We may be quiet people, but if our upstairs neighbor starts playing his piano again, I may have to turn up the stereo.
posted by Jenny Baum
4:22 PM
A library patron recently came to me for advice on how to open an attachment to her email. She was using Yahoo Mail. She clicked on "Open File from your Current Location" and then noticed a checkbox that said, "always ask before opening this type of file," and started to worry-- who should she ask?
Always ask the librarian!
The digital divide is not bridged. For every patron who has trouble opening an attachment, there are probably two hundred others who are learning to use a mouse, and three hundred who haven't gotten themselves into a library yet, but saw the signs advertising free computer classes, maybe on a subway train or a bus.
posted by Kate Lyons
1:44 PM
What poor people out there are running the NY marathon? Rain, snow and wind?
posted by Kate Lyons
9:46 AM
Sunday, October 27, 2002
Jenny and I bought a cable today, to connect iPod to the stereo in the living room, the stereo with the big, loud speakers.
Actually, we're pretty quiet people. But now, if we did want to make the living room floors vibrate with a limitless assortment of songs, we could.
posted by Kate Lyons
10:14 PM
Friday, October 25, 2002
 | The little tabby that lives with Jenny and I, jumped into Jenny's lap one day, as Jenny was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, after a bath. Jenny started petting her, the tabby cat dug its claws in the terrycloth towel, purred with love at the steamy bathroom, and a habit formed. |
Ask a librarian, via UIUC.
posted by Jenny Baum
5:41 PM
Monday, October 21, 2002
I highly recommend Fantastic Foods Sloppy Joes . They're vegan and delicious.
posted by Kate Lyons
9:24 PM
Sunday, October 20, 2002
My Aunt and Uncle have had similar iPod problems. I've run with it, but I don't run nearly as far or fast as you do.
wikiweblogpim indexes all the free wiki/weblog/pim software available.
Ask a librarian, via the library of Congress.
posted by David Jacobs
9:36 AM
Saturday, October 19, 2002
My iPod apparently doesn't like to go running with me. I put it in my vest pocket, and ran happily around the reservoir for about 20 minutes. Then it stopped playing. I checked it out, and the thing was super sluggish, like it was out of battery power. I pressed buttons, and about 10 minutes later, things happened. When I got back to the gym, it looked like it was just out of battery power (the battery bar was empty). I thought this was weird, as it was fully charged this morning. But whatever. An empty battery is easier to fix than a completely broken iPod. So I left it in my backpack and didn't check it again until I arrived home, at which point it was working perfectly.
posted by Kate Lyons
1:01 PM
Last winter Jenny and I both had the flu at the same time, and spent 4 entire days inside the house, with high fevers. During this time, I played Sims nonstop. I wound up with this pretty traditional family... I didn't mean to, but when this couple had a baby, it just made sense to have the woman in the household stop work to care for the baby, because she was earning less money. And, so the man became a surgeon, and brought in tons of money, and the woman did nothing but care for the baby and the house. Out of nowhere, the man just vaporized. And the woman was left with no income, children and this house that cost a ton of money to maintain.
I broke down and bought Season 1 of Buffy. I was down to the last disc of my Season 2 collection, and panic struck.
posted by Kate Lyons
12:52 PM
Friday, October 18, 2002
Kate, if you're bored this weekend you can hang peace signs in your sim house!
posted by David Jacobs
8:00 PM
Thursday, October 17, 2002
The cats knocked over a cactus while I was at work.
posted by Kate Lyons
7:28 PM
Buffy may have to kill Anya in next week's episode of Buffy! Didn't the TV Gods heed my request? Faith Hill should wrestle Sarah Michelle Geller, and Willow and Anya should do it! No more of this killing off my favorite Buffy characters. First Jenny Calendar, then Kendra, then Tara and now this.
Jenny is off to Las Vegas on some media market conference that has something to do with librarians and media makers, or something... whatever. The point is that she's not here, and I'm all alone.
Did you know you can buy sperm on the Internet?
posted by Kate Lyons
7:14 PM
Tuesday, October 15, 2002
Maybe you'd like Librarians for Peace (via dayku), and/or Kevin Finn's Marathon Calculator?
posted by David Jacobs
10:42 AM
Sunday, October 13, 2002
I was just reading on the GLAAD site about this gallup pole that found people, on average, think that about 30% of the population is LGBT. This is up from previous years. I looked at the poll, and discovered that " . . . a majority of Americans remain opposed to gay marriage, and about half are opposed to the extension of the same types of benefits married couples receive to gay and lesbian partners joined in civil unions. About four out of ten Americans think that gays and lesbians should not be allowed to work as members of the clergy or as elementary school teachers." (http://www.gallup.com/poll/analysis/ia020911vii.asp)
posted by Kate Lyons
10:04 PM
The SNL suggestion that Faith Hill wrestle Sarah Michelle Gellar did make everything a little better. Jenny and I were tackling the question-- why does everyone like Willow so much, and it led to a bunch of suggestions for the rest of BTVS season 7. Anya and Willow-- does anyone else out there see it? This would lead to Xander doing the "my two ex-love interests are sleeping together . . . I'm a male lesbian" and the rest of the typical whatever that happens when a guy's two ex-girlfriends start dating. Yes-- I've seen it happen. Who didn't see it happen during college, at some point or another?
posted by Kate Lyons
11:28 AM
Saturday, October 12, 2002
Our little black cat can't seem to use his litter box, and the rug in the bathroom is bearing the brunt of his misdirection. The sink in the bathroom is leaking, and it's been raining nonstop for the last three days. Cabin fever is setting in. At least Sarah Michelle Gellar is on SNL tonight. Perhaps watching her will make everything better.
posted by Kate Lyons
7:06 PM
Friday, October 11, 2002
I hope we're not breaking some unwritten blog law (Jenny and I are somewhat new to this), by writing about this girl who links to us. But check this out! This girl who we've never met, from another country, reads our blog and linked to us! Read her 100 things page-- it's quite fabulous.
Jenny and I also both like fuzzy things and cats. Willow is my favorite character, also. Jenny, however, likes Anya best.
posted by Kate Lyons
9:10 PM
So, I was teaching this class the other day at the library, a class on using technology (like the web, email, etc) and a student came up to me at the end of class. "This is so great," she exclaimed, "I think email is going to really take off. I really like the web and webpages. Designing webpages, that's going to be really popular."
I've read articles recently on how the digital divide is bridged. We've done our jobs. Everyone has access to a computer. Whatever.
posted by Kate Lyons
4:52 PM
Monday, October 07, 2002
David-- cool posting! Katia Roberto graduated from UIUC's library school a few years before we got there. She's a bit of a legend.
posted by Kate Lyons
9:42 PM
We all joke about librarians. Why bother with having separate conferences for the American Library Association, the Knitters Guild and the North American Cat Show, you might ask? Save everyone some plane tickets and membership fees, and combine them all into the "librarian lifestyle" discount package.
But listen here. It's not a lifestyle choice. It's not an orientation. We are genetically librarians, and we're a diverse bunch. Some of us wear glasses. Some have tight brain-curdling buns. Some of us are as hip and trendy as can be (except for librarians in Queens, NY, because they have a new dress code imposed on them).
But all of us, we need to ban together and form LAADY (Librarian Alliance Against Defamation, Yea)!
posted by Kate Lyons
9:39 PM
Metafilter has a lot of great librarian links today.
posted by David Jacobs
12:59 PM
Saturday, October 05, 2002
Jenny found a caterpiller behind a car in the parking lot at Fairway Grocery Store (on 125th street in NYC). It was small and brown and furry, and it bonded immediately with Jenny. She picked it up, and it crawled on her hand, up her arm, until she had to juggle it from hand-to-hand, to keep it from crawling all the way to her shoulders. We walked to some bushes, and left it there. A few minutes later we came back, because Jenny wanted to check and be sure it wasn't too traumatized from its trip on her arm, all the way from the parking lot to the bushes. It was okay. Maybe it's a butterfly now.
posted by Kate Lyons
9:26 PM
Wednesday, October 02, 2002
Buffy Season 3 is now available for pre-ordering at amazon.com. I think it's perfectly natural to want to collect all the seasons of Buffy. Nothing weird about it at all. Go on. Order them. If afterwards, you think you're too weird, and too obsessive, send the videos to me. Put your mind at ease.
posted by Kate Lyons
9:09 PM
Tuesday, October 01, 2002
We get Newsweek delivered to our apartment, and for the last few weeks, I've just been staring at the pages thinking there are sure a lot of pictures of men in the magazine. Even the ads are all pictures of men. So this last week I counted. I didn't count pictures of people whose backs were towards the camera, and I didn't count pictures of people that were so small, or so blurry, that I couldn't make out the gender (there weren't any big, clear pictures of androgynous people, so that's a non-issue). I found 90 men, 32 women, 8 automobiles and 28 animals photographed in Newsweek.
The two wonderful cats that live with Jenny and I caught and killed a mouse today. They left it in the hallway. Then they vomited in their food bowls. There was lots of cleaning when we got home.
posted by Kate Lyons
10:35 PM
