Are you a floor crumber or a bin crumber?

A matter has arisen in the library today - actually, in the library lunch room, to be specific - about people who are floor crumbers (they'll just sweep their crumbs straight onto the floor with blatant disregard for the folks who have to clean it up at 4am or whatever time the cleaners come here each morning ;)) vs. people who are just a little more thoughtful than that. In this particular office we have one Floor Crumber, one Bin Crumber and one person whose crumbing inclinations are currently unknown (we haven't asked her yet).

What kind of crumber are you?

Library tangles and library cats

Last night, in between bouts of lying awake in the pitch black, wondering what would happen to an item that's been flagged for Reserve, put on and then off Reserve before the end of day system process has run, checked out to a borrower, and checked back in, but that also happens to have a request on it - in short, ARGH! - I dreamed at one point that my kitty cat Smog was...wait for it...a library cat!

There are no sleeping bags
in the library.

He was actually a fill-in library cat for the Law Library, because they had apparently had another library cat who had gone missing. My Smoggy had been doing temp library cat duty for a few months. In my dream, the day had finally arrived when somebody came by to announce that the lost library cat had returned, and so Smog's services were no longer needed. A guy who worked at the library (who doesn't work at that library in reality) got so emotional he started crying, 'cause he was going to miss Smoggy. Personally I can understand the pulling power of this kitty, but I also think that realistically, that library guy would also feel a little relief that he would finally stop being pestered at lunch time...and morning tea time...and afternoon tea time...by this naughty, naughty cat.

Anyway, in the dream I gave the crying guy a hug and said, "Don't worry, you can visit Smog at my place!" and he said back, "It's just been a really bad day..."

It's tough being a cat sometimes (and yes,
that is a paw in the bottom right hand corner).

I've only ever read a book about one library cat - Dewey - and of course as a result of that read, I've heard of other library cats. But knowing what I do about my Smoggy boy-o, it'd probably take him a while to warm up to people in the library. Not as long as it'd take my other cat, but she's not a dream library cat so she doesn't count.

"Did you mean...holy mofos batman?"

Google tells us that "holy mofo's" should not have an apostrophe. But what if we're talking about a holy mofo's right to free speech? In that case, a holy mofo certainly has the right to an apostrophe in his or her sentence.

Source

After I commented with "holy mofos" on a colleague's Facebook status (as one does while in the office, when discussing coming wild weather that will send us all home from work early), said colleague commented in response: "...Batman!" After which she set out on a mission to discover whether or not anyone else in the world had ever said "Holy mofos, Batman" before.

She found 5 results with an early search, but then the question came up: do you include that comma or not? Do you include an apostrophe, in which case you're actually talking about a holy mofo's Batman - maybe a Batman figurine in a holy mofo's possession? Oh, the possibilities are endless...but now I must check if she's still Googling holy mofos and Batman.

No, she's not. She's Googling what "kts" means, and it means...not what is in the Wikipedia article, which turned out to be WROOOONNGGGGGG.


See, kids? It's like the librarian told you. Don't trust Wikipedia.

P.S. Does Spiderman have a car?

Are you webist?

webist: racism against websites. any websites. anywhere. any time.

Yep, we were discussing what it means to be webist today. Because she was writing an email about websites, or rather "the website", and she accidentally (Freudian slip?) wrote 'webist'. Is she a webist? Not bloody likely. Am I a webist? Well, if I was I'd probably be shunning this blog with some serious gusto.

What about you? Are you a webist? Have you come here just to hate?

Webist! (I don't think those guys are webist)

In other very hateworthy news, a friend challenged me to watch this video:





I got to 35 seconds and had to have a break. Then I watched a bit more, and had to give up entirely. My brain is still not fully cleansed. I'm not sure it ever will be.

"Animals worth knowing" - a nice read for a Friday arvo

Favourite book title of a Friday afternoon:

Animals worth knowing, selected from "Life histories of northern animals" (1934), by Ernest Thompson Seton

I'm thinking that a lot of animals are worth knowing, 'cause ya know, they're all cute and stuff! Some animals may be less cute than others. For instance, if you compare a koala with a cockroach, well, okay, I guess it depends on your definition of cuteness. For some, feelers and fluttery cockroach wings may be super cute. For others, like me, fluffy koalaness is more cute.

But this isn't even about what's cute, it's about what is worth knowing. I'm curious about this book. We supposedly have it on our library, so I'm going to have to check it out and see if I agree with Seton's opinion on which animals are worth knowing.

A slight spanner is thrown into the works, however, when we see that on Amazon.com, this book is listed as Animals (worth knowing), rather than Animals worth knowing. This suggests to me that the book could be basically about animals, and the information we're given in the book is worth knowing.

I'll let you know what I think when I find the book.

"I feel a blog post coming on"

"How do you spell that? Preposterousness."
"Preposteration?"
"Preposterivity?"
"It's positively preposteracious!"

This is the stuff we talk about when we've got sore brains and it's too early even for three-thirtyitis to kick in with any reasonable excuse!

This is the office of brain hurtiness at present. At the very least the majority of people in this office have sore brains from the work we're looking at in our inboxes (or, at times, not in our inboxes but elsewhere). Particularly as my colleague isn't even doing her "real work" but work that shouldn't really be hers that she's doing 'cause nobody else in this place knows how to do it. Or at least nobody who's been able to be roped into doing it.

Ssshh don't tell her I said that.

I think my work here (making your brain hurt too) is done.

Sugar Plum Fairies, dancing all around

If you feel the urge to swear but don't want to offend sensitive colleagues' ears, why not yell out, "Sugar Plum Fairies!" at the top of your lungs?

Sugar Plum Fairies is an inhabitant of our newly-cleaned-in-2012 whiteboard. Other things on the whiteboard include a map of all the different times of the day in which one can pause to eat:

• 8am-9am - Breakfast
• 9am-10am - Brorning Tea
• 10am-11am - Morning Tea
• 11am-12pm - Munch
• 12pm-2pm - Lunch
• 2pm-5pm - Postmunchitis

Some of these you may recognise from previous blog posts around here.

Also on the board at present is a note pointing to the "Naughty Fan Corner", where our fan sits sulking 'cause we made it face the wall (prevents unseemly blowing of air into library employees' eyeballs and/or carefully coiffed hair). The fan did have an outing one day, when it was loaned out to another colleague just down the corridor a little way. But the fan had been naughty once again so it's back in its corner. Sulking.

I'd go on, but I want to mention a very special author featured in our library catalogue: one William McConnel Wanklyn, who authored the works:

• The administrative control of smallpox : how to prevent or stop an outbreak (86 p., 1913)
• London public health administration : a summary showing the principal authorities, with their origin, services and powers (59 p., 1913).

It seems Mr. Wanklyn was a pretty busy guy in 1913!