Book List

As of 06/17/2009

• The Boy and the Ghost by Robert Sans Souci – Children’s picture book. Loved the illustration. The story is an old fable.
• Cribs by MTV – I had to see a picture of Tommy Lee’s Starbucks in his house.
• House of Java by Mark Murphy – Graphic novel.
• The Bearskin Rug by Jennifer Stevenson – Not hot. You’ve got to do more than use the word cock to be hot.
• Date Like a Grown Up: Everything You Need, blah, blah, blah by Lisa Daily – Like any diet book on the market. Always a “new take” but really says the same thing; exercise and eat healthy. In other words, nothing new to add. Would probably be good for a less internet-savvy reader.
• Water Baby by Ross Campbell – Good art work, really tells the story, crappy as it was.
• Burnout by Rebecca Donner illustrated by Inaki Miranda – Graphic novel. About a girl who falls for her step brother who is an ecoterrorist.

Water Sprite in the Fountain

Last week at work was a weird one. Not for me personally; that was pretty well business as usual. I mean for the library as a whole. A bunch of bizarre things happened, the guards were kept hopping and it wasn’t even a full moon. First, there were a few separate drunken patron incidents. That’s not the unusual part, happens all the time.* The first real shenangin was the water sprite. That’s what I call him. One of our homeless patrons got duded up on all his duds (minus underpants) for his trip to the library. All that clothing got heavy and started to droop, way down. Instead of asking at the reference desk how to fashion a belt, he began to frolic in the reflecting pool on the first floor. Let me just say, that water is loaded with chemicals. We’re all surprised his skin didn’t melt off. But it didn’t and he refused to leave the pool. The only reason he got out voluntarily is he heard one of our security gates go off and thought we were electrifying the pool. At this point in the story, everyone says, “Yeah, I wish.” Anyhoo, he did get out and was escorted out by the police. Our head guard would later report, “He was half naked and not the good half.” The next unusual happenstance was the corpse of a (former) patron found in the park behind the library. He was last seen tottering out after having refused medical attention.
* It must be a proud moment in your life to get booted from the public library for being trashed.

Create TV

I made it just under the wire for the digital television conversion which happened yesterday. In keeping with my tradition of keeping things until they absolutely croak, I will not be getting a new television when the one I’ve had since 1999 still gives a good picture. I got the converter and rabbit ears a few weeks ago from Amazon. It was delivered the day before Kristin went to Chicago. So it sat, exactly as I had unpacked it, until she got back. Although I’m a whizz at software, I’m hopeless at hardware. Without her help (Who am I kidding? She did it all while I watched.) everything would probably still be sitting, unhooked, where I left it after getting frustrated. Now it’s hooked up and I can watch limited TV. I get about 3 channels that I would actually watch. The rest seems to be religious crap or in Spanish. I don’t get ABC but I can live with that since they put almost everything online. What I miss the most is HGTV and E!. A totally acceptable substitute for HGTV is Create TV, PBS’s answer to HGTV, FoodNetwork and the Travel Channel. They have well-known hosts (Katie Brown, Sarah Molton, Ming Si). I have already developed a crush on Rick Bayless. He does a show called Mexico: One Plate at a Time. He’s in Chicago, I think, which strikes me as ironic, but he rides a scooter. How hot is that?

Quitters as Economic Indicators

I just read the best article. According to this article, regular economist types and such august personage as Alan Greenspan keep track of when men replace their quitters.* You read that right. It seems that when you put off replacing your tatty underpants, well, that says something about the economy. This is the type of stuff you just can’t make up and also makes me glad to be a human being.

* Quitters defined as underpants with elastic that has given up the fight. May also be threadbare and have holes in strategic places.