Just a Sci-Fi Kid Like Me

Can I ask you guys, if you want to do something good today, or tomorrow, or hell, period, please donate to the Ferguson Public Library. (They have a paypal donate button on their homepage.) They have been hosting daily activities for kids while schools etc. have been closed this week and providing safe spaces.

In case anyone every asks "what libraries are for," you can always point to this.

Because my new job really is that cool, I am on a team to evaluate Kindle for library use.

Hee hee hee.

So my first thoughts are:

1) Dude, this is so fucking cool!

followed by

2) Dude, these books are pretty expensive!

Seriously. The popular stuff retails about $10 a pop, but I checked out the new Mercedes Lackey novel and it's a heft $17--all of $1 cheaper than buying the hardback.

HMM.

It's on the clunky side but only a little. It makes up in sheer coolness what it lacks in sheer utility.

More later.

I am tempted to learn sewing and quilting for the express purpose of making this.

Went out and about today. I had lunch with Scott at a very bad Japanese place just off campus. I didn't know sushi could be tasteless, and yet, it was. I also ordered green tea ice cream, as I'd gotten a taste for it in Japan, and what they served was a ball of tasteless green icecream that that had had some cake put around it and tempura'd. Deeply unimpressive. I now have a serious hankering for good sushi. D'oh!

I also went to a library that shall remain nameless lest I get a job there later. Was horrified that in several parts of the stacks they were having leakage issues or something--ceiling tiles had been removed and shelves had been covered with tarps. There was also a pervasive smell of mold that really made me twitch. The circulation desk was also badly organized; I've never been to a large university library that didn't have those little line rope things like they have in banks. Well they didn't, they had two librarians scurrying behind the desk and four student workers, and a very unorganized line of patrons wanting to check things out. I had to get a special form, too, so they put me off to the side where one of the librarians would get to me (eventually) which made things even more chaotic. So basically a two minute errand took almost twenty minutes, just for poor organization. They also have funny geography because two libraries are connected by what they call a "Sky Walk" so there's essentially two sets of floors for floors 4,5, and 6. What they do is at one library those locations are "floors" and at the other they are "levels." So you basically have to pay close attention to if you want a "floor" or a "level" and adjust your elevator/stairs use accordingly. This is made more difficult as they put maps by the elevators and stairs, but only explain the floor/level thing on a handout you pick up at the first floor. If they just put a little sign about that by all the elevators and stairs in both buildings, it would've been so much easier.

So resisting the urge to just go there tomorrow AM and say, "You don't have to pay me, just. Let. Me. Fix. This."

Anyhoo...

(I was having such a lovely, relaxing morning before I got this article in my inbox, and now my blood pressure is through the effing roof!)

Sure their research is vapid, their reporters insipid, and any "groundbreaking story" is months old, but it really does irritate me when The Fucking Washington Post has to present yet another opinion piece on < a href="http://blog.washingtonpost.com/rawfisher/2007/06/random_friday_question_do_we_n.html">"Do We Really Need Libraries Anymore?"

To which I can only say, "Dude, have you BEEN to a library recently?" Every time I go to a DC library there is a LINE of people waiting to check out books, and if I go early there is a LINE of people waiting to go in!

I have to say how much I adore the populace of my city that they are all arguing with this idiot. Americans really aren't as stupid as TPTB want to believe.

Student: "What was that famous painting of that famous lady?"

Me: "Uh...the Mona Lisa?"

Student: "That's it! And who did it?"

Me: "Leonardo da Vinci. (phew)"

Later there will be pop culture notes, but now, off to gaming!