A crush.

I am not usually the type of girl who falls in love with shoes, but these, well...

I'd rather swallow glass--it's not just a clever expression

I had lunch at the SugarBowl yesterday, and I am troubled by the quantity of crunchy, broken ceramic/glass fragments in my food. I'm not kidding. Any amount of such fragments in food is troubling, really, so there's no scale. I managed to not eat most of the pieces, but I think I did swallow a few, and now I'm concerned about my internal organs. I feel fine, except for this general feeling of queasiness and discomfort that will result from asking oneself, every few seconds, "Does my stomach lining feel like it's torn, or has tiny shards of broken plate in it? How about my intestines?"

Actually, if you stop to focus on it, your body is a constant producer of tiny, insignificant pain/discomfort/danger signals. Sit still for a minute, concentrating on the question Is something wrong with me? and you'll see what I mean. I'm taking comfort in the knowledge that if there was something amiss with my organs, I would know. Like, I wouldn't be sitting here drinking coffee and pondering the relationship of the self to the body.

Probably.

My favourite lolcat

It's just so cute, internets! Normally I try to avoid posting pictures of kittens... especially kittens that aren't mine. (Which is all the kittens, because I don't have any kittens, because kittens are cute but they grow into cats and I don't like cats.) But have to make an exception for this. Plus, the idea of embarking on some kind of epic quest with that kitten (CLEARLY a sissy) is ludicrous! I'm sorry, but it's true.

So, my day is progressing as usual. I have made two trips to Tim Hortons already, but I think I'm done for the day. Also, the elevator is broken, so every time I go downstairs I have to come back up... six flights. For an expedition like that, you need some kind of heroic kitten. I shall go to my class tonight, and it shall be no more or less boring than usual, I expect. I keep expecting some kind of theoretical framework for records management to emerge... and it just doesn't happen. More insignificant detail builds on the original, insignificant-detail foundation. Stupid last class of my degree.

I saw a job ad yesterday for a 12 hour a week job at a library. I immediately whipped out the microsoft calculator to check if I could live on such a small amount of money. The answer: no, but almost. If I were to get some other, similarly slacker job a couple days a week, I would have enough money to live on (and make student loan payments, natch). How much of a loser would I be if I got a master's degree, then spent my whole working life working part-time jobs in order to spend the least possible amount of time at work? I mean, on the Official Loser Scale, where 1 is, I don't know, Shaft, and 10 is Comic Book Guy from Simpsons?

Yeah, that's what I thought. OK, fine, I'll keep looking.

May I suggest you buy this? #6

How To Wear a Sari "Instructionwear" T-Shirt

$22 from Interrobang
(They also have cute "Ask Me About Time Travel" and iPod clickwheel shirts!)

Status update: Jocelyn is updating her blog.

I switched from google calendar to 30boxes, and boy is it fun! It lets me do everything I wanted my online calendar to do, ie., make different types of events different colours. And it syncs with facebook! It keeps trying to get me to add buddies, though, which puzzles me. Why would anyone else want to know that I have a digital archives/copyright meeting tomorrow at 2?

Last night was crazy. We have had extreme, 30 degree-plus heat here for the past week or so, and last night it broke in a spectacular storm. In the two blocks between the LRT station and my apartment building, I got soaked to the skin (literally), everything in my bag got wet, and there were hailstones the size of the eraser on the end of a pencil caught in my hair. It was pretty hilarious, actually. Confronted with weather like that, what can you do but just walk serenely through it? I came home and immediately hung up all my clothes in the shower.

Yesterday's Cat and Girl was hilarious.

Art of the business card photoset on flickr. As a crafty librarian, I think my business cards should look like card catalogue cards... something to ponder.

Participaction!

I submitted a slogan to threadless's type tees contest. That's right, you could one day wear a shirt with a slogan on it that I invented--one of several I invent each day! (Most of these shirt ideas are immediately discarded because they are extremely rude, esoteric, or only applicable to one situation [the one immediately at hand]. Others are discarded later because I forget about them. None are ever made into shirts.) Unfortunately, my slogan does now have its original impact, but I still think it's cool. Originally, I wanted "Nietzche was an asshole," but apparently you can't say "asshole" on television. So I settled for "Nietzche was a jerk." And he WAS, you know.

I love the Habitat building in Montreal, so I'm happy to see it getting dugg/delicioused, even under the inaccurate title "What did the architect smoke?" (In spite of the suggestion that Moshe Safdie must have been taking drugs to design it, I think these photos show how livable the building remains even after 40 years... all those patios and windows!)

I don't like Mondays

I have links a-plenty for you today, internets.

As I mentioned, I finished the last Harry Potter book, and in its honour, I have funny Asian Harry Potter franchise knock-offs including Harry Potter and the Leopard-Walk-Up-To-Dragon and Harry Potter and the Filler of Big.

Inmates of a Philippines prison perform the Michael Jackson "Thriller" dance. I am so baffled by this. What happened to the classic "Jailhouse Rock"? There is also a LEGO version on youtube, but it's pretty boring--it doesn't have the same appeal.

From Bad Gods: Famous Poems Rewritten as Limericks.

Another conceptual map of the web, this one modeled on the Tokyo subway system. (Earlier related links: A periodic table of the internet, map of online communities)

And finally: if you live with lazy roommates/spouses/boyfriends/girlfriends who also happen to be gamers, perhaps you can trick them into helping out more with chore wars, a website that uses RPG-style characters and XP for housework. I joined, but since I live alone, there is really no question: around Jocelyn Manor, I get ALL the XP, finish all the dish-washing quests, and do all the decorative-wall-decal-buying-contemplation.

I finished my capping exercise! All I have to do is pass this class I'm enrolled in, and I'm gonna gradumacate! I'm gonna make it after all!

Clever names for temp/headhunting agencies, with puns

1. Hire Power
2. Hire Ground
3. A Hire Purpose

Clever names for HR departments within universities or other post-secondary institutions, with puns, or rather, the same pun again

1. Hire Education

Drowning or waving...

I've just finished the final Harry Potter book. I started crying on page 484, read until the mid-500s, went to volunteer at the Shakespeare festival, got home around 4, and cried until the end. Since I picked up my copy around 10 yesterday morning, not too shabby.

I was pleased with the way the series turned out. I'm not as big a fan of these books as many people are, but I do enjoy immersing myself in them, and I think my enjoyment always ultimately comes down to what a masterful, careful, and seamless storyteller J. K. Rowling is. These books are so phenomenally popular, and the magical world of them is so absorbing, that I think the sheer writing talent J. K. Rowling has is often overlooked--especially given the semi-mythological story about how she conceived of the central conceit of the series. The idea of thinking of something on a train belies the effort that must go into the writing of these books. Everything about them, every detail, has been placed there with such obvious care, and yet that care is invisible, unforced. I guess it stands to reason--you don't become one of the best-selling writers of all time with mediocrity. And I guess my appreciation for it is kind of bizarre, I mean, I like the stories--they're imaginative and touching and funny and classic without being trite--but my love for these books really comes down to craft.

And now, with apologies to Witold Rybczynski, Dave Eggers, and Alberto Manguel, I shall return to my normal reading activities. And also, possibly, watch Veronica Mars. And eat some dinner--a strange new spicy dish I just invented, made with red wine, shrimp, and chili sauce. Laundry has fallen by the weekend-scheduling wayside, though. So it goes. It's the books' world--I just live in it.

This makes me laugh: The Hipster PDA. It actually looks a lot like my PDA.

Well, internets, it's Friday. As a small act of rebellion, I wore jeans to work, since I anticipate being along in the office for most of the day. I was eating some dinosaur fruit snacks, and now I'm updating the old(e) blog(e)... good times. In 6 1/4 hours, I'm going home, and until then, I don't anticipate accomplishing much.

Since last weekend, I've been sick off and on, and I haven't been sleeping, and my mental health feels like it's unraveling. So last night I did the most comforting things I can think of: I made mini-pizzas in my toaster oven. I turned on the air conditioning. I watched Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. And then I took two ibuprofen and a sleeping pill, and went to bed. I dreamt of Desktop Tower Defence and Harry Potter.

Thoughts thought at 6:12 in the morning

[Jocelyn is awakened by a loud crash] "What's that noise? Oh, it's just someone stealing a car..." [Jocelyn goes back to sleep]

Also, Kevin bit me

This is kind of interesting: The Periodic Table of the Internet.

I feel sick and want to go home, but my supervisor and my supervisor's supervisor are both on holidays--so who can give me leave to do so? No one. And so I remain. The title of this post refers to other reasons why I might be allowed to go home, especially if I were in elementary school.

Apparently, in spite of all the time and energy committed to security, the text of the last Harry Potter book was leaked online. It's available as a torrent--as a series of photographs of every page. I have to say, this obsession with getting the book 72 hours before everyone else baffles me. Just wait for it to come out! Don't you have other stuff to do? CUT YOUR HAIR! [Via BoingBoing, where I steal all my links, but I'm cool with it]

Also from BoingBoing: The math comic xkcd issued a challenge to readers based on this comic: to create real-life versions of the photo. The results are astounding. I love the attention to detail--the hands on chins!

I just had a momentary near-heart-attack when a co-worker told me he is looking for a way to scan paper documents to PDFs... several, hundred-page-documents. Fortunately, the conversation ended with... "But the question remains, who's going to do it? And it ain't going to be you. Or me." AWESOME.

I love Wednesdays because they are one-liner days at Overheard in New York--so many posts! Well, I shouldn't say I love them. I hate them less than I otherwise might.

I feel pretty today, internets. It's so hot outside, I'm all disheveled, and my hair is messy. I feel wanton.

May I suggest you buy this? #5

Storm Trooper Cufflinks $18 from luxedeluxe

Keep it light enough to travel

I'm happier than usual tonight--my CSS blessings multiply. I got a ride to the grocery store to buy my usual weird assortment of food: ground chicken, sugar-free Peek Freans (James: "You are 80 years old."), dinosaur fruit snacks, and skim milk. My new Harry Potter book is reserved and pre-paid for, from my local independent bookseller. I get to go on a mini-road-trip to Red Deer this weekend so James can get his passport application signed by the only judge we know. (Long story.) I got to dig out the ole MLA handbook tonight for the first time in months. There are lots of things to feel happy about--just set the bar low.

Sometimes it's like Alberto Manguel is reading my mind:

Every library suffers from this urge to increase in order to pacify our literary ghosts, 'the ancient dead who rise from books to speak to us' (as Seneca described them in the first century A.D.), to branch out and bloat until, on some inconceivable last day, it will include every volume ever written on every subject imaginable. (The Library At Night, 86)

I am having one of those days where I am frustrated by being unable to read everything, simultaneously, but I shall have to settle for The Library At Night, Dave Eggers' How We Are Hungry, and beginning on the weekend, the penultimate Harry Potter. And I mean 'penultimate' in the incorrect sense that it usually gets used, in case you were confused by that.

Who's your daddy?

I totally just figured out how to properly indent a bibliography using CSS. Oh yeah-- I'm feeling like a pretty big deal at this moment.

That is all.

Whoa....

That thing totally happened, you know that thing where you get so wrapped up your work that you lose track of what time it is, and then suddenly it's 3:25 and you get to go home in one hour?

That thing.

Whoa.

Thoughts on five million books

On the surface, librarians are people who venerate books, who understand their value and their power. They wouldn't be librarians if they didn't care. Part of the reason I wanted to be a librarian is that I have always believed that books, and information, have the power to change people's lives--not only believed that but known it, instinctively. But at the same time, I wonder if librarians' daily exposure to books in such large quantities also breeds a kind of apathy about them. That is definitely becoming the case for me. The University of Alberta library, where I work, has one of the largest library collections in Canada: over 5 million books, one and a half million maps, almost 4 million items on microform, subscriptions to almost 50,000 journals and magazines. Every time I arrive at, or leave, my office, I walk through a maze of uncatalogued material--books, magazines, economic reports, maps, novels, many of them in languages I don't recognize--and a part of me wonders, Why are we bothering? Once a librarian pores over these things to catalogue them, what are the chances that another person will look at them, ever? Don't we already have something in the collection that would serve just as well? I could pick up an economic report on Tuvalu and take it with me, and no one would ever be the wiser. (Not that I would ever do such a thing--I am speaking philosophically.)

When I first started working, the way I found my way back to my own office was by watching for the big stack of boxes labelled "German Monos." (As in monographs, not mononucleosis.) It has since disappeared, presumably into the library at large, but some of the romance of spending one's life among such a great, unreadable mass remains. The German Monos represented what is best about libraries to me: information that is mysterious, maybe incomprehensible even, but comforting in its very existence, its accessibility. I will never lose interest in the library's contents: "the translation of every book in all languages, the interpolations of every book in all books," as Borges says. But that sense of romance has become tempered a bit, weakened by apathy, by the knowledge that an infinite library can contain one perfectly relevant book, but also infinity minus one irrelevant books. When you have 5 million books, what do you need any particular one for? Of course, that's not productive thinking. Once you head down that path, where do you stop? We have to keep believing that more is always better. Otherwise we're lost.

But not anymore.

Good morning, internets.

It was the weekend! I did everything without leaving my apartment. It was far too hot to go anywhere or do anything. It was still pretty good, though, as weekends go. And I got two parcels in the mail yesterday-- ON SUNDAY! It was completely inexplicable. Since when does Canada post deliver anything on Sunday? My "powerty" poster arrived ("woo! Powerty!").

I am well into Season 2 of LOST now. Michelle Rodriquez showed up, prompting this conversation:

Jocelyn: It's just like Battlestar Galactica.
James: And Admirable Boobs?
Jocelyn: She's a tough psycho, but you can sort of understand why she did what she did--her circumstances transformed her into a psycho.
(Admirable Boobs = Admiral Kane)

I still don't have a crush on Sawyer, gunshot wounds and sultry eyes be damned. I tried to have a crush on Boone, but then I found out he was a male model, and THEN he died, so I guess it was not to be. I am hesitant to develop a crush on any of the characters on this show--I'm afraid of them going crazy. I don't want to be responsible.

I'm enrolled in the last class of my degree right now, which means that I have to finish the final academic requirement of my program (besides the class), my "capping exercise." This is a re-working of an earlier paper, updated and internetified. I have zero desire to work on it. The paper I chose is on digital copyright in Canada, which happens to intersect with my (paid) summer research project, so I am doing two literature reviews for the price of one. How crafty! Anyway, I'll be sure to post a link to my capping exercise when it's done, since I know the whole internet is waiting with baited breath to read about libraries and digital copyright in Canada. I will post it and within hours it will catapault to the top of digg and delicious.

I'm actually developing a personal site with my CV, portfolio, etc., on it, and I'm debating whether I am actually self-obsessed enough to put it up. I am not suffering from any delusions that people are interested in me, but I DO want to get a job, and I think a personal website might make me seem more tech-competent. I don't know if my desire to appear cool and unpretentious will win out over my mercenary desire to appear savvy and employable. It's, like, a total battle of personal values.

I just discovered Barbara Ehrenreich's blog at the Huffington Post. I want to be Barbara Ehrenreich when I grow up.

Ted Stevens (the "internet is not a dump truck" guy) wants to switch from his land-line to wireless while riding his motorcycle. Wha?