Something cool

Here is a LINK to a cool story about a civilization that was destroyed less than two hundred years ago, suddenly and completely.
I can't believe something like this can have happened so recently. I remember reading a story in grade school about riding in a wicker house attached to hot air baloons and discovering lost civilizations. This brought the memory back to me.

yaya!

So Juan the latin stalker was picking up speed again, and my mood went from alright to very edgy. Hector knows that it is very important to lock all three locks on the door when he comes over, but he is too polite to ask why. One day he only did two, and I flew behind him to slam the other one in place. He asked why, I hastily spat "because he's after me." He then demanded to know what was going on. Finally, I filled him in on the constant phone calls, door buzzing, throwing rocks at my window, waiting outside in his car for me to come out. He listened, and then said he would put a stop to it. The next day he texted me that he had contacted the Surenos (the Mexican Mafia) and he just needed to get Juan's phone number, and then they could put him in the hospital for about a year. I was so happy that he was trying to rescue me and I started typing in the number when I stopped and thought, wait a minute, I can't put a hit on one of my employees. So I texted back that maybe this was all a bit harsh and blah blah. He called immediately and asked what was going on and if I had made it all up. I said well, no, I just think... maybe I'm just too nice. He said," I know, I like how nice you are, but nobody fucks with my baby girl." So we agreed that I would keep him posted and I would give him the number the next time I saw him.
The next day, Hector came over at about 7 am after work. We were sitting on the couch, talking when the buzzer rang. I looked out my front door and saw the jackass waiting to be let in. Fuck, I said. Hector asked who it was, and I told him it was Juan. I was kind of shaky, and I asked him what I should do. "You can wait here." He went out into the lobby. I pushed the listen button, and I picked out a few words here and there in the angry slang Spanish, Hector sounded like a knight in shining armor, Juan sounded like a pathetic little weasel.

Juan skittered off like a little girl, and has avoided me like the plague ever since, he looks at me all the time, and when I look at him, he puts his head down really quick. yay.


Hector came back in, I was gazing at him with a look of pure worship. He said," I don't like to have problems, but I must protect my baby girl."
None of my boyfriends have ever defended me like that.

Greg for your house.

You should totally do this with your house... HIDDEN PASSAGEWAYS! yes there is a company that "adds value to homes by integrating silent, automated hidden passageways." Sooo sweet.

I need to lay off the beer for a while...

So my beer consumption for the week has been up with a pitcher of beer or its equivellent being the average for the last four days. There hadn't been any adverse side effects until last night.

I had to have had the stupidest dream I've ever dreamed. It started in a comic book store and I was intregued by this series of comics called "Ordinary Man" So I picked up the only copy not in a protective sheath and started to flip through. Immediately I was "in" the comic book, in a plot to kill batman in an old western type showdown. I was sitting on the porch of one of the buildings with a rifle. Ready to shoot batman and then in the street was Batman and Ordinary Man. Ordinary Man looked slightly demented wearning nothing but a stupid grin, purple cape and whity tightys. He looked rather like a caricter out of a Clive Barker book I just read. Anyhow, they were standing each other off like in Western Movies when Ordinary Man whips his dick out of his underware causing Batman to cry out with disgust throwing up his cape and falling to the ground to sheild himself from the sight. Now here it gets a little hazy, either Batman noticed me with the gun or something but Ordinary Man realizes that something is going to happen and he needs to do something about because he just rushes Batman, with his dick flopping in the wind doing the "angry jazz hands" thing screaming Aaaaarrrrrrrghhh! at the top of his lungs. God knows what this lunatic will do when he gets to his target but Batman obviously doesn't want to know because he starts backing up crab style then crawling on all fours as fast as he can get away and then knocks himself unconcious on one of the buildings walls.

And then I wake up thinking, whoa I need to quit the beer drinking.

Librarian's Self Image

So, there are a large number of Library blogs on the web along with everything else. There is the Hot Librarian, The Sexy Librarian and other such things. Anyway, I'm a member of the American Library Association Student Chapter and we had a fundraiser on wednesday selling SLIS mugs (School of Library and Information Science) white with read writting and a cute little Slizzard on the front. However on the other side of the mug was:

*Librarians are all-knowing and all seeing.
*They bring order to chaos
*They bring wisdom and culture to the masses.
*They preserve every aspect of human knowledge.
*Librarians rule
- Erica Olsen
(Librarian Avengers website)

Apparently we are a little full of ourselves as well, but I still got a mug tee hee. And soon I will be webmistress of the Special Libraries Association yes Mistress ha ha!

By the way I'm not sure I'm going to pursue the Art History thing anymore. Eh. I took the GRE today and I just didn't give a flying fuck. I decided that if I don't get in I'll just be a Social Science librarian since I already have an extensive background in that anyway. Why didn't I do that before you might ask? Well, 'cause I didn't want to! Thhhppt!

So Anne Coultier was here...

...but after thinking about it I don't really give a shit. My friend went to see the fights that broke out, there were a couple in the beginning, but then she said that she didn't give a shit 'cause all Anne had to say was extremist right wing shit. Which I already knew Anne was going to say. But the thing that got my brain going was that Anne is just a bully, what she says is BS and is really just ment to piss people off. On the annuls of history she'll be no more than a dust mote she is the right wing Jerry Springer.

But for now she actually motivates people, she pisses people off, how can we channel the energy she creates and then get these pissed off individuals to write their respective representitive and get them out to vote? Wouldn't it be more useful to stand outside one of her (or any inflammitory idiot's) gathering and pass out information on the local reps with some brief information of the bills in congress that maybe the should write about? Having that information in hand and then getting all those fired up by Miss Bullshit you'd hope some of the non-republican people who went would want to go home and then DO something. People show up to her shows and throw pies at her and yell at her because they feel like they are doing some thing and they can see the immediate results.

These are people who want to do something but don't have an outlet. We should be giving them an outlet.

>>>>LOOK HERE<<<<

START RANT HERE:
Rikki got me to thinking about sensationalism in the media. Here you will find an interesting survey on sensationalism in the media that to me proves one thing: people our age in the midwest are apathetic about sensationalism. Just look at the graph compared to the rest of the nation, both the midwest and our particular age group were the least likely to say that they thought that sensationalism is a problem. This means several things:
1. Terrorist minority folk infected with anthrax are stealing our identities and using them to lure our children into cults over the internet.
2. SHINY THINGS.
3. All of the news that is relevant to my life can fit into a single one hour show that is half commercials and 1/4 sports leaving exactly 15 minutes for the paid advertisements that are sold as stories, human interest stories about pandas(‽) , recipe corner, underestimating my intelligence as a viewer and the weather.
4. PROPOGANDA.
5. I feel slightly alienated from my fellow 20 somethings that think the most important thing that they need to keep track of is the latest show which is meant to be a surrogate for real life.
6. TV-Turnoff Week 2006 will take place April 24-30, 2006.-Via the TV Turnoff Network.

On the up side of things, maybe soon they will have an artificial intelligence that will hold up our ends of the artificial existence that has evolved around us.
-END RANT
Did anyone read about the quantum computer that solves problems without running a program?

soooo depressing...

Whose money feed the sex slave trade?

Instead of just responding...

So, Rhianna, I read your post about TV hatred and I'm going to give that a BIG 2ND! I too am sick of the crap they shove in our faces in the name of "passifying", oh, I meant entertaining. Because you know everyone is a 15 year old boy, right? I don't want Frasier's couch! I want his snooty ass to go straight to hell! America's Next Top Model? Try America's Next Bulimic-Coke Addicted-Former Groupie/Slept with Hollywood-Has Been! But remember modelling is hard work. Has anyone watched that piece of trash show "Vegas"? Let's see how much T'n'A on trampy-over implanted women we can fit into a show during prime time and remember to have intermittent violence so there aren't any riots in the streets. Oh, and make sure you stereotype them as catty, gold-digging, "do I look pretty enough", do anything for "love" idiots! AAAAHHHHHHRRRRGGGG!
So, I had my TV dis-fucking-connected!
Yay me. I don't want your B.S. mind numbing agent anymore. If I want a reality show jam packed with Sex, Drugs, Rock n' Roll, Violence, Comedy, Tradgedy- SHIT- I'm already living it and it doesn't get more real than that!

Didn't you Mother teach you that pointing is rude?

Scientists have developed a video game to teach military personal proper body gesture and other cultural signals to help them improve communication with Iraqs natives. It also includes common Arabic phrases and points out the pointing with one's fingers may be considered a threat in the Middle Eastern culture.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3743307.stm

In other news I think my sense of smell has increased. It really only bothers me when I go to bed, but I have to take the trash out every evening or I can smell it in my room and it NEEDS TO GO. Ate a banana in the morning? Can smell the peel at night. It's like there is a highway of oder right to my bed. Very annoying.

Oh yes, I have a professor from Lebennon. He's been in the US for at least eight years though and his english is excellent. But anywho, I was in his office the otherday for one of the assignment questions and I was looking at the books he has, which is about three book cases worth. They are all arranged by subject and typically your massive academic type literature. But then I noticed this little tiny book titled "American Slang". Which I think is a book you should have whenever you visit another country. But you know in their slang. Anyway, I found it enormously cute.

Anyway that's about all that's been going on now, we had another sushi bar open in town this past week which brings the number of sushi bars to about five in a town the size of Forest Lake. I'm just waiting for the sushi bar price wars to start so I can reap the benifits. Ha Ha!

Pretty Pictures and Chocolate Deities

http://www.chocolatedeities.com/index.php

Real life stranger than fiction

I saw this on Boing Boing and thouhgt Rhi would like to read it. I know that when she becomes a librarian that she will be just as free thinking as the librarian who did this.

Policing Porn Is Not Part of Job Description: "Policing Porn Is Not Part of Job Description
Montgomery Homeland Security Officers Reassigned After Library Incident

By Cameron W. Barr
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 17, 2006; Page B08

Two uniformed men strolled into the main room of the Little Falls library in Bethesda one day last week and demanded the attention of all patrons using the computers. Then they made their announcement: The viewing of Internet pornography was forbidden.

The men looked stern and wore baseball caps emblazoned with the words 'Homeland Security.' The bizarre scene unfolded Feb. 9, leaving some residents confused and forcing county officials to explain how employees assigned to protect county buildings against terrorists came to see it as their job to police the viewing of pornography."

Feminism -- now with more patriarchy hating!

Some bloggs I've been enjoying lately.

I Blame the Patriarchy
Very witty Feminist rants...and articles on food in the restaurants of Austin

You Can't Make It Up
More funny ranting

Bitch Phd
Like it sounds

Feministe
Like it sounds, but the team effort of THREE man-haters!

CANE TOAD NEWS!

Discovery Channel :: News :: Toxic Toads Evolving Super-Fast: "Feb. 15, 2006 — Fat, toxic toads at the leading edge of an Australian invasion have evolved longer legs than those behind the front lines, report biologists.

The alarming discovery not only means the toads can spread more quickly over the continent, but it raises the possibility that under the right conditions, animal evolution can happen in just decades, not eons."

Eep. As if the documentary weren't scary enough. Now they are evolving super fast. If they learn to fly...we're doomed.

We never talk anymore

Except in the comments, I just haven't had the energy to type up a synopsis of what has been going on in the house.

Up until I caught the plague it was all quite routine.

Yes, there is nothing like ooze and that lovely spinny sensation to bring spice into a persons life. Of course the fact that I am absolutely broke doesn't lend itself to making my life exciting. My last few days have consisted of small chores followed by me making fizzy concoctions that would knock me out so at least I wouldn't have to be conscious for the fun. But yesterday I started feeling better and I started to worry that the "fun" might be over.

Then yesterday Katie got in the car, put it in gear and the tire exploded. Apparently overnight while the car was sitting still the suspension spring snapped and stuck into the tire. It didn't pop until Katie backed it up a couple of inches. It's a good thing that we were both home sick that day. The funniest part was when I was sitting in my office right before it happened and thought to my self "Katie's gone, I'll get some peace and quiet". Then I heard what I can only compare to 100 balloons being popped at once which caused my left eyebrow to shoot up to the middle of my forehead. Nothing beats opening the back door to see your roommate and their passenger already staring at the car, back towards you, both scratching their heads.

Seriously though, can I get some GOOD excitement? Something that isn't horrible? That would be nice.

Well to lighten the mood I give you canadian superweapons that are currently in development.
Have a nice day

There needs to be some nice radical independant women's commune somewhere I can go to. I have made some nice friends here, but I'm just so out of place. Simply because I don't want TV. When I mention that advertizers want to run ticker tape across the bottom of their favorite sitcoms so you can buy frasiers couch for instance and what not they are just like "So?" They've already accepted their place as subserviant consumer pleab. And than I"M the weird one out. They find nothing offencive with "the next top model" and enjoy watching people degrade themselves on "American Idol". I just don't get it. Last night I went to Lost night (yes I see the hypocricy here, but I go for the social time really) and they'd moved it and nobody told me so I thought that they forgotten me on purpose and I've already been having a crappy week with the voices and all and all I could think of is what a freak I am and what's the point of living the way I do if I'll always be an outcast with no one to relate to (yes I know I have you, but it'd be nice to meet others that are within driving distance). And I was led to believe that by going to grad school I'd meet nutball like me but I haven't. I'm just a grad a nutball with no nutballs to nutball around with...

So I was walking along the railroad tracks as you do and found a penny and then I was thinking of how you squish pennies on the railroad tracks and I wondered if I layed on the rail with my spine parrellel to the track when the coal train came by would I be cut neatly in half or just a squished mess. Probably the second. but one can always hope for a pretty corpse when you die. I suppose eithere way it'd be a closed casket.

Greg I hope you get better soon. Larry has the sniffles, I know its not the same but I'm not letting him outside until he stops sneezing on me in the middle of the night. And I signed up for gmail and I'll get the instant messager sorted out soon. I'm using Fire so I can use all my accounts at once, ya know. So busy.

I'm apparently stressed

So yesterday I woke up with a crick in my neck I vaugely remember it as I drifted of to sleep. Then I showered which made it worse. It has continued to today, the only way I'm walking upright is by popping pills like an addict. Its right at the nape of my neck over my right sholder. It sucks. I realize that it is a result of stress, but for fucks sake could I crash when I"m done with stuff. I worked all afternoon in the stacks yesterday doing research on my research paper and I can just see my self slowly moving from the upright position to hunched over the keyboard with my head painfully tipped to one side until I took more pills and slowly righted myself and went through the motions again. I just need to vent as I'm working on a Perl program, a collection development and management progect, a research guide and studing for the GRE all at the same friggen time. And my mother wants to know why I haven't visited her parents lately.!?! Well, its probably because they stress me out and other reasons for the same reasons my mother doesn't visit them for years at a time. Jeez. Larry is doing fabulous though and does well as a portable heating pad that makes soothing purring noises. Its great to have such a useful cat.

The Quest for the Sex Shop Superstore

So last semester one of the gals in my circle of friend said she saw a billboard for a sex shop superstore in somewhere's ville. Ever since then there have been various discussions and agreement of a mass gathering to go there. Because we want to see the equivalent of a Wal Mart Superstore in the sleeze. So yesterday I was board and sent out an email to see if anyone wanted to find said shop. One by one I got answers and now a group of us is going to find it. There's five librarian students in all. And of course the person who saw the billboard doesn't remember where it is just the general vacinity. Its like a little quest for the librarian students. tee hee.

Sad News of "Semi-relief"

Hello All, after a long struggle with diabetes and dialysis 3 times a week, my paternal grandmother has passed away Friday Feb. 10th about 7:30 pm. (not to mention a triple bypass a few years back and C.O.P.D.)
She died about a half-hour before I got to North Memorial Hospital, even though Chemska did her best to get me there quickly. (thanks again!) Apparently my grandma had been non-responsive for a while.
Anyways, I went up to the T.N.I.C.U., and my cousin's husband walked out of a room. I asked him how she was doing. He put his arm around me and told me that she had already gone. So, we went into the family consultation room and my aunt Sue came with me to the room my grandma was in.
My grandma, for the first time in so long, looked peaceful. The staff of the hospital had put a very nice dressing gown on her, and the sheet and pillowcase matched. My aunt and the doctor left so I could have a moment. I told her I was sorry for not being there but I tried my best. I told her that now, she can be free. Her suffering is finally over. I told her that the rest of us are going to be just fine. And you know something, my grandma's hands we're always so soft, I mean her whole life she was kinda chubby, and everyone loves a fat grandma. But her actual skin was soft, seriously like a baby's. So, I was holding her hand and just remembering feeling it brush my hair when I was little, and every now and then her hand would caress my face, and they were so soft. And they still are.
Wow, I went somewhere. Anyways, now the funeral and family biz. I guess she's being buried in Fort Snelling Cemetary-my Grandpa will join her later, hopefully not for a long time.
I feel bad for my dad, he's in Palm Springs, CA, on vacation.
So, yeah. I love you guys. Thanks for being my friends. I'll see you soon.

SATURDAY NIGHT'S ALRIGHT #2!

Hey peoples-
I made a boo-boo... I meant that Brandon's show is on FEB. 11th! Not Feb. 3rd. I'm not sure where that came from.
The other info is the same, same bat time, same bat channel. But on the 11th.

Any thoughts?

So you have a Romeo and Juliet scenario. Romeo declares his undying love, Juliet starts making plans for the future. Romeo discloses that his visa expired 6 years ago, (he was 18, absent minded and didn't figure it was all that important) and if he goes home to visit his parents, he can never return, short of border jumping and probably getting shot. Juliet would probably marry Romeo, but this idea has been completely foriegn for so long it scares the hell out of her.
Does Juliet go to Mexico?

Today's fun artifact

Here is an approximate likeness of the masks I handled today. My favorite was blue with skulls, three eyes (like the red guy here) but with huge earlobes with the most fabulous demonic earrings EVER! And then there was this thing called an "undet" which is a ritual item for the death ceramony and apperintly can be anything but this was spectacular. They'd taken a dog's skull and put these bulging clay eyes in it and covered it with other fetish type things and it was fabulous.

Helping the Waywards

So, this morning I was sitting at my desk, being a good little receptionist, when at 8:47 this woman comes through the door. She was a portly woman and about 40 years of age. She asked me where "the teeth-pullin' place" was. To which I replied: "Do you mean the dentist?" And then she told me about how she has to get her tooth pulled because blah, blah, blah..........
She said she couldn't find the building: 155 w. Plato Blvd. (I'll tell you now this building is owned by the company I work for and is located exactly on the corner of Wabasha and Plato, which I pass everyday on foot while walking to work, which is about 5 blocks.)
So, I told her to just go back on to Plato back "that-a-way" and you should be there soon. She went on her merry way.
Ten minutes later she returned.
"It's not there."
"Sure it is."
"No it's not."
"Ma'am, I pass it every morning on my way in."
"Well, if I don't get-I gotta get this-I'm gonna miss my appointment, can you give me a ride there?"
"Er...no."
"Can someone else-I can't miss-I gotta..."
I'm thinking to myself; What? A) I don't drive and B) I'm working! Not I nor anyone else is giving you a lift 5 blocks. So, I tell her no and that I'm going to draw her a map. (A fucking map so she can go 5 fucking blocks without turning anywhere!)
So, I draw her, what is probably the most simple map ever created and she tells me to hurry it up so she doesn't miss her appointment.
Bear in mind, those who may be sympathetic at this time to said woman, her appt. is at 9:30 and I drew her the map at 9:00! You came to me for help either you take it or you FUCK OFF! So, she tells me, as I'm explaining the map (5 blocks), to hurry it up again. I tell her:"Ma'am, this isn't my job!"
Than she starts in with the ride thing again.
Rikki's inside thought:
(Lady-if you can't make it 6 blocks in a half-hour, come back here. I will take you to the back of the building and explain to you that I am a believer in the wonders of Natural Selection and what we are going to do and give you some fair options. Then, I will either put you "down", much like they do a dog, or set you on an ice floe. Because if you can't do this: you are consuming necessary resources, taking up space in an already overcrowded world and producing waste. That's about it. So, do the pack a favor already!)
So, finally she leaves. And she never returned to thank me!

SATURDAY NIGHT'S ALRIGHT...

Hey everyone, On Saturday, Feb. 3rd, my friend Brandon is part of an Art Reception showcasing contemporary nudes. It's from 7-10 pm at Outsiders and Others: 1010 Park Ave. S. in Mpls. (Grant St./ Park Ave.). Just thought if anyone wanted to go, it would be a good time. Plus, something different to do. Let me know.

Uk steps up for women

UK pledges £3m for safe abortions

The UK is to give £3m to organisations denied US aid for providing safe abortions in developing countries.

...The World Health Organisation estimates backstreet abortionists cause 70,000 "agonising" deaths every year. But to receive US aid, health clinics must pledge neither to provide abortion services nor advise women to have one.

Since US President George W Bush imposed this so-called "global gag" rule in 2001, the International Planned Parenthood Foundation (IPPF) has had to close dozens of clinics.

But with Britain's £3m it will set up the Global Safe Abortion Programme to improve access to safe abortion services and "support other partners that have had to cut back on reproductive health services because of the impact of the gag rule".

Museum Item of the Week

Hello All!

I've finally started my volunteer museum position at the Mathers Cultural Museum doing inventory work. I get to ware a pair of little white gloves to handle artifacts and make sure they are all there. Its pretty sweet. This will be my third week. And I've decided to have a Museum Item of the Week. Because they have a ton of awesome stuff but there always seems to be one item that stands out due to its unique nature.

Week number one was a lute. Jennifer (my co-worker) and I had been cataloguing over one hundred different lutes from around the world and they were fantastic. There were simple wood and animal skin ones from Somalia and really elaborately carved ones from Turkey. One from the eastern steppes had a removable bridge shaped like a horse. Really cool. But the lute that caught my eye was one from the American South-West. The body of the lute was made from an armadillo. No shit, complete with the little guy's hair. I wish I could take a picture for you. The top of the skull led to the neck of the lute too, just awesome. No tail though. They drew the line there apparently.

Anyway, week number two was just amusing. There were about fifteen dolls in this group, packaged together. Each little doll was dressed in her own countries traditional clothing. They each had a little tag telling which country they came from, Georgia, Yugoslavia, Ukraine etc. All had cute little faces painted with care... and the doll from Uzbekistan had a uni-brow. At first I was like "oh, someone made a Frida doll, that's so nice... wait a minute..." It just made me laugh.

So those are my discoveries in the bowels of the museum so far. I'm sorry I can't provide pictures, but more descriptions will be forthcoming. Take care.

So Andy broke up with the Cambodian psycho, then he considered that he wouldn't be getting laid anymore. So he took her back. Idiot.
Hector and I are doing great.
So I was walking to my car so I could go to Greg's, and Juan the Latin stalker was sitting outside in his car waiting for me. He had brought me a coffee and wanted to go in my house to talk. So apparently renting out my vagina is worth a dollar coffee from SA. "why you don't want nothing to do with me?" "because you are a whore, and I can do better." "Sheila, why do you say such mean things?" "because you need to hear them." "but you are my only American friend and we can learn so much from each other, and we have fun" "so you finally realized that I am pretty goddamned special, too bad I don't care." "Sheila, get in the car, I want to talk to you." "fuck yourself, I have somewhere to be."
Never a dull moment.

S.C.U.M.

I've always heard how bizarre the SCUM Manifesto is, but I've never actually read it. What an amazing piece of writing. Really inspiring.