Next Wii date: September 6

Just a reminder that the next Wii tournament date is September 6 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Balkansky room. This will be the final Manitowoc competition before our system championship on October 4 against the top players from Two Rivers, Brillion, Chilton, Kiel and New Holstein. By the end of the day on Friday, we will crown our top players for each of the five games. Those players will then move on to vie for the system title and a chance to go head-to-head with the champions from the Oshkosh, Sheboygan and Racine library systems in November.

Final Battle team meeting on Wednesday, 2 p.m.

We will have one more team meeting before next week's Battle of the Books at Silver Lake College. We will get together on Wednesday, August 27 in the Quiet Study Room at 2 p.m. WE will divide up in to teams and do a mock battle to get a feel of the format.

This will be the last chance we will have to get together. If you are signed up but haven't been able to make any of the meetings, you can still take part in the actual battle on September 3.

Music Spotlight: Death Cab's new album

Artist: Death Cab for Cutie
Album: Narrow Stairs

I know I have already posted on death Cab before, but their new release merits some attention. Narrow Stairs is their best offering to date and shows that it is possible for a band to grow and change without drastically getting away from their previous efforts. While not a perfect album by any means, it is one that show the band is getting better.

Narrow Stairs is a mix of solid singles and more experimental tracks that blend together to create a cohesive sound. Tracks like "You Could Do Better Than Me" and "Grapevine Fires" have that same Death Cab sound from Transatlanticism. Otherwise it is a mix of light tunes like "No Sunlight" and dark, like the stalker-themed "I Will Possess Your Heart". In fact, it is tracks like the latter, including "Cath" and "The Ice is Getting Thinner" that really pushes Death Cab away from their past songs down a more ominous feel. That said, they still turn out songs that stick in your head long after the music stops ("Talking Bird").

Overall, Narrow Stairs is must-listen material for Death Cab fans and something worth checking out for everyone else.

Narrow Stairs is located in the Rock Music section: MR Death

More Battle meetings Wednesday, Friday

The Battle of the Books team will be getting together two more times this week to prep for the upcoming event on September 3. We will gather at 2:30 p.m. on both Wednesday and Friday in the Quiet Study Room for about an hour. Team members are not required to attend all meetings.

Good Reads - Death Note

Title: Death Note

Author: Tsugumi Ohba

While graphic novels in general and manga in particular get a bad rap for being kiddie books, Death Note is anything but. This 12-book series follows Light, a high school student in Japan who is preparing for college. He discovers a notebook called a Death Note, which enables to finder to kill anyone that has their name written in it. Light decides to use the Death Note to purge the world of evil criminals and make the world better, so he begins to use the book to make his plan a reality. Soon, the police begin investigating the deaths and bring in their top detective, a man known only as L. As the story moves along, the tension increases as Light and L try to outwit each other – L trying to catch Light; Light trying to kill L.

Death Note is a complex story, full of twists and turns that keep you turning the page to find out what happens next. Things move quickly and call on Japanese mythology to tell the story, relying on shinigami (gods of death) as key figures who set things in motion and get directly involved in the action. Obviously, with a premise based on a book that kills people, there is no shortage of character deaths and quite a bit of moral ambiguity towards killing, so this in not a kiddie book by any means. Despite being in a graphic format, Death Note best suited for more mature teens.

Death Note vol. 1-12 are located in YA non-fiction: 741.5973 Ohba

Good Reads - Born to Rock

Title: Born to Rock

Author: Gordon Korman

Leo is a top student who is lined up for a scholarship at Harvard. Just as things seem to be taking off for him, things start to go wrong, including an accusation that he helped another student cheat on a test, which costs him his scholarship. Amidst this trouble, Leo uncovers that his biological father is best known to the world as King Maggot, the controversial front man for the popular punk band Purge. Seeing his link to King Maggot as the source for all his problems, Leo sets out to meet his father and have him put up the money for Harvard. To do this, he becomes a stagehand for Purge during their reunion tour, an experience that puts him totally out of his element.

While nothing deep or complex, Born to Rock is simply a fun read. Korman creates believable characters and relationships while keeping things entertaining from beginning to end.

Born to Rock is located in YA Fiction: YA Korman

Music Spotlight: Duffy

It's been a while since I cranked out any book movie suggestions, so I will try and get at least a few of each over the next few days.

Artist: Duffy
Album: Rockferry

Rockferry is the debut offering from Welsh singer Duffy that landed her at the top spot on the British charts. Providing a mix of classic 60’s sound with a strong blues undercurrent, Rockferry is a solid offering that shows a great deal of promise for the 23-year-old singer. Things kick-off with the title track, a bit of a slow-burn blues song on which Duffy’s voice shows a strong emotional element. Warwick Avenue follows with a similar format, though it begins to pick up the pace of the album, leading into more up-tempo tracks like Serious. It is on tracks like Syrup and Honey and Distant Dreamer that Duffy’s vocals really stand out and make you take notice.

Overall, Rockferry is an impressive debut album that could be signs of great things to come from Duffy. Even if it isn’t, she has at least put forth a good set of tracks that bring forth comparisons to greats like Dusty Springfield.

Rockferry is located in the rock music collection: MR Duffy

Next Battle meeting Wednesday at 3 p.m.

The Battle of the Books team will meet twice this week: Wednesday, August 13 and Friday, August 15, both days at 3 p.m. in the Quiet Study Room. We will try another set of sample questions as well as some other things to help get ready for the September 3rd battle.

Updated Wii Tournament Results

The August edition of the Wii tournament took place on Friday and some shifting has occurred on the MPL leader board. The most drastic change is Sam's surge to the front of the Smash Brothers scoreboard, collecting 17 (!) points on his way to two championships. Bryce falls into a tie in second with Daniel while Ezra makes his presence known with a 15 point surge to push into third. The only other significant change is Danny's move into first on the tennis leader board.

Just a reminder of the scoring: DDR and Guitar Hero are based on the top individual song scores by each player. Bowling is a combination of the top two games bowled by each player. Tennis and Smash Bros. are head-to-head tournaments where a victory in each round earns points (1st round=1 point, 2nd round=2 points, etc.).

August Leader boards:

Dance, Dance Revolution
Kara Foster 66,209,175
Dan Rosenow 21,245,450
Matt Troyer 16,761,940
Zach Schuette 12,454,200
Bryce Williams 11,001,380
Micaila Leigh 6,867,520

Guitar Hero III
Dan Rosenow 308,752
Michael DeBauch 297,338
Chris Davis 209,326
Michael Schnell 182,587
Alex Grant 165,377

Bowling
Forrest Hammil 396 (207, 189)
Dan Rosenow 388 (195, 193)
Michael DeBauch 387 (196, 191)
Logan Lackershire 375 (206, 169)
Katie Young 343 (190, 153)

Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Sam Rouse 31 points
Bryce Williams 20 points
Daniel Homben 20 points
Luke Hemken 17 points
Ezra Rouse 15 points
Michael DeBauch 7 points

Tennis
Danny Sharpe 13 points
Matt Troyer 11 points
Forrest Hammill 6 points
Mary Heili 6 points
Tyler Klackner 3 points

Teen Advisory Board Meeting today at 3 p.m.

We have to bump up the teen advisory board meeting today from 3:30 to 3 due to some staffing issues. This gives us more time to discuss programs and the like. The meeting will be in the Quiet Study Room and go until just before 4 p.m.

We will go over the summer programs for this year - what was good, what was bad and wht was ugly. We will also talk about the upcoming fall schedule and plan out program through the end of the year!