I swug this (new version of "I got this")

Hello again,

It isn't far off the end of 2016, and so we're getting in just in time with a post for the year. There isn't much of interest to say, except we always get a kick out of popping back to this blog and checking out the sheer madness of years past, captured in wacky blog posts for all the world to see.

We just hope there is no global disaster that ends up killing the interwebs, and therefore our wonderful blog of stupidity.

This time I have a new Facetious Fesaurus addition to report:

swug

• past tense of swig when you can't be bothered using extra letters to write "swigged" - "I swug that coffee."

And here is the last photo we took of the whiteboard prior to it being wiped (the most recent time):

Since this most recent wipeage, we have actually encountered the most extraordinary word in an unknown language in one of our metadata records, and our interpretation of its definition (to be added to the Fesaurus after this post is published):

• TNANAGETNENT: 
  
  a tangerine on a tangent at Plantagenent .... O.O huh??

In closing, may we just say... "Happy New Year and Merry 'All That Stuff'!"

Electronic calculating-machines

Source: tumblr

Today I want to draw attention to a very special (dusty and possibly moldy) old book we have in our collection, a book about electronic calculating-machines. Yep, that hyphen is meant to be there.

Electronic computers : fundamentals, systems, and applications / with the cooperation of Hans W. Gschwind, Martin G. Jaenke, and Robert G. Tantzen. Vienna : Springer ; Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice-Hall, 1961.

This book is apparently 235 pages long, has illustrations and diagrams, and has a spine length of 23 cm. It also includes bibliographies. Most importantly, though, it has a subject heading of "electronic calculating-machines". Totally avec hyphen.

I looked up this subject heading on Library of Congress Authorities and found that, unsurprisingly, it's been superseded by a brand spankin' new authority heading:

C o m p u t e r s

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.