A boring librarian-type posting

As readers of this blog (both of them, that is) probably know, I am a librarian and, even by librarian standards, I am a nerd. Maybe this is why I love Unshelved, a comic strip written by and for librarians. Anyway, yesterday's and today's strips were especially funny to me, and I wanted to share:

NOTE: Click on images for larger version.

Maybe it's because two of the longest weeks of my life were entirely devoted to this very topic, but these were hilarious to me. People love books, but there are lots of different kinds of books and not everyone likes to read what librarians like to read, so try not to judge people by their literary tastes.

Congratulations, if you read the previous sentence then you now have the equivalent of three hellish credit hours' worth of Library School education. Ask the Frau sometime if you don't believe me.

One great thing about Unshelved is their "Book Club" feature, which highlight a different recommended book every week. The books the select are usually very good, and their reviews are usually very funny in themselves. For instance, take their review of the classic Russian novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, which is mostly praised for being the world's shortest classic Russian novel. (It is a good book, and very short; I once told the Marmoset that it could be reduced to seven words: Poor guy, he just wanted his oatmeal.)

Believe it or not, this isn't the only library comic out there. There is also a comic book called Rex Libris, which I think I've mentioned before, about a librarian who guards the world's dangerous occult-type information from the forces of evil. The online preview is pretty entertaining, and supposedly it's being made into a movie.

While I'm rambling about library stuff, I might as well show you something else I stumbled across today. It's a music video called "Librarian", by a "Goth/Country/Pop" group from New Zealand called Haunted Love. It's not the best song in the world, but the video is kind of interesting:



OK, that's enough rambling for now. I should probably go and do some actual librarian work or something.

The Greater Evil

I have repeatedly mentioned in this blog strange occurrences that seem to signal that the end is near. A lengthy recap of these events is probably not necessary, but a few examples from today's news include the discovery of kryptonite, the mystery of tens of billions of disappearing bees, and Rosie O'Donnell. Hell, if the status of George Orwell's house doesn't convince you that things are very, very wrong, then I really don't know what to tell you.

Anyway, this all comes with the dawn of the 2008 Presidential Election. Politics are always a subject of great interest for the Marmoset and I, and under the circumstances I think there is only one candidate who fits the times. If you value your life and/or sanity, be sure to vote early and often for Cthulhu 2008.

The sad thing is, we could probably do worse.

Of course this candidate has been around for a long, long time -- several million years if I remember right (though I usually try not to remember Lovecraft if I can help it) -- but this year I think he's due. After the last eight years, I think the American people are finally ready to ask themselves, "Why settle for a lesser evil?". For more information, see this delightful Jack Chick-inspired piece of campaign material entitiled "Who Will Be Eaten First".

Of course, the Chick impersonators seem to be hedging their bets. There is always the chance that dead Cthulhu will still lie dreaming when Galactus eats us.

On a completely unrelated note, I was amazed by this article from Wired magazine about a CIA rescue operation built around a fake movie production of Roger Zelazny's sci-fi classic Lord of Light. There are several remarkable things about the story, but for starters I never thought I'd live to see the names Jack Kirby, Ross Perot, and the Ayatollah Khomeini in the same article.

This is Sparta

A few weeks ago, the Marmoset and I went to see 300, a delightful little film about epic bloodshed, mayhem and destruction. Id been meaning to write about it, but I'd forgotten until I found this comic, which made me laugh extremely hard.

Anyway, I could talk about the movie as both an awesome action movie and an oddly beautiful work of art, sort of like ballet but with more severed limbs. Or I could mention how Frank Miller, despite his few bursts of sheer brilliance, is a sick man who has taken bad ideas and worse dialogue to a whole new level. I could even mention my lingering fear that Miller is about to take a dump on the great Will Eisner's grave.

But others on the web have already discussed those points at such great length that I don't think I have much to add. So, instead of getting into any of those topics, I'll just leave you with a few treasures of Youtube, which explain it far better than I ever could:

First, there's this version of the trailer which might interest those people, such as mein Frau, who don't want to watch such a gruesome movie but might like to see something a little more, um, cheerful:



Secondly, there is this video, which has the perfectly succinct title of It's Raining 300 Men:



I have to admit that throughout the movie, Xerxes came across as much more gay than anything else. It makes you wonder what his wife, nice Jewish girl that she was, thought about all this...

Back in the saddle again

The Marmoset recently discovered an amazing website, which he kindly shared with me. Since he's too busy and/or lazy to discuss it himself, I guess I'll have to do it.

The site is called Return of the Revolutionaries, and as the Marmoset put it, "you shan't be disappointed". It's written by Dr. Walter Semkiw, who apparently used to be John Adams. Yes, that John Adams. It seems our beloved 2nd President has returned to tell us all about reincarnation. Adams/Semkiw's website especially stresses the idea that that his Founding Father colleagues seems to be returning to American politics in droves.

ABOVE: President Adams, before and after.
Looks pretty good for his age, huh?

I learned a lot from this website. The first and most important lesson, of course, is that if two people pose at the same angle, they must in fact be the same person. But I also learned some other things, like that Andrew Jackson has chilled out a LOT in the last 170 years and that Henry Clay will be losing presidential elections until the end of time. I'm also touched that James Wilson has obviously come a long way from the days when he came up with the "three-fifths compromise", which stated that slaves were legally to be considered 60% of a person.

But the site also raises a lot of questions for me. For instance, did John Paul II know that he used to be an agnostic Jew? And who did Princess Lamballe de Savoy like hanging out with more, Marie Antoinette or Tony Danza?

Apparently the Founding Fathers aren't the only ones making their big comebacks. According to the news, three Central American countries have officially banned Jose de Jesus Miranda, a Puerto Rican man who claims that he is both the reincarnation of Jesus and the Antichrist. Uh huh...

In other news, this webcomic brilliantly demonstrates why the combination of Firefox and Wikipedia will probably kill me someday. After reading it, I just had to look up fatal hilarity (yes, I used Wikipedia) and was delighted to find out it's a real thing. From there I went to the Greek prophet Calchas, to the Trojan War, and so on, thus proving the webcomic's point rather beautifully.

In other other news, this poll for the Oddest Law Library Title made me remember why I love being a librarian. It's a tough call, but my gut tells me to go with "No Justice, No Piece".

Last but most certainly not least, I leave you with Landlord, aka the genius of Will Ferrell in its purest form.