed him enough of that type of food to get the "prize". If you feed him the wrong foods he gets angry at you and starts calling you(Sonic) names which are actually entertaining to see because of how childish Chip can be at times.

DLC 

Is not required to progress the story(they are not even Sun/Moon medals), the DLC gives new stages to play. I really like them even the ones where "troll" you with spikes you can't see until you approach them. (yes that sound like something made by lazy fans but I actually really enjoy them). 

The Wii/PS2 Version 

Has different(not worse) levels but is missing quite a bit of content(including full town* exploraston and whole citys) and I don't recommend it if you have a PS3 or 360. They also are more night levels on Wii and they are not as fun. 

* You get 2D "slides" you can do a minimum of interaction with on Wii/PS2. 

Graphics 

Are really nice, it's a nice change to see cartoony graphics over the realistic graphics we often see on modern hardware.  

I've heard the Xbox 360 version has a steady 30 FPS. The PS3 version can go up too 60 FPS but frame dips bellow 30 FPS are common on some levels with few making it too 60 FPS. The gameplay is enjoyable in spite of this. 

Sound/Music 

Sound is wonderful and the surround sound is excellent, music is upbeat and fun. 

Overall 

But is it fun? That's what matters. I give the wherehog 7.0/10 and Boost 10/10, I take off points for the "Sun/Moon medals" thing, so that puts things around the middle of 7.0 and 9.0 at 8/10, I highly recommend it! 

OTAM September

Thrill - Culture Days was my thrill of this month. It was a 3-day celebration of culture. Not all of these events where "thrills" but it was thrilling to do so many interesting things. I participated in the following activities:

• Board Game Night - Boardgame events are back at the library! They are always some interesting games to play. This last time I played Sushi Go, Exploding Kittens, Dominion, and the library's 3D printed chess set, all of which I recommend. If you want to know about a game I list here, please contact me. Boardgames are often "thrilling" and so was this event! 
• Community Story - They where two community stories one in Acton and one in Georgetown,  both of which turned out interesting. (people could add a sentence). I added myself to the story and it was fun. 
•  Lucy Maud Montgomery - My friend from Georgetown Little Theatre showed up as her and had an Ann Of Green Gable's hat that people could wear. 
• Tours of Acton - I went down to Acton for lots of things including a couple of tours. I saw some of Acton's old buildings and on my tour of Acton Town Hall saw things like the jail(hate to be stuck in there) and a ballroom, it has a purposely squickly floor so it's easier on dancer's legs. 
• Meditation - Chantal Garneau guided us through meditation, no Muse Headset at this event but some helpful tips and techniques. For one thing, you can feel a lot calmer just by doing deep breaths three times! 
• VR Expeditions - I wrote about this here. (bottom of the page) 

It was also thrilling that the last 3 here were all down in Acton and I was there on my own for quite a bit, so it was a great adventure!

Tech -I decided to get a trial of Windows Server 2019 to get some experience with that product for future jobs. Will update you on this blog with what I learned.

OTAM Aguest

So here is the thrill/tech thing for last month:

THRILL - I was on a nature walk near where I live and I saw a fox stare down a squeal, the two of look at each other for a long time. The squirrel was an on a branch outside of the fox's reach. The fox then seemed to go away the squeal sqauled and then we saw the fox come back with something in it's mealth it had caught another squeal that was in the area. We then watch it walk away with its prey in it's mealth. The fox was very cute and the whole thing felt like something out of David Attenborough.

BONUS - It does not count but my final time at VR for the summer was very thrilling.I did "Level Insane" in Beat Saber which involves a lot of dodging and rapid movement, very fun!

Teach - Nothing yesterday but today I decided to get a trail of Windows Server 2019 to try out in a Virtual Machine, this will provide me with experience with that server environment that hopefully, I can use on the job.

OTAM July

The thrilling thing I did this month was being in and watching the Georgetown Little Improv Club tournament. I and my partner Ro had a really great time and I think the audience loved it. I love Improv!

If you're not in IT, all you have to know is written in blue. he best "tech" thing I did was play around with Hyper-V virtual machines. It was is "clunky" compared to the VirtualBox I am used to but still useful. Virtualisation is popular in some sectors of IT and learning new ways to do that can be useful. 

OTAM June

Here is the thrilling and technical thing I did for June:

Thrill - I took a 3D Printer course and am now 3D Printer certified so whenever they work out the pricing model I can print 3D stuff. They let me take home a sample "HHPL" bookmark and "HHPL" magnet. (magnet sized plastic they glued a magnet too). If you want to become certified, course times are available here. A Library card is needed to print. (Their free*! ) If you don't live in-town a lot of libraries are now getting them.  Also the library uses echo-friendly plastic which is cool.

Teach - I took an online course that taught me the basics of the Python programming language. It was meant for people who know Java.  This was provided through Linda.com and access is provided free if you Have a library card.

* In a lot of cases.

UPDATE: I printed a DND model for my character. She is a Librarian but the model is a different species.

Click on it to expand it. 

OTAM May

If you forgot the formula or are new, read this. This time I say this is "different enough" from normal GLIC stuff that it counts...

Thrill - The thrill was the library's... nope not this time! Actually this time I went to The Making Box. They do improv training, shows and workplace coaching. My improv club was headlining a show(but I was not part of this show), I went to a class while members of my club went to dinner.(I ate at home) It was very fun as improve usually is for me. I played some fun games including one of my new favourites Dr.know-it-all! Dr.Know-it-all is a three-headed monster with a person playing each head. He speaks one head at a time and of course, you have to try and make complete sentences. A fourth person plays the interviewer who asks him questions, usually, he is an expert on something like an animal.

Before playing Dr.Know-it-all, we did an interesting warm-up exercise, when you fail everyone claps and you get rewarded. Again, you get rewarded FOR FAILING! The point is to remind you the failure is acceptable and often funny in improv. 

After the class, I saw a show there. It had a lot of audience interaction and people from the audience could go on stage again. By random chance of a draw, I got to play in Dr.Know-it-all AGAIN! I even made a callback to the class that only the attendees understood. The whole show had a very charged atmosphere and my only complaint was the sound was a little high. They were also long-from improv(more like a play) and people's names were drawn for that too.

GLIC headlined the show with some very good long-form improv. As a bonus, Ro and I found there was an escape room place right across the street! We will be heading back some time to check that out!

But you can't "escape" the library and one of the people who attended the course was a children's librarian, who loved it and wanted to run something like it as his library(he did not say what library is his). Also, the two members of Making Box staff have the same first names as a couple of members of library staff that I knew at the time.

Overall, a very fun evening for sure!

Teach - I could not find a project for this month :(.

BONUS - I attended a super awesome library program in which I did carnival games, VR, played board games, a scanver hunt and more things, I've commented on photos the library posted Here. I also wrote This FanFic and one a bunch of stuff cause of it.

Historical Escape Room Review

Now that the library will be running a new "Adult and Teen Escape Room" I can review the Historical Escape room that I and Ro did last year!

The story was something like: The Haunted Hills Historical Society left a tomb of the first librarian open and if you can't solve the puzzles in time her ghost will be doomed to haunt the library FOREVER! I know it was going to be good when the story was available online and includes the "terrible" pun "Haunted Hills Historical Society" LOL.

Honestly, the entire experience was really excellent, we said 10/10 at the time. It honestly felt like I was in one of my adventure games but in real life! There was even music playing! The whole thing took place in the historical room and a lot of the puzzles were themed around this.

Even though they probably won't be doing the same Escape Room in the future they do seem to sometimes reuse good puzzle ideas, so I won't spoil anything about puzzles.

Overall I and Ro had a blast, the upcoming one involves a strange virus spreading across Halton Hills and you have to stop it! I won't be able to tell you about it, till after they change again but based on my experience with the last one, I suggest you try it. The library also has a family Escape Room but it sounds like it's for a younger audience.

Ro, if you want to add your thoughts, feel free to email me.

Stay tuned cause OTAM will be here at the end of the week!

UPDATE: I've done the new Escape Room! It was designed by the same person as the first and was as good as the first! This second one is probably more fun cause there is more story.

UPDATE-Dec-2019: They seem to be doing lots of new Escape Rooms but I don't feel like reviewing any of them when they retire since I feel the experience is similar to what I wrote about here.

How easily can I get X from the library?

The info on this page is out of date. Email me if you want me to update it.

I thought it would be fun to talk about my experience borrowing things from the library, that is what I can find, what I can't and how long it takes to get a hold of.

New items - "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald" is at the library but if you want it, put it on hold and be prepared to wait many months, this is because the movie was just released and it's in "high demand". 

Low demand items - The library has some old computer software, some of this stuff does not run on new computers but they keep it anyway. If you follow that link you see that some of this stuff is "missing", basically nobody has touched it in years and I theorise that someone forgot to remove it from the catalogue. I borrow this stuff, when not missing, from time to time cause, I like to play with older hardware. 

Popular items - Older popular items are often easily available, most people that want a copy to have them, so they are not hard to get a hold of. 

Boardgames - It seems to be hit or miss whether or not these are available. Keep in mind that the library only got boardgames as a borrowable item recently. 

Seed Libbary - I don't have a green thumb so I have not tried the "Seed Libary", Here is info on how that works.

Video games - At this time, they are normally available. I remember when they first got them, they were large wait lists for every game.

Other weird things - Things like the "iPad" and "Wifi To Go" have their own rules.

Things stuck in Acton/Georgetown - Sadly sometimes I have had things get "stuck" in Acton. I put a hold on them but they don't come in. If you're at the top of the queue(the catalogue writes this something like "position 1 of 1"), the best way to fix this is just, cancel the hold and place it again. If you are not at the top, cancelling the hold means you lose your place. In that case, you should contact the library and get them to sort it out. (not sure the best way to do that, you MAY have to go into your branch).

Thanks for reading this, if you found it useful, please let me know and I'll add it to my Q&A.

Sonic FanFic: Sonic In Labyrinthine Library Zone

Tomorrow(May 11th, 2019) is FanFest and there was a FanFic contest. I won a prize(for what and what it is I don't know at the time of writing). Since it's been judged  I can post my story here(note, had to change some of the large fonts, they look correct in the docuement I submited. ):

Sonic In Labyrinth Library Zone

Sonic was relaxing on the green hills of Green Hill Zone, a chilli dog resting on his belly. It was a peaceful day and a nice change from all the saving the world he had done lately. Suddenly, a gust of wind blew the dog off his chest and he sprung to his feet and chased after it, easily snatching it out the air before it landed. Then he saw Tails coming towards him. Tails was running as fast as he could, which was slow from Sonic’s perspective. Sonic decided not to wait and boosted towards Tails, carrying the chilli dog in hand. Sonic could see Tails was carrying Miles Electric.

“What’s up?” asked Sonic. Tails showed Sonic the computer and replied, “I hacked Eggman’s satellite and he has discovered an ancient library which he intends to visit soon. He thinks it contains knowledge of something more powerful than Chaos Emeralds and the Phantom Ruby. Also, if Eggman has been there before, it could have been where he learned about Dark Gaia and Chaos!” Sonic replied, “You had me at the first part; let's go!” and he swallowed the dog in one bite and ran off into the distance. Tails then yelled, “Wait, I forgot to tell you where to go!” (He was not worried; he would use the radio Sonic always carries on him, which is kept in whatever unknown location he stores his Rings.)

Labyrinth 

Library Zone

Sonic was in a cave. It was dark, but lit well enough that he could see. In front of him was a locked door and to the left there were some purple, glowing mushrooms of different sizes, some bigger than him. There was also some slime on the ground that looked like it came from the mushrooms. He jumped on the bigger ones, bogome! Bogome! Bogome! They were super-bouncy and he jumped from one to the other till he came to a boarded-up window, which he did a Homing Attack through.

 

He landed in the middle of the stacks (bookshelves) of an abandoned library. The whole area had working lights. He quickly ran forward and collected some white Wisps and Rings, without paying attention to it. Books and spiderwebs covered the shelves and it looked like nobody had been here for a while. The aisles curved, split, and moved in ways that were rather confusing like a maze. 

 

He soon ran into some Egg Pawns with business casual clothes painted on them. They were throwing library cards at Sonic. It seems Eggman had got here first! Sonic continued to run and started boosting occasionally. He dodged library cards and Egg Pawns alike as he ran. As he did this, Cubot spoke over the P.A. He talked in a sophisticated voice and said, “Welcome to the library. We have over 1,000,000 books. Reading them will make you smarter than...” Thump! “Someone fix his voice chip; nobody is smarter than me!” interrupted Eggman! 

 

Sonic then came to a door with a series of locks on it. It looked like one could open the locks by solving some very hard puzzles. Tails had given him a small camera that Sonic could use to get assistance. He took it out and pointed at the door and took a picture. Tails said over the radio, “This will take me a while to figure out.” Sonic replied, “That’s something I don’t think we have!” He then put away the camera and ran around the corner and saw a Wisp Capsule with a Wisp that he had never seen before. It was brown and looked like a book with eyes on it. He picked it up – bwoop! He decided to use it right away!

BOOK!

 

 

 

 

As is usual with Wisps, Sonic took the form of the Wisp. He then hovered around the stacks in his area and brown energy entered him from the books on the shelf. The Wisp form was absorbing the knowledge of the books! He then hovered to the door and a beam of energy hit the door, quickly solving the puzzles, and the door slid open. The wisp expired, so Sonic reverted back to his usual form.

Sonic moved on to more maze-like hallways filled with more Badnicks, Rings, some other traps, and Gimmicks. 

 

As he was running through, Tails said over the radio, “Did I detect the energy of a new Wisp?” Sonic just managed to dodge a library card being thrown at him. Then he jumped over some spikes and landed on a spring, which bounced him up. “Yeah I learned all the contents of the books and used them to solve the puzzle on the door!” he said as this was happening. 

 

He then homing attacked a flying, book-shaped Badnick and landed amongst the stacks again and kept running. He then ran into some dash pads and ducked under spikes on a bar right in time! As he did this, he said, “Funny thing is, I don’t remember anything I learned in the books since the Wisp wore off.” A door was coming up and this was a good place to stop for a bit.

Sonic Got Through 

The Act!

S Rank!

 

Sonic did not bother to read what was written on the door. If he had, he would have noticed that it said “archives”. Sonic had run through glass before with no problem, so he homing attacked through it, but there were spikes on the other side and these hurt him, causing him to lose ALL his Rings!

 

 

It was dark and damp here. Sonic had to take a moment for his eyes to adjust. As he looked around, he noticed he was in a small room with lots of stuff on shelves. He felt vulnerable when he realized there was no other exit, and that, without his Rings, he could not survive to jump back the way he came! He thought This is a good place for an amb… and then, Crash!

 

 

A mech had come crashing through the underground ceiling! The head was the usual Egg Mobile, but with glass completely around it. The left hand was a baseball mitt; the right was a gun with a slot on it. The whole thing was covered in purple slime that looked similar to the slime, by the mushrooms that Sonic saw earlier. It had rocket engines and no legs and was flying in front of Sonic.

 

Eggman spoke, but Sonic could not hear him since the new glass around the Egg Mobile was too thick. Sonic pointed at his lips and Eggman understood and, while feeling embarrassed, pushed a button. Speakers somewhere on the mech projected the doctor’s voice.

 

 

 “Thank you for checking out our library, I hope you come back soon! Maybe next time you can book a study room!” Sonic waved his hand in front of his nose like something smelled. “Those puns really stink; you should leave the wit to someone who is actually witty!” Eggman responded “Puns or no puns, your journey ends here! The Egg Dragoon Mark III will make sure of that! Oh, and since your going to die, I might as well tell you, I let Tails hack my sattelite to lure you here and defeat you! I’ve cleaned this old library of information a long time ago!” Before making a run for Eggman, Sonic made one final remark: “Thanks! For telling me that, now I can safely have some of my friends destroy your base when I am done with you!”

Egg Dragoon

Mk. III

Model# 1380

Sonic ran at Eggman but Bogome! Sonic bounced off of him. He tried a homing attack, but Bogome! That bounced off too! Eggman shot library cards from the slot in his mech’s right arm. As Sonic was dodging them with no Rings, Tails’ voice came over the radio.“It seems the mech’s amour was coated in a ground up, powdery substance from mushrooms and other moulds. It’s causing a chemical reaction that is making the mech bouncy.” VROOOOOOOOM! The Tornado flew overhead as Sonic kept dodging cards. Tails then continued, “I will scan it and see if I can think of a weakness!” 

 

Eggman flew over to the shelf and picked up stuff with the glove. He threw them at Sonic, who dodged them. Sonic noticed one of them was a Ring Capsule; some others were books. He took the Capsule and now had 20 Rings. Without thinking about it, Eggman threw a book Wisp Capsule at Sonic, who jumped at it. This activated it!

BOOK!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sonic, in Wisp form, “sucked up” the knowledge of some of the books thrown at him. Then he shot the brown energy at the mech, thanks to the knowledge in one or more of the books and the Hyper-go-on engergy of the Wisps. It was enough to remove all the slime from the mech, revealing a bright red paint job underneath. The Wisp expired once again, causing Sonic to revert. He then homing attacked the books he used to form basic stairs. He jumped from there onto the mech. He bounced off, it but this time, it flashed white for a sec. He had done damage to it!

Eggman yelled with anger and pounded a button and more slime came from the hinges of the mech. Pleck! Since Sonic did not remember what he read and did not have any Hyper-go-on energy, he was powerless. Eggman began throwing things again and a message was heard over the PA. It was a pre-recorded message from Eggman: “Users who break library property will be killed and then have their cards taken away from them, in that order!” “Quiet, you!” yelled Eggman at his recording. Because of his anger, he picked up another book Wisp and threw it. Sonic used it as he did before.

BOOK!

 

 

 

 

 

Book Sonic flew over to the books he had read before, but Eggman was ready and shot cards at him. Sonic was hit and was too slow in this form to reclaim his lost Rings! He only had one more shot at this! A card came at him. He dodged, was shot, dodged, and finally shot Eggman with the beam once more to remove the slime off the mech. The Wisp expired, reverting him. He then ran to the books to attack the mech, but Eggman was ready! He shot Sonic, who suddenly realized he could homing attack the card, and so he did, and this negated the attack. He then homing attacked the mech and it caught fire!

Egg Dragoon 

Mk.

III defeated!

S Rank! 

 

 

“I’ll defeat you anytime no matter what you throw at me!” yelled Sonic enthusiastically. “Err… next time I’ll remove the Wisps and beat you for sure!” yelled Eggman as he detached the Egg Mobile (not on fire) from the mech body. 

 

Nobody heard him cause of the glass again. He was about to be completely gone from the room when he came back and pushed a button revealing the normal amount of glass for the Egg Mobile. “What I said was OH! forget it!” and he flew away!”

A few days later, after defeating all of Eggman’s mechs in the library…

Knuckles angrily asked Tails and Sonic, “So how long am I going to be stuck guarding this place?” Tails replied, “Well, this book I found there tells me how to make my own guard mech. I should be done in a few days. It is definitely worth keeping a working library rather than destroying it.” Tails then asked. “So, did anything there make you reconsider getting a library card? Green Hill Library is very nice and has all kinds of services!” 

 

Sonic replied “Nah, I don’t have time for libraries! I gotta run!” and he ran off! Tails had hoped that, for just a moment, he might have been able to forge a new connection with his best friend! As he watched his friend run into the sunset, he thought “Sonic will probably never get a card and that is who he is. 

 

I should be happy that he is happy doing what works for him!” and Tails watched his friend running, just running as he always does! This time into the sunset!

The reader of the story now gets an “End” Wisp and activates it!

END!

Interesting DS Software

The Nintendo DS(a game console) also had some interesting software, a will talk about two of them here:

Just In Time Translations - Released in 2009 and now useless due to smartphones "Just In Time Translations" is what it says it is, you can hear and see how to say phrases like "Help!" and "Do you speak English?" in 7 different languages(English is one of them). The DS has no Regional Lockout so this would be useful for travelling. Sillyleah, they are a couple of romantic phrases as well. Disappointingly I can't find one mention of the word 'library' or 'museum' once, both of which may offer services for English speakers. They are also a basic calculator, some measurement converter and a currency converter. The former does not use the internet so it's only approximately accurate. It gets good reviews on Amazon although I only speak English so I have no clue how accurate the translations are. To be complete there is also a quiz game to help you memorize the translations.

Americ's Test Kitchen Lets Get Cooking - This is another odd one, it's a cookbook but also has a cooking advice section there are some voice clips that read some of the text to you and video clips of chefs in the real world(as opposed to CG ones). Before everyone had DVD players and YouTube it was a treat to see live actors on your computer and in old software is still is for me today. (because of the history associated with it). The DS can't play YouTube(as far as I know) and it can't play DVDs either, so seeing chefs on my DS is cool!
P.S. It uses the clock in your DS to great you differently depending on what time it is.

I have these for 3 weeks and if I have more to say about these software titles, I'll add it here and let you know.

OTAM April

Thrill: 
The thrilling thing I did in April was Giving my speech to the board! It was really fun to say and everyone was happy to hear it! They loved it enough to send me This letter! Also, I was in the paper. I happened to be at the library when a member of staff (who was there for the speech), enthusiastically waved me over to have my photo taken, making it even more thrilling that I gave the speech!

Lastly, I said this on Facebook but this is a good place to add it:

" When you give negative feedback you say several sentences(sometimes 5 or 6) but when you have positive feedback you generally say "thank you" and walk away, think about it! ", This is one of the reasons I gave my speech.

Tech: 
I almost did not have one but then I remembered. I went to a repair café(guess where!*) to try and get something repaired. I had the opportunity to talk to some IT guys and give out some business cards. It's a good thing I always keep some in my satchel! :)(hopefully, something will come of this)

* Sidenote: Enough is enough, my library is making this TOO easy! (just kidding ;))

Letter from the library board

So I got a letter(yes like in the mail :)) from the library board today. It looked like this:



Oh and I did not write on it, that's the way it came!  Click on it to make it bigger.

Libary Catalog Missing Manual Chapter 1:things along the side

This info is now out of date for HHPL users, if the new system does not have end user documentation and there is enough interest amonst friends I'll make a new one of these.

 
There is no manual for my libraries catalogue web app(maybe yours does not have one either), I don't mean I can't find it, I asked and they told me that, they don't have one. (well they probably is one for staff to view but not patrons). I thought I MIGHT write some documentation here from time to time, will start with this random article and see how it goes.

You will see this on the right when you log in but what does it mean? 

"Checkouts" should be rather self-explanatory, you can renew your items from there and see what dues and when, useful.  

"Holds" shows a list of holds you can cancel or freeze. Freezing a hold allows you to keep your hold(it probably puts you to the end of the line) but it will never come in for you. This sounds like a bad thing but this ensures you holds don't come in when you go on vacation. AFAIK it can not be done if something is on the hold shelf.  Also, it does not say this on the website but you can only have 50 holds. (not sure if eBooks count towards this) 

My eBooks - that is self-explanatory.

Fines/fees - You can see your fees, as you can see I have none! :) You can also pay larger fees($5.00?) off online. This is great for us enthusiastic patrons, who don't want the staff to know when we have late fees! 

Programs-  - The library is/or maybe has phased out needing a library card to partake in programs, so this page may always be blank. Removed since they don't use that feature anymore but they did when I took this screenshot. 

My lists - This video explains list much better then I can.  The video has been removed and will be remade on Facebook for later this year.

In the meantime, I will say this, lists are useful for tracking items in the catalogue.
I have a list of all the "missing" items(since you can't place a hold on these). Making a list is not easy since the button is only accessible* from an unlikely place. (From the "Libary Bag" screen which is found in "adding items" beside each item). If have questions about this please let me know and I'll try and make my explanation better.

* I've asked the staff and they confirmed that this odd location is the only place to make lists form, odd as it is.

Messages -Staff sometimes leave you messages here. They keep turning this fracture on and off.

My reviews - you can make reviews but that's a whole other topic, let me know if you want me to talk about that. 

I hope you found this useful. If you liked it let me know maybe I'll do more.