Rules:
1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).

Improving Online Public Access Catalogs, by Martha M. Yee and Sara Shatford Layne.

2. Open the book to page 123.

Got it. (Just missed that chapter bibliography, whew.)

3. Find the fifth sentence.

Got it.

4. Post the next three sentences.

Users may not expect to have to invert names in an online system, so a keyword search of personal names that does not require the words in the search to occur in a particular order is useful. However, it does mean that a search on Frederick Lewis will also retrieve Lewis Frederick. The best solution would be to use form fill-in for novice users, and inversion and commas for more experienced users, to get the user to identify the surname and forename elements of the name.

5. Tag five people.

Gee, is anyone left to be tagged? Anyone want another round?

Let’s try Jonathan, Kasia, Ironic Catholic, Kathy of Editor Mom, and Athanasius. Hope you’re surrounded by less abstruse works.

Even for those not directly involved, the effects of the shooting will endure. Pray for healing, and as best you can, pray also for the shooter, who is in the hands of God.

Events like these — (and how sad it is that I can actually write “events like these”!) underscore the benefits and burdens of electronic communication. Here in St. Blog’s Parish, and elsewhere, posts and messages blossom as soon as an event begins to unfold. Bits of eyewitness testimony mingle with rumor, offers of assistance, links to stories posted in a rush by news agencies correcting their stories on the fly.

Already, if you look at the comment spaces under the news stories, you see people second-guessing administrators’ decisions, speculating about terrorist connections, offering prayers and curses.

In a way, this interconnectivity makes more apparent a spiritual reality we tend to ignore. Scripture and the Catechism alike underline that, not only are we in the Church the one Body of Christ, but creation itself is affected by sin and redemption.

Paradoxically, these virtual worlds also promote alienation; without remembering that you are a real person of flesh & feeling reading these words, I can be flip, or biting, or focused on winning my argument rather than respecting you.

Oh, this is all repetition of things that have been said over and over. I suppose I think if I talk about it long enough, I’ll understand why.

Perhaps it’s best for me to stop now, and remember that the Church calls evil itself a mystery.

Just in time for a Lenten humility smackdown, our blog host has started dividing the active (which just barely includes me) and the inactive blogs, and adding little tags to the active blogs, like Cute! and Popular!

I’m not cute, or popular, or excellent. I’m just … here. Maybe a little too eclectic for a label to settle on, or maybe just … here.

Time to go back to my very first post and read it again, I guess.

[sniff]

I had my first comment spam. I feel oddly fulfilled.