Cringe Wall

I like to read the reviews by other users on Amazon.  If you have never bothered, you need to check it out. 

There are people who write intelligent, well-thought out and rational reviews.  These can be very helpful in deciding whether or not you want to bother reading a particular book let alone spend your $$ on it.  There are the reviews that are so crazily positive that you wonder if the writer knows the author, if the writer perhaps is the author under a different name, or works for the publisher.  There are the negative reviews that make you wonder why the person ever bought the book if they hate it that much,  if the writer knows the author and hates them as a person, or if it is someone who just gets their kicks out of writing mean things on the internet.  All of them are valid, and can be helpful or amusing.

Then we have the reviews by the people who can't spell or stray so completely off topic as to no longer resemble anything like what they were meant to be.  They might be good or bad, but I put them into their own special category because after a certain point I can no longer take seriously any criticism that might have been made about the book. 

A couple of typos I can forgive and ignore.  When the entirety of the review is 2 or 3 sentences long and filled with misspellings  and other errors?  We are done.  Maybe the reviewer is a genius -- doesn't matter.  If you are writing a review trashing someone else because you think they are a horrible writer and you keep spelling things incorrectly while doing so, then I have to wonder how you feel qualified to judge whether something is poorly written. 

I just read a review that I am pretty sure was meant to be scathing, but there was no way I could take it seriously.  A review titled something like "A Big Looser, All About a Looser" is ridiculous.  Obviously you meant loser, looking at the context of the review.  Do you realize the difference the extra "o" makes?  I think we know who the loser here is, pal, and it isn't the published author.  The word quickly?  Not quicle...at least I am assuming that is what the word was meant to be.  Also, I honestly don't know how gay marriage got involved in a book about a guy struggling through rehab/screwing his boss's wife.  No other review even remotely touched on the subject, and you took off on quite the rant.

I can amuse myself for quite a while reading reviews, but after a time I start to hit the Cringe Wall.   You are not familiar with the Cringe Wall?  I bet you are, you just don't have a nifty name for it.  You have encountered it before: reading reviews on Amazon, public comments on a news story or website, etc. There are 4 main steps in reaching the Cringe Wall -- at least in my experience.

1)  At first you are amused by the misspellings, you assume it is all typos.  After a while it gets annoying, but it can take a bit depending on your mood and the frequency of the typos.  This is the internet, so perhaps some of these nice people are commenting in a second or third language, and you have to cut them some slack.

2)  Now it is starting to bug you that people can't even be bothered to check their spelling, or the facts in the material upon which they are commenting (like the author's name, or a specific fact in an article). Simple things that you would think people would like to get right, especially if they are posting it under their name -- sometimes even their real-world name!

**The next 2 steps can happen in the order listed or vice-versa if you can push through the Cringe Wall and continue reading.**

3) You start to notice that the number of posts that are riddled with mistakes far outnumber the few that are spelled correctly and are at least marginally on-topic.  This causes you to seriously wonder whether everyone else is stupid, or if you are much smarter than you ever realized.

4) Eventually you get to be a bit horrified.  You start to ponder how badly the American school system is doing, and how many generations have been impacted by its slow deterioration.  You have hit the Cringe Wall -- the point at which you must stop reading before your brain explodes or you lose all respect for your fellow humans. 

For example, I often hit the Cringe Wall when I am reading the comments on a news story and someone from another country has to correct an American citizen on how our government works.  I don't care what part of the political spectrum was trying to make the point.  It is a sad, sad day for this country when someone from Australia has to explain to an American that we have 3 branches of government, for example.  Basic shit that I assumed everyone learned in elementary school.

The Wedding: A Neigbor Story

So, I got home this afternoon to find a couple of guys standing in the neighbor's driveway, and saw a bunch of chairs and decorations in the back yard.  I think it was literally the first time I ever saw it open.

I put my groceries away, and then wandered on over to ask what was going on, were they having a wedding?  Yup.  Now, at that point I fully expected that he was going to say tomorrow, possibly Sunday,  You know, not right away since they just poured cement in the yard less than 24 hours ago.

He said 6:30 tonight.  What?!  That's like 3 hours from now!

The bride was going to be entering up the driveway and into the back yard.

Well of course I asked if they needed me to move my car.  Not that my car isn't great and all, but I don't know that anyone wants to be looking at it on their wedding day.  No, they said I could leave it there.  I told them they could park people behind me if they needed to.  Our street gets crowded pretty fast, and there is still all of the equipment from the yard work parked in places.  I dragged my garbage cans around the corner, out of sight.

It's gets closer to wedding time, and it is really quiet next door.  Finally some music kicked on and people started showing up!

I could totally overhear conversation next door while still in my house, since the windows are open.
--They can't put out enough chairs, and at least 7 people will have to stand.  (Really?  How bad could the backyard have been that you needed to pour cement?  I'm guessing it isn't dry and that is why you can't put out all of the chairs.)
--something about the water in the pool being too cold.  (WTF are they swimming at this thing?  What else could the water be too cold for?)

At some point a dog got involved.  I didn't see it arrive, and to the best of my knowledge my neighbor doesn't have one.  It barked a little bit when more people started arriving, and people were making jokes about how it thought everyone was there just to play ball.  It really didn't bark much at all.

Eventually some smooth and mellow music kicked on, and I was getting excited to try and see the bride.  I wasn't even sure who was getting married.  Wasn't my neighbor -- can't divorce anyone fast enough to make that possible. 

6:30 comes and goes.  Hardly anyone is there, the bride is nowhere to be seen.   Cover story to hide the fact that there are bodies under the cement?  Still possible!  What if we have a runaway bride?

Minister arrives.  Well I'll be -- maybe there really is going to be a wedding.  Around 7pm a bunch of people all start showing up.  Switched to more party tunes than smooth and mellow.

7:15 wedding began!  Bride looked lovely, but I still have no idea who she is.  7:30 wedding is over!  Holy quickness, Batman!

That was literally it.  All done.  No stopping for pictures afterward.  They all left to go somewhere else for the reception.  They locked up the yard too, so I couldn't even see what the pool was too cold to do.

Maybe they didn't want to have a reception there with bodies under the cement.  I'm just saying.  Still totally possible!  Why else would you pour cement in the back yard, and why bother for a wedding that only lasted 15 minutes?  You could have strewn flower petals on the ground to disguise whatever the problem was for a lot less money and more romance.

OMG It Better Not Really Be Bodies

You might remember, friends, that I previously mentioned having some interesting neighbors.  Over the weekend some things happened, leading to some odd developments last night and today.

The neighbor had a lot of work being done in the back yard.  (This would be the neighbor with the husband who, according to neighborhood gossip, was arrested for dealing drugs and running guns.  He might be a former husband at this point -- he certainly isn't living there any more.)  There were a bunch of guys over, fixing the garage and stuff.  They were there all day, working hard and making lots of noise.  That was over the weekend.

Last night around 10 pm, I hear a lot of people talking, and I notice there are all of these lights in the back yard next door.  WTF?  That is not a normal hour of the night to be doing gardening or any kind of project.  I wrote a status about it on Facebook because it was weird, and more than one person suggested that they were burying the bodies.  Funny, right? Of course it is -- especially for those familiar with my neighborhood!  I lol-ed, said it wouldn't surprise me.  You get the idea.  The guys were there until about 11pm.

So imagine my surprise when I come home for lunch this afternoon, and my driveway is blocked by a large truck.  Annoying, but not a huge problem.  The guy offered to move it, but I told him not to bother as I would be going back to work shortly.

Then I took a good look at the truck.

It was delivering cement.  I shit you not.  They were freaking mixing and spreading cement in the fenced-in back yard where the shady "cover of darkness" yard work was being done last night.  I cannot make this stuff up.

I kept it together and smiled at the cement-truck guys while I went into the house, and then I had a slight freak out.  All I could think was,  "Holy shit there might really be bodies!"

I went back to work, and I really hoped the truck would be gone when I was done for the day.  It was gone when I returned home, but there were still 2 guys there working.

Well, more than two.  Two Hispanic guys who actually appeared to be doing all of the work, and one guy blabbing and hanging out in the back yard, who I assume was supervising the operation.

One of the guys was out front, apparently finishing up some yard work.  The other was in the fenced in back yard with The Blabber.  There was a pile of mulch in the neighbor's side of the driveway, and a bunch of tools.  There is still some kind of a mini-bulldozer parked across the street, and another piece of equipment around the corner and a big pile of rocks.

So these two Hispanic guys (they were speaking Spanish to each other, which is why I say that.  I don't know what country they emigrated from, obviously) are busting their asses.  They had been there for several hours at this point, as they had been with the cement-making crew earlier.  The Blabber was still in the back chatting and yucking it up with whomever else was back there.

It was hot out today.  Not horribly hot, but the humidity was nasty, and it has been raining the past few days.  Not fun weather to be doing a lot of manual labor, is my point.  I had all of the windows open in my house, trying to cool it off.


They took a break around 5:45 or so, and I think that was only because The Blabber had a visitor.  He had taken several very loud phone calls by then, and then sauntered out across my yard to meet a guy who had parked across the street.  The guy brought him a nice, cold drink -- cause he had worked so hard shooting the shit and all.  Nothing for the two guys who were doing all of the work.  They were sitting on a bucket and leaning on a wheelbarrow, and they had an almost empty gallon of water that had been sitting in the sun in the driveway.  Nice.

So, as soon as The Blabber and friend went into the back yard to have more Happy Chatty Fun Time, I took the two guys a pitcher of nice cold fruit punch and some cups.  I felt bad for them -- but I didn't want the people who may-or-may-not be burying bodies in cement to see me and get pissed off.

The Blabber left shortly after, so no more work was done.  The bulldozer is still across the street, the other thing is around the corner with a pile of rocks.  I have no idea if they will be back tomorrow or not.   I guess I will find out in the morning.

So in short:  there may or may not be bodies buried in cement in the yard next door.

Lurlin Kerl Dotter

Did you ever notice that, no matter where you are from, you don't seem to think you have an accent, it is people from everywhere else that have one?

We get a lot of people at work who have accents.  Some of them have emigrated here from other countries, some have moved to the area from different states, some are from other parts of the state.  Generally, I don't have a problem understanding them.

Except for one patron.  We call her 30 Cents.  She left one day complaining about a fine, and on her way out the door said, "30 cents my ass!"  but it sounded more like "ayh-us", like it was suddenly a two or three syllable word.

She is from the South somewhere.  I don't know where -- somewhere deep in the South, would be my guess.  I've traveled to a few different areas in the South, spoken to a lot of people at work  from a lot of different places, and I have honest to God never heard anything like this accent.  The heaviest, most fake Southern accent you have ever heard in a television show or movie has nothing on this woman.

30 Cents has now stumped 3 different staff members when trying to figure out what she was saying.  We get it, eventually, but she usually has to repeat herself a few times. 

I'll give you an example.

One time it sounded like she asked for books on lurlin.  WTF is lurlin?  Even Google was stumped on  that one.  After repeating herself a couple of times, for more than one staff member, she gave us more information.  All we got out of it was that she wanted a book about Lurlin kerl dotter.

....blank looks all around.

Do you know what "lurlin kerl dotter" translates to?  Loretta Lynn: Coal Miner's Daughter.

Where is this accent from?  Does anyone recognize the phonetic spelling?  I can't ask her as I will never understand the answer.

I have helped a patron where we were basically playing charades to get our point across, while he tried to speak English (his third language) and I dredged my high school French classes from my memory to help him get a library card (French was his second language).  I have written copious notes back and forth with a deaf patron trying to explain her fines.  My Espanol es mal, but it can work in a pinch.  I have pulled up online translators in an attempt to help a man who only speaks Russian.

They all pale in comparison to 30 Cents.  I think the most frustrating part is knowing that she is speaking English.  She is from the same country and we can't understand a damn thing she is saying most of the time! It must be annoying to her as well.

(Is it wrong that I feel a tiny bit better because two other people also have had trouble understanding her?)

Chicago

I don't know if you have heard, but there are protests going on in Chicago against NATO.  A lot of stuff has been happening, and I don't know how much of it has been on actual broadcast news.

I would suggest you watch the streamers.

These are the three that I have been watching the last 2 days:

http://www.ustream.tv/timcast

http://www.ustream.tv/occupyeye

http://www.ustream.tv/wearechange

They each have timelines with video clips of what you might have missed. 

Here is a video of one incident that happened last night.

Albania: A Library Story

OR

I Know Why the Rest of the World Thinks Americans Are Ignorant About Everything Outside of America

I was in my office at work this afternoon, minding my own business and working on the time sheets.  A man, I would guess in his mid-to-late 40s, just wanders on into my office and asks if I can help him with a question. I told him I would be happy to try.

The following is the conversation that took place.  

Patron:  My friends invited me to go to Albania with them.  I need to know how long it would take to drive there.

Me: To drive to Albania?

Patron: Yes.  They are going to visit family there and they asked me to go with them.

Me:  Well, you can't drive to Albania, sir.  It's a different country.  Do you mean Albany?

Patron: What, do I look stupid?  I know where Albany is.  

Me:  No, I just thought maybe you heard them wrong.  Maybe they said Albany or Albion.   Those are both Upstate, and you could drive to those.  You can't drive to Albania.  You have to take a plane, and it is going to require a passport.  Albania is a different country.

Patron:  They invited me to go to Albania with them.  What?  You expect me to believe that Albania is another country?  Like the only one in the world that starts with an A?

Me:  It is a different country, and it is not the only one that starts with an A.

Patron: *snorts*  Well then, name another country that starts with an A. -- and no cheating and looking on the computer.

Me:  Australia.

Patron: Wrong!  Australia is a continent.

Me:  Yes it is.  It is also a country.  I think the good people of Australia would be upset to find out you thought otherwise.

Patron:  Okay, so there are two countries that start with A?  Please. Now tell me how to get to Albania.

Me:  You have to by a plane ticket and fly to Albania.  And there are more than 2 countries that start with A.

Patron: Oh, okay Miss smartypants!  Tell me another country then.

Me: Algeria.  It's in Africa.

Patron:  Whatever.  Any others?

Me:  Azerbaijan.

Patron:  Come on!  This is bullshit! * waving hands at me in disdain*  Now I know you are making things up!

Me:  No, I'm really not.  It used to be part of the Soviet Union.

Patron:  *walks out of office, muttering*  Bullshit. Next you're gonna tell me Oompa-Loompas live there....(mutter, mutter, mutter)....

 And he just left. 

So good luck to you, sir, on your intrepid voyage of driving to Albania!  You were a pleasure and a joy to assist. 

 I hope you ask your friends how to get to Albania, I really do.  When they tell you that you will need to get a passport and a plane ticket, I hope that you treat them nicer than you did me, or I think the offer to join them will probably be withdrawn.

I almost hope you come back to tell me when you are going on your trip.  I would love to see how you get along with the folks at airport security.

 

 

Happy Birthday to Me!

So today was my birthday!  I gave myself a present by taking the day off from work.  I refuse to deal with patrons and their problems on my birthday.  Tomorrow will be soon enough.

Instead, I got to go to the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles, in case you didn't know.)  Fun!

I had to renew my driver's license, you see.  It expired today.  This was not my first attempt at doing so, oh no.  I had tried three previous times to renew my license, and it failed miserably every.single.time.

At first my plan was to get one of the Enhanced Driver's licenses which, according to the website "can be used instead of a passport to return to the U.S. from Canada, Mexico and some countries in the Caribbean."  Cool!  So I went to the DMV, and they told me it was too soon.  I had to wait until it was closer to my birthday to renew.  Whatever. 

So I waited a few months, and I went back again.  I get there, get my number, and wait about half an hour to be called.  Not a long time, based on past visits.  I get to the counter, and the guy looks over all of my paperwork (you have to bring a bunch of different proofs of identity and address to get an enhanced license), and then he tells me the system is down.  They can't connect to the system in Albany, but he can totally get my address updated.  Okay, fine.  At least it isn't a totally wasted trip.

So while waiting to go back yet again, I read up on the enhanced license.  The website then made it sound super-cool, but when you read the details it only worked for ground travel -- not for travel by plane or boat.  WTF is the point?  Maybe it would be handy if I lived in Buffalo, but I don't drive to Canada often.

Forget about the enhanced license.  It's like $100 more.  Not worth it to me.

The DMV sent me my lovely reminder in the mail a couple weeks ago that I had to renew my license.  Thanks, guys!  Ooh, I can do it online as well!  That would save time.

So I went to do the renewal online.  Start going through the process, la-de-de-de-da.  Then I got to the page for the corrective lenses and was screwed.  Freaking eye exam!  Yes, I need corrective lenses to drive.  I need them to do everything but read, unless I want to walk around playing "try not to bump into any of the blurry things".  To renew online, you have to get an eye exam and have the doctor fill in a special DMV form so that you can fill in all of the information.

I didn't have the form filled in.  I didn't have time to go to the eye doctor for this.  I only go once a year, and that is to get more contacts and have an eye exam.  Now I was doomed to a third trip to the DMV.

Back I went again today.  But today was different.  The entire trip -- including parking and walking to and from the DMV office -- took me less than half an hour.  Can you believe it?  It was like birthday magic!  I was in, took the eye test, got a new picture taken, and out.  Boom!  I still can't get over how quick it was.

If you have to go to the DMV, I suggest going on your birthday.  Maybe the magic will happen for you as well!  (Although it could possibly be that it was because I went in the middle of the day, on a Wednesday, in the middle of the month, and maybe that is just a slow time.  I like the birthday magic theory better.)

Jazz

Meet Jazz-kitty.  (aka Jazmine).

Hello, new people!

Jazzie thinks she is a fearsome and mighty hunter.  So far her "kills" are a stink bug and a moth.  She does not eat them, she just plays with them until they are dead.

Jazz-kitty thinks she wants to play with the birds.  She spends a fair amount of the day running from window to window, watching the birds and talking to them.  She also gets herself in a fair amount of trouble when she decides to climb the screens on the porch windows to get a better view.

I'm pretty sure Jazzie would be surprised if she could see how big her bird friends (mostly crows) are when she is up close and personal with them.  Her bigger problem, however, is that she is afraid of the door.  

And the outside.  

And loud noises.

And strangers.

So unless a bird somehow flies into the house, there is very little chance she will ever get to meet one.

She keeps waiting, day after day.  Watching the birds and hurling herself at the windows.

I tried carrying her out into the back yard.  She was okay at first, then a loud truck drove by and she freaked and I bled.  It won't be happening again very soon.  She won't get too close to the porch doors now.  I think she is afraid that I will make her go back out into the cold, cruel world.

It's hard to be Jazzie.  For now, she takes her tiny frustrations out on her feathered bird toys.  (Why yes, she is very spoiled.)

Birds -- rest easy.  The mighty hunter will not be out to get you any time soon.

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all of the moms out there!  I hope you were treated right on your special day.  In case you weren't, allow me to present a special treat to you: 

I wish I could take credit for finding this little gem myself, but I totally swiped it from a friend.

I had to work today, and I was fully braced for the onslaught of "Happy Mother's Day!" wishes that would be aimed my way.  We generally get wished happy-whatever-the applicable-holiday by patrons. 

 A coworker was irate about the prospect of it before we even opened.  Apparently some poor soul had wished her a Happy Mother's Day in passing, and she stopped to tell him exactly what she thought of his sentiment.  How did he know she wasn't mourning the loss of her mother, or had just found out she was infertile after years of trying to have kids, or had just lost a child?  I can see her point, and I am sure there are many women who, for their own reasons, would rather not be reminded that it is Mother's Day.

 Personally, it doesn't bother me.  I'm not a mom, but it doesn't offend me in any way.  I actually prefer it to a lot of the other things patrons say to us on a regular basis.  I'd much rather get wished a Happy Mother's Day than cursed out for telling someone they owe a fine, for example.

Imagine my surprise when not one single person said it today!  I did have a little girl say it to me on Friday.  She also gave me a necklace made out of beads.  It was cute.  I'm going to keep it, too.  I doubt either of my cats will be making me a necklace any time soon, and the two of them are the only kids I have.

This GPS has got to go! Hey Hey! Ho Ho!

My mother and I went on a little adventure today to Kingston, to the old Stockade area Uptown.  I wanted to see the Old Dutch Church and take some pictures of the cemetery.  We had never been to that part of Kingston before, but we had the GPS, so no worries.  Right?

Oh so wrong! 

It is my parents' GPS.  We call her Lispy, because she pronounces some street names very oddly, and when you look at the street name on the screen it is no where near what you thought you heard.  It is a few years old, and is not exactly up-to-date.  If you want to update it you have to connect it to your computer, then pay a huge fee to get it updated.  Therefore, they have never updated it.

Getting to the Old Dutch Church was very easy.  The trouble occurred on the way back.  We were not trying to go back exactly the way we had come.  We wanted to go do a little shopping while we were there.  (Kingston has a big Home Goods store.)  So I plug in that we want to go to Wal-Mart, as that is literally just down the street from Home Goods and it was a business that Lispy recognized in her registry.

Lispy starts taking us down all of these crazy side streets.  We are following her directions, driving along just fine..... and then Lispy seemed to get  a raging case of GPS insanity.  First, it starts showing two arrows driving toward each other on the display, like we had somehow split into 2 separate cars.  Then, she starts telling us to find a place to pull over and turn around, like we missed an instruction.  What?  You didn't tell us to do anything, Lispy! 

So we turn around, and Lispy is happy again.  She sends us off down a bunch of different streets -- not the same ones we had just been on -- back through UpTown where we had just been, and then pitches another hissy fit.  Lispy was, for all intents and purposes, bitching us out, GPS-style.  She gets all huffy and wants us to do a loop, like we were in a traffic circle or something, and there is no such thing visible in the street! 

Whatever, Lispy.  Whatever.

We pull over again.  I decide to put in my brother's old address in East Kingston, since at least we will know where in the hell we are then and how to get to the stores from there.

Off we go, back through Kingston yet again following Lispy's instructions.  We go down this crazy sidestreet adjacent to a parking lot, and all of a sudden Lispy dings and tells us we have reached our destination.  Um.....not quite, Lispy.  Not even close.

Apparently there is a street in Kingston with the same name, and Lispy thought we should take a drive to see that one. 

That was pretty much the fuck-it-all point.  We turned Lispy off and found Route 32 ourselves and just followed the signs for a while.  When I turned Lispy back on, she behaved perfectly normally and got us to our destination very quickly.  I think she needed a break.  Had to go take her GPS meds or something.

We must have criss-crossed through Kingston at least 6 times.  We passed through UpTown at least 3 times while following Lispy's instructions.  It was about an hour long epic ride in the car.

I did get to take some photos of the Old Dutch Church and the cemetery though.

Plus, we almost got to see a bear.  Actually, we might have driven past the poor thing any number of times, but I was too busy looking at Lispy and reading street signs to know it.  When I was on Facebook earlier this evening, I saw an article posted by the Daily Freeman (Kingston' newspaper).

Young bear seen in Uptown Kingston

I missed it, and I was literally right there!  You know I would have taken pictures!  

Oh well.  At least I got a really good deal on a new set of sheets once we eventually got to Home Goods.

(Also, Lispy is likely to be replaced very soon, but keep it hush-hush for now.  I'm afraid she will somehow find out and come after us.  I would not put it past her to be some form of bitchy AI that is out to take over the world by making people drive off of cliffs, or into the Hudson River. )

 

Girl Scout Cookies!

Dear Girl Scouts,

I love your cookies!  They are delicious, not that expensive, and I know the money goes to help you.  I'm so glad that I know someone who has a daughter that was selling them!

That being said, there are other times during the year when I would like to eat your cookies.  The Trefoils are my favorite, with a nice cup of coffee or tea.  They would be especially yummy on a cool autumn evening.  Sadly for me, cookie time here is in the spring.

I know people will say to plan ahead, buy all of the cookies you will need now and then freeze them for later.  First, I don't have enough money to buy all of the cookies I could want for the year -- that's ridiculous.  Freezing them for later sounds great in theory, but they would never last as I would see them every time I open the freezer and then I would want to eat them.

There have been a few sad years when I could not get any Girl Scout cookies.  I didn't know anyone selling them.  I never saw a table outside of a store.  The entrepreneurial spirit has been tamed by the fear of abduction, mugging, etc.  as no kid goes door-to-door selling things any more.  Admit it, Girl Scouts, as much as it is supposed to help develop the business sense of the girls, I think we both know that most of the sales come from parents taking the forms to work.  The girls maybe ask their relatives, teachers, and family friends, but that is about as far as it goes. 

Why don't you sell your delicious cookies online?  Your website says you are exploring it for the future, but it has said that for at least 2 years now.  How hard can it be?  I think we are all agreed that the internet is not a passing fad.  Jump on the band wagon!   Think of all the poor cookie-less people who didn't know anyone to buy them from, who are salivating at the chance to get some Samoas or Tagalongs.  It can't be that hard to separate the money out to the different councils by the zip codes to which the orders are being shipped.  Think of all the extra $$ you could make! 

I love you, Girl Scouts, I do.  I was a member for several years, and my mother was our Troop Leader.  I sold your scrumptious cookies, and we used to get prizes like little stuffed tigers.  Is it about the badges?  If you would just sell the cookies online I'm sure you could work a web-design or e-commerce badge into it somehow.

Please, take pity on society on sell your cookies online.  Don't make us worry each year that we might not get to savor another Trefoil or Thin Mint. 

That's some good coffee

Yesterday I mentioned that I was not hyped up on Panamanian coffee.  I'm still not, but I thought that might need a little explanation.

I work in a library, and we have a sister library in Panama.  We sent them some books written in Spanish, and they sent us coffee beans.  According to them it is supposed to be the best coffee in the world.  (Sorry, I don't remember the exact name of it.)  We got the beans, had them roasted locally, and then the staff got to have some Panamanian coffee beans.

Now, I love my coffee.  Sweet nectar of the gods!  I do not have a particularly picky palette when it comes to coffee.  My scale is: bad, okay, good, and really good.  Most of the time I just get the ground coffee from the grocery store.  Sometimes when it is on sale I will get the whole beans.  I have the super-cool coffee maker with the built-in grinder.

I don't know if it is just that the Panamanian coffee really is the best in the world, or if the remarkably short time between the roasting and the drinking caused the effect that it had.  I'm sure the coffee I get from the store was roasted (and ground, most of the time) long before I ever got it.  Whatever the reason, the Panamanian coffee had me wired!

Since I have the grinder-brewer at home and we do not have a way to make it at work, when we want Panamanian coffee I make it and bring it in to share.  The first time we had it, I was hyped up all day long on 2 cups of coffee.  It literally got to be the middle of the night and I was still raring to go.  Friends, you must get some of this coffee if you need to pull an all-nighter! 

I did suggest that we should also get a sister library in Jamaica, and maybe they would send us some Blue Mountain coffee.  One in Hawaii would be good too, so we could have some Kona.

But the one I hope and dream for is a sister library in Sumatra, Bali, or Indonesia.  Why?  I'm hoping they would send us coffee as well -- and I want to try the monkey poop coffee!

Oh you read that right -- monkey poop coffee.  The world's most expensive coffee, and the only way I will ever have a chance to taste it would be to get it as a gift somehow. 

I'm curious as to what the person who came up with this idea was thinking.  I know I would never look at civet shit and go, "Hey!  I bet I could dig through there, get out the coffee beans, clean them up, roast them and drink it and it would be awesome!"  I don't get an overwhelming urge to dig through elephant poop at the zoo to see if there are peanuts in it that I could plant.

I know, deep in my heart of hearts, that one day I will realize my dream of trying monkey-poop coffee.  Believe!

...But until then I will enjoy the poop-free Panamanian variety.

Why Can't I Sleep?

I haven't had any caffeine lately.  Not hopped up on Panamanian coffee today (long story for another time -- not a drug reference though!).

I've been trying to convince myself for the past hour that listening to the rain gently falling outside is calming and relaxing.  Usually it does help me to just drift off to sleepy-land.  It's not working tonight, however.

I have already tried taking a nice, warm shower. 

I have tried playing solitaire.

I tried listening to classical music.

I was reading, but the book I am reading is too good and doesn't make me sleepy.  (Nerd Do Well by Simon Pegg)


So I am now resorting to the tried and true -- having someone read a bedtime story to me.  (Well, more like the cartoon of the book.)

Madeline!

Of course, you can always go a totally different route...

Don't let small, impressionable ears listen to this one!

One Month!

Do you realize, friends, that this little blog has been around for a month already?  Where does the time go?

In that month, it has been viewed over 500 times!  I call that impressive, friends.  I'd like to think that it is due to my being very funny and a teller of amusing stories, but I think it also owes a large amount to me not being afraid to make a complete ass of myself for your amusement.   Whatever works, folks! 

But seriously, thank you for visiting and reading.  Even if you never comment, just seeing the little stat that someone looked at the last entry is enough to keep me going.    What can I say -- even the tiniest amount of response is enough for me!  Otherwise I would feel like I was just talking to myself, and I tend to do that sometimes already so I really don't need another platform for it.

I feel like there should be something exciting here to celebrate such a momentous event.  Sadly, I did not realize it had been a month until about 5 minutes ago.

Cinco de Mayo

Hola, amigos!

So today was Cinco de Mayo, or May 5th with lots of people drinking for no real reason except they had an excuse.  View it as you wish.

I went out to dinner with my friend, Lisa.  We went to a restaurant somewhere south of here in the Fishkill/Hopewell Area, that's all I can tell you.  Take me off of Route 9 and I am lost.  We decided to have margaritas and pretend we were in Mexico.  They were even playing theme-appropriate music!  This place also had a couple interesting patrons who made their presence known before we were even seated.

Now, the restaurant had a bar, as they often do.  This particular place had a patron and her friend  meandering their way back through the restaurant to get to the bar area.  I would guess she was in her 50s, or else she has done some hard living and it has taken its toll on her face.  Totally normal, and you probably wouldn't think anything of it unless you had our view and she was walking toward you.

She was wearing what I will call a Flashdance-style pink t-shirt -- you know, with the neckline cut open so it slides off of one shoulder?  This was either a home-made "I'm-Going-to-Cut-Out-the-Neckline-and-Make-Myself-Sexy" job gone horribly wrong, or she really doesn't know how to buy clothes the right size. 

So they are strolling through the restaurant, and about half-way to where we were waiting she realizes that her shirt has slipped, and she pulls it back up.  When I say slipped, I mean her entire right shoulder and boob were hanging out, as well as a good chunk of her stomach.  Thank all that is holy she was wearing a black bra!  And she just kept walking, no big deal, got to go back and get another drink.

Seriously?!  Did you not look in the mirror when you were in the bathroom?  How did you not feel a draft?  Also, WTF kind of friend lets you walk out of the ladies' room like that?  Shouldn't she have given you a little warning -- a quick, "Hey Babs (I don't know her name, obviously), your tit popped out again."?  (Yes, I am assuming this wasn't the first time it happened.)

We sit, we have dinner and a drink.  As we are leaving, don't we run into Babs and her friend again?  They were having some kind of dispute with the hostess.  Lisa thinks they were getting kicked out.   Babs at least had her shirt on all the way this time, but her friend was somehow tripping on the floor mat while standing still.  I'm not really sure how she managed it.  It was like she couldn't quite lift her foot high enough to get it the few millimeters off of the floor and onto the mat.  We left, and they were still arguing.

On the drive home I encountered the police in Wappingers.  Not near the restaurants or bars, where you might expect them to be when a lot of people have been out drinking.  Nope.  They were parked in front of the County Players theater, and I mean directly in front.  Lights going, officers out of their cars, one was walking up to the doors.  I have no idea if this is normal practice when they have a performance.  I think the performance must have been over, as there were far fewer cars than usual parked on the side of the street.  Riot in the theater, perhaps?  Cast party gone out of control?  Biggest and brightest full moon of the year tonight, you never know what might happen!

I got almost all of the way home, and then I saw something that just made me sad and a little angry.  Remember my post about the dumpster, and how a coworker had to cajole one of our younger patrons to get out of it?  It was about 10:45pm, and as I am driving home I see our little patron, his brother, his sister, and a couple other children hanging out on the street corner.  My best guess is that the oldest was maybe 13 years old.  Does no one care about these kids?  WTF are you doing letting your kids wander around at that hour of the night?  They were at least 2 blocks from home, no way a parent or anyone else could see them to know that they were safe!  I almost pulled over to talk to them and tell them they had to go home, but I wasn't sure they would recognize me outside of work and I didn't want to frighten them.  I guess saying we would call his parents and tell them he was climbing in a garbage dumpster wasn't really much of a threat.

And that was my exciting Cinco de Mayo.  Anyone else have some good stories?

Cheese please, and make mine cheddaar

Two cheeses, both alike in dignity
In my fair house, where we lay our scene...

English on the left, American on the right

 I like cheddar cheese -- it's my fave.  Imagine my state of giddiness when I was in the grocery store and discovered that the fancy English cheese was on sale!  (On sale being 3.5 times more expensive for an ounce less cheese, but it was buy 1 get one free!)  I decided to get it and do a little comparison.  In this case the "fancy English cheese" is being represented by the Pilgrims Choice Londoner Cheddar, and the American by some New York State Extra Sharp (I cut the brand off the package already, my bad.)  Is my version of "fancy English cheese" actually fancy in England?  I wonder.

Now, I am not an expert on cheese, or the cheese-making process.  Just from looking at it you can see a difference in color and texture.  The English, on the left, is much more yellow and has a slightly wet appearance.  It also crumbled more when I cut it.  The American is paler, less moist to the touch, and didn't crumble at all.  It may or may not have something to do with the packaging.  The English was in a nice papery-feeling on the outside but plastic inside wrapper, and the American was vacuum-sealed inside a see-thru plastic one.

According to the wrappers, the English was aged "a minimum of 6 months", and the American for "over 9 months".  Maybe that explains the color and moisture differences?  I don't know.  Just mentioning it in case it does.

Let's compare ingredients, shall we?

English: cultured pasteurized milk, salt, vegetarian rennet.  Contains milk.  Suitable for vegetarians.  --> it really says that on the package.

American: pasteurized milk, cheese culture, salt, and enzymes. -->no mentions of vegetarians

Pretty similar.  Will they taste different?

Oh yes, they do!  

I fully expected the American to taste stronger -- and no, not just because it is American or because it is made right here in NY.  There is no misdirected patriotism going on here.  The American I bought says it is "extra sharp", so I figured it would be stronger.  Nope!

The English cheese blew it out of the water!  It tastes so much richer, and tangier.  Does everything from England taste better?  I know their chocolate does.  (Don't believe me?  Try some Cadbury chocolate from here, and some from England -- not the same thing at all!)  It makes sense, though.  It did originate there.

This could be a problem.  It's like I have tasted the forbidden fruit by eating this cheese.  I'm going to want it all of the time now, and my budget cannot afford that.  I have eaten the cheese of the gods, and will compare everything to it from now on! 

I may have to set up a cheese budget.

Quick Updates

Sorry I didn't update yesterday, friends.  Sometimes life gets in the way a bit.  It was a long day, and my internet connection was going veryyyyy slowly.  No way was I going to start a post and then find out the connection went out completely.  I was not up for a game of You-Better-Hope-That-Autosave-Feature-Really-Works-And-Ran-Recently-Or-You-Just-Lost-Everything.

Here are a couple quick updates for you:

1) The Case of the Disappearing Bike:  the bike was gone yesterday!  I don't know if it got thrown out, if somebody finally took the rest of it or what.

2) The New Pink Slime:  so that weird strawberry & cream spread?  I totally caved and bought it.  The ingredients actually don't look that bad.  We're going to to do a taste test, folks!  All for you, in the  name of science.

3) We are also going to talk about cheese, I think.

So stay tuned!

I agree, it's totally not delivery

So I decided to have pizza for dinner tonight, but I was feeling cheap so I opted for DiGiorno frozen pizza instead of ordering it.  If you have somehow managed to miss their commercials, allow me to share one.

So the claim is that it is so good, you wouldn't know that it didn't get delivered from the local pizza place.  And apparently you can also use it to trick people into letting you into parties.  Who knew?

It's good, don't get me wrong.  I've had much worse frozen pizza before.  For the record, I baked it in the oven, I did not get the kind you microwave.  Way too much sauce for my liking, but that might just be a personal preference sort of thing.

Now, maybe if you live somewhere with really shitty pizza, you could pass this off as delivery.  That's not going to fly in New York.  I'm not even in New York City, and this is in no way comparable to the local place.  (I <3 you TJs Pizza!)

So if you want frozen pizza, DiGiorno is a good choice.  The next time I get a pizza craving, I will be phoning in an order for delivery. 

The Case of the Disappearing Bike

Bikes have a long and sordid history at my place of work.   You would think a simple bike -- or the bike rack it is locked to -- would not be that exciting.

We've had stolen community bikes from Vassar College that were left at the library for days.  No one knew it was stolen.  Everyone assumed that there was a student in the building at the time, and they had ridden it over.

There was also a guy who stole a bike from the rack outside the library.  The teenage girl it belonged to, and her family, were obviously very upset.  They called the police and reported it stolen, as anyone would do.  Do you know how they got it back?  The jerk who stole it was dumb enough to ride it back to the library.  Not the brightest move, riding it back to the scene of the crime. 

Then there was the time the entire bike rack got stolen.  Oh yeah.  I'm sure it gives everyone a feeling that their bike is completely safe when the thing they are locking it onto gets boosted.  We had it on the security video, too, but not a good enough shot to identify the people.  Two creative guys with skateboards propped it on their boards, one under each end, and rolled it into the middle of the parking lot.  They did it right in the middle of the afternoon on a day we were closed, brazen as anything.  We watched the video and saw one guy face-plant after trying to do a trick on it.  It was a patron who used the bike rack who discovered that it was stashed behind the fence of the house down the street -- you could see it from an angle when walking by the property.  We got it back, and it is now secured so that it can't be stolen again.

There have been other bikes that were stolen.  One guy actually had his bike lock stolen, but they left the bike.  I still don't get that rationale on that one.

The latest incident, however, gets the prize for the weirdest bike-related thing I have ever seen.  I'm calling it The Case of the Disappearing Bike.

For the last couple of  weeks there has been a bike locked to the bike rack at work.  I assumed someone had ridden over and then either the weather got bad, or they had too much to carry, and they decided to leave it and come back for it later.  I wouldn't leave anything I valued there for a prolonged period of time, but people tend to think libraries are safe places where nothing ever happens.

Last week I noticed that the seat was missing.  Strange, but not really that strange.  I couldn't remember if the seat had really been there before.  There are people who take off the seat when they lock their bikes up to make it less attractive to thieves.

Saturday I noticed that as well as the seat being missing, the rear tire had now also disappeared.  Is there a really creative thief who is slowly stealing the bike piece by piece and rebuilding it at home?  He (or she) took the seat first, and when no one came back for the bike they decided to take a tire?

Today the handlebars were also missing.  WTF?!  It's like the bike is slowly being mined for parts.  Are multiple people just taking the parts that they want?  Where is the owner of this thing, cause they are going to be pissed when they see what is left.

 Picture by me!

That's what the bike looked like today.  No tire, no seat, no handlebars.  Just a sad half-bike left to wait in the rack.

Another picture by me!

You can see that they took the tire, but left the chain.  Parts are bent.  I'm not sure if that is a cut brake line, or the actual bike lock that is laying on the ground.

Final picture by me!

It looks so weird without a seat and handlebars.  Are the parts that are left even worth salvaging?  Someone is going to have a cow when they see what has happened to their bike!

I have the day off tomorrow, but  I am really curious to see what is left of it when I go back to work Thursday morning.  Will the front tire be gone, leaving a few sad metal triangles lying on the ground?  Will someone have taken mercy on the bike and just have taken the whole thing, thrown it in the dumpster and put it out of its misery?

To any bicycle fans reading this: are there more parts missing that I didn't mention?   Let me know!  

Stay tuned for any updates in this case.  Maybe it will just slowly rust and form some sort of odd public art project in front of the building.