Libraries I Wish Were in My Home

I saw this some time ago, but it occurs to me that some people who read this are nerds and might appreciate it: Internet Mad Scientist Has Best Personal Library in the World.

Try not to weep over the fact that not only will you never be allowed to set foot in that room, but you will also never be able to assemble a collection of things half that awesome.

Ah, libraries.


(Courtesy of Flickr user Chotda - http://flickr.com/photos/santos/27538777/)

Just in case you haven't seen this either: Red Hot Library Smut (this page is required reading for most Library Science students - seriously, it was mentioned in at least three of my classes). Um, hot?

Happy Halloween! Hooray!

(No idea what happened to that picture. Not supposed to be so big.)

I adore Halloween. Not only do I like candy (CANDY!), but I also like this time of year, and I like wearing stupid clothes. For whatever reason, I always seem to be the person at my place of work who either dresses up when nobody else does, or is the only person who doesn't dress up on Halloween.

Here is a list of things I have gone to work (or school) dressed as when nobody else got the memo that it was Halloween:

- Batgirl
- Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz
- Mrs. Mia Wallace
- Flashdance (just... the entire movie, I dressed as the entire movie)
- Death from The Sandman ("What are you, goth?" "NO, I'm DEATH! I'm anthropomorphic and genius! GAH!")

Here is a list of things I didn't go to work (or school) dressed as when other people did wear costumes:

- Kaylee from Firefly (this was probably good, as nobody would have gotten that anyway)
- Hermoine Granger
- Belle ala Beauty and the Beast
- 80's prom queen
- Glenda the Good Witch of the North

I believe I may have finally learned how to do this properly. Today I wore the "normal clothes" part of my costume to work and packed the "costume" part of my costume in my bag. That way, when I got to work and saw that everyone else was wearing costumes, I could put the rest of mine on. Or when I got to work and saw that nobody was wearing a costume, I didn't look like a ten-year-old.

Nobody here is dressed up. I'm glad I have a party to go to later or this Halloween would get an F.

अरबिक टुडे, ब्लॉगर?

Blogger is transposing everything I write in the Title box into something that looks a bit like Arabic. Maybe Hindi (is Hindi the name of the script, or the language? Man, I'm dumb today). Neat, but I'm not sure why.

John McCain licks you!

This picture is too funny not to share with the world. Or with the three people who read this.

An update on my student loan repayment living progress is forthcoming. I'm trying to find some pictures to put with it, but taking pictures of "cheap" doesn't turn out quite as awesome as it should.

(From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/16/strange-mccain-post-debat_n_135325.html)

Student loan repayment living: Fun for all ages!

I have decided the evil Student Loan Empire of Money is not going to defeat me. I will pay them, oh yes, but not only will I write snarky notes on all my checks to them, I will tell you all about how I am affording it.

Here be the plan:
1) Make my lunch every day before work.
2) Do not buy overpriced things from the coffee shop downstairs.
3) Take a certain amount of money from the ATM at the beginning of week and spend no more than that on parking at work (walk when possible) and recreational activities such as movies and eating out.
4) Don't buy anything unnecessary (ie: clothing, music or movies, bottled water, etc).
5) Find fun, free things to do in Milwaukee (this will probably be the most challenging).
6) If I have any money left, save it for extra payments on my loan (this is not going to be possible with my current budget, it is a consideration for later or during weeks when I have a wealthy benefactor ala Great Expectations).

This is going to suck.

A note about the picture above... I worked at a movie theater during college. This movie theater was about 85 years old and was a former vaudeville theater. It was very cool, but quite run-down. One evening after we closed, a coworker and I went down to the (super-extra-creepy-I-swear-it's-haunted) basement, where we found hundreds of tins of survival rations from the 1960s and a bomb shelter we imagine was from World War II. This is a tin of "survival biscuits," which were basically bits of cardboard cut to look like crackers. We ate some. Predictably, they were really gross.

I'm still not sure if anyone else knows that stuff is down there, or if someone is preparing for World War III.

Maybe I could become a hobbit... how well does that pay?

I feel like this ladybug... as soon as he reached the top of the hill, he rolled right down to the bottom and got all tangled up in his wings, with little pieces of sand up under his shell, which couldn't have been very comfortable.

It's a long story, but suffice to say my student loan repayment schedule was shortened considerably. Meaning my payments are about three times higher than I was anticipating.

2008 is a very bad time to graduate with student loan debt (let me say - this is my only debt. I can't even imagine what I would do if I had a car payment or credit card debt... I can't imagine what I'm going to do as it is), attempting to enter a thankless, notoriously low-paying field over-saturated with recent graduates, on the cusp of Depression 2.0 when most libraries seem to be replacing full-time staff who leave with three part-time employees. I'm having a hard time marching down to Washington D. C., demanding to know where my bailout is.

Stephen Colbert has a solution to the recession!



But enough doom and gloom. I went to the beach yesterday (nice, cheap entertainment... methinks the only entertainment any of us are going to be able to afford for a while).






We also made a giant sand map of Middle-Earth. Because we are not nerds, I will not show you a picture of this map, but suffice to say it was awesome. If you like that sort of thing.

D'oh.

I just left what was quite possibly the most awkward message in the history of the world on the answering machine of a potential employer.

Supreme Chancellor gets more awesome by the day. I don't know how I do it.

Ah, living alone.

A couple years ago I told a friend that one of my favorite things about living alone and having my own washer and dryer is putting my pyjamas or sweatshirts or whatevers into the dryer for about fifteen minutes and then putting them on while they're still warm. Her response was, "You're such a baby!"

That may be true, but I bet she went home and put her socks in the dryer. And I bet it made her a believer.

I like autumn.

Goodbye, wildcard Octoberfest.

So the playoffs didn't turn out quite as well as we all hoped (unless "we" in this case is you, and you are a Phillies fan, in which case - BOO). Alas. At least they weren't swept and the one game they won was incredibly satisfying. I'm already looking forward to next Spring. Seriously. Milwaukee doesn't have much to get excited about, sports-wise (Marquette doesn't count), so here's to next year.

Thanks for a great season, Brewers!

(By the way, the above photo illustrates how I was "watching" the playoffs. I do not have cable. For me, watching was listening to Bob Uecker on the AM radio and watching the ticker on my computer. It worked surprisingly well - and I did get to watch the game they won on an actual television. Newfangled!)