Monday, April 11, 2011

No photos, but I need somewhere to vent

Bear with me. I can't get blogger to do the paragraphing I want. I promise it isn't one long run-on paragraph. . So I ran a lot of errands today. The one I was most excited about was our trip to the local library. I love the library and my children have learned to love the library and the kind librarians who are always ready to suggest a book or help out. There were always hundreds of choices and always more things we wanted than there was room in our library bag. . That was in Colorado. 'Tis not so, apparently, in Austin. The children's section was about the size of my big toe. There were five racks of children's books and about 50 kids' movies, most of the Anime (sp?). So please transfer that same criticism to the Adult section of the library. I went in looking for a "Bonnet movie" (read: some movie translation of Jane Austen) and there was nothing. Nada. Ziltch. What self-respecting library doesn't carry any Jane? . I asked at the front desk about online electronic options available in the district and gasp! They don't do electronic anything. What is this? 1990? . So I can check out from a limited selection of books; I can't check out the movies I want (or the kids would want), and I can't upload anything to my mp3 player. . We have fewer TV channels here in Austin than we did in Colorado, so I can't supplement a poor prime time line up with an episode or two of Criminal Minds. The pickin's are slim. . I have a pit in my stomach. After my children go to bed, how will I fill my time? Kraig works and works. I never see him. There are no free books. No free movies. No free TV. I think I might cry.

7 comments:

Brenny said...

So sad! I am so sorry! I think you can download things from my library online. I'd be happy to give you my log in, or even Stacy's log in -- she doesn't use her account that often. Seriously, I am so sad for you! Austin is huge. What is wrong that they don't have their libraries connected?

Ashley said...

The internet! You haven't finished the internet yet have you!?! Do you use hulu? It rocks in terms of free tv!

So sorry to hear this--what a major bummer! Is there another library within driving distance?

Robin Fisher said...

I was shocked when I got to El Paso and realized that *tiny* Clarksville had a better library than a city with almost a half million people. Just think--inter-library loans. They have saved my bacon on more than one occasion and no I don't totally hate our library. OH, and El Paso just got overdrive for ebooks and audio. I am sure Austin will catch the wave

Peay Family said...

I have to second your feelings, nothing compares to the libraries and library story times in Colorado. Oh how I miss them. Trying to sit through some of the toddler story times around here is pure misery. But, as a wife whose husband also works ALOT and who does not own a TV. I have found netflix to be a great comfort. We pay nine dollars a month and my kids can watch tons of episodes of their favorite shows on the computer without any commercials. Hooray for Word World! I also use it to watch my TV, Hulu is great too.

Christy said...

Ugghh. Bummer. That's a real shame.

Try these:

hulu.com
netflix (love the on demand feature. My sis and her hubby ditched cable to save money and they use my netflix account to stream episodes of Blues Clues and Sesame street, etc, as well as tons of movies)
--

(I would suggest navigating the following sans kids - the sites contain links to just about every TV show on television, (and sometimes movies too) which is great, but when you click links sometimes you also get undesirable pop ups as well... Ugh!)

surfthechannel.com
motionempire.com

Andrew and Lyndsey Richardson said...

I second the Netflix thing. It is absolutely awesome. We do the $9 and get 1 dvd at a time and unlimited instant viewing. So worth it. I am sorry to hear that the library situation is no good. I remember our library in Utah was just like that as well and we never went. Colorado rocks in terms of libraries. Hope you find another route soon.

Jon and Diana said...

NETFLIX. We just got it 2 months ago.. WE LOVE IT! My kids habla espanol now thanks to dora and diego. I couldn't be happier.