The nerd social event of the season:
Please listen to the following musical artists. Thank you.
I’m obsessed. You will be too.
Scissor Sisters
Amy Winehouse
A surge of adrenaline…
I’m allergic to peanuts. I’m the reason you have to endure a transcontinental flight with low blood sugar. I’m the reason your kid can’t bring PBJ on a field trip. Peanuts make me tip over and grab my throat.
So, of course I ate some last night.
It might not have been peanuts. It could have been chick peas, peanut oil, ground pistachios, or pine nuts. Any of those disreputable characters could have caused the trouble.
All I know is: I was lied to, and I had a very bad evening.
The Indian take-out restaurant on the corner will NOT be getting a holiday card from me this year. If someone would care to write out a polite note for me in Urdu, I would love to graphically detail for them the throat-closing unpleasantness that follows a wide grin and un-fact-checked assertions of “no nuts! no nuts!” that are obviously uttered to get me out of the way rather than out of any actual understanding of what I am requesting.
I made it to work this morning despite the powerful epinephrine-hangover that follows one of these episodes. Fortunately, Betsy saw through my ruse and sent me off to the Zen Room (yes, we have a zen room) to lie down until I could go to the doctor’s.
So now I’m home, with a fridge full of Indian food and a powerful need to check my email. 
I opened my computer and was greeted with today’s horoscope:
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Real things that actually happened
- My work name is Erica Linden. Everyone who works for Second Life gets a Linden last name. This makes us weirdly popular in-world.
- There is a huge bouquet of stargazer lilies on my desk. Got ’em for myself. Who needs boys? Not me. Nope.
- My mom phoned at 8am to make sure I was alive. A minor earthquake in Oakland made it on CNN. I didn’t feel a thing.
- My roommate threw a drink at a critic, and has cemented his place as a literary bad boy.
- My on-the-2 style of salsa dancing is considered impressive out here. Thanks Cornell ballroom club!
- I still need an apartment. If you know of anything, let me know. I’m looking in the Mission/Bernal/Noe neighborhoods. And I’ve got a friendly cat.
- There’s a big bulldog who hangs out in my office and rides a skateboard.
Thank you. That is all.
Old job, Meet new job: Quality Assurance edition
Let us compare the implementation of QA in my new job, to that of my old job:
- Internet startup (new job):
A team of dedicated professionals - Academic library (old job):
The screams of our users
Verily.
Librarians love balls.
From a conversation with my friend Jenny on the implications of library censorship…
Hello NYTimes readers. Radical Librarians welcome you!
I got a call about 20 minutes ago from a friend telling me that my website, this website, the website I HAVEN’T UPDATED IN WEEKS was mentioned in the NY Times. So, um. Hi. I’m updating! This is me. Updating. Just for you. La de da.
If you are interested in becoming a librarian, you might want to take this quiz.
If you know some librarians that you want to get gifts, I sell some cool t-shirts and mugs here.
Here are some of my favorite posts.
Here’s a quick summary of this website:
I’m Erica Olsen. I am a librarian (religion) and interface designer (profession). I just moved to San Francisco two weeks ago. I work doing User Experience at Second Life. I’ve been blogging since 1998, but in those days of yore we just called it “having a web page.”
If you wanna write to me and say hi, I’m ericaolsen (AT) gmail (DOT) com.