midnight pancakes

Isn’t eating breakfast food in the middle of the night one of life’s great luxuries? I had to work the late shift tonight, didn’t get home until 11 pm and I was craving pancakes. My copy of the Joy of Cooking automatically opens to the pancake page. Ah, lovely, lovely pancakes! I’m glad I walked both to and from work today, I doubt that will balance eating so many carbs before bed but at least I was semi-active. I didn’t walk home in the middle of the night, I went to work in the morning, came back home at noon, went to work again at 5:30 and now I’m back, tired yet joyfully stuffed with pancakes.

So, a pancake infused refgrunt:

Books are over there
Here are more staples
This is how you find old Chemistry journals, this is where they are in the library, you can request that article through interlibrary loan
She needs information about a contemporary Jewish musician and she’s already used the music databases…I show her WorldCat and EthnicNewsWatch and print an article from Lexis Nexis for her.
I’m sorry we don’t have state tax forms.
I spend a bunch of time trying to locate a particular type of map of the Ottoman Empire right before World War I. Thank you historic atlases!
Printing
Books are over there
You can put a trace on that missing book at the circulation desk
No, we don’t give away extra notebooks here, but you can have some scratch paper.
Book on social psychology experimentation
Books are over there
How to access e-journals
You’d get more results if you search for Brooks, Gwendolyn
Books are over there
How to use EconLit
We open tomorrow at 8:00
I wonder why people are doing jumping jacks in the library
I suggest ways someone can enlarge an image they printed out from a web page
Books are over there

preordering the comics for June

What I’m probably going to be getting:

Hot Gimmick vol 9– An issue about Akane and Subaru, should be cute.

Tokyo Boys and Girls vol 1 – Two books by Miki Aihara coming out in one month? I am SO there!

Doubt vol 3 by Izumi Kaneyoshi – I enjoyed volume 1 enough, I’m buying at least up to volume 3.

Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden Vol 1
– EEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!! I am so happy this is coming out! I’ve bought 3 of the Japanese volumes already, now I can finally read it without using a dictionary! If you don’t buy this, you aren’t my friend anymore!!! OK, you can still be my friend if you don’t buy it, but only because I love you almost as much as I love this series.

Prince of Tennis Vol 8 by Takeshi Konomi – I do like Prince of Tennis, but I mainly buy this because the future Mr. Tangognat is a fanatical tennis player and he likes the idea of having a multivolume series about tennis in our future home.

Ruroni Kenshin vol 16 by Nobuhiro Watsuki – My favorite haunted wandering samurai.

Shojo Beat
Vol 1 #1 – Shojo Magazine from Viz! I’ll check it out, but I don’t think I’ll be subscribing because I’ll probably just buy the collected volumes of some of the featured series (like Nana and Zettai Kareshi).

Fruits Basket vol 10 by Natsuki Takaya – I lurve that Fruits Basket.

Kare Kano Vol 16
by Masami Tsuda – Almost the end of Kare Kano. I hope Arima works through his issues.

Legion of Super Heroes #7 – I can’t believe I’m buying Legion again. But I am! I’m actually buying some DC comics, which is rare for me.

Grant Morrison continues to assault my wallet:

Seven Soldiers Klarion the Witch Boy #2
Seven Soldiers Shining Knight #3
Seven Soldiers Zatana #2

Red Star #7 – I love the Red Star but the issues come out SO infrequently you are probably better off waiting for the trade. And the Red Star trades are gorgeous.

Things I might buy if I had unlimited funds:

Iron Wok Jan #13 – I like all the cooking battles, but this is something I might pick up only if it goes on mega-sale.

Cromartie High School Manga Vol 2 – Volume 1 was really funny, but I don’t think I’ll keep buying this.

Street Angel vol 1 – If I didn’t already own the single issues, I would buy this. Street Angel is good comics!

Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion by Will Eisner – I’m sure this will be awesome, but I’ll probably check it out of the library.

Othello Vol 4 by Satomi Ikezawa – How much Shoujo do I need to read? Should I keep buying Othello?! Wait, this comes out in May and ALA annual is in June, so maybe I can just buy this at the exhibits for 50% off?!!! Yes! That’s what I’ll do!!!! I have a fiendish plan to use librarian professional development opportunities to feed my manga addiction!

Bambi and Her Pink Gun – I’m totally intrigued by this title. Here’s a post about the artist , and here’s a review from Johnny Bacardi.

Antique Bakery – This sounded cute, maybe I should buy it because I doubt the public libraries around here are going to stock manga about gay pastry chefs.

Fullmetal Alchemist Vol 2 by Hiromu Arakawa – Without knowing if I am totally going to love vol 1, I’m probably going to hold off on ordering this.

daylight savings ennui

I hate losing an hour! I was feeling tired all last week (I worked 2 evening shifts, which was a little exhausting) and I taught a bunch of classes too. I always get weary of teaching a couple weeks before I’m all done for the semester. I have a few classes this week and next week and then I’m all done.

One admirable habit of the future Mr. Tangognat is that he sometimes sends me gift cards to bookstores — so today I hit Borders, they were having a buy 2 graphic novels get 1 free sale, and I ended up picking up one of the new Sin City trades, xxxHOLIC #4, Tusbasa #4, and Saikano #1. And I ended up paying .94 cents thanks to the sale and giftcard. Wooooo!

I went to see Sin City, and walked out feeling exhilarated and numb at the same time. Visually it was stunning, I haven’t read any of the comics before but it did seem like Frank Miller’s idea of ‘noir’ was amped up so much it verged into self parody at times. Clive Owen certainly makes being covered in tar look very very very good, Elijah Wood was quite creepy, and Mickey Rourke was great.

testing out new theme

I’ve spent a bunch of time this weekend working on adapting some themes for wordpress. I finally upgraded my sister’s blog to wordpress 1.5, and I adapted the China Red theme for her.

I was messing around with the Blix theme for my site, and I really like it, except I seem to have lost my link categories! The pattern at the top is from squidfingers.

I wish I was better at graphic design/css, I think I can manage ok when adapting other people’s work, but I’d like to be able to come up with something totally original at some point. Some of the tools that I was using while working on themes: the wellstyled color generator, and the del.icio.us new color bookmarking feature which came in handy for keeping track of little swatches of color.

Reading List, March 2005

Naked by David Sedaris. Soooooooo Funny. I always worried when I was reading this on the bus because I was laughing to myself like a crazy person. (amazon)

Paradise Fields by Katie Fforde. Cute and predictable British chick lit. (amazon)

Being Committed by Anna Maxted. A British woman works through her committment issues. (amazon)

The Other Side of the Story By Marion Keyes. I sense a distinct pattern with my reading habits this month.

Princess Academy by Shannon Hale. I picked up an advance copy of this YA at the ALA midwinter meeting. A mountain community is thrown into an uproar when it is announced that the distant ruler of the kingdom is supposed to pick a bride from the villiage girls. An academy is established to train all the girls (willing or not) to become proper princesses. The heroine of the story Miri is a bit of an outsider as she is too small to help her family quarry stone. Does Miri want to become a princess, or will she remain with her family? (amazon)

Spitting Feathers by Kelly Harte. Brit Chick Lit with a parrot. (amazon)

Manga and Graphic Novels

Fruits Basket #2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Queen’s Knight #3
Mars #1 (reread)
Basara #10
Kare Kano #14
Suki #2, #3
Cheeky Angel #1
Cromartie High School #1
Tsubasa #3
Planetes #4.2
W Juliet #3
X/1999 #17