I’ll probably go to bed soon (maybe after a snack (edit: this was around 3 to 4 am when I wrote this part)), but I found some more interesting stuff online so I’ll post that first. May be the first time I’ve posted three blog entries in one night (too lazy to check old posts to be sure), but even if I matched the number I don’t think any of them were as long as these three are.
I can’t remember how I found half this stuff, but I wouldn’t post it here if I didn’t think it was interesting, funny, or entertaining (well, not in this post at least). I have all these sites open in separate tabs in “Firefox”:http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=affiliates&id=13029&t=46 right now. (I also have twelve additional browser windows open from the past few days, each with several tabs at least…and this is considered “normal” for me!) The thumbnail at the left is of my current computer state as I write this, with the browser shown being the one with the tabs open that I’m writing about. Click for a bigger view (resized to 640×480 for easier viewing…I’m running 1024×768 natively, and if anyone cares to donate a 20″ LCD I’ll gladly switch to 1600×1200).
First up is sites having to do with libraries or librarians, since not only is “librarygal”:http://www.livejournal.com/users/librarygal/ the person who has made me aware of the existance of the MLS degree (although she says I’m probably more interested in the MIS area if I pursue that direction when I go to college, which is true), she’s also the only person I know for sure that consistently reads my blog.
There’s some interesting humor over at “Laughing Librarian”:http://www.laughinglibrarian.com/ where you try to guess whether certain phrases are children’s book titles or titles of porno videos, over at “Book For Kid or Porno Vid?”:http://www.laughinglibrarian.com/kidorvid.htm. With the similarities, they say, “no wonder that librarians are regularly accused of pushing pornography to kids.”
Then there’s the list of “ways to annoy people in the library”:http://www.lotsofjokes.com/cat_274.htm, that could also be called “things David thinks are funny but would never actually do.”
Those are just two of the things linked at “Laugh’n’Links”:http://www.laughinglibrarian.com/lafnlink.htm at Laughing Librarian.
At the Feb. 22, 2002 entry in the “School Blog”:http://www.librarianavengers.org/school.html over at “Librarian Avengers”:http://www.librarianavengers.org/, the author is talking about learning the “Perl”:http://www.perl.org/ programming language (my personal favorite). She says,
The Internet Public Library is based out of a little room in the Undergraduate Library here on campus. It is full of Buffy the Vampire Slayer hullo kittyparaphernalia and little plastic toys that you can throw at people. It is here where Chris and I learn Perl, with the eventual goal of redesigning the currently-dreary children’s section webpage. I love this. I love Perl, I love the IPL. I didn’t realize the programming could be so dang interesting. I think I just needed to find the right language. I have even begun to dream in Perl.
Last night, I dreamed that we wrote a script that made peanut butter sandwiches. Real peanut butter sandwiches. The program looped, so that it made about ten of them at a time. For some reason I was very proud of this, despite the fact that I am so allergic to peanuts that actually eating one could cause my premature demise. Still, a Perl dream. This means it’s time to buy a camel shirt.
You may not find that funny, but as a “Perl”:http://www.perl.com/ programmer who has similarly dreamt in Perl (I think), I find that hilarious. Even if she is a liberal. And I’m not allergic to peanuts. And I spent all my camel-shirt money on the “Camel book”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596000278/davidsworldva-20?dev-t=mason-wrapper%26camp=2025%26link_code=xm2 and other how-to Perl books (I have a shelf of them).
I actually found Librarian Avengers through a link from somewhere to the “Worship” page, which is what got me started on librarian humor if I remember back that many hours, over at http://www.librarianavengers.org/worship.html (not that I advocate ascribing worth to false gods, but the content there is funny). If you read nothing else from this post, read that link. And then read everything else I link to :-)
Then there’s these wonderfully, screamingly funny (well, a lot of them) site wherein there are posted about ninty-six (I think, I only counted once) “Open Letters to People or Entities Who Are Unlikely to Respond”. Here are some good ones I’ve found from the mix (keep in mind these are ones I find funny, not necessarily ones I can sympathize with, and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you which ones):
- “An Open Letter To My 22-year old Self”:http://mcsweeneys.net/links/openletters/2022yoself.html
- “An Open Letter to the Enormous Bruise on My Upper Right Arm, Kind of Near the Bicep, That I Acquired Last Weekend While Playing Football”:http://mcsweeneys.net/links/openletters/20bruise.html
- “An Open Letter to Omaha Steaks”:http://mcsweeneys.net/links/openletters/3omahasteaks.html (if you can’t bear to read one instance of the F-word don’t read this, but it’s funny otherwise. And you know that me saying this makes this the first one you want to visit, you curious little… :-)
- “An Open Letter to the Current Boyfriend of the Girl I’m in Love With”:http://mcsweeneys.net/links/openletters/15.html
- “An Open Letter to My Boss, Who Was Recently Fired”:http://mcsweeneys.net/links/openletters/13.html
- “An Open Letter to My Sony Vaio”:http://mcsweeneys.net/links/openletters/vaio.html
- “An Open Letter to My Three-Year-Old Daughter, Sylvie”:http://mcsweeneys.net/links/openletters/sylvie.html
- “An Open Letter to the Radioactive Spider That Never Bit Me”:http://mcsweeneys.net/links/openletters/spider.html
- “An Open Letter to My Deep Fear That My Girlfriend Will Be Really Fat Later in Life”:http://mcsweeneys.net/links/openletters/deepfear.html
- “An Open Letter to Saran Wrap”:http://mcsweeneys.net/links/openletters/saranwrap.html
- “An Open Letter to My Eighth-Grade Long-Term Substitute Science Teacher”:http://mcsweeneys.net/links/openletters/8thgrade.html (this one mentions Star Trek so it’s really good :-)
- “An Open Letter to My Computer’s Insert Key”:http://mcsweeneys.net/links/openletters/insertkey.html
- “An Open Letter to My Male Gynecologist”:http://mcsweeneys.net/links/openletters/gyne.html (there’s a cultural statement for you…)
- “An Open Letter to My Roommate”:http://mcsweeneys.net/links/openletters/roommate.html (the rest are funny, but this one had my sides hurting from laughing so hard, and that was half-way through!)
- “An Open Letter to that Mother on the Sidelines of My Daughter’s Soccer Game”:http://mcsweeneys.net/links/openletters/soccergame.html
- “An Open Letter to Penguins”:http://mcsweeneys.net/links/openletters/penguins.html (first half is another laugh-out-loud-er, the second half has a bit of peacenik environmentalist-wacko-ish-ness to it)
- “An Open Letter to the Guy Who Scored Only 12 “Fast Money” Points on Family Feud in the Mid-Seventies”:http://mcsweeneys.net/links/openletters/familyfeud.html
- “An Open Letter to Umlaut”:http://mcsweeneys.net/links/openletters/umlaut.html
- “An Open Letter to Google”:http://mcsweeneys.net/links/openletters/google.html
- “An Open Letter to The New York Times Style Section Photo Retoucher”:http://mcsweeneys.net/2003/07/14openletter.html
And those are just the good ones I found. Are you laughing yet? If not, it is because you did not actually FOLLOW THE LINKS that I provided. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars, and do not use contractions in this paragraph (that last thing was to me).
I actually have some more, and there were plenty of the “An Open Letter to…” series that I didn’t even read. I started this letter at about 3:30 am, and I haven’t slept since then but I have shoveled some snow, eaten, run some errands, and some other miscellaneous stuff. That’s why I’m not posting it until ten hours later, although I did work on reading and creating the post for about three to four hours straight after I started it.
That will have to do for now though, I’m going to nap for a couple hours to take the edge off my failing (closing) eyes.
Update: I forgot to mention…darn good “Dilbert today”:http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20041223.html. And “yesterday”:http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20041222.html. And also “the day before”:http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20041221.html. And on “December 18th”:http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20041218.html, too.