Author: Erica Firment

Erica Olsen Firment is an omnivorous mammal of the genus Ailurus, having an endothermic physiology and a long, furry tail. Erica's range extends to both deciduous and coniferous forests, and can often be found working on software user interfaces and creating information architectures in Silicon Valley.
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Librarian Halloween Beatdown

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.

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Nerdcore Rap Battles in which I have participated…

In 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!

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Major league baseball as Cat show

Below, 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.