it’s been hot at the ‘brary lately.

Category: dribblings

the AC at the library has been out for two weeks. thankfully it’s not July right now. it’s not so bad at the circ. desk, but back in the stacks it is hot and oh so stuffy.

the heat is also effecting (affecting? maybe? yes.) the patrons. one old (grandpa old) man hit on me (after touching me. TWICE. gross.) and one lady lied to my face multiple times, and when i wouldn’t fall for her lies she turned evil and mouthy. my defense at the time was to keep my mouth shut and stare right at her ugly, lying face. this of course, after i told her she could talk to my boss about the sitch in the morning and that nothing was going to be checked out at the moment seeing as how she owed $40.00 in fines AND that we closed 5 minutes ago.

Dear Lady Who Lied to Me,

Hi! Guess what? If you come running into the ‘brary at 5 till closing because your son needs to do a report on spiders and then you pitch a damn fit (complete with lies) and the library lady won’t let you check out because you owe a combined fine of over $40? AND you still have a book that’s been overdue since last December?

IT IS NOT THE LIBRARY’S FAULT THAT YOU ARE A DEADBEAT PIECE OF LYING VOMIT. YOU ARE A DRAIN ON SOCIETY AND A SUPREME WASTE OF OXYGEN. And the part where you turned to your mouthy little brat and told him that he wouldn’t get to do his homework because the library wouldn’t let him check out the book he needed? WINS YOU NO POINTS ON THE MOM SCORE, YOU HORSE-FACED, BAG OF PUSS-RIDDEN FILTH.

Of course, if you had gotten there with plenty of time, like say, 15 minutes before closing, you could have made xerox copies of the pages of the book you couldn’t check out because you’re such a stupid, deadbeat, bag of misery. And since your small insect brain can’t hold a real thought, apparently your kids will suffer. Lampreys! The lot of you.

No Love,

Me

i love my job.

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12. Point Omega by Don DeLillo

Category: 50 Books

12. Point Omega by Don DeLillo

This was a weird little novella. I know DeLillo has written many books, but this is the first one I’ve read. I’m going to give another one a chance because this one didn’t seem very good. And what I mean by that is not that the author is bad, in fact I would say the author is great, but the story is so… incomplete.

I would compare this author to Paul Auster in that the writing is real “thinky” and the characters all seem to be drowning in aloneness. (but none of the awesome metafiction of Auster’s that I so love.)

There are only a handful of characters in this and I didn’t really care about any of them. They all seemed too self-absorbed, and not in a snotty, “I’m so important.” kind of way, but in that way that people who are autistic (or Asperger’s or whatnot) where they don’t really consider other people.

The jacket cover says it’s about a guy (a filmaker) who wants to make a documentary-type film about this other guy who was some kind of Department of Defense guy (but he wasn’t military, he was some kind of thinktank guy) during the war. But that description makes the book sound like it has an actual plot. I don’t think it does.

There was a really good sentence in it though: “Why is it so hard to be serious, so easy to be too serious?”

Obviously there was more than one good sentence in the book but it’s that sentence that makes me want to give another of DeLillo’s books a try.

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11. No More Heroes by Ray Banks

Category: 50 Books

11. No More Heroes by Ray Banks

This is the third (i think) Cal Innes novel. I’ve not read the first two. Sometimes the library doesn’t get all the books in the series.

This one takes place in Manchester, England. It’s more noir than crime ficiton. I really liked it up until the last 50 pages.

I will say it has loads of swearing. And I’m all for gratuitous swearing, right? So when I notice that it’s loads and loads of swearing then it must really be bad. It’s also chock full of British slang. So if you’re not up on all the britslang I’d read this one close to the internet so you can look up some stuff. Most of it isn’t really necessary to know, but some of it is important enough.

i was able to guess at nowt and spanner. but i had to look up “chip and pin” and some government stuff, because the book has some social/racial/political things in it that i didn’t know about. And generally I don’t like to have to do “research” when I’m reading fiction, but I really liked the Cal Innes character, and wanted to really “get” the book. Well done to the author.

Cal Innes is sort of a PI and not like a squeaky clean character. A bit of an addict, alkie whatnot. Same old same old, but I really liked him. It’s noir, so it’s dark and there’s really no good guys, I’d say, not that Cal’s a bad guy really, but with the illegal drugs and all…

I’d like to read the first two books.

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Nerdsylvania population: me?

Category: dribblings

so i was talking with Mr. Fleegan and the Catoes and i admitted to liking the Windows 7 commercials. The ones where the normal people are all, “Windows 7 was my idea.” i like them because in the reenactments the normals are replaced with very good-looking people. i think it’s funny.

SHUT UP.

but what i had never noticed about the commercials are the parts where they are talking about some part of Windows 7. never paid attention. don’t care about it.

one of those commercials came on and i actually noticed whatever “feature” they were talking about and said, “hey, i have Windows 7. i never knew it could do that… with the… whatever that thing that it did.”

mr. fleegan: yeah, i took that off for you. i didn’t think you could work it.

me: oh. well. maybe you’ve a point.

laura: so how is Windows 7?

me: it seems normal. except i can’t find anything anymore.

laura: like what?

me: like the character map! i mean, remember how when you’d need the character map? and you’d click the start button and blam blam blam accessories tools something and THERE IT IS? well, it’s not there. nothing is there. i can’t find the accessories folder. i have to DO A SEARCH to find the character map!

mr. fleegan: what do you use the character map for?

laura: yeah, how often do you have to use it anyway?

me: i use it a lot! don’t you?

no.

never.

what?!

i can’t remember the last time i used the character map.

really? i use it quite a bit.

why?

yeah, what are you using it for?

well, i… oh, mostly it’s the Scandinavian crime fiction.

*snickers all around*

…shut it. and they have these wacky letters that…

*more laughing*

i hate you all.

******

fleegan.com: Avid Character Map User™

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crazy phrase part 750!$%#^&

Category: dribblings

The Hapsburgs and the McCoys.

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10. Every Pitcher Tells a Story: Letters Gathered by a Devoted Baseball Fan by Seth Swirsky

Category: 50 Books

10. Every Pitcher Tells a Story: Letters Gathered by a Devoted Baseball Fan by Seth Swirsky

This is an older book published in 1999. Two things bothered me about this book.

1. In the intro the author says you don’t have to be a baseball fan to enjoy the book.

2. The whole time I was reading it (and it’s a short read) I was going crazy because the letters that the ballplayers write are handwritten (most of them were. only a few were typed out). Not a single player had good handwritting and the letters were really difficult to read. I even skipped a few of the letters because it looked like they had been written with an ancient dried up ink pen and THEN copied with the shittiest copy machine known to man. I visually impair my eyes trying to read some of these things, and at the very end of the book all of the letters have been transcribed and neatly typed up.

that mess on the floor? is my brain.

So, first of all, after reading this I’d say that yes, you do need to be a baseball fan to enjoy the book. And even then, I wouldn’t say you’d enjoy it. It’s a great idea, don’t get me wrong. It just kind of falls flat. I noticed that the author also wrote a book called Baseball Letters. So i’m guessing that he pulled a book out of those letters and then decided to do a follow up book and this time focusing on just pitching. And on paper, that sounds like a great idea. But the letters themselves aren’t that great. (Some of them are, but not many. Most seem to be all, “Yeah, I remember that game. Good game. Go Mets!” or something.

Then comes the frustration of not being able to read most of the letters THEN getting to the end where they’re all typed out. The typed out letters SHOULD have been on the same page as the handwritten one. It sucked SO HARD to get to the end and realize that there are all the letters easily read AND EASILY READ IN 15 MINUTES.

On a scale of one to Fail: pisspoor execution.

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Abraham Lincoln book bag.

Category: dribblings

Laura has awesomely added the Lincoln book bag to her =1000words cafepress store. this is great because it means i didn’t have to do anything. (although now i’m seriously considering a fleegan store. except Laura has all the fleegan artwork anyway, so it kind of seems pointless.)

there are also magnets available! you should buy some. i mean, why wouldn’t you?

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book bags!

Category: dribblings

this year our library is doing book bags instead of t-shirts for the summer reading program. i am really excited about this because it means:

1. one size fits all

2. my coworkers and i don’t have to wear dorky t-shirts on the SRP days.

the only thing is we need a design (one color) to go on the book bags. plus, we want a design that we can use all year and not just for the SRP. and it needs to be something kids would like.

and adults.

no, we’re not asking for the world with a fence aorund it. small town libraries have no money so we have to use what little we have on stuff for everyone. DON’T JUDGE ME. yet.

so. the only useable “design” i’ve got so far is a “got books?” thing. and yes, ass, i realize that it’s really more of a “short sentence” and not a “design”. nor is it “clever”. and you can “shut it.”

the other designs i’ve made are kind of awesome but unuseable so i thought i’d share them with you here!

i guess what i’m really saying here is, “Laura! Please help!”

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9. The Devil’s Star by Jo Nesbø

Category: 50 Books

The Devil’s Star by Jo Nesbø

SPOILERS. DON’T READ IF YOU ARE A BIG BABY.

More Scandi crime. This one is Norwegian. (heh, from Norwegia, right?)

It’s part of the Harry Hole series, but I’m not sure which number it is because in America they don’t come out in the order first published. blah blah blah heard it all before.

I will say this about the Hole series, it seems to be the most “American” of the Scandi crime I’ve read. I do like these books. I love Harry. How could you not? An alkie detective hates himself, can’t be responsible for himself,  but has to “save the world”. All the other police are completely sober and clever, but they can’t solve the crime like Harry can. I know it sounds like I’m poking fun, but I’m not. I read it and I don’t think, “oh come ON!” I think, “oh, Harry. Not again. *sigh*”

 However, I do have two problems (maybe three) with this book.

First, (and I think I had this problem with Nemesis too) there are too many characters in this book. And it seems like they are only there to fool you. Are they the killer? Could it be that weirdo? IS IT HER?! no? STOP WITH THE RED HERRINGS ALREADY. Plus it didn’t matter, because when the police finally catch the killer there are still 130-some pages left in the book so you know THAT’S NOT RIGHT. The ending took too long and was so convoluted that by the time I finished the book I didn’t really care anymore.

And somehow, I STILL love Harry. I think that says a great deal about the author. Good job, right?

The other thing I have a problem with (POSSIBLE SPOIL ALERT, IF YOU CARE.) is the whole pentagram thing. The killer is leaving these star shaped diamonds on the victims and there’s pentagrams at the crime scenes. And when Harry is all (and I’m paraphrasing, dig) “what’s this?” and the one of many non-important characters is all, “it’s a pentagram.” Harry’s all, “a pentagram? what’s that?” (something similar, anyway.) I can’t help but think that there’s no way. No way a police detective would be all, “pentagram? wot’s all this then?”

I’m not saying the detective should be an expert on occultic symbols, but for crying outs, he should at least be able to recognize the most widely used one. There’s even one on like, most every Rush album, you supposed Rock-n-roll detective. And it’s not like he’d have to know the whole history, right? he could be all, “a pentagram? you mean like devil worship?” and the one-too-many character could be all like, “well, historically, blah blah blah exposition.”

I dunno, maybe I’m off here. Maybe in Norway the pentagram isn’t widely known? I can’t believe that (especially in this post-Da Vinci Code world,) but whatever.

If you liked the other Hole novels then you should read this one, especially for the Hole/Waaler thing. But if you’re new to the series and new to crime fiction in general, I wouldn’t start out on this one.

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el beisbol

Category: dribblings

well the Yanks lost the opener.

to Boston.

piss.

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