Week 2: RSS, Wikis, My Space, and Other Online Communities

Far better than a market stall is a peach tree heavily laden with fragrantly inviting fruit. I am not a fruitarian but neither will I ungraciously refuse nature's proffered menu. We munch messily and review our travels. As required in my flight instructions for Week 2, I have set up a roost at Google Reader, installing 5 blog feeds: Caveat Lector, The Goblin, Leaping Librarian, Librarian in Black, and Tame the Web. Then we doubled back to Bloglines, as I had promised Zhar, to drop these same "feeds" (what a satisfying term) into my library folder already packed with goodies. Browsing here saves me foraging. As thoughtfully suggested by our travel guide we visited her Bloglines roost, opening the Librarians & Library Related folder to excitedly discover A Wandering Eyre. "An avian's journal?" Sadly, no. Merely the peripatetic musings of a human librarian. Once again airborne Zhar asks, "Do you think I should sign up for a roost in MySpace such as Ann Arbor District Library created?" forgetting how many centuries ago he was a teenbird. "That would be like choosing a diet of pretty sugar-frosted confections, not at all good for an adult avian," I admonish, noticing my chest feathers have become sticky. "My Own Cafe isn't a bonbon." In fact, it isn't even the sort of cafe Zhar imagined it when he had proposed visiting to order a glass of tea. We agree that My Own Cafe was a treat while we eye a lovely fat bunch of grapes in this garden. Unfortunately the grape vine is guarded by a green macaw wearing a soldierly red feather headband, who upon sighting us shouts "Thieves! Police!" from his window post, immediately alerting two small spitz dogs armed with vicious barks. To our further discomfiture a black cat smirks from an adjacent window. Not the spot for more quiet conversation.