Monthly Archives: December 2005

Robbed at birth I tell you!

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I got ripped off by my genes—I’d have made one damn good lesbian if only my genetics had cooperated!

   

   
    

   

   

    

   

   

    

   

   

      Feminine
      You scored 43 masculinity and 50 femininity!
    
      You scored high on femininity and low on masculinity.  You have a traditionally feminine personality.
    
      
    

 

   My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

free online dating free online dating
You scored higher than 11% on masculinity
free online dating free online dating
You scored higher than 19% on femininity

 

Link: The Bem Sex Role Inventory Test written by weirdscience on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Well, at least I chose the right profession.  Too bad I don’t cook like she does.  Of course, she’s about to burn the heck out of her fingers.  I, at least, know what a pot holder is. 

Found at in the hoosegow and at A Night Light.  Check out the commentary at A Night Light.  Damn funny.

Application’s complete. Now I wait.

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Today I turned in the final pieces of my application for the Certificate of Advanced Study (CAS) degree here at GSLIS at UIUC.

Now I get to wait 6 weeks.  Or more.

Although I never intend to stop learning, and to hopefully not stop taking classes, this may well be my last chance to be able to afford (in several senses) to attend school full-time.  I’m willing to give up another 2 years or so for more formal education. 

I just hope the school is willing to let me.

Radical Militant Librarians Unite!

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My boss’ husband set up some cafepress schwag for all of us Radical Militant Librarians.

Just doing our small part to educate (and clothe) even more of them.

So, do your part.  Buy some and wear it. 

What, not a librarian yourself?  Then buy some for your own favorite RML.

Personally, these are the pieces I want:

As much as I hate commercialism, this is the time of year for it.  :->

As Jill (my boss) says, "The little cartoon guy may look bookish, but you can tell by that growl he’s radical! And militant!"

Boys will be boys (and idiots!)

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Rikhei, the Lethal Librarian posted about a group of non-female library school students who have started a new organization, the Non-Female Library Association, or NoFLA.

I don’t know if this is a joke or what; but either way it is a bad joke.  They have a blog and there’s been some discussion in the Libraries community of LiveJournal.

Here’s the text of my comment that I left at Rikhei’s:

Hey Rikhei,

I do NOT know what to say. I am completely dumbfounded for now. Seeing as it is ‘first-years’ who are behind it it makes me cringe even more.

And what the heck “plight” and “injustices” are they referring to in their 1st blog post? I only
skimmed a few comments at the LiveJournal thread but I have to agree they are off to a bad start with the pathetic humor. This isn’t fake April Fools are something, is it?

I’d love to see the initial email they sent out.  I can say it is NOT UIUC.

I’m not saying their aren’t “issues” that males face in librarianship, but if they are ever going to be allowed to be discussed much less taken seriously, they have to be approached with much more care and
seriousness.

I, for one, want to go on record (again) as being proud and excited to be entering a profession that is made up of a vast majority of women. Best darn decision I ever made in my life!

I just do not get this!  Boys.  Bah!

If this is for real, I think these boys need to be slapped for the way they’ve handled this.  As I said, sure there are a few issues men face in librarianship.  But it is only a few.  I wonder about the histories of these folks.  Have they served in the military?  Have they spent much time in any other typically male-dominated castes?  What are their normal relationships with women?

I want to scream WTF at them.  I want to give them a hug and tell them it’s going to be OK.  I want them to look around at the world, get a bit of education, see the plight of women historically, globally, socially, and currently, and then and only then, if they are serious, to address this in a serious manner and not so damn flippantly.

I do not believe that there is inherently anything wrong with creating all-male organizations either.  But the manner in which this one has been addressed in the only public face that I have seen so far (the blog) is wrong.

Again, I am so happy to be among the women.  And no boys, I am not gay.  Although I got to say I am more offended by the "cat person" stereotype than by the "I must be gay" stereotype.  I am neither; but I find cats more offensive than gays.  I’m not allergic to gays.

Boys.  Damn foul creatures!

Trackback update 2

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TypePad is still failing me drastically.  They are at least fairly responsive to my help ticket, but aren’t fixing the problem.  They keep adding new features, blah, blah, blah, but what about just having a stable and reliable product?  That’s what I’d prefer.

I have been trying to send trackbacks to Michael McGrorty and 3QD since Saturday with absolutely no luck.  I have tried from both my PC and Mac at home, and from the Mac at work.  And these are both TypePad blogs!

I am going to try and send one to myself right now.  I’m also going to restrict it to one just for testing purposes.

4 saves and no luck.

4 saves from a work PC and still no luck.

Also tried Safari on the Mac and still no luck.  And yes, I’ve tried all these combos before.  I have also tried resaving the "Other People’s Bookmarks" post many, many times and still no trackbacks sent.

Test after getting response from TypePad.  "Trackback problem update."

Nope.  Didn’t work.

Update: 13 Dec 05 9:17 PM Just succeeded in sending a trackback to a WordPress blog (Rikhei’s) from another post, but nothing else will go.

Blossoms & Blood

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You’ve gotta hope that there’s someone for you
as strange as you are
who can cope with the things that you do
without trying too hard

…

You gotta know that there’s more to this world
than you have seen
because we all have a limited view
of what it can be

Jon Brion.  "Blossoms & Blood."  Punch-Drunk Love (disc 2).

Christmas Shopping

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I managed to get most of my Christmas shopping done today.  I ordered some things online this morning and then hit Best Buy and Target this afternoon for some gift cards.  Of course, I have to mail the gift cards, but then I still have to mail Christmas cards so it’s OK I guess.  If I’m smart I’ll remember to put the gift cards in the cards.  Bought cards yesterday.

I also have to mail some books to my niece.  I got these free from the Center for Children’s Books earlier in the year.  If I can keep it to one trip to the Post Office I’ll be very happy.  Of course, I had to go there yesterday to pick up a package.  It really asses me up when I have to pick up stuff that is supposed to be delivered.  Someone paid to have it delivered; so why am I picking it up?  Often that someone is me.  Just one of the trials of single living.

The only one I couldn’t find anything for was my Mom.  Target didn’t have either of the things she asked for, which is completely ridiculous.  But I did find something for my ex-dog.  So Hap’ll be happy.

My daughter called, which was nice.  She’s got 2 more days of classes and then 3 finals.  One more semester and she’ll be an Obie grad.  I am so very proud of her!

At Best Buy I found a few treats for myself.  Of course, I had some of their stupid coupons they send to Best Buy card holders so it was a given that I couldn’t just leave with the gift cards I needed.  At least one of the things I bought I have actually been in the market for for a while now though.

I got myself a Maxtor OneTouch II 200GB external hard drive.  It comes with Dantz Retrospect backup software for both PC and Mac and I’m supposed to be able to backup both computers to it via USB cable.  I sure hope it works with both because that is what I really need.  It is a fair amount bigger than both hard drives together so it should serve me for quite a while.  I might even be able to have a larger iTunes storage system than either computer itself.  Of course, that implies figuring out how to manage iTunes in that way, but maybe I’ll get lucky.

I also picked up 2 movies at $9.99 each because I had those stupid 10% off coupons.  At least this time, I only bought 2 things instead of the limit of 5.  I got Heavy Metal and Punch-Drunk Love.  Not sure why for either, except they were cheap.  Heavy Metal shows that I can be a typical guy on occasion, I guess.  Punch-Drunk Love is much more complicated.  I rented it a few years ago (1 Aug 2003) when I was in a very bad way mentally and emotionally and seriously needed and wanted some funny-as-all-get-out comedy to unwind and relax.  Very. Bad. Choice.  As soon as it was over I completely broke down, and not in some weepy "poor me" sort of way, but in an extremely violent and destructive way.  Luckily for me and my stuff I didn’t actually attack anything, but it was not pretty.  After recovering from my ‘fit,’ I put on Spirited Away which I had also rented.

I think I liked the movie (PDL).  It just was not the kind of comedy that I needed so desperately at the time.  I looked back at my journal that I was keeping at the time (seems the blog has replaced my journal.  Shame!), which is how I found the date.  Nope.  Wasn’t a pretty time.  Work was literally killing me spiritually and mentally, and thus physically.  I had just verified that, yep, only had to give one day notice by law.  I visited campus HR a day later to see about forcing them to move me or getting a job elsewhere on campus (during a hiring freeze.  Right!)  Details aren’t important I guess, but it was a very, very bad time.  The administration in that place just took and took and took and gave nothing but crumbs in return.

I guess I ought to get on to some other chores.  I could box up these books for my niece, print labels for Christmas cards, do the cards, balance 2 checkbooks, read, install the hard drive, work on my application….  Then I can watch a movie.

Other People’s Bookmarks

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Recently read:  Michael Atkinson.  "Other People’s Bookmarks: Fellow Wanderers of a Forgotten Republic." Believer.  Nov 2005.  Found at 3 Quarks Daily.

Musings on objects found to mark one’s place in a book. 

If this is a story about bookmarks—other people’s booksmarks, others’ impulsive gestures and life-stuff dropped into books like time-capsuled accidents, residual moments left to ferment, their natural, ordinary sugars breaking down and yielding the drunken energy of melancholy—then it’s also a story about time, human passage, memory (or poignant lack of it), and rue, as well as about how all of these are hopelessly entwined with culture’s essence as something we manufacture in order to reach each other.

…

When we’re reading, the book is our new land, our frontier; finding the distinctive marks of a previous reading is like discovering a fossilized campfire site or a cave-wall drawing: evidence of ancestors.

Atkinson takes issue with store bought bookmarks:

…how could anyone be so orderly and fearful and arid of mind so as to purchase and conscientiously use what should be found once and then found again and again, and thereafter bear the kismet of connectedness?

…,generally, bookmarks should be snatched from the jaws of your quotidian life, if only they could be fished out of a book a half century later and tell some unintentional but imperative thing about you to whatever book lover had the good grace to cross your bibliophilic path.

Seems a bit snobbish to me, but it’s his personal predilection.  I do use some store bought bookmarks.  And while they may not be exactly quotidian, they will someday tell someone something unintentional but imperative about me.  Sure, when I purchase them it is intentional, but only to me. 

Anyway, this is an excellent article and you may just discover some interesting sounding books to read.  Just don’t tell Michael McGrorty; I wouldn’t want to add to his situation.  It is one I understand all too well.

Did he…?

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Well, for the 2 of you who may have been paying attention: 

No.  I did not.  She has a boyfriend.

At least I don’t have to beat up on myself anymore for not getting around to the asking.