Nerdgirl Dilemma

in the hotel room, trying to figure out what pizza to order…

Lindsay: “WAIT. If we order now, won’t the pizza come right in the middle of iCarly?”
Amber: “…”
Jen: “…”
Jill: “…”
Lindsay: “…”
Sheila: “I’ll get the door.”

Axe Cop is super funny.

“I wish for Abraham Lincoln to be my wife.” –Axe Cop

stumbled across the webcomic, Axe Cop, a few weeks and am totally in love with it! The storyline is written by a 6 year old boy, so you know, BEST THING EVER. He, Malachai, narrates it it to his 30 year old brother, Ethan, who illustrates the comic and sometimes prompts with questions like “and how did Axe cop and Dinosaur Soldier find the evil lab of uni-baby?”

So the website is fun, but I just bought the first print version of Axe Cop for the library’s graphic collection and it is so adorable because the big brother added little notes explaining what he thought was going through his little bro’s head during the spark of creation 🙂 For instance, during Ask Axe Cop #24, Ethan tried giving Malachai some background on info on Abraham Lincoln, but apparently Malachai just couldn’t shake his initial feeling that Pres. Lincoln was girl–this is just the kind of joke where coming from anyone older would seem like they were trying too hard, but coming from a kid who really thought Abe was a girl, and then allowing someone to correct him, but still manipulating the story so it comes back round to Axe Cop marrying Pres. Lincoln? pure brainwork.

-Amber

The only way I will exercise…

So somehow I seem to have forgotten about Mousercise for the last 20 years until the library started a wellness program where we have to stretch every morning. And since my supervisor is awesome, she interlibrary loaned the Mousercise soundtrack for us to listen to while side-bending and lunging. I totally had a mousercise VHS tape when I was little and felt totally AWESOME when I did my own work-outs. (I also did the Jane Fonda tapes with my mom which made me giggle uncontrollably) I actually don’t remember too much of it, but several of the librarians actually remembered whole routines–I am in such awe of my coworkers.

Amber

One of the reasons I love my job.

Because I get to DANCE! with little kids! and giant dogs! Seriously, my fellow librarians knew how happy this would make me that they didn’t even ask–I just got an email one afternoon that said “Amber, we are going to film you dancing to Beyonce tomorrow. Dress appropriately.”

(filmed for the River Bandits’ Library Night which then got rained out booooo)

Amber

Wizard Babies!

Sweet Magical Broooood! OMIGOSH MATT OF THE WHOMPING WILLOWS HAS WRITTEN A SONG ABOUT THE WIZARD BABIES TO THE TUNE OF THE MUPPET BABIES THEME SONG!!! Do I need to say more?! My brain is seriously cracked out on this.

Jen, her sister Anne, and I saw Snidget, Justin Finch-Fletchley, and the Whomping Willows at Ames on Sunday–totally fantastic as usual! Snidget was enthrallingly lovely and Matt and Justin are just crazy talented and hilarious. I never stop smiling when I’m at a Wizard Rock show!!! and I bought an adorable “I believe in Nargles” sweatshirt! oh aaaaand we saw Kick-Ass which was SOO GOOD! but Jen or I will probably write multiple posts about that movie. Seriously, gals and guys, it was multiple-post good.

Muppet Babies Forever! Have been considering buying Muppet Babies bootlegs for awhile now...

Nerdgirl weekend 🙂
amber

CRANKY PANTS

Ssooooo last night I broke my beda. sad face.

Why oh why, you might ask, would I give up so easily?

Eh. I’m like that. I had major CRANKY PANTS on last night after I finished doing the dishes at like 11:30 pm and I REALLY WANTED TO GO TO BED. Just like I REALLY WANT TO GO TO BED NOW. Apparently I never get around to writing these posts until I’m extremely exhausted and incoherent.

Here is an example of one of my cranky faces:

Notice the long hair so this is a retro cranky face. Actually, this was part of a series of pictures meant to illustrate how angry and disgusted I was that Pringles changed their recipe but I never posted it...

Other things that make me cranky besides doing dishes and staying up past my bedtime?

-vacuuming I HATE vacuuming–it makes me really sweaty for some reason. Probably because I am busy hating it.

-when Steve disses the Jonas Brothers. Seriously, we didn’t talk to each for an hour one morning. and I’m not even that big of a Jonas fan, you know, I’m no Macy.

-when people honk at me because I’m not turning right on red. HELLO it’s an option–I don’t have to do it. And it is just something I do not like to do so don’t honk me into it.

-The Electric Slide.

-when I am at a super fun dance party and I have mono so I can’t dance…seriously, ask Jen or Jill about Terminus’ Bon Voyage Ball–I was in such an icky mood! And then I went to the hotel bar to have a hot chocolate and wallow in my mononess and some sleazy guy tried to hit on me by making fun of my fellow Harry Potter fans and ICK TOUCHING MY LEG. So when I threw his gross hand off my knee and informed him I LOVED HARRY POTTER, he proceeded to take off his shirt and punch the wall. So I guess getting the cold shoulder from a nerdgirl makes slimy guys get cranky… and I got extra cranky because I let the slimy guy make me feel bad about myself. OMIGOSH that night was CRANK!

I don't look very cranky in this picture! that's because I love having my picture taken with my nerdgirls so I wasn't cranky here. And my earrings were fantastic.

on that ridiculous long bonus storytime, this cranky post is over. Tomorrow I promise to post at like 6:30 when I’m still all shiny from the library.

amber

Happy Easter to me! I imagine myself in garanimals…

So growing up is hard–especially around the holidays when the being-a-grown-up-sucks percentage skyrockets to about 95%. So when this commercial came on this morning, I danced and laughed and had a really good time! until I remembered that they don’t make garanimals for hip young professionals, and then Easter was ruined.

annnnnddd now: GARANIMALS! dance dance dance jump dance hi monkey dance dance jump

Amber

I Need to Find a New Borders

I stopped by a Borders today.  It was possibly the worst Borders I have ever been to.  It was so bad, I actually decided in the store that I needed to blog about it.  So I wrote down reasons why it sucked so I wouldn’t forget.  Here they are.

1.  The teen section was way in the back

Ok, normally, this is probably a good thing because teens don’t like to be on display when they’re browsing for book.  And it’s kind of nice to be way back in the corner, but there was a huge gap of open space between the “Independent Reader” aka tween section and the teen section.  The gap was so big that I thought for a minute that the teen section just didn’t exist.

2. The teen section was hidden.

Besides being way in the back, far from the tween section, the teen books were also hidden behind a giant display — you know, the big cardboard stand that says things like “New Stuff” and “Borders Ink.”  When you looked behind it, you could see the shelves.  There were also things like giant structural poles in the way, close to the shelves, blocking books.  There was a woman wondering where the Alex Rider books were, but she disappeared before I could tell her that they were behind a pole.  (Too bad; I wanted to feel like Kathleen Kelly in that one scene in You’ve Got Mail. Remember it?)

3. The shelves were VERY, VERY messy

I was completely appalled.  I even reshelved a couple of books because it was bothering me, but then I realized how many books were on top of other books or were flipped around backwards, and I gave up.  At one point, I also saw a disposable camera lying on the floor.  Really?

4.  Shelving not all together

Apparently now Borders separates out Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror and shelves those together.  I’m not sure how I feel about that right now – interesting, yes; needed, possibly, given the recent popularity of dystopian and paranormal novels; but I have trouble knowing where the line is for pulling out genres.  Anyway, there were so many books in the Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror section that they ran out of room in the shelf…and the rest of the books were on a shelf not super-close to the others.  I had to GUESS where they were.

5. “New stuff” = Speak, Alex Rider, The House of the Scorpion

I like to stop by bookstores and see which books they have out, so I have an idea of what I should order for my library, if I haven’t ordered them already.  This Borders had those books under the display called “New Stuff”.  Um, the Alex Rider series may have a few new books published every now in then, but the series started several years ago.  And Speak and The House of the Scorpion are several years old!

The messy shelving is what bugged me the most because it looked TERRIBLE, but all together, it made me never want to go back.  I’ll drive farther to get to a better Borders.  Or maybe I’ll start visiting Barnes & Noble.

– Jill

An Expansion on Crime of the Day (CotD) #1

In a previous post, Lindsay introduced the concept of Crime of the Day and explained that the new fangled hands free phones are one of them.  I agree.  I’m not adamantly opposed to them, but I too have been fooled by someone using one and not talking to me when I thought they were.  Luckily it wasn’t too embarrassing.

The thing about these phones that really bug me though is that people who have them seem to leave them in their ear ALL THE TIME.  Really?  Is that how they work?  You can’t take your phone out of your ear?  I don’t know about you, but I don’t normally leave my phone at my ear just waiting for a phone call.  Of course, I don’t normally get all that many phone calls, so it’d be really unnecessary, but STILL.

On Friday I decided to take myself out to dinner because it had been a long week.  I headed over to Applebee’s (after getting lost a few times. Boo to still not knowing my way around too well – even WITH my gps!), found a seat at the bar, and casually looked around at the other people sitting there.  Who doesn’t love people-watching?  The couple to my left was pretty interesting.  They seemed like they were on a date because they were pretty animated and loud – though that may have been all of the margaritas – but I think I saw a ring on her finger, so maybe not.  Anyway, the guy was closest to me…and he had one of those hands-free phones in his ear!!!  In a restaurant!  On a date!  (Even if it was with his wife!)  Who does that?  Take it out of your ear!

What do you guys think?  Have you seen people leaving it in their ears when they maybe shouldn’t?

– Jill

Where the Wild Things’ Clothing Are

I want these. But I don’t live in a place with Opening Ceremony stores and I can’t find any place to buy them online and I probably couldn’t afford a piece of lint off them. But I love them. They make me happy. More designers should use children books for inspiration–like Dr. Seuss! I want some Thneeds! oh wait, no I don’t. DID I NOT LEARN ANYTHING FROM THE LORAX?! (a challenged book btw–Happy Banned Books week!) I DO NOT NEED A THNEED! but I could use a daisy-head Mayzie hat?

Steve just said “Did you find where you can buy them yet? No? well maybe Victoria Secret will make you a cheap Wild Things Romper. You love rompers.” He’s right. I do. and that would be awesome.