Gimme Indie Rock!

wildflowersoul@livejournal.com — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:58:07 GMT

I can't believe it's just a day 'til vacation! We've been planning this for so long it feels kind of surreal that it's almost here.

So here's our itinerary:

Wednesday: In a plane, spending the night at a Heathrow hotel.
Thursday: Pick up the car, head to Avebury. See the standing stones, I'd like to see Silbury Hill, and keep an eye out for aliens and ghosts!
Friday: We'll be heading to Brize Norton, but on the way will probably stop at Bath and Salisbury (the Magna Carta!)
Saturday to Friday: Staying in Brize Norton, day trips out to Oxford and rambling around the Cotswolds. Also: Blenheim Palace, and possibly Warwick Castle, and whatever else strikes our fancy. There's a hillside chalk horse that's a must-see as well.
Friday to Monday: All Tomorrow's Parties in Minehead! This time I will not spend a night drinking questionable Dutch gin and a 2-liter bottle of Strongbow.
Monday to Wednesday: London! Must see: Victoria & Albert Museum, London Old City ghost walk.
Wednesday: In a plane. Attempt to sleep because I have to be at work the next day (summer associates start that week and we'll have to train the kiddos on... everything. Summer associates generally know very little about the law).

The hardest part is leaving the bunnies behind, but they'll be in good hands.

wildflowersoul@livejournal.com — Thu, 01 May 2008 01:31:01 GMT

So I come home from kung-fu and flip around the stations to find something to watch while I chow down on some food. And... there's a show on public access tv called Fruit or Breast: The Game Show. It's hosted by a dude wearing a bra stuffed with oranges and a chick who stands in the back knitting. Between this and the show hosted by "Jenny" and her rabbit Bananas, I am becoming convinced that I need to bust into the public access television market. Seriously.

Also, according to Drew there have been lots of ufo sightings in Avebury recently. We'll be staying there next week. Between the haunted inn and the ufos, it's almost too much excitement for one girl to stand!

I had a weekend!

wildflowersoul@livejournal.com — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:58:03 GMT

First, Harold & Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay: I was kind of disappointed. Possibly only because I have been looking forward to this movie SO MUCH since a trailer first appeared on the internet. I felt like the humor was less clever and subtle. But then again, I am talking about Harold & Kumar, and I'm not sure how subtle the comedy really was in the first one. Christopher Meloni's cameo should have been longer. But it was funny. Not as funny as Strange Wilderness.

Second, Saturday was packed full with an amazing engagement party for two very lovely people, and a Metafilter meetup that was tons of fun. Meeting new people is fun! I spent some quality time with Miss T-Po yesterday watching Coupling (the British one), and it was entertaining.

And now, I have a librarian rant. But I'll cut it for you!

Ok, I went to this "Next Generation of Librarians" meeting Friday. It was a meeting of the Law Librarians of New England, and as I previously posted, I was the youngest one there. Which is nice, because the day that I realize I'm markedly not the youngest one at these things is the day that I'll realize I have become old. So I'm not old yet. But they were talking about working with different generations, and it wasn't that bad, but there were moments when they fundamentally did not seem to "get" kids these days.

Point 1- "Millenials never show up on time! They are easily distracted!" This seemed to be the consensus among the boomers shaking their sticks at the kids on their lawn. Almost everyone I know around my age is very hard working and shows up on time. I'm punctual as hell and consider myself borderline late when I show up exactly on time, I'm usually 10-15 minutes early.

Point 2- Complaining about how new librarians are disenchanted with the job market and how they'll just have to settle for their first job and work up from there. I... have a lot to say about this. Now, to be fair, I got my first professional job with a minimal amount of hassle, and it didn't take long. But finding paraprofessional jobs while in library school was a nightmare of epic proportions. While I agree that if you want to stay in a city where the job market for librarians is pretty saturated (Boston, Chicago) you may not be doing exactly what you want to be doing at first, I take huge issue with the amount of scoffing in the room when they were talking about new librarians wanting to make "50 thousand dollars" right away. This is a profession that demands a master's degree for any meaningful advancement, and master's degrees these cost exponentially more money now than they did decades ago when these people went to library school. Oh, and we all have student loans from undergrad to deal with as well. So yes, if you want us to be educated to your standards, we're going to need to make more money when we come out so we can pay back those loans. My student loan burden right now is more than my yearly salary. I'm not even going to get into whether Simmons is worth any money at all, because the more I think about it, the more I realize that I'm less educated about library science than a lot of my non-Simmons peers. But luckily, almost everyone in the Boston area got the same lousy education from Simmons. Also, living in certain metropolitan areas dictates that we need higher pay than people working comparable jobs in areas where it doesn't cost so freaking much to live.

Point 3- Along the same lines as point 2, the speaker said "well, young people who want to get into publishing know that they're going to have to move to New York and live in an apartment with 6 other people and work their way up." I'm sorry, as much as I love librarianism, it does not have the glamour cachet (nor the promise of future crazy richness) that the publishing, movies, and music industries lay claim to. If I wanted the hard-scrabble, work crazy hours and live on ramen lifestyle, there are certainly other careers I'd be just as good at that might make me considerably wealthier some day. But I don't want that lifestyle, and I don't think librarians can rightly compare themselves to such dissimilar industries and expect the same thing from its newcomers.

But for a non-ranty thing, I was talking to a Mefi librarian Saturday night, and he told me about this open-source catalog he's been working on, and it looks pretty sweet. It's called Scriblio, and I'm really interested in seeing how it's been implemented in other libraries. I can't tell just yet if it conveys the level of sophistication that I'd need for my library's purposes. For the whole handful of attorneys who ever use our catalog. But I'm intrigued, and I want to share this with my fellow librarians.

So that's that.

wildflowersoul@livejournal.com — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:19:40 GMT

I am the only person under 30 in my conference about the next generation of librarianship.

But hey, it's a gorgeous Maine day and I sometimes get to come outside and use Drews teeeeny tiny computer for intarwebbing.

wildflowersoul@livejournal.com — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:19:53 GMT

Vacation planning is in full swing. I just ordered up a rental "global" phone so we can have phone-age whilst in England. That business is expensive! But it's just as expensive as a pay-as-you-go purchased over there, really, and possibly cheaper considering the abysmal state of our dollar's buying power overseas.

Now to try to figure out what the grocery shopping situation will be like in Brize Norton. I'm a little scared of just how much money it's going to cost to eat for 2 weeks. Also, there's so much I want to see, and I need to remember that we want this to be a relaxing vacation. Oxford, Stratford, Salisbury, Bath, Wells... if it were realistic I'd love to trek up to York, but I think York/Lake District/Scotland will have to be its own trip some other time.

In "what I've been up to this week" news- I had a rather large-ish mole removed earlier this week, and it's been ouchy. I have stitches. Tomorrow I am off to Freeport for a librarian conference.

And Harold & Kumar 2 comes out tomorrow!

wildflowersoul@livejournal.com — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:29:01 GMT

So once in a while I make these long lists of "Things to Do" so when Drew and I are bored on a weekend I can pull out a list of ideas (most of which are bad for time/cost/effort reasons), but still, I like to have these ideas ready.

So here's my list of things I want to do in the summer (I guess not everything requires summer time, and some are silly/not quite possible):

Mini-golf (Pirate's Cove and Monster Mini-Golf, it's in the dark!)
Letterboxing
Geocaching
Go 80s/90s dancing
Comedy at the Hong Kong/anywhere
Old Orchard Beach
Find an amusement park with a log flume. Ride said log flume. Repeat!
Tiki Party
Ghost Tour
Scavenger Hunt
Find weird museums and visit them
Explore some of the haunted places in this book (especially any ghost towns, of which I know there's one in Rhode Island!)
Inside activities: Poker/card games night
Board game night
Murder mystery dinner party

What other things to do are there? Bonus points for cheap!

wildflowersoul@livejournal.com — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 10:56:38 GMT

This LJ community is providing me with many laughs: mock_the_stupid.

wildflowersoul@livejournal.com — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 23:05:40 GMT

First- I ate fish this weekend! Raw fish! It was... not bad and not good. It was 100% neutral. But I'm willing to try it again.

Second- this show on CartoonNetwork called Chowder is the weirdest, most entertaining thing ever.

Third- thanks to cayetana for recommending this week's This American Life. Jerry Springer's life story turns out to be absolutely fascinating. Harvard Law? Really? I would totally vote for Jerry Springer if given the chance.

Off to kung-fu! We've been plunging ahead really fast with some forms, it's been awesome lately.

wildflowersoul@livejournal.com — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:21:38 GMT

Whoooo! I gots a raise! I love annual review time. Fancy cocktail for Jennie tonight!

wildflowersoul@livejournal.com — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 10:51:28 GMT

What? How is it possible that Kickass Cupcakes is expanding? I do not support this supporting of crappy cupcakes. Speaking of cupcakes- a few weekends ago I tried cupcakes from Patsy's Pastries in Somerville, and I am somewhat happy to report that they were not that good. Lyndell's still wins, which makes me happy because I walk to Lyndell's from home, and I kind of fear finding the Perfect Cupcake someplace outside of reasonable walking distance. I guess if this is one of my concerns in life I'm doing pretty well.

I'm getting weirdly excited by the prospect of shopping at local farmer's markets this summer. I also think that once it gets nice, we may be able to obtain hay within a 30 minute drive for much less than the $50-60 a month we currently pay to get it shipped in from the midwest. But then again, it may not be early cut western Timothy hay, and I can't be serving lame hay to my bunnies. They have discerning tastes.

How much did The Office rock last night? Answer: So much! I want to host a dinner party. But a remarkably less awkward one.

wildflowersoul@livejournal.com — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:30:38 GMT

Why is it not Friday yet? My God this has been a long week. Also, why did I not go outside to get my lunch at that delicious Chilean sandwich place? I have made poor choices with my life.

Speaking of food and poor choices, I think tomorrow night may be the night for a foray into Sushi Town. There's a new place in Allston that jawalter has noticed, and from Yelp reviews it looks pretty good (it's called Privus). Can I cajole anyone into sushi-ing it up tomorrow? they also have tempura and other non-fishy items

Finally, I really want to have a Sarah Vowell-esque adventure. I want to research some arcane subject and then visit weird little museums devoted to said arcane subject.

wildflowersoul@livejournal.com — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:11:49 GMT

Alright. I have decided that I need to make a valiant effort to get rid of my picky eating habits. If, after a valiant effort, I still don't like stuff, I think I'll have earned the right to not like it. To that end, I made some lamb souvlaki last night. I'll have to give lamb a couple more shots, but there's some sort of weird taste I get from it that is just unappealing. I think I can tolerate mini-lamb chops, so maybe my chunks o' lamb last night were too big and thus too... lamby.

Anyway, so also to that end, I need to make a good faith effort into fish. It would be nice to have some protein options for dinners other than beef/pork/poultry/cheese, and it would also be nice to not have a crippling disgust for a food that's eaten by tons of people in the world. All the advice I'm getting on good old Metafilter is that sushi is the way to go to attempt to get over my fish thing.

So I think sometime soon I'd like to have a sushi dinner at some sort of nice sushi place around here. Because if I'm in polite company I probably won't cry like a baby while eating fish. What? I have a lot of disappointing-others issues tied into eating fish, it's a problem, I know.

wildflowersoul@livejournal.com — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 02:11:58 GMT

Your duty: listen to last week's This American Life. Seriously. Download it, subscribe to the podcast, listen to it online, but listen.

I don't have words to express the outrage and disappoint I feel. I mean, I've known and been upset about plenty of things this administration has done, but these stories really drive home some unsettling facts. Bush's abuse of signing statements, the administration's bullying of everyone, the complete loss of checks and balances.... how can we have let this happen? It's criminal. Grah.

Librarians!

wildflowersoul@livejournal.com — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:08:59 GMT

Librarians on my friends list, I seek advice!

I'm a little embarrassed that I can't find the answer, but I've looked and I'm getting a lot of crap I don't want to read about metadata and whatnot.

So, in our catalog, we have records for print material that also have online material (for example, we have the print Boston Globe, and we have a link to Boston.com and another database we have access to with articles archived online). Currently, our notes field says "Also available online via the Internet." Which I think sounds clunky and redundant. I'd like to change it, but I want to see if there's any accepted phrasing out there as the "official" way to word such a note. The AACR2 isn't helping much on this front. What I'd like to have it say instead is "Internet access:" (our links show up immediately underneath the notes, so the colon would be followed by the links). Can I do that? Any advice?

You can see how much good my Simmons cataloging class did me. I am in no way exaggerating when I say that my cataloging teacher simply read the AACR2 out loud to us for 3 hours a week, and that was my class.

wildflowersoul@livejournal.com — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:58:16 GMT

Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock are currently filming a movie just a few streets away from my work! This weekend they will be in Rockport!

I need to see some celebrities. I... have some questions about the amount of life I currently have. But it excites me. Sandra I don't care about, but Ryan Reynolds. He's Van Wilder. And he was in Blade: Trinity. C'mon.

wildflowersoul@livejournal.com — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:03:42 GMT

I totally got this from Metafilter. What Claudia Wore, a blog about an 80s fashion icon for many girls my age. Claudia from the Babysitters Club.

I liked Kristy best, though; Claudia and Stacey intimidated me. As much as fictional characters can intimidate. But man, oh man, did I love me some BSC. My friend and I started our own Babysitters Club in our neighborhood when were 10. Strangely, no one wanted to entrust their children to 10 year olds.

Also, having a temp to help me is stressing me out 500 times more than I was stressed with no help. I am stressed!

wildflowersoul@livejournal.com — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:41:30 GMT

On gray, wet, cold morning such as this, my morning commute music is often debatable. Do I want to wallow in the grayness with depressing music? Or fight it off with cheeriness? This morning I tried to construct for myself the ultimate, most irresistibly happy playlist. It did indeed chase away the gloom. And now I want more suggestions!

So what I'm looking for are songs that make it practically impossible to be glum. Not songs that make you happy because they are so good, or songs that remind you of good memories, but songs that exist on their own as gleeful little entities.

What I listened to this morning:

They Might be Giants- Birdhouse in your Soul
Replacements- Alex Chilton
Belly- Slow Dog
Killers- Mr. Brightside
Erasure- Respect
New Order- Regret
Bowling for Soup- 1985
Velocity Girl- Nothing
Promise Ring- Is This Thing On
Architecture in Helsinki- Do the Whirlwind

More suggestions?

In book-related thoughts- I'm reading Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Can it really be 100% true? It's detailing exactly the kind of "corporatocracy" that I believe exists, but to have it all spelled out as "this actually happened, I really did this" makes me wonder about the veracity of the source. Oh god, I'm such a librarian.

wildflowersoul@livejournal.com — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 10:53:57 GMT

In which I shake my tiny fist: How is it that in all the belly aching and complaining about taxes in this country that no one ever complains about the craziness of treating urban salaries like their rural counterparts? Of course I make more money than a librarian in Oklahoma, I live in Boston and I need to make this money to pay living expenses. But according the federal government, I make a lot of money. No, I don't, it all goes out to the high rent, the T pass that only gets more expensive, the food that costs more here than elsewhere.... I don't see why people in Boston/NYC/DC/San Fran/LA/Chicago don't complain more about this, we get shoved into tax brackets we don't deserve to be in. And it's not like many of us city dwellers can afford a mortgage, so we get no special home owning deductions.

Also, I propose that rent should be payable pre-tax. Why not have it possible to arrange with your payroll department for them to send out your rent to your landlord from your paycheck before it's taxed? Electable, not mandatory, of course. That would be super helpful for those of us who live in places where rent eats up a third of your take home pay. Health care is important enough to be treated this way, but a roof over your head isn't?

In non-piss-and-vinegar-news, I feel like I've been rocking the kung-fu lately. My goal is that by the fall I'd like to be able to go up to the advanced class. Maybe. It might be more realistic to hope for that for a year from now.

wildflowersoul@livejournal.com — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 13:00:23 GMT

Ugh. March is killing me with the dreariness. Snow?! I just want a week of sunshine and 40-50 degree weather. Is that too much to ask?

A metaphorical beam of sunshine in my life is Night Falls over Kortedala, an album by Jens Lekman that is just superb. My latest acquisition in Mission: Listen to Music by More ATP Artists. I'm so pleased that I like this album so much, especially after finding out that I really don't care for Animal Collective. Now it will be easier to figure out which stages I'll absolutely need to stake out for good spots!

When it gets nice out (which I assume the way things are going will be June), I'd like to start letterboxing or geocaching. Treasure Hunt!

wildflowersoul@livejournal.com — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 22:45:47 GMT

Ok, last week for, like, two days there were girl scouts in the T station shilling cookies. And they were kind of loud and obnoxious, as little girls in groups tend to be, so I ignored them. But now I needs me some peanut butter chocolate girl scout cookies. And there are no girl scouts to be found. I actually went onto the web site and entered my information into their cookie finder database. I have no pride left.

And it reminds me of

Corky Romano was one of the greatest under-rated comedies of our time.

wildflowersoul@livejournal.com — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:29:37 GMT

In gearing up for the Slathered-In-Awesomecakes that will be All Tomorrow's Parties, I'm starting to download some albums by artists who will be there that I've never heard before. So I got the latest Animal Collective (Strawberry Jam), because Pitchfork has been creaming their pants over this band for years, and I gotta say, I just don't feel it. It's interesting, and I can appreciate that they're doing something unique, but I don't feel like they're writing songs so much as crazy aural architecture. It just feels kind of pretentious and cold to me. But they do sound like they might be a really great live experience. And they sound like maybe they'd blow my freakin' mind if listened to while stoned

I am hoping that Stephen Malkmus actually tours with the Silver Jews, because, um, Stephen Malkmus and Lou Barlow at one festival? Indie Rock Gods!!

I've been slowly getting some vinyl converted into mp3 (technically, I guess it's mp4s or whatever the iTunes format is). I can't stop listening to "On Avery Island," it's been so long since I last heard it, and it's still one of my all-time favorite albums.

Also, we have been researching haunted pub/inns for the one night in England that we still have unscheduled. I'm getting scared just reading about some of these places, I won't get a wink of sleep! But it's too neat to pass up the chance.

wildflowersoul@livejournal.com — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 17:10:28 GMT

I learned today from the Boston Globe that I am wasting my life. There is a community access tv show in Cambridge called Adventures with Jenny, and it involves a girl named Jenny talking about stuff while her pet rabbit, Banana, sits there with her. Grennie and I need to be staaaaars!

Also, Freezepop is playing the Middle East tomorrow night.

wildflowersoul@livejournal.com — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 03:01:01 GMT

Oh my god. After two straight hours of The Wire we needed some comedic relief. South Park came on, and I said to Drew, "It would be so perfect if this could be the Loch Ness Monster episode, but they never show it." And lo! It was. Yesterday they showed the Chewbacca Defense episode. My two favorites in two days! And I really do not watch South Park at all these days.

In honor of that, I give you some

You've been warned, possibly nsfw hilarity:

wildflowersoul@livejournal.com — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:18:06 GMT

What's that you say? You want Metafilter meta-wankery about meta-wankery in fandom (with a big article that talks a lot about Supernatural, I only skimmed the article but believe it contains no spoilers, it's about a con). Well, then, here you go.

Along the lines of feminist ranting, I was reminded while re-tagging old entries earlier today of the time back in L-town that I tried to start a chapter of Riot Grrrl. I put up posters around town! I think it was in connection with my awesome thesis about punk girls and... psychology. The only person who ever called me wanting to join was a skinhead named Howard who had just gotten out of jail. Hee. Oh, memories.

wildflowersoul@livejournal.com — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:19:17 GMT

A lesson in "can you ever trust your sources"- yesterday I found an error in a Mass. law on Lexis. Not just a little oopsie, but a bunch of words that should have been there were not there, as verified by a print copy of the law and the copy posted on mass.gov. Sheesh. If you can't trust the #2 law purveyor in the land, who can you trust?

Yesterday was crazy at work, I suspect this entire week is going to be exhausting and nonstop.

Also, music update: I can't stop listening to Tullycraft's Disenchanted Hearts Unite, such a great album!

We're seeing Daniel Johnston tonight at the Roxy! Here's hoping he plays "Greviance" and "Devil Town!"