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[personal profile] muckefuck
Friday was awful. The computer system was down due to a faulty shutdown; near the end of the day, they concluded the only solution was to reinstall the OS on the server and now I'm just praying we didn't lose any data. Also, workers finished cutting up the plaza right above us and began hauling off the chunks. The ramp where the forklifts load them into the dumptruck is directly above me.

So far, Monday is just like Friday with the added bonus that I woke up a whole hour early because it was so stifling in my apartment. But that's not what I want to talk about! Sandwiched between these two days was an awfully satisfying weekend.

On Saturday, [livejournal.com profile] monshu and I were supposed to check out the vendor market at ALA, but we arrived to find complete chaos. The shuttles were dropping people off, but not picking them up, so we cabbed it to McCormick Place. Then we walked a poorly-signed city block from the entrance to Registration only to find (1) registration was really on the second floor, (2) there was a HUGE mob at the base of the escalators and (3) no one was being let upstairs and no one knew why. So I walked with [livejournal.com profile] monshu, who already had his pass, back to the entrance, rode up to the third floor, kissed him goodbye, and wrote off our lunch plans. When I left, they had finally figured up how to let those with passes up the other set of escalators and were telling people that the registration area was too crowded to admit more people.

When people ask my why I haven't become a professional librarian yet, I want to say to them: This is a profession? The leading professional organisation is holding their annual conference in their home town and its more poorly organised than a Bear Run? These pushy, grabby, shabbily dressed middle-aged women (never get between a herd of librarians and (a) free swag or (b) the shuttle bus) are my peers and colleagues?

So there I was, suddenly without plans. I hopped a northbound bus and realised en route that I was passing Powell's--passing the Burnham Park Powell's and not stopping in to browse? INSANITY! I hoped to get a copy of Anchee Min's pseudobiography of Madame Mao for [livejournal.com profile] monshu, and I did--plus a comprehensive Hausa grammar (for $12.50--I had to buy it!), a book on Navajo verbs, one on trends in modern Spanish, one on Missippian mound cities, one of Nanai folklore and one of Ainu, a guide to Japanese signs, and a comprehensive treatment of Mobilian Jargon. The last has already paid for itself, since I was finally able to confirm something I'd heard years and years ago: It is the language in the chorus of "Iko Iko". I haven't deciphered it all, but I can tell you with confidence that "Jockamo feeno" is a corruption of čokma fehna "very good" (Chickasaw čokma "good"). I'm not a man, I'm a parsin' machine!

Heavily laden with literary booty, I rode up to Lincoln Square and bought makings for belegte Brote: real Tilsiter (the Verkaufsangestellte tried to tell me it's the same as Havarti, but I was not fooled!), spicy salami, and fresh Multikornbrot. What could be a better accompaniment to the most screechingly overwrought Ken Russell movie in the cool of [livejournal.com profile] cassielsander's groovy borrowed pad? Man, I did not recognise Timothy Spall in that! Must've had something to do with the fact that they took one of the hairiest British men alive and shaved him down to his pasty epidermis.

Many thanks to [livejournal.com profile] aizuchi for treating us all to three episodes of the new Dr. Who. He was right that the first was a little weak, but everything clicked in the third: A post-modern Victorian ghost story with a Cardiff setting (featuring, as a bonus, Simon Callow as Charles Dickens). One thing is for certain: This is not your older brother's Dr. Who! They've gone from putting Tegan in a boob tube to featuring a full-blown Essex girl as the newest companion. Oh, and Eccleston is beyond perfect as the Doctor, grinning with maniacal relish at every new threat. Shame he didn't stick around a bit longer.

Speaking of which, I wisely fled before Kindred but--as the result of a liquid soap explosion in my shoulder bag (on the plus said, it never smelled fresher!)--still not soon enough to be on time for my dinner date with [livejournal.com profile] welcomerain and [livejournal.com profile] spookyfruit. Fine food on Devon, Penn & Teller's Bullshit back at the ranch, their luminous company--I slept well that night.

Sunday morning was basically uneventful: I lay in bed and gleefully paging through my new acquisitions. That afternoon, I ran into Ned the Gardner in the park and ended up getting put to work, but I think that deserves a post all its own.
Tags:
Date: 2005-06-27 04:58 pm (UTC)

From: [identity profile] tyrannio.livejournal.com
I also stopped by the ALA (I spent Friday hanging out with some digital library people writing some metadata transformation code), and then we tried to find the LITA reception. We ended up walking around downtown for a while and not finding it. I gave them a hard time about "if only there were someone around specialized in providing access to information ..."

I did talk to someone about cataloging Nahuatl items, and it turned out that neither of us knew if Nahuatl had articles (for nonfiling characters). Do you know?
Date: 2005-06-27 05:31 pm (UTC)

From: [identity profile] muckefuck.livejournal.com
Classical or Modern?

I don't recall any articles in the classical language and I know someone I can ask about the modern descendents.
Date: 2005-06-27 05:42 pm (UTC)

From: [identity profile] tyrannio.livejournal.com
I believe it was classical, since she was talking about using the old twenty-year-cycle dating system. I just remembered that LC provides a list, but I don't know how complete it was.
Date: 2005-06-27 05:46 pm (UTC)

From: [identity profile] mollpeartree.livejournal.com
These pushy, grabby, shabbily dressed middle-aged women (never get between a herd of librarians and (a) free swag or (b) the shuttle bus) are my peers and colleagues?

Cruel, but fair. And they don't even know why they do it! AALL is always followed by several days of returnees trying to get people to take all the promotional crap they hauled back with them off their hands. I have like half a dozen sippy cups with vendor logos on and around my desk.
Date: 2005-06-27 06:41 pm (UTC)

From: [identity profile] stephe.livejournal.com
I love Gothic. Should I ever find myself teaching a course on the Romantics, it's going to be one of the mandatory assignments.
Date: 2005-06-27 09:04 pm (UTC)

From: [identity profile] muckefuck.livejournal.com
Those poor students! Make sure you get them to sign releases!
Date: 2005-06-28 05:07 am (UTC)

From: [identity profile] stephe.livejournal.com
Yeah, I realized a few years ago that getting tenure is almost certainly not going to be part of my future academic career.
Date: 2005-06-28 02:56 pm (UTC)

From: [identity profile] bunj.livejournal.com
ALA had calmed down enough by Monday that my registration wasn't so bad. However, they had meetings at thirteen locations all over the city (McCormick, Hilton and Towers, Palmer House, Sheraton, Hotel Intercontinental, etc.). I didn't get to go to any of the sessions I wanted. I don't know how most of the attendies did it, the logistics were a nightmare.

I did have fun talking the the folks at the Wizards of the Coast and Dark Horse booths. I love Tony Millionaire's new children's books. I finally have something to give my nephews (all three of them).

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