Monday, April 24, 2006

Helpful Hints

Today's notes-to-self:

  • You know the funky cool ramen that you bought at the local Pan-Asian grocery? Look a bit harder at the packaging next time. Because apparently, indicating that something is spicy (make that, really spicy) isn't as important as it is on American packaging.
  • Taking a nap after getting home from an all-day conference is fine, but don't nap for an hour on the couch, wake up and decide that you're cold, and then crawl into bed, fully clothed, with your contact lenses still in. Waking up extremely groggy two and a half hours later, feeling like there is shredded glass in your eyes, and realizing that you'll never get to sleep tonight is not a good thing. Especially when you have an early morning class the next day.

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Sunny Sunday

What makes for a good Sunday?

  • Sleeping in until 10:30 am
  • Cheddar omelet, ham, and an English muffin topped with ginger marmalade. And coffee and orange juice, naturally.
  • Opening all the windows in the house
  • Giving the bedroom a good vacuuming, including the windowsills
  • Cleaning out my closet, dumping another load of clothes that are too big for me
  • Washing dishes, looking out the window at rows of clean laundry drying in the sun
  • My cats, Missy and Misha, lazing about the yard, nibbling grass and playing jungle-kitties
  • Eating homemade sticky rice with mango and strawberries for lunch
Aaaaaahhhhhh.....

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Museums and Money

You can blame my current library course for this post. I'm taking a class called Museum Informatics, so I'm basically primed for any museum-related info that crosses my path. Just look at my del.icio.us account to testify to that fact.

Anyway, it looks like the Chicago Art Institute, which has long had a "pay what you can" policy, is going to start charging for entry. Bummer.

Saturday, April 15, 2006

Happy easter

In honor of tomorrow's holiday (and before I forget), I offer this classic: Peep Research: a study of small fluffy creatures and library usage. It illustrates many of the daily problems we have at the Undergrad Library.

Like students, the Peeps have failed to used the Print Preview command before printing pages from an obviously large website
.
Under the category of "inappropriate behavior":
Food: The photograph above illustrates that Peeps are just as likely to eat snacks in the library as are college students. It should also be noted that the Peeps attempted to finish their candy as quickly as possible when they became aware of the presence of library staff in the area.

Well, at least none of my patrons have guillotined themselves on the papercutter. Yet.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Turkey Lurky

So, I'm driving to work yesterday morning and I'm stopped at the light on the corner of Florida and Lincoln. It's a beautiful morning, and I'm looking around, enjoying some people-watching, window rolled down. And then I see it. I could have entered it on "World's Funniest Home Videos" or whatever the show is called now, if I'd had a camera on me, and the other cars weren't blocking the view.

There's a guy. Rollerblading along the sidewalk. Blue shorts and orange shirt (the UIUC colors). Followed by two wild turkeys, running along behind him, as fast as their little legs can carry them!

I swear, my jaw hit the steering wheel.

I'm not kidding! There were TWO wild TURKEYS chasing this guy. They even followed him around the corner. He didn't even look back. Were they his normal skating companions? Perhaps they were angry at him for skating on the sidewalk, when he should've been on a bike path? Maybe he was afraid to look back and acknowledge their presence? "Just keep skating and the turkeys will disappear. Man, I shouldn't have smoked anything before I went out this morning..."

I love living in the Midwest.

Sunday, April 09, 2006

Just blow

Dammit, I'm still sick!

Okay, I can breathe, for the most part, but the goo that lives in my lungs and sinuses is JUST NOT LEAVING! Gah! Or rather, G- [*hack!* *snort*] -ah!

I, for one, am anxiously awaiting some warmer, drier weather.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Huffy puffy

Well, I'm safe and sound after this weekend's storm. An exciting weekend; Chambana made CNN (we had a tornado touch down) and I went without power, heat, or hot water until around noon on Monday.

I'd just settled in for a strenuous evening of TV watching (hey, I'd been sick all week), when the tornado sirens sounded. Of course, I thought it was part of The Simpsons, since FOX hardly ever rolls weather announcements across the screen (sports alerts, on the other hand...). It was still fairly light out, so I did what any normal person who was raised in the Midwest does; I ran to the window to see if I could spot a tornado. Nope, didn't see one, although I *did* see the ominous black clouds rolling in from various directions and decided that a wiser course of action would be lighting some candles. I decided against my usual shoving of cats into their portable jails (cat carriers), since that just freaks all three of us out. I turned on the radio, finally found a station that had a weather report (not my usual station, WPGU, they're too cool to cut in the middle of a song to a tornado warning) and figured out which of my ten zillion cable channels was the one with the weather.

After a terse argument with myself ("from now on, we keep the batteries next to the flashlights, not with the sewing supplies! How the hell did you come up with that storage strategy, anyway, oh future librarian?") and shutting down the computer, I set up a safe nook in the kitchen, between the fridge and the pantry (at least I wouldn't starve). I have no basement, so that's the only windowless interior area in my duplex.

So...lots of wind and noise, one of the cats freaked out and disappeared, and the other one fell asleep on top of the couch. And I wandered around, keeping a wary eye on the windows. And nothing happened.

The storm had gone on by, or at least the tornado-y part of it. The house was in one piece, the neighbors looked alive, so I went back to watching TV and reminding myself about future battery storage. And then the lights went out.

Luckily, being female, I come automatically equipped with candles (especially scented ones). I set up a small forest fire of candles around the house and waited for the power to come back on. And waited. And waited. Nothing.

Bored. Nowhere near bedtime. Ate the partially-popped popcorn that I had started just one minute before the power went out. Still bored. Decided to try some candle-light yoga. No go, still couldn't breathe properly from being sick. Besides, the cats always look at me funny when I do yoga at home.

I finally went to bed, after gathering all the candles in the house on my bedside table, so that I could maybe have a chance at seeing the words in my book. Did a small happy dance after remembering my clip-on booklight in my travel kit. Read and fell asleep.

Next morning, I woke up to a very cold house. Power still wasn't back on, obviously. I called into work and told them that I wouldn't be in until later, especially since I couldn't take a shower (no hot water!). They said they appreciated my thoughtfulness.

My power company had no idea when the electricity would be back on ("...we have 29,000 customers without power...don't hold your breath"), so I consoled myself with a late breakfast at Perkins (oh, great Country Club Omelet with pancakes, you soothe me so much"). And I took a shower at Shea and Kathleen’s, who always look out for me, even though I’m sure I also greatly confuse them at times (“explain to us once again why you are calling us at work asking about our shower…”). And by the time I got home, all the power was back on, the cats were yowling and happy, and the poor fish in the aquarium were slowly warming back up and swimming again, instead of sitting at the bottom of the tank, wishing I'd knit them sweaters.

No long-lasting damage, unlike lots of people in the area, and all my gadgets are up and running again. According to AmerenIP, there are still 62 people in my area without power, so I was definitely only minorly inconvenienced.

In all, a happy, if long-winded story.

Monday, April 03, 2006

One small step

A few weeks ago I got the most scary/exciting news of my life:

"We are happy to let you know that you have been accepted to the University of Illinois Library and Information Science program. Congratulations!"

I nearly wet myself. But Grad Students are expected to be able to control their bodily functions, so I didn't.

Saturday, April 01, 2006

True love is only a search away

Looks like Google has finally gotten into the matchmaking game!
Google Romance
I'm uploading my standard dating profile right now!

April Fool's!

Yeah, guess who was really slow on the uptake today and clicked around for awhile? Hey, at least I have an excuse. I'm still battling this nasty cold.

Please. You *must* take the tour.

User A uploads her profile.
User B uploads several different wildly divergent profiles.
...
Note: those who generally favor the “throw enough stuff at the wall” approach to online dating might find it useful to employ our Batch Profile Uploading option.

Hee! And I love their FAQ:

6. What is Contextual Dating?
It’s a free date plus the added accrued value of the past decade’s worth of post-Industrial Age online marketing genius, all tied into a real-time, video-based, GPS-tracked, psychographically astute and environmentally pervasive promotional system.

7. Come again?
You see ads that might make your date better.

Damn, I wish Google would do something like this. It can't be any worse than the other Personals sites I've tried in the past. But maybe that's the cold talking.