Cycho Librarian

It’s snowing out. Even though I know that it’s only a snow shower and won’t last, right now the flakes are falling thick and fast giving the impression that it’s a much more significant snowfall than it really is. It puts me in mind of the heavier snowfalls we got in the northeast, where it would look like this all day. The best part about that sort of snowfall is the peace and contentment you can get from being inside watching it fall. If it was coming down in the liquid equivalent the feeling would be much more depressing. A heavy rainfall pounds on the roof and the windows, makes everything dark and dank, and generally makes you feel like you’re trying to get away from something by staying indoors. A heavy snowfall on the other hand lightens everything and is almost silent. In fact, one of the best things about snowfall is the light sound it does make. A soft rushing sound that you can really only hear when everything around you is still. And everything is still in snowfall. ...

Well, I wasn't going to post anything about the State of the Union, but I've got too much banging around in my head not to. If I had to describe the speech in one word, it would be "weak." The overwhelming feeling I got from the clips and analysis I heard this morning and my reading the text is that this is a president who has lost the nation and lost whatever slim hold he had on the reins of government, and in his inability to do what the people want has rendered himself unnecessary. In the hands of a better leader or even a better speaker this could have been an opportunity to restart, acknowledge that he has heard what the people have said, and to then actually do something about it. As it is, we heard nothing new, nothing inspiring, nothing revolutionary, and mostly things that were frustratingly old and tired. On the economy: He wants to balance the budget. Um, there was this guy who kinda did that a few years back already. And I'm pretty sure that a bi...

Reasons I will not be watching the State of the Union Address. 10. Bush has seen the error of his ways and will be delivering the speech I wrote for him, so I don’t need to watch. 9. The Democrat’s prebuttal will run long and the networks will pre - empt the State of the Union address in favor of the rebuttal pre -show. 8. I’m still mourning the Patriots’ loss on Sunday. 7. I’m still celebrating the Colts’ win on Sunday. 6. The speech isn ’t being simulcast in my native language of Igbo . 5. The Daily Show isn ’t covering the speech, so why should I watch it? 4. The networks will all finally realize that there are more interesting things to air than the State of the Union address. 3. It will make me angry, and you won’t like me when I’m angry. 2. The surgeon General has determined that prolonged exposure to George W. Bush’s voice causes irreparable brain damage. And the number one reason I won’t be watching the State of the Union address tonight... 1. Lindsay Lohan ’s Shocking Moment...

One of the perks of working in a library is that you get to see all the oddball crap that somehow manages to get through agents, editors, and publishers and still wind up on paper. This can range from the fairly mundane Ann Coulteresque baseless rants (like the gem I saw on the shelves the other day for the first time: "Women who make the world worse : and how their radical feminist assault is ruining our families, military, schools and sports." Now there's a page-turner), to the outright freaky ("Children of the matrix : how an interdimensional race has controlled the world for thousands of years-- and still does." I'm not making this up. ISBN 9780953881017). The fact that this stuff gets published means there must be some sort of market for it, and the fact that the library owns it means either that people requested the title be added or one of our sele...

This evening as I was driving home listening to the news a segment called the "Evening market report" came on. This features a woman from a local brokerage calling in a recording of how the market went during the day. It covers the indexes and any significant action on big ticket items. As usual, I basically tuned this segment out. I have only a passing interest in how the market fares, since the closest I come to playing the market is deciding to put 30% of my retirement money into OPERSs "aggressive" portfolio (Oooo. Life on the edge, I know). As she rattled off her list of events, she happened to mention that Apple's stock is up. No suprise there, right? The only odd thing was that she introduced it as "Apple, maker of the Ipod music player." My first reaction to this was "anyone who doesn't know that Apple makes Ipods has been living in a shepherd's shack on the South Island of New Zealand for the last three years." But the...

I’ve had a run of extraordinary good luck with my reading selections lately. I suppose I should start by explaining that my method for deciding what books to read is not at all predictable. I used to read heavily in a few specific genres: police procedural mysteries, English “cozy” mysteries, adventure/espionage thrillers, and Sci Fi/Fantasy. At some point in time I began to lose patience with most of the material written in those genres. All that is left of my desire to read genres is some mysteries (which I suppose could be lumped into some sort of English mystery category—think anything the BBC would turn into a series), hard Sci Fi (if it’s not based in scientific theory I don’t want to read it), and very well written fantasy (but only occasionally and it had better have a different slant to it than most). Given that all my tried and true sources had begun to bore me, I started just looking for anything new. I suppose this is a good thing for a librarian (although it would be b...

I've shamelessly swiped this quiz from the Well Dressed Librarian , who in turn borrowed it from the Tiny Little Librarian . All these librarians with blogs... who's looking after the books? But seriously, it's a fun quiz, and I feel remarkably satisfied with my top ranking of "Literate Good Citizen" with an "Obsessive Compulsive Bookworm" chaser. Nothing too fancy for me. I'm more than happy to leave the book snobbery to those with the passion to do it properly. What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Dedicated Reader You are always trying to find the time to get back to your book. You are convinced that the world would be a much better place if only everyone read more. Literate Good Citizen Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm Book Snob Fad Reader Non-Reader What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

Democracy isn't everything it's cracked up to be. Don't get me wrong, I love the United States, and like Churchill I'm pretty sure that Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others. But Democracy isn't the end-all and be-all of government in the world. Not only does it clearly have its own set of problems, but other varieties of government can clearly persist, be stable, and support the population sufficiently well that humanity has come to encompass the entire globe, living (for the most part) lives that are relatively comfortable and rewarding compared to our distant ancestors'. This is the point where my non-libertarian friends start making observations about the supression of various peoples, starvation and poverty throughout the world, and the elevation of a priviledged few at the expense of the vast majority. Um, this is different from America how ? Maybe in America our situation isn't as bad as elsewhere, but supression? We...

The administration's "New Plan for Iraq" is becoming much clearer now, and it's worse than any of us could have thought. When I first started hearing about "surging" the troop level last month, I thought it sounded idiotic enough on it's own. I mean, what possible good could another 15,000 troops do that the forces already there haven't been able to accomplish in 3 years, other than provide more targets for "insurgents" that we can't seem to find or stop anyway? But this morning I hear that they're changing the mission from assisting the Iraqi forces to "securing the population." Doesn't that just send chills down your spine? Ring any bells of "Advisers" in Vietnam? Apparently, despite repeated claims that we won't get involved in a civil war in a foreign country, and despite the smackdown delivered by the American people to the administration in November, the solution that they've come up with isn...

I rode my bike 1260 miles in 2006. I think. I kinda ran my bike computer through the wash in March, and while I'm pretty sure there were about 250 miles on it at that point, there might have been more. The actual mileage from March through December though was 1010. It took me 56 hours and 26 minutes to ride that distance, which makes an average speed of 17.9 mph. So you probably think that's pretty good, huh? Well, to me it's another New Year's resolution down the drain. In 2005 I rode 1444 miles at about the same average speed, and I resolved to ride further, faster in 2006. So much for that one. I guess in my defense I could point out that I took two more weeks off work during the summer than I usually do, and since most of my riding is the 16 miles round-trip to work, I lost 160 miles during peak weather right there. Plus at the end of the year I was sick during some of the last good riding weather in November and December. This is the point where the hardcore ...

New Year's resolutions are stupid. Let me get that out of the way right away. I don't like them, I almost never make them, and when I have I've failed miserably. Okay, so maybe I'm avoiding the chance of failure by not making New Year's resolutions. What are you, my shrink? Well, I've made one. I'm going to post to this thing at least once a week. Not only do I really need to get back to writing (instead of playing Runescape all day), but now maybe people will actually know what's going on in my life for a change. Not that anyone cares what's going on in my life other than the handful of people I'm going to give this address to. If you have managed to stumble onto this site blind, I have to wonder what you're doing here. Maybe you might be interested in the political rantings of a psychopathic libertarian socialist . Or maybe like Michael Moore you think that Librarians are going to take over the world and want an inside track on ...