Hello fair readers!

I hope your Vernal Equinox and your potential Easter celebrations went smooth and hopefully with much less snow than mine did.

(photo taken by Yenna, posted on Flickr with the tag “Winter sucks”…I agree)

But all this winter snow in Spring has given me some time to stew and grow more and more annoyed with this article:

Our Public Libraries Are Being Turned Into Video Arcades

and the fuddy duddy librarians who are rallying around it, as if this was a good point.

I would like to take one particular response to the article and break it down into it’s ridiculous components. Why you ask? Because it’s sad. And angering. And wrong.

Posted by anonymous in response to the LISNews blog about the article:

Wow. Just wow. That’s right people. Librarians like that actually still exist. Sad, yes?Let’s debunk that statement.

“this is just part of the problem with public libraries since they forgot what they were in the early nineties”

What is a library? According to the free online dictionary:

li·brar·y

(lbrr)

n. pl. li·brar·ies

1.

a. A place in which literary and artistic materials, such as books, periodicals, newspapers, pamphlets, prints, records, and tapes, are kept for reading, reference, or lending.

b. A collection of such materials, especially when systematically arranged.

c. A room in a private home for such a collection.

d. An institution or foundation maintaining such a collection.

2. A commercial establishment that lends books for a fee.

3. A series or set of books issued by a publisher.

4. A collection of recorded data or tapes arranged for ease of use.

5. A set of things similar to a library in appearance, function, or organization: a library of computer programs.

6. Genetics A collection of cloned DNA sequences whose location and identity can be established by mapping the genome of a particular organism.

So there’s a definition. But truly, a library is what a community makes of it. A library can be as big, or as small, as the school, city, business or organization it serves provides it to be.

So libraries can be this:

But libraries can also be this:

(this picture was taken by The Shifted Librarian at DOK Delft, one of the hippest libraries in the world)

Needless to say a library, a building, an inanimate object, does not forget what it is. A community, a school….people change it when they see a need for change.

Back to the hater:

“and decided to become this hybrid amazon.com/barnes and noble/arcade/rec center ordeal that we have now”

This comment implies that a library cannot change to keep up to date with the times. That a book-store style of library, or a library catalog that has pictures and words that everyone understands in it….are bad things. Let me direct you back to a blog I posted about librarian stereotypes. If change does not occur, if keeping up to date with modern trends…not just in libraries but in the whole world

If these things do not occur, then it is logical that the entity will cease to exist. I recommend this poster reads a little something called The Origin of the Species by means of natural selection by Charles Darwin. Check out the bit on survivial of the fittest. Apply.

Let’s continue:

“I am a young adult librarian”

Really? Well that’s quite a surprise. Because most teen librarians that I know…totally rock.

“and soon we will be losing ref desks for kiosks so that we are encouraged to wander around and bother the patrons ala target employees”

First, Target employees certainly do not walk around bothering people…or even asking if you need help. They are few and far between. And would it really be so bad to get rid of those awful reference desks that scare the bejeezes out of most patrons? Wandering around and asking people for help…well that’s just helpful. Not bothersome.

“this is sad. the video game aspect, while i don’t agree with it, isn’t the libraries fault. we have books here. we just have adult and children too stupid to read them now“

As soon as I read that sentence…well it took every bone in my librarian body to not pick up a volume of the OED and chuck it across the reference section.

And no, the typo in the sentence does not make it any better.

Talk about a total loss of hope.

Not just in libraries…or even librarians…but humanity as a whole.

It’s sad.

So I suggest to reading this to cleanse your palate of that awful taste of bitter librarian:

Videogames and Martinis: 25 years later

It’s much more useful than calling someone stupid….which as librarians we should all know….is just no excuse for poor service.

Have a lovely week, fair readers! And do yourself a favor, play some video games.

Hello fair readers!

Today I stumbled upon a very cool thing while drinking my morning coffee and avoiding thinking about my demolished vehicle….

that’s right…broken beyond repair. But I digress….

The cool thing involves some geeky science people, very unlike the very large SUV that slammed into the side of my tiny, gas efficient vehicle. No, it involves a renowned school and some Science Professors at MIT.

and it also involves this article:

At 71, Physics Professor Is a Web Star

So this morning while I was drinking my morning coffee, I was doing the usual. Reading headlines from the New York Times Online and up pops the previously mentioned headline. Right away it caught my interest since I’ve always had a secret envy of people with Science backgrounds. Instead I choose the mighty path of a Lit major….mighty. That’s right.

Anyways, this article lead me straight to MIT’s new(ish) project of OpenCourseWare. This prostegious instituion is now offering course materials online, for free, including videos of lecturers and lecture notes. Not only could I have really used this in Undergrad (come on WMU! Catch up!) but how cool is this for the general public?

That’s right. It’s almost as cool as this picture of the Penny Arcade boys battling robots….which is just really really cool. But also means that in this really geeky, I-wish-I-had-taken-more-science-classes kind of way, it’s ridiculously awesome.

So check out OpenCourseWare, bringing high education to masses. And those of us who were too busy with musical theater in highschool to give AP Physics too much thought.

Sigh. Those were the days.

Have a lovely Wednesday fair readers. And watch out for speeding Jeeps. They just might ruin your car.

Hello fair readers!

Hopefully this beautiful Saturday is treating you well so far.

(the view from my window. just now. perfect)

This day has actually inspired me to pump my tires on the old bicycle (finally) and go for a jaunt.

But first, I thought I would share my interesting experience last night at Hideout Block Party.

This event is an outdoor music festival of sorts that takes place in a parking lot that appears to be owned by the Department of Fleet Management of Chicago. It’s a 2 day event and only costs $35, which is nice…unlike certain other music festivals….

ehem

ehem

Granted, this festival is a much smaller scale than any of those festivals or even Pitchfork for that matter. Still the first night was yesterday and there were two bands that were totally worth seeing.

They were The Cinematics and The Changes, who were my personal favorite of the night. Unfortunately, there were also some disappointments…as there often can be. Scotland Yard Gospel Choir, besides having one of the worst band names ever, is barely worth mentioning. And the 1900s were just at the wrong festival. If we were in Tennessee and it was the middle of the summer…maybe. But I just ended up feeling sorry for them.

However the most disspointing, hands down, was Bloc Party, the brit pop band.

They were by no means bad live. That wasn’t the issue. In fact, they sounded exactly like their albums….which can be, well, just disappointing. Not bad. In fact I’m sure this says something about them as pop musicians, that they can sounds so much like their recordings. It just is also kind of boring. And when it appears that 80% of the population of Lincoln Park showed up to hear them as well? Well then it just goes from boring to unbearable.

I saw many of these

Please note the trucker hat, which I was sure had gone out of style once Punkd was finally canceled.

But I was wrong. In fact, there were multiple trucker hats, bros or as I have heard them called before, “chads” and “trixies“.

And apparently, they are all avid Bloc Party fans. Which is disturbing on several levels including the fact that I think the band is kind of fun and neat.

sigh.

Needless to say, we left after a couple songs because it was just unbearable. I will suffer through a shite crowd for bands or performers who I really love...but not for a band that I could get the same experience listening to their CD in my bedroom.

Tonight is Andrew Bird. Let’s hope these guys

(from the Urban Dictionary)

stay at home.

Happy beautiful Saturday fair readers.

This article:

this one

made me think.

First it made me think: that’s nice. Bloomberg is an interesting politician.

Then it made me think: I’m glad he included tipping on there.

And I am. People who don’t know how to tip properly are infuriating. So let’s go over this once and for all. Here it is. A guide for bad tippers.

Warning!

This blog will now take a slightly condescending tone.

Warning!
Hello you. Have you ever wondered why you get treated badly at your favorite restaurant that you like to go to? Maybe it’s because you think leaving 10-15% as a tip for your server is a good thing.

Well it isn’t.

In fact, that is AWFUL.

You should always leave servers/bartenders and the like, at least 20%!

Otherwise you will embarrass the people you go out with, piss off servers all over, potentially get something nasty done to your food next time, and just overall look like an insensitive person.

Look at this website:

Revenge Against Bad Tippers!

or this one

Badtipper.com

and this:

Bitterwaitress.com

When you tip badly, people pretty much hate you. And you want to know why, bad tipper?

Because servers make usually anywhere from a whopping $2-$3 an hour. Did you realize that? Repeat this with me:

Servers live off of tips!

So just cough up a few more dollars. The difference between$3 and $5….not that much. But it does mean more to the server. It means you recognize their importance and value their hard work and just simply, you are not an idiot.

So let’s all remember service industry workers and their extremely difficult jobs next time we go out to eat. Because serving is hard. Bartending is hard.

You know what isn’t hard?

Calculating 20% of your bill.

Don’t be a jerk fair readers. Learn how to tip.

Happy Wednesday.

There is an editorial in the Chicago Tribune today that really shouldn’t surprise me. The Tribune is wildly conservative. They supported Bush for the past two elections and that pretty much means that I will ignore most of what they write about. However, this editorial was emailed to me and thus, it will not be ignored.

Dennis Byrne? You are an idiot.

He happened to write this today. Let’s have a read shall we?

Filtering the facts from the fallacies of BP controversy

By Dennis Byrne | a Chicago-area writer and consultant

August 20, 2007

U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) is correct to call for congressional hearings into government approval given to BP for a $3.8 billion upgrade to its northwest Indiana gasoline refinery.

Just as long as the hearings help to clarify and correct the barrels of misinformation and distortions swamping the debate over the massive project that will bring cheaper and more abundant gasoline to the Midwest. The distortions have been sloshing around now for more than a month after approval of the project by federal and state regulators came under fire. A public summit of the major players in the controversy last week seemed to do little to clear them up.

Take the issue of “backsliding”: Can any additional “pollutants,” no matter how infinitesimal or harmless, be discharged into to the nation’s lakes, rivers and streams, even if they are legal and within federal and state limits, as BP’s are?

Some critics, such as Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) would go so far as to inaccurately suggest that any additional discharges are illegal. As he said in a letter to Benjamin Grumbles, the Environmental Protection Agency’s assistant administrator for the Office of Water, “A specific provision in the federal Clean Water Act prohibits any downgrade in water quality near a pollution source even if discharge limits are met.”

Well, yes, but there’s a legal exception, according to the EPA, that he fails to mention, either from ignorance or mendacity: “Anti-backsliding provisions of the [Clean Water Act] contain an exception where material and substantial alterations to the permitted facility justify the application of less stringent effluent limitations…to accommodate important economic or social development.” Regulators correctly determined that the economic and social benefits of the refinery expansion meet that requirement.

Other critics don’t go as far. They regard the exemption as a “loophole” that BP will use to “foul” Lake Michigan. Such claims usually are made without precise evidence about how the discharges will “foul” the lake, endanger the water supply or lead to horrific events that might justify the critics’ hysteria.

For example, in ranting about the relatively small amount of ammonia allowed into the lake, the critics ignore the fact that ammonia is not a bioaccumulative chemical. It breaks down in the water. If it didn’t, all the fish in the Great Lakes might have disappeared eons ago from swimming in their own urine.

Also conveniently missing from the debate is the context that could be provided by comparing BP with other industrial and city “dischargers.” According to the EPA, BP’s 4,925 pounds of suspended solids allowed a day compares with 16,630 at International Steel Group’s East Chicago plant and 121,861 at its Burns Harbor facility. Ispat Industries’ East Chicago plant is allowed 130,453 pounds, about 27 times BP’s limit. Chicago, of course, is on another planet, permitted 243,000 pounds, almost 50 times BP’s. Maybe Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, who is threatening to sue BP, ought to sue himself. Except, I suppose that Chicago’s discharges don’t count because they aren’t into the lake; they’re just gifted to the Illinois river system.

Note also might be taken of the fact that no ammonia limits are imposed on a bunch of papermakers and cities such as Milwaukee and Green Bay. Chicago’s allowable ammonia discharge (from the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District) is 61,000 pounds, compared with BP’s 1,584.

Considering these facts, Stephen Elbert, BP America vice chairman, should have said at last week’s summit, “Nuts. You don’t want our jobs and economic development? We’ll take them elsewhere.” Instead, he went well beyond what is required and promised to look at suggested alternatives to cleaning up the plant’s discharges. But, he added, any discharge alternative will have to “fall within the economic boundaries of the project,” a perfectly legitimate position.

Mary Gade, EPA Midwest regional administrator, probably said the smartest thing all day when she asked everyone to get beyond the headlines and emotions and begin a more practical discussion.

The issue is larger than BP. In a way, it’s a test of national importance of whether we can balance legitimate environmental and economic concerns. Of whether we can avoid couching the debate, as did Ann Alexander, a local Natural Resources Defense Council attorney, in such destructive and extreme terms as “sacrificing Lake Michigan in the name of oil addiction.” Of whether politics will run roughshod over the public interest. Of whether demagoguery and emotion will trump facts and reason. Of whether radical environmentalism will prevail over science.

———-

(that is my head exploding by this man’s stupid arguments)

Let’s go over why he thinks BP should be allowed to dump more pollution into Lake Michigan.

1. Everyone else is doing it, so why can’t we?

So…he thinks BP is right, simply because other people are already dumping and dumping more of it. Well! In that case, let’s just let everyone dump in the lake! Everyone else already is. Right Dennis? Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t that make it worse? Maybe, and this is a wild and crazy guess here, this is an effort to curb the corporate dumping into Lake Michigan. A first step, so to speak.

2. Ammonia is supposedly non-toxic…..

OK. This one really makes me irritated. So, according to this author, ammonia will naturally break down and not hurt anyone. Hmm. Well first off, I don’t trust you Dennis. Sorry but that argument about the fish pee thing? Not buying it. And second, Chicago already has days where you can’t swim in the water. How on earth will dumping a chemical into the lake not hurt the quality of water? And what about the mercury, which is probably the issue that most people besides Dennis are worried about?

3. Cheap Oil

I could drive over to this man’s house and give him a swift kick in the ass. Cheap oil? Are you kidding me? Seriously, just because there is a BP chemical plant near us certainly doesn’t mean that we will get cheaper oil and more jobs. Not. At. All. BP is almost at least 10 cents more per gallon….ALWAYS! And the jobs thing? How does dumping more pollutants from an already existing plant, create more jobs? The dudes who will dump the magical non-toxic ammonia? Is that it Dennis?

Here’s my issue, he is trying to bulk up a conservative argument, obviously meant to rally up heated emotions, (hmm reminds me of someone….hmmm), by trying to sound intelligent. Take this sentence:

“it’s a test of national importance of whether we can balance legitimate environmental and economic concerns”

Can someone please, yet again, explain to me how this will economically help the nation? He is twisting emotions about a topic of great concern to people today. It is manipulative. And, quite frankly, I haven’t fallen for it.

If you haven’t already sign this petition: Take Action

And for heaven’s sake, let’s all go read something intelligent today. Maybe rid our brains of the neo-conservative rhetoric and actually learn something of value.

Have a lovely Monday, my fair readers. Spread love and intelligence. Because we all know, that’s the key to a happy life.

Be prepared. I am about to rant. I’ve been scouring the internet for reviews sites to rant as publicly as I can. Because I’m just vindictive that way. So I’ve ranted here, here and even here. And here. Oh yes, and here.

And here.

So now I’m going to rant on my blog. Because I want to. And because, fair readers, I don’t like being treated like garbage.

Or even this kind of Garbage.

Because they both suck.

So let’s just get to the story, shall we?

My sister is getting married on Saturday. My super cool, awesome, totally amazing older sister Colleen.

(She’s the one of the left)

And she chose me to be the maid of honor, which is wonderful. So I buy the dress she picks out for the bridesmaids and I like it. It’s cute. Like this:

but in Lilac…

Very pretty.

And, as most bridemaid’s dresses must be, my dress needed to be altered. So! I decide to take my dress to….. *insert evil, sinister music* la modista ltd. on clybourn!!

I made my appointment for about a month before the wedding, plenty of time to take in the bust. At least I thought so. So I go in for my appointment and they tell me that they don’t have me written in their appointment book.

I tell them I called a week ago…and they basically imply that I’m lying to them but that they can manage to fit me in.

How kind.

So they measure me. Pin the dress. And tell me that cannot get it back to me until August 1st…and they know damn well that the wedding is on August 4th because I had just told them that. That seems fine to me. They take my number and I go on my way.

And this wasn’t all that awful. I still was feeling like I had picked a nice place. Everything would be fine. la de da.

Well, I go back yesterday and try on my dress to find that, low and behold, it will not stay up. They didn’t take the bust in enough. I walk out of the dressing room and tell the owner (who wasn’t the woman who originally fitted me but this time was helping me). Right away she calls over the woman who did fit me, as she’s pinning the dress so that it will stay up. When she shows her what she did wrong, the woman (and I’m not even kidding) points to my chest and says, “Well that’s why I didn’t pin it so tight. Look at that pudge”.

…..

…………

bitch.

At the time…I was so stunned that I didn’t yell. I didn’t scream. I just dropped my mouth in utter surprise. I know I’m not tiny but I certainly don’t consider myself chubby. Which is what she was implying.

I just looked at the owner and who was saying that she could have it ready for me by Friday. I told her I couldn’t do that. I wanted to just take my dress and leave.

So essentially I paid $35 for some stupid woman to tell me that I don’t look good in this bridesmaid’s dress. Grrrrr.

Honestly, I like the dress. I think I look good. And that woman was probably just trying to cover her ass because she didn’t do a good job. But seriously, who does this? Insult the customer? Is that really a good idea?

So basically this means that I have to whip out the old sewing kit and make myself some straps.

It will certainly be simple. But it could have been avoided if some people did their job correctly.

So! What have we learned?

• Don’t go to La Modista Ltd. on Clybourn.
• Don’t tell the customer that they are fat.
• Don’t go to La Modista Ltd. on Clybourn!

Lesson learned. They suck.

Have a lovely Thursday everyone.

I hate Ann Coulter.

Originally uploaded by leah the library student

It’s strange to me. This picture from my flickr account has generated more random hate comments than I could even expect. I go through and every now and again, some devoted Ann Coulter fan will rage out on my picture, calling me names…telling me how I’m biased….it’s a little creepy to be honest. I find it interesting that anyone in their right mind could support Ann Coulter. She is, hands down, awful. And, in this writer’s opinion, evil.

I briefly considered taking down my picture just to avoid the strange little attention it’s getting. But then I thought about it, and I’ve decided. Hell no. I do hate Ann Coulter. She is scary and does embody all the bigotry and hate in this country of ours. She embodies what we need to change.

I am happy she is losing support. I am happy that Elizabeth Edwards tactfully put Coulter in her place. It was beautiful.

And I am happy that I have the sense to realize a hate monger when I see one.

That is all for today. Take care of each other. Love each other. Hate Ann Coulter.

Happy Wednesday fair readers.