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Speaking of sloth…

Sloth woodcut

Here’s some baby sloths. (thanks Kafkaesque)

These sloths remind me of the time I went to a residence hall library program with my friend Ryan “Galaxor Nebulon” Hughes. (Hi Ryan! Where the hell are ya?)

They had brought in a bunch of rainforest animals to the residence hall to, I dunno, promote reading or something. There were a bunch of snakes and fuzzy things, a scorpion, and a two-toed sloth. At the end of the program, the audience was invited to come up and pet the animals. Ryan decided that he should pet the sloth. Ryan HAD to pet the sloth.

I kind of lost track of Ryan after he went up to the sloth, and when I found him again he was bleeding. Ryan had been bitten by the sloth.

As you know, the sloth is the Slowest Mammal in the World. It is known for moving only 5 or 6 feet a minute. Yet here was Ryan, bleeding. “It looked so cute”, Ryan said. “When I saw it open it’s mouth, I thought, oh! it’s going to do something even cuter! I didn’t know it was going to BITE me!”

I believe to this day Ryan has a scar. From sloth.

Let this be a lesson to you.

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Rescue Helicopters grounded for Bush Photo-op

Bush Turkey.jpg Bob Byler’s brother was flying a rescue helicopter in New Orleans last week. He tells stories of tearing the roofs off of houses, and airlifting people out of their submerged houses. However, for several hours he and his fellow emergency helicopter pilots were forced to stop their flights.

The President was in town. There is a well-established (and wise) security procedure that calls for a 50 mile no-fly zone around the President wherever he happens to be. However, during Friday’s presidential mission of mercy, this rule was responsible for the delay of life-saving rescue flights.

As the flood waters rose, flight crews were grounded so that Mr. Bush, showing his usual good judgment, could sympathize with the newly second-homeless Trent Lott, survey the damage, and pose for photos in front of hastily-assembled and later absent rescue equipment. I’m certain this was all a great comfort to the people drowning in their attics, waiting for rescue crews that never arrived.

Were their lives, too, a noble sacrifice for the causes of freedom and democracy, or has this administration endangered more Americans for the cause of the photo-op?

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Literary tag

Argh! I’ve been tagged. Kevin Smokler has tagged me in Literary Tag and I am now compelled to answer the following questions:

1. How many books do I own?
Too damn many. We bought this huge bookcase and painted it red, and now it stands in the living room looming at us.

2. Last Book I Bought:
Y: The Last Man Vol. 5: Ring of Truth – Brian K. Vaughan
This is one of the most exciting comics being created right now. The premise is, what would happen if all the men in the world died…except one. Great writing, great art, bow-and-arrow wielding amazons, good times.

3. Last Book I Read:
I just finished up Reinventing Comics by Scott McCloud, and am halfway through Going Nucular: Language, Politics, and Culture in Controversial Times by Geoffrey Nunberg – the linguist from NPR. I liked his last book too.

4. Five Books That Mean A Lot To Me:
The Tidewater Tales by John Barth
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The Laws of Evening by Mary Yukari Waters
Fool on the hill by Matt Ruff
Grassroots : A Field Guide for Feminist Activism by Jennifer Baumgardner & Amy Richards

5. Tag Five More:
Kara at Infogirl
The Well Dressed Librarian
Jessamyn at Librarian.net
Jessica at AndStillShe
Sumana 

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Broken!

It was a fantastic 4th of July softball game. We played in Beezoo and Lexie’s sheep field. There were two friendly German shepherds, a handful of players, a famous digital librarian (whose name rhymes with ‘Hill Farms’), and bases made out of flannel shirts. Occasionally, the dogs would grab the ball and run around looking pleased with themselves. Hill Farms kept dropping the ball. Chris hit a home run with the bases loaded. At one point, five sheep and a couple of goats ran through the infield, bleating frantically. “Stop this madness!” they seemed to say.

I twisted my ankle running to third and felt a rather alarming ‘POP’. Once the adrenalin wore off, I realized I was having a difficult time walking. X-rays were taken, braces and crutches assigned, and I’ve been hopping around on one leg ever since. Yesterday I got downgraded from an avulsion fracture to a ligament something-or-other. I’ve been having fun abusing Advil and making up stories about what happened.

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One sentence movie reviews

For your summer viewing pleasure, here are some one-sentence movie reviews culled from my recent media consumption. Tune in tomorrow for two-sentence movie reviews.

The Corporation: Creepy facts set to ominous music.

Star Wars III: Dialog by Elmer Fudd.

A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Too much Arthur Dent, not enough Ford Prefect.

Doctor Who (new BBC series): That Bittorrent guy who gave me these sure is great.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou: It feels like I’ve watched this movie before…

Hero: Swing your swift sword sister, swing your swift sword now.

Finding Neverland: In Which Johhny Depp Acts and some other stuff happens, I dunno I lost track, but there’s a really great dog.

Devil’s Playground: Why the Amish are stupid.

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ALA tip

If any of you impoverished public librarians out there want to attend the American Library Association conference this year but need a slick way to get work to pay for it, here’s a tip. Schedule your departure for the day after the conference ends. Pack large, empty suitcases. Lurk around the publishers’ booths on the last day and collect the free and insanely discounted display books that the publishing representatives don’t want to haul home. Especially keep an eye on the DK booth and the fabulous Tenspeed Press. If you do it right, the money you spend on travel expenses will roughly equal the amount of schwag you bring home.

I won’t be attending ALA this year, having defected for South by Southwest Interactive where they have panels on subjects I care about, and the nightlife is an order of magnitude less lame.

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Index This

Did you know that there is an American Society of Indexers? How meta is that?

In a similar vein, our fearless leaders here at the Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds recently spearheaded the creation of an animal behavior ontology. I was browsing through the list of behaviors and have concluded that librarians are predisposed to aid-giving behavior, and perhaps homeostatic postures.

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Thaw already. damn.

Northeastern living. Deer tracks on the frozen pond. Frozen gas tank. It kind of balances out.
So this has nothing to do with anything, but here’s some stuff:

  • Listening to the White Stripes obsessively. obsessively. ob. sess. iv. ly. Yes, still.
  • Another argument for moving to a real city: Urban golf. I love this guy.
  • I might go contra dancing tonight. It seems like fun, and there’s fuckall to do here. I hereby renounce any street cred I may have accumulated over the years. Sigh.
  • My secret boyfriend Jon Stewart is coming to campus and I can’t afford tickets. You would think he’d hook a sister up, but no.
  • My cat is a demonic armchewing bastard. Any suggestions?
  • I’ll write some more stuff about library websites and web design soon. I’m kind of drained of wrath right now. Gotta go recharge my batteries by taunting small children and defacing public property.

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