Christmas tree!

Jenny and I had another one of our "vacations." Our first time snowboarding, pretending to be Vin Diesel from XXX, we learned to turn left and right, walk up the hill (the rope-tow thing was too challenging-- we both kept falling off it), and we even snowboarded down the entire bunny-hill. The thing to remember-- don't fall forwards, only backwards. Otherwise, you lie with face-down in the snow trying to figure out how to flip yourself over. Also, wear water-proof pants.



posted by Kate Lyons 8:50 PM

Saturday, December 14, 2002

Who can lose the stand and the entire top of a 6-foot Christmas tree in their small Manhattan apartment? It was us. It's so frustrating. We've been through all the closets, under the beds, behind the everything.... it's totally gone. We found the Menorah and that's about the size of my fist. Eyeglasses, keys, shoes, 2 cats and 3 seasons of Buffy-- all acounted for. 4 feet of Christmas tree. Gone. Poof.

posted by Kate Lyons 8:06 PM

Friday, December 13, 2002

Wil Wheaton is so sad. I feel sorry for him, but it's business, right? And he's said some nasty things about ST in the press. A perfect pick me up would be this Marzipan Palm Pilot.


I fixed the broken link - thanks Adriana (who says "it wasn't broken, it was messed up!")

Nemesis is great. Also, the NYTimes Ethicist answers my question of just yesterday - Is Googling OK?

posted by David Jacobs 4:50 PM

Wednesday, December 11, 2002

In supervisor's seminar at the library, we learned how to write performance evaluations for staff, and part of the form to fill out includes this section where you're supposed to write the amount of sick leave a staff member has used, as if their use of sick days is a valid criteria for evaluating their job performance.

I asked my sister, a labor lawyer, about this, and she seemed to think that staff members might not be evaluated on their utilization of benefits allowed in their employment contract, and should not be penalized for using their benefits. Most (or at least many) librarians are part of a union, and so we have an employment contract.

So, I asked some library-goddess-queens about this (the tip of the supervising hierarchy), and it sounds like the response is that our contract benefit is for the accumulation of sick time. Nowhere in our contract does it say that we're "entitled" to use any amount of sick time, only that we're "entitled" to accumulate a certain number of days each year.

Crazy librarians! You thought they were sweet and caring, but library-land is a barbaric world. No wonder librarian isn't a career track in The Sims game.

posted by Kate Lyons 10:35 PM

I ate too many potato chips today. Not feeling well.

At this librarian meeting at work a few days ago, an editor came to talk to us about her literary magazine, and how it explores the human experience (mostly poetry and fiction about medical conditions). She gave us a few editions of the journal and lo and behold, there's a poem by this woman I went to college with, who was a roommate of a friend of mine. Weird! It seemed like most of the authors in the magazine were doctors, but I know this woman was an English major.

Maybe I can write a poem about the digestive tract, and how it suffers when I eat too many chips.

Thin, white twisty tie chokes the aluminum bag
Shut. Unearth the copious potato chunks
Greased. Sliced to the fabric of their existence
Losing minerals. Losing vitamins. Only grit,
Greasy New York food. Stomach turns, churns
in anticipation. famine commence.
Thin white twisty tie falls to the floor, forgotten
Open bag, twisty belly.



posted by Kate Lyons 10:21 PM

Tuesday, December 10, 2002

I've heard complaints recently about the lack of updates in the news section of iPalimpsest. . . .the news section will remain empty for a while, as a reflection on the lack of new Buffy episodes. At least until they stop showing reruns on Tuesday nights, the news section will be as bare as Willow's mid-drift in last night's rerun of the episode where this flesh eating demon tries to eat Willow's skin, starting with her belly.

David has finally come around! A self-described "recent buffy fan." Just you wait David, soon you'll also be scouring the web for photos of your favorite Buffy character, if you're not already. Who is your favorite? As mentioned in an earlier post, Willow is my favorite, and Anya is one of Jenny's favorites (Jenny is less willing to commit to a favorite).


posted by Kate Lyons 10:51 PM

Thursday, December 05, 2002

Jennifer, from the 13 labs family, is (like me) a recent Buffy fan:

"Chekov man, it's all the same thing. Chekov and Buffy the vampire slayer - it's all about beautiful losers." James Marsters

Tuesday, December 03, 2002

At the risk of gushing about our cats too much, I had to post this picture of Zoe.

posted by Jenny Baum 10:21 PM

Monday, December 02, 2002

Why do more women play Sims?

In any case, I'm hopelessly entrenched in the day-to-day happenings of my Sims families. They go on vacation, they make friends, they take the "life of crime" path. They adopted a gerbil, and then got sick from the dirty cage. They adopted a child.

I don't think I'm interested in the new online Sims, though. Part of the appeal is socializing in this "experimental" world, where your Sims aren't really other people, and nobody ever has to know what they do. Online Sims is like an online community-- adds value that the regular Sims game lacks, but also takes away the reason I play.

posted by Kate Lyons 10:22 PM