May 9, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Following Iron Man’s first weekend tally of a gazillion box-office bucks (seriously, something like $200+ million worldwide!), Marvel Studios announced that Iron Man 2 will premiere April 30, 2010. Great news to fans, albeit completely expected, but equally cool was the word that along with IM2, Marvel is producing four other films based on its comics heroes: Thor on June 2, 2010; The First Avenger: Captain America on May 6, 2011; quickly followed by The Avengers that July, and Ant Man, which is in development.

Captain America has been tackled several times before dating back to the old movie serials, and has gone through some terrible film incarnations, one worse than the next, so a Cap along the lines of a smart, loyal, A-list production like Iron Man would be cheered. I hate to say it, but, a...Read More

May 9, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Though we tapped NJ State Librarian Norma Blake as the Librarian of the Year back in January, four months later on April 25 she received a proclamation from NJ Governor Jon Corzine for winning our award. We’ve heard many times from past winners of both Librarian and Library of the Year that they’ve reaped the benefits of the recognition long after receiving the prizes.

It makes us very happy that the winners enjoy perpetual spoils of these awards, and hope that it encourages others to apply for them. Congrats to Susan for her latest accolade and to our past winners, Librarians and Libraries of the Year forever.

May 7, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Once again dipped into my Penguin pile and plucked out Ron Carson’s Five Skies. Terrific! It received a rave review last year, and I second the motion, a wonderful book. Interesting story and well-drawn characters. Definitely give this one a read.

It follows three men on hired to construct a ramp for a motorcycle stunt jump over an Idaho river. All three suffer from guilt stemming from their pasts. Living in a tent at the job’s location, the combination of hard work done well, bonding with other walking wounded, and seeing...Read More

May 5, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Don’t know if you saw our News story about ALA launching a Gaming Pavillion at the summer Annual in Anaheim (anybody else not looking forward to this city?). I was kinda surprised; it’s not like ALA to be that forward-thinking. It’s usually impossible to get them to do anything this sensible and progressive at one of their shows. If someone else was doing it and they stole the idea, that I could see (they’ve stolen plenty of ours over the years).

So I have to say, my hat is off to whoever came up with this.

May 2, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Comics fans, there’s a new sheriff in town and his name is Jon Favreau. Just got back from seeing Iron Man and it lived up to all my hopes. It really was a good as it looked and was fun, fun, fun from beginning to end. Great cast, story is a bit obvious and it could have been trimmed there and there, but although there’s FX galore, it’s used to compliment the story instead of replace it. Well handled overall and as good a first in a series (the end very much sets up a sequel as does an extra scene after the credits—DONT LEAVE) as the original Spidey or X-Men. Way darker than those two films though. I’ll be seeing this again.

Hulk, Hulk
Befor...Read More