Month: October 2014

Librarian Book Group a bit overwhelming this month.

Librarian book group is on the right.  The probelm is the middle readers.  Usually they are very short books that I can whip through quickly but this month we’ve got a tome, Egg & Spoon, by the author of Wicked, an opus about a remote inn with mysterious visitors (Greenglass House) and a volume about a  boy who can talk to ravens.  (Gabriel Finley)  All of these are only marginally interesting to me and yet they go on and on.  I did just start the one with the flames on it (Firebug) and it’s quite promising. It’s YA, a teenaged firestarter with a boyfreind who smokes.  I’m down with that.  Thank goodness the books on the top and bottom of the pile can be read in 20 minutes.  Though The Farmer and the Clown has had the song “Territory Folk” in my head off and on all week long.)
On the left?  The final two of the 10 books to read for this year’s Mock Printz.  They aren’t due until January.

The end of Powell’s 2, nee Powell’s Technical Books

Once upon a time Powell’s Technical Books was at the corner of NW Park and Couch in a big white brick building with a store cat named Fup. Time passed, Fup died of old age, things changed, Powell’s Technical moved a few blocks north and became Powell’s 2.  The white brick building was torn down to make way for student apartments and a coffee shop with incredibly slow service.  
Walking by today, I see that Powell’s 2 has moved back to the mother ship, and so I bid goodbye to another piece in what was once an empire. Which will survive, of course, but in a different form than before.

Oregonian, you have got to be kidding me.

Just in case you don’t want to out-click, I’ll transcribe for you:
Thank you for being an angry and reluctant subscriber to The Oregonian.  We are sending you this sneaky postcard with many words to tell you that your subscription includes the newspapers published on Thanksgiving and Christmas.  These two newspapers are piled high with advertisements and have practically no news content to them.  We know that you, along with many other subscribers, grabs the three inch pile of ads and immediately transfers it to the recycling bin so you can get to the actual content of the paper which is, of course, news–not that we’re doing much of that anymore.  And remember a few sentences ago when we said that the extra newspapers are included in your home delivery subscription. What we really mean is that we are actually going to charge you extra, three dollars (that’s two dollars above the regular newsstand price) for the Thanksgiving Edition and one dollar (which is more than you pay for your weekday paper) for the Christmas one.  So be aware that your bill may come sooner than usual because of this.  If you’ve read this far and comprehended that we are completely screwing you over, please call our Customer Service Department where you can wait on hold for long periods of time before someone attempts to assist you.
Have a joyful Holiday Season, sucker.  
(We hope you will stop subscribing so we can claim circulation declines and forgo publishing altogether because we now pay our reporters based on how many “likes” and “pins” they get, not on their actual competence as a reporter. I mean really. The “free press” is so twentieth century.)
Your “friends” at the Oregonian.

Difficult to follow instructions.

I’m walking on the left-hand side of the street and the blue sign tells me to cross to the other side, because the sidewalk is closed.  But the other side of the street doesn’t have any sidewalk access either. So I did what that guy is doing and walked in the road.  
I’m glad they are doing work on both the red brick building on the right and the one you can see on the left.  But I do need to walk on a sidewalk now and then.

Amusing mail at work.

The Oregon Department of Education apparently has some alternative spelling of “Emerson” they find preferable.  I see this spelling a lot and I don’t understand where it comes from as there is no famous “Emmerson”.  Just old Ralph Waldo.  One “m”.

This just made me laugh. 
Casting call: We need a buttoned-up type to look like a very annoyed librarian.  No botox. The more disappointed, the better.

(Note that I know a lot of librarians and they don’t look like this at all.)

Random Song: I Wanna Get Better

So catchy.  Good positive message.  Fun places for the melody to go.  Really good lines*, addictive back-up singer parts, excellent shredding-type guitar solo.  This video isn’t the greatest, but it does give you the words.  There’s another video with a plot and stuff, should you want that.

*See:
“Lost control when I panicked at the acid test.”
“Because the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love that I gave, wasted on a nice face.”
“Chase that feeling, of an eighteen year old ,who didn’t know what loss was, now I’m a stranger.”
“And I miss the days of a life still permanent, mourn the years before I got carried away”

Requiem: Food processor.

Oh humble and hard-working food processor, I’ve had you since 2001.  You were my first appliance purchased after I moved to Portland.  And now your top has disintegrated, leaving me unable to convince you to grate the Fels-Naptha to make the laundry detergent.
I’m hoping I can purchase a replacement, because your motor is still running like a champ, so this may not be a final requiem.

Various things from the paper today.

From an article about getting your child off to college.

Here’s what I remember of my college application process.  At some point, I went to the library and researched some schools to go to.  I also got a postcard in the mail for a women’s college.  I sent away for more information.  The information arrived and I applied.  I asked my teachers for recommendations, I filled out the forms, I wrote and proofed the essay.  I got a money order for the application fee which I paid for out of my Pizza Hut earnings.  I got in.  I showed my parents the letter and asked if I could go.  They said yes.  I went.  I did not have SAT prep classes, (in fact, I did quite poorly on the SAT and then tried harder on the ACT) I did not have my parents reminding me of my various deadlines.  I wanted to go to school and I did what I had to do to go.  Do these children who need the post-its and reminders really want to go to college?  Maybe the college application process is the time to find out just how badly they want to go. By letting them do it themselves.

I don’t think there really is such a thing as Poncho Perfect. 
(That said, I kind of like the purple one in the middle.)

Did Jeremy Renner really have a desk when he was in the middle of filming “The Avengers”?  Does it come standard in his trailer?  What else does he do at his desk during filming?
I guess maybe he could, but I think this is lazy writing, employing a cliche instead of using description.  Standards people.  Standards.