It's a whatnow?

Microsoft is playing dirty, giving us commercials with adorable children in them! The commercial with the little girl making the slideshow about Windows 7 reminds me of an exchange I had with a small child when I worked at Linens N Things. She was putting things from her mom's shopping basket on the counter for me to scan:

Girl (handing me napkin holder): This is a napkin holder.
Me: Oh, thank you.
Girl (handing me lettuce knife): This is a lettuce knife.
Me: Thanks.
Girl (handing me a lotion bottle): This is a lotion.
Me: Sure is.
Girl (handing me a washcloth): This is a towel.
Me: Close enough.
Girl (handing me a garlic press): This is a schwigglefrishiggle.
Me: ...you bet it is.

Adorable children or no, I will not go to the Windows side. Oh no.

I'm watching The Vampire Diaries right now, because I enjoy watching television shows that make me feel stupider. It's the same reason I watch Gossip Girl. I'm not sure why a show called The Vampire Diaries has spent the first half-hour of the show assuming the audience has no idea that one of the characters is a vampire. Are we stupid (I think I already answered my question, there)? I wonder if the vampire could be the guy who has all the antique pictures in his house who acted weird when the main character fell down and cut herself! How totally out there and unexpected. Insert eyeroll here. (And yet, I have not turned it off. This suggests very bad things about me.) Remember when vampires were bad (with the exception, of course, of Louis and Lestat), and Buffy killed them? Boy, those were the days.

Sheesh, is the football game going to start soon?

See you in September

Ah, September. The time when a young man's fancy turns to - wait, no. What? Who are you?

Now, I know some of you are nerds (it's okay, you can admit it) and you should be watching The Guild. I won't link to it, because if you're a nerd you already know where it is, or you are net-savvy enough to type it into Google. While you're doing that, can you figure out a way to make me be Felicia Day?

School is back in session. The students are back on campus. My insane amounts of down time at work are now at an end and have left me with far too much to do. I'm not sure how that happens - it's like there are twenty minutes in which my free time and all the stuff I have to do coexist, and then the twenty minutes are gone and I'm left with... a huge to-do list. Whoever decided time would work this way is fired.






The end of summer did provide some good times, however. I went to a baseball game with some of my favorite people on the planet (this planet, that is - you wouldn't believe how awesome people are on Neptune... sorry, Earthlings), attended more than one bonfire, caught something which may or may not have been Swine Flu, and acquired several Jane Austen BBC miniseries adaptations from the library.

Like I told the class in the library this evening, I'm a librarian. I get excited about things like having a new copier.

...and finding imitation designer shoes at Target. I am a woman of simple pleasures.

In other news, who is going to start a collaborative video project with me, hmm?

Do do do, de do do do. GO-PACK-GO!

I've been meaning to go to training camp for a couple weeks, but yesterday was the first evening that the planets aligned in such a way that it was not storming, that I was not working, that I didn't have dinner plans with coworkers and there was an evening practice. Thanks, planets! It was absolutely worth the $0.00 ticket and I will be going again.


In what I believe to be one of the coolest traditions in professional sports, local chill'uns wait outside the locker room exit at Lambeau Field with their bikes. Players then either walk across the street to practice, or borrow the bikes to ride across the street to the practice field, with the kids running along carrying helmets.

Wow, these look awful shrunk down all small-like. They're better actual size, should anyone out there be interested - just click. Or they're on my Flickr.




The local paper reported (yes, this is news up here) that this was the first time in two years that Aaron Rodgers rode a bike to practice. Lucky kid! (Also reported by the local paper - this kid is Aaron Rodgers's Facebook friend. This is the weirdest town in which I have ever lived.)


Then, if they have time, many of them sign autographs. And I do not know why all the players except Donald wear their pads to practice. Also - check out Donald's legs. They're prettier than mine... and probably yours. Unless you're Donald Driver. In which case, hi Donald! Nice legs.


Not only is it cool for the kids, it warms my heart to see huge men riding tiny bikes - some of which are pink.


Pink bikes and extremely small bikes are the best. This kid was sprinting the whole way in an attempt to keep up and it was adorable.




A complete pass to Al Harris!


I was sitting next to a father with his daughter (who was about seven). She had lots (and lots) of questions. My favorite was during this kickoff drill when several players had red bandana-things on their helmets: "Are they wearing those to keep their helmets warm?"

I told her they were. Was that wrong of me?


Lots of people had the same idea I did yesterday. It actually feels like football season - 50s with a chilly breeze. Football weather is my favorite kind of weather. Time to dig out the sweaters.


Then at the end of practice, there's a big ol' team huddle. Awwww.


Some of them come over to the stands and sign more autographs!


They're a TEAM.


Then they ride bikes back to the locker room. Way too cool. Next time I go to practice, I'm borrowing a small child with a bike to bring with me.

(In related news, I'm watching preseason football in the flavor of the Cowboys v. the Titans right now. The new Cowboys' stadium is very cool and impressive, I'll give them that - but I'd rather have Lambeau Field, one of the most revered venues in all professional sports. Tradition, homes. I don't think there's any need for a $40 million TV that blocks punts. How do you build a billion-dollar stadium and put the scoreboard too low?)

...coming home to a place he'd never been before.

I was backpacking through the mountains last week! It was really beautiful and wonderful. It made me wish I took more vacations in general, and it made me wish I took more vacations with friends (do YOU want to go on vacation? I'm a pretty good traveler, promise). I took 524 photos (oops), over 200 of which were on one day (I climbed my first 14,000' mountain, give me a break), and 10% of which were of The Boyfriend's backside (can I help it if he doesn't like being in pictures from the front?).








Here is the advice I have to impart from my experiences on this trip:

1) If you would like to climb a fourteener, you should definitely do so as it is well worth the time.
2) If you are from a place with an elevation of approximately 500' above sea level and you plan on climbing a fourteener, give yourself two days to adjust to the altitude by sleeping and taking shorter hikes at above 8,000.'
3) If you forget this advice and give yourself only one day to adjust to the altitude and get altitude sickness after climbing said mountain, find a no-frills motel a couple thousand feet lower and wait to stop throwing up. This shouldn't take long.
4) If, in the tiny middle-of-nowhere town you find a bar themed around your (very far away) NFL team of choice, buy a pitcher of High Life and marvel at how weird the world is.
5) Take with you someone who will be very understanding about your altitude sickness, just in case.
6) Remember that when you wake up before dawn to climb said mountain, that the sun will eventually rise and you will wish you had your sunscreen with you. Mountains are closer to the sun than your home and thus it is easy to be sunburned upon them (*cough*madeupscience*cough*).
7) Have multiple plans. Having only one plan is a not the greatest idea, as you may be disappointed when this plan is thwarted by thunderstorms and below-freezing temperatures.
8) Go to a well-known college town and ask where "the street with the restaurants and bars" is. While there, find the best bar and chat with the bartender without being creepy. Your tab, which by most estimations would be around $50.00 anywhere else, could be as low as $4.00.
9) Find the local microbrewery and ask the servers questions about the beer. They are usually very excited to talk about the beer and may even bring you secret free beer that isn't on the menu. Four times. And free stickers. And free bottle openers. And free brewery lip-balm.
10) If you are road-tripping, bring with you all seven Harry Potter books in audiobook form. Nebraska won't even take half of book six.
11) Take lots of pictures. The odds are better you will get something good if you take more pictures.
12) Do not run from a bull moose. Do not approach a moose calf. In fact, it is best to avoid moose altogether. If you happen to accidentally run across one on the trail, ensure her you aren't there to bother her and go about your business. She will find you boring and yawn.
13) If it rains for two hours during the 4-mile hike to your campsite and everything you have is soaked, pray (or if you're not the praying kind, hope) really hard the sun comes out long enough to dry your sleeping bag.
14) If you must sleep in a wet sleeping bag and the temperature drops below freezing... ugh, just... don't ever sleep in a wet sleeping bag.
15) If you come home with a sprained ankle, put your foot up on your coffee table with ice all around it while you read a slightly trashy galley about teenage fallen angels that randomly came in the mail while you were gone. Two days of this should have you back up and about.

Also, while you were gone, your neighbor may have formed a Hootie and the Blowfish tribute band. I have no idea what to do about this, but it is definitely a serious problem.

WHAT JUST HAPPENED?

Um, Americans?

OUR MEN'S SOCCER TEAM JUST BEAT EFFING SPAIN.


(Photo of US national soccer team not from today.) It is hard to explain exactly how inconceivable and unbelievable and unlikely this is if you do not follow international soccer. There is no way the US should have won this game. Spain is the #1 ranked national soccer team in the world. Sometimes rankings don't mean very much, but really - THEY ARE THE BEST TEAM IN THE WHOLE WORLD. And your national team (ranked #14 by FIFA at the beginning of this game) scored - twice. Spain scored zero times.

I'm not sure how it happened (I watched the whole thing, and I still don't know - to be honest, I was half-expecting Spain to score six goals in the last five minutes and go, "Gotcha! Just kidding, guys! We had this under control the whole time, that's how good we are."), but this has made my already super day off completely stellar. Does this legitimize US soccer? Will people actually sing our national anthem at the beginning of games now? Will anyone care? I don't know - they did lose to Costa Rica a few weeks ago. Ouch.

SOCCER!

I promise that there will be no more soccer squeeage from me unless the US wins the Confederations Cup final on Sunday (and really, the Confederations Cup means nothing, except that the US beat Spain).

In other news, there are hornets building nests all over the outside of my apartment (I counted two in the front, and there are about ten hornets hovering around my balcony door so I imagine there is one out there too - how will I water my plants?). I think they sense my great fear.

Chivalry is not dead, it has its own dictionary.

When you are a librarian, occasionally you need to do what is known as "weeding the collection." This just means going through all the books and taking out anything that is outdated, superseded by a better edition, doesn't make any sense, etc.


The other day while weeding, I came across a book called A Dictionary of Chivalry. Unfortunately, this otherwise delightful book has very little to do with anything in our curriculum, is not really scholarly at all, and we have lots of other books that cover the same subject much more thoroughly in case someone ever did need to know about medieval table manners. Sadly, out it went. On a whim and as a small experiment yesterday, I put a note on the book before I sent it to my coworkers who would take it and the rest of a cart full of books out of our catalog. This was the note:


I was sitting in my office this afternoon, minding my own business, when one of them came downstairs and gave it to me for free. Greatest note ever!

A Dictionary of Chivalry is mostly delightful for the completely sweet and oh-so-1960's illustrations. Here is a sampling of my favorites (of which there are far too many to post. I just found the Robert (the Bruce) entry and those are great).







This is the illustration for "Outlaws." It doesn't make any sense except that this is supposed to be Robin Hood and Maid Marian. I think I would've gone with something else for outlaws, but it's sort of sweet.













This one is supposed to illustrate courtesy.

I have no idea what's going on except some sort of three-man dinner party. I think the guy on the left is telling the middle gentleman, "Now, wait just a moment, I'm going to say something courteous before I knock you with this ladle. I suggest thinking twice before scratching your fleas at the table, if you please." The man on the right, on the other hand, looks as though he's very annoyed and is going to applaud his dinner companion sarcastically. "Gee, Lancelot. You've got roast pig grease on your face again. I know I always scratch my head while eating a medieval Twinkie, great job, champ."






This is the infant John FitzThomas, Earl of Kildare, being rescued by a gorilla as an infant. I promise that is what the caption says and I did not make it up. I will scan it for you if you like. A gorilla. Rescuing baby Earl FitzThomas of Kildare. From a burning castle.

Why were the Middle Ages so much cooler than the 1980s? I was never rescued by a gorilla from a burning castle. So lame.









This is baby King Henry VI. Isn't he cute?


I do not know why there is a helmet in this picture, nor why said helmet has a bird growing out of the top of it. "Fashion" would be my guess. It's fierce.










This is meant to be Sir Bedevere, of Round Table fame. This image fits almost perfectly with the mental image I have of Sir Bedevere, developed largely through repeat viewings of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

"And that, my liege, is how we know the world to be banana-shaped."
"Hmm, oh yes. I see."











If you were or are an English major, you will probably have read The Song of Roland. If you are thinking of becoming an English major, you will probably have to read The Song of Roland. You might have read it in high school - you will need to read it again. This is a visual representation of... some part of Roland's song. Evidently the part when he broke into his song upon his cross-eyed steed.

The steed seems to be auditioning for a part in "A Chorus Line."










I feel this one (Blue Garter, Order of the) requires more explanation than I can provide on my own, and frankly, the illustration is much funnier than the actual description, so I'll let you draw your own conclusions.





This book was 100% worth every penny.

OLE OLE OLE OLE!

Most of the time, I am very happy with American football. However.


Then comes World Cup time. Oh dear, around World Cup time I do wish I lived somewhere that cared about soccer at all. World Cup time is the time a large portion of the rest of the world works itself into a frenzy of national pride and comes together, mostly in the spirit of good sportsmanship, to celebrate the world's game. The world except America's game, that is.

We went to a USA v. Honduras World Cup qualifying match the other weekend, and it was great. At most American sporting events, nobody sings the national anthem. At a soccer match, you must sing the national anthem. The game isn't the same without singing the national anthem very loudly.

Whee!