Ref Grunt

Sorry, no, I can't unfilter the computers in Children's for you.

Telling me you haven't been to the library "in over ten years" and asserting your are "just looking to kill time" does not win me over.

(I switch to adult side, and forget about working on my monthly report!)
Copier.

Pursuit of Happyness.

Copier.

Computer, computer.

Printer is where?

Add money to print, how?

Take the phone chat outside, please.

Copier.

Where's my print? [You gotta hit print the second time, when money management system asks, do you really want to print these x pages?]

Teach new library member to use shelf-check. He's got an H2G2 DVD, so I am extra nice.

Computer?

Scary dude needs our phone. He is not too angry or loud at the person he calls.

Computer?

Tissues for amiable, chic woman. We grouse about allergies for two seconds.

Hipster with ringing iPhone needs the hold he didn't come in for in time re-sent here. Or not. He can't decide.

Books by Frank Deford, Laura Hillenbrand.

(OMG, look at the cute red polka-dot Mary Jane sneakers on that child!!)

Purple Heart

Finally came off the needles today! I was out of practice making this mitten pattern -- the project I made while learning to knit, and that I've made a dozen or twenty times since.

Special Effect Heart

This is just a bit of a cool wrapping paper that I used recently. The first picture I took triggered the flash and -- ugh! -- washed it out. For the second shot, I put my finger over the flash and got a super-red image. Third try, I held my finger off the flash half an inch or so, and that's what this is.

15/52

Matched by Ally Condie

As is the custom in the Society, Cassia goes to be Matched at seventeen -- to by video screen the man she will marry at 21. She's thrilled by the event -- then shocked and thrilled to be Matched with her childhood friend. Being Matched with someone you know is nearly unheard of. So are mistakes, in the Society, but it seems one has been made.

Though reminiscent of a slew of great stories (Feed, Uglies, Hunger Games), Condie expresses nifty dystopian ideas quite well:

The almost-snow reminds me of a line from a poem we studied this year in Language and Literacy: "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening." It is one of my favorites of all the Hundred Poems, the ones our Society chose to keep, back when they decided our culture was too cluttered. They created commissions to chose the hundred best of everything: Hundred Songs, Hundred Paintings, Hundred Stories, Hundred Poems. The rest were eliminated. Gone forever. For the best, the Society said, and everyone believed it because it made sense. How can we appreciate anything fully when overwhelmed with too much? (p. 29)

Or when another character tells Cassie about the myth of Sisyphus:

"I don't know if he's real," Ky says. "If he ever existed."

"Then why tell his story?" I don't understand, and for a second I feel betrayed. Why did Ky tell me about this person and make me feel empathy for him when there's no proof that he ever lived at all?"

Ky pauses for a moment before he answers . . . ."Even if he didn't live his story, enough of us have lived lives just like it. So it's true anyway."

A thoughtful and gentle introduction to dystopias.

YALSA article on the Printz Award

Looking at all recipients to date, themes emerge. The books feature journeys, angst, romance and more. The authors also discuss the problem of identifying "best." Article, here.

Happy Valentine's Day!




Shortbread hearts, dipped in chocolate.

Searching

Two interesting articles on Google from the Washington Post point to the same thing: if Google seems to be offering you plenty of hits but few useful answers, content farms may be to blame. Google says it's trying to avoid this pitfall.

Michael Rosenwald uses an anecdote to show how Twitter got real, useful answers for a friend, while a Google search resulted in a list of unhelpful links. Story here.

Rob Pegoraro explains "content farms" here.

UPDATE 2/17: Chrome extension feature may help! Read more here. Note to self: download Chrome at new workplace.

Lace-Edged Sachet

It's a faux-vintage button, but actually vintage fabric. I pinned the lace very carefully, but forgot to take into account that it has a front and a back, and that I was sewing inside out and backward. . . So, I got to do that bit twice. The bigger heart used to be awesome 1940s curtains. They faded like crazy in my last Park Ave. apartment. I made Christmas stockings from them, too.