Librarian Avengers

ear Toyota Prius, I do not have a passenger. That is cat litter. Stop beeping at me.

Last year I pointed out that my local Target was selling a semi-skanky (and of course, Highly Accurate) “Librarian” Halloween costume.

This became a popular post, and I inadvertently helped sell dozens more of the silly things.

To counteract this, and help bring the universe a bit more into alignment, here’s a charmingly
inflammatory comment on Yahoo! Answers in response to a woman looking for tips on building a librarian Halloween costume:

Yes, ladies (and believe me, in the eyes of the world you are ALL ladies, even the dudes) why desexualize yourself by dressing like a hideous old librarian for Halloween, when you can just step on down to Girls’s Costume Warehouse?

This year I’m going as Frog.

n my new role as a user experience goon at Second Life, I’m often called upon to participate in rap battles with other employees.

Because we’re all busy, rap battles tend to be text-only and asynchronous, conducted over IRC, twitter, or instant messenger.

Past themes have included: My prowess as a Developer, My (imaginary) Car, Linden Lab Office Culture, and Various Programming Languages.

Below are a few examples of my amazing rap power, mostly gleaned from IM logs. Enjoy responsibly, and please remember check yourself before you wreck yourself.

Killing jira issues like Rambo kills commies / Tasks and subtasks crying for their mommies /As&Os got me going mental / Yoz wants to rap but he’s too CONTINENTAL

Chillin wit’ Jonhenry / Talking ’bout JIRA / Drank me some coffee / Wish it was a beerah

open up email to try and cat-heard / 60 threads later / time is going backward / I just get in when wham! it’s lunch / wtf have I done besides data-crunch?

think you bad / ’cause you so much taller? / you may be blue / but I’m white collar / rollin’ in my office working on a search / you think you’re rapping but its SO MUCH WORSE

Kickin’ it smoove in my GTO / ops wants to have a meeting / but I’ve got ta go!

elow, an actual conversation from IRC at work.
At last, my theories on Major League Baseball are made public! All may bask in my brilliant observations. I do but ask for a small percentage of the profits when you sell your season tickets on Craigslist…

erica: professional baseball = pedigreed cat show
* BigPapi whispers at erica: “this is the wrong channel for that kind of talk”
erica: just startin’ shit.
BigPapi: as you wish
sam: punk erica for being ignorant
BigPapi: insult erica
chowBOT: • chowBOT pimp slaps erica
erica: Professional baseball players are overbred and out of context, like cats at a cat show. Their talent has been refined to such a degree that they are no longer human representatives of a geographic area and are instead caricatures, transported from city-to-city and sold to the highest bidder. You might as well be watching showcats with squooshed faces and pink ribbons.
harmony: showcats are funny
chowBOT: BUILD ERROR: illegal redefinition of const “professional baseball” from value GREATEST_SPORT_EVER. Please RTFM.
sam: erica, your statement is so devoid of any understanding of baseball as to be rendered meaningless on its own. Therefore it requires no rebuttal
erica: heh. you said buttal.

uditions are rough. They test the courage of an actor. They test the patience of directors. They inevitably yield surprises.

Here, for the first time, we can watch the dramatic casting process for one of my generation’s favorite games…

 Super Mario Bros. Villain Auditions

k. Couldn’t resist. I love these guys.

atherine at The Freckled Diaries made this awesomeness:

One more and it’s a trend! Send me your LOLHistory!!

’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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