Unshelved	by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum

Question for the day

Leaving aside why anyone would create a stretch Hummer, why on earth would you park it at Kroger's on a Saturday night?

Eilir raved on 23:26 Links to this post

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Eyes Burn! Aggghhh!

Bush/Kerry Pals Classic Thong

And you know what's worse? The fact that I could imagine Bill Clinton in it (yes I know, it's women's underwear...the image is still burnt into my brain).

Eilir raved on 03:44 Links to this post

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And what do I use my new-found audio for?

JibJab's 'This Land'...I saw it without sound earlier today, a pale shade of its glorious self. (Although I'm still scarred by the image of Kerry in S&M gear being whipped by the UN.)

I do love equal-opportunity parody. :)

Eilir raved on 03:38 Links to this post

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And there was much rejoicing

: Happy Windows Sounds
: Groovy

1. I got my state pay today, so Cerys and the cats have food, the car has gas, and I might be able to swing some of my medicine, although not all.
   
2. After an hour of tinkering, downloading a new driver, etc., I finally got the sound back on my computer. Haven't any idea why it suddenly dropped away, although the only software I'd added was Microsoft Reader, which has a speech component, so that might have contributed to the glitch, though it was working fine at first. I put it down to gremlins.
   

It is quite muggy, and it's hard to believe that just a couple of days ago it was 73°F as a high! If anything, the rain seems to have made it more muggy than less.

On the flip side, I came across a couple of...well, disturbing things today, which I won't explain fully due to privacy issues--and no, neither really have to do with work or with friends, so any of you reading this, don't get paranoid. It has to do with people on the periphery of my acquaintance. One involves a document I stumbled over that had some surprising, public information about someone, and I'm not exactly sure how to take it, or whether to share that information with another person who knows him better. In the past, I'd just disseminate information (look what I found!) without considering the consequences. I'm not sure that's necessary in this case. However, I respect both enough to think the truth wouldn't damage the relationship. The other issue has to do with a business that, in the name of reorganisation, seems to be using tactics worthy of Ashcroft or even Torquemada. I don't know the whole story--it was based on hearsay, after all, and those in the know seem to have been gagged. I can see why things are being shaken up so thoroughly, but at the same time, it's putting a lot of good people who have devoted years of service under stress and the stability they were promised may have just flown out the window. As you can imagine, I can relate. And for now anyway--given my lack of knowledge--I'm going to watch and wait, and see how it goes, no matter how much I could see it as a cause to rally around. Ironically enough, it could cause job openings in a market that's almost impossible to gain entry into, hopefully without anyone actually losing a job but perhaps new positions could be created as sometimes happens with 'retoolling'--but then there are questions over whether to take advantage of the chaos others are undergoing or, for that matter, whether to become part of such a system at all. I don't know; maybe I'm thinking too much, but the ethics of the situation seem sticky.

Eilir raved on 02:22 Links to this post

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Boom*Thunder*Hail

I was getting ready to leave my conference and head over to the station to pick up my paycheque when I decided, hey, I'm at a major research library, let's look up one troublesome question I've received.

Well, I'm a little closer to the solution, but even more importantly, about the time I sidled into the movable shelving stacks, a thunderstorm alert came out over the security guard's radio, followed almost immediately by the unmistakable sounds of a deluge beginning.

So, it did save me a drenching. Since my umbrella is in the car, and since it's coming down so quickly that the umbrella wouldn't help, anyway, I think I'll park myself here for a few minutes more.

Oh, by the way, my favourite thing about the University now that I'm not here regularly? The fact that they have free feminine napkins in the ladies' bathrooms. Sometimes being caught without one of those is as bad as being caught without an umbrella. :)

The thunder's still going, but it sounds like the rain has let up...I'm going to go take a closer look, then hopefully be on my way.

Eilir raved on 15:40 Links to this post

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Welcome to ToxTown

The National Library of Medicine has this nifty site: ToxTown

Eilir raved on 14:42 Links to this post

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Think you know your portions?

Came across this via a colleague whilst going over consumer health info at a seminar.

Take the portion distortion quiz.

Eilir raved on 14:39 Links to this post

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Who knew?

especially for someone whose animaga form would be a chubby pink piglet. :)


Which HP Kid Are You?

Eilir raved on 13:08 Links to this post

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The Colourful Plate

that my doctor recommended :)

http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/5ADay/campaign/color/

Eilir raved on 09:54 Links to this post

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I'm really enjoying this book

Savage Empire by Jean Lorrah

Eilir raved on 22:14 Links to this post

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Got my blood tests back

and pardon me for posting them here (as if any of you care), but it'll be good to be able to search them out if I need to later.

They were pretty decent...triglycerides 119 (<150 is good), total cholesterol 181, good cholesterol (HDL) is 53 (should be over 40), with the LDL at 104, well under 130. That wasn't fasting, so they're actually probably even better than that, the doctor's assistant said. I came out negative for H. pylori, so I don't have that bacterium underlying occasional gastric issues. My thyroid is good, too, at 2.76, which is good from a metabolic standpoint. I do need to drink a little more water judging from the renal measures, but that's not unexpected and actually I've been doing that already, and not hitting so much in diet colas.

The only concern is my HbA1c, which measures my blood sugar over three months...my score is 6.8. Last October it was 6.0, and the year before that, it was 5.0. But, on the other hand, it isn't bad for someone with diabetes...it means my blood sugar's been up into the 135-160 range on average--decent for diabetes, but still something to watch. I have noticed a difference in ups and downs, but hadn't been able to test regularly. I'm hoping now that I have a reliable glucometre, that I can increase my glucose control.

I forgot to ask about the liver enzymes (my mom and I both tend to run a little high, they don't know why) or the metabolic panel, but they'll be sending those results soon anyway, and I'm sure the endocrinologist I'll be seeing in August will discuss those.

I feel like I'm taking some steps forward in feeling more healthy, anyway. My blood pressure stays somewhere about 120-128/65-78, and my resting pulse is usually under 70, so all in all I feel good about going back to an exercise programme. We are going to check next month to see if my blood pressure changes when I'm tilted into different positions, to see if that explains some of the dizziness and the amount of falls I've had lately. Apparently that's something that can happen in diabetes, too. They're also going to check me over to see what's causing the numbness in my hands. So, wish me luck.

Eilir raved on 13:51 Links to this post

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Rabid Reference Question #7

Dear Rabid Librarian:

What is a mâche plant? Where is it from?
--Curious

Dear Curious,

Mâche is a salad green from France. It is also known as lamb's lettuce. It is one of the mildest-tasting and softest-tasting greens out there. Like most greens, it does well in cool weather, but mâche also tolerates heat, and so does well in northern or southern gardens. Hope that helps. :)

Eilir raved on 08:18 Links to this post

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I like to think I'm not incredibly fat phobic

Yes, I'd like to weigh less. Yes, I'd like to have better health and more energy. But this month's Fat @ National Geographic Magazine was enough to make anyone phobic. I didn't learn anything new, really, since I'm pretty up on why we as a culture are getting fatter. But the illustrations were very useful. Unfortunately, the most compelling weren't on the website. Scariest? The centerfold full body scan MRI of a 40-year-old woman weighing, 5'6", 250 lbs with a BMI of 40.3--less than me, mind you, as compared to an inset of a 36-year-old, 5'5", 120 lbs, BMI of 20. But there is also a great illustration of using common items to depict proper portion sizes (potato=light bulb, fruit=baseball, cheese=domino, steak=playing card, burrito=bar of soap, butter=die, pasta=computer mouse) and the growth of portions in the past decades. I plan on showing our dietician, who has long argued that portion-sizes are the number one issue in the supersizing of America.

Nice thing? I'm not dieting per se, and I haven't actually made it back to the gym yet, although Dr N did give me the okay to, but I have been eating more aware, trying the Carb Smart ice cream he suggested (it's made by Breyers/Good Humour, and it's actually quite good), drinking more water, and just trying to eat a variety of foods, and I've lost almost 10 pounds since Wednesday. I know it's likely water, but the odd thing is that I hadn't started the dieuretic yet, I'd already by last Wednesday receded to my norm rather than the swelling up at the ankles that spurred the consult, and I just started my period (as a surprise, a week earlier, but so did another co-worker, and we seem to have been magnetically drawn to Dwana's cycle). But I should still be dealing with PMS bloating, unless it just took my body by surprise.

Anyway, weird.

Eilir raved on 13:58 Links to this post

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Viruses are learning to search and grab

Welcome to the Tucson Citizen

The latest version of the MyDoom e-mail virus, MyDoom.M, fooled tens of thousands of computer-savvy workers into triggering a disruption that knocked Internet search sites Google, Yahoo, Lycos and AltaVista off line for several hours yesterday.

Well, I wouldn't call them computer-savvy if they're opening unknown folders or attachments. This is certainly an interesting method of exploitation, but also find it interesting that although this article lists the other three search engines hit (Yahoo!, AltaVista, and Lycos), most only mention Google. Sure, it's getting ready to go public, but still...it says a lot about Google that it got all the attention, as well as the fact it's actually entered our language (we google something). I have to admit, I am somewhat in awe of the phenomenon that is Google.

That said, it's reassuring that librarians, who do use Google, of course, also have a plethora of other resources for finding information, some of it online, some of it in databases, but some of it in collections of (gasp!) books. I sometimes amaze people when I reach for a particularly useful reference text because I retrieved the same information in a couple of seconds that they spent 2 hours looking online for. And although viruses hit both computers and people, no one's developed one for books yet. Well, unless you count budget cuts. :)

Eilir raved on 11:14 Links to this post

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I missed this, having not read the paper regularly as of late

Tolerance.org: Lost History in Lexington?

The Herald-Leader dropped this bombshell in the July 4th issue:

It has come to the editor's attention that the Herald-Leader neglected to cover the Civil Rights Movement. We regret the omission.

This understatement was the beginning of a series of articles hoping to rectify that somewhat. I did see a few of the articles, though, and people's remembrances that were published. I thought it odd timing (usually they do something like that in February, and it was nice to see stories written the 'rest' of the year, and the 50th anniversary of Brown vs. The Board of Education passed in May, so I wasn't sure what prompted it. Apparently a speech given by a former editor on journalism ethics sparked today's editor to start the ball rolling. Now I know--the local paper was coming clean, decades late, but clean nonetheless. Way to go...even though I'm sure some may think it too little, too late, it's at least an acknowledgement, and a start in the right direction.

Back then, of course, it was two papers, the Herald and the Leader. They were both put out by the same publisher even then. And news of the civil rights protests was downplayed as a matter of course, out of fears of inciting violence and a belief that it might all blow over. But in doing so, those editorial decisions excised an important part of Lexington's history, a part has been slowly making its way back to light because scholars and others refused to let it lie dormant. Now, at least the archives of the paper will contain some of those stories, too.

Anyway, this is part of an ongong effort. The paper has set up an e-mail address and has invited people to share their stories. In the meantime, it's getting some national recognition, as evidenced by this story.

Eilir raved on 23:27 Links to this post

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A Pagan translation of the Iliad

by Troy Caperton

The Iliad, of course, is the Homerian epic describing the battles between the Achaeans and the people of Troy, a war in which Gods played as much a part in as men. Western scholars have, of course, revered the text, but often translations have shown the bias of Christian scholars or Victorian prudishness. Having never mastered ancient Greek beyond the aorist case, I'm not expert enough to review its scholarly adherence to the original, but...

It is a fact that many people study Greek texts totally without regard for the cultural and religious context within which they were created, and this seems to be an attempt to restore the text to that context. Although a prose translation, the epic elements seem, from the sample I read, to be firmly intact. I'd like to see a complete copy.

Neo-Pagan scholarship has, for many years, been quite abysmal. It used to be that no one would crack open a classic work but just quote something someone else concocted five years before. But there are plenty of Pagans trained in academic research and writing who, I think, will bring a fresh perspective to ancient topics. Even Llewellyn, which used to have a reputation (at least among most of the people I knew) as a crack-pot, we'll-publish-anything-new-agey, seems to be improving, although they still run the gamut. Anyway, it's nice to see a version where they won't gloss over the relationship between Achilles and Patroklos, for example, or treat the Gods as Deities rather than merely meddlesome manipulators.

Eilir raved on 22:49 Links to this post

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It finally happened

: 'Bonny Swans' by Loreena McKinnitt
:
Immeasurably Better

Okay, I know this shouldn't be funny, but...

Dwana stopped by to drop something off and Spock (my beautiful, yet unaware

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

(as I was saying before the big lunk stepped on my keyboard)

and stupid cat wanted to be near her so much he blithely swatted his tail into the candle before I could intercept him. There was a bit of a popping sound like when a fuse lights and a bit of singed-hair smell but I scooped him up and patted down his tail before he had a chance to get hurt, so no harm done. What did he do? Press into me and purr really loudly, oblivious to how close he came to being chat flambeau.

For the record, I don't leave candles burning unattended, and Spock rarely will do much more than sniff one. He just lost his head in the presence of the Dwana. And almost his tail. :) Now he is on the comic box at my feet, happily snoozing. Sixteen years old, but he's still just a great big kitten. Have I mentioned he really is a special needs kitty? But I do love him so. Even if he does have awful messy reactions to worming medicine.

Eilir raved on 20:55