Chicago: home of the President of the United fucking States

But did you make out with them?

Or tell them off? Or both?

I'm scared of my work Xmas party. We're going to Moline and getting hotel rooms. This does not bode well.

you know you can change it back, right jesse?

I'm scared of my work Xmas party. We're going to Moline and getting hotel rooms.

i thought that only happened on like Seinfeld

The famous trip to Moline episode.

1. I do know that I can change it back. And I did. But it upset me to see it changed w/out my permission. Leslie was similarly rattled. There was much emailing about it.

2. LOL (not literally) LOLNL. Did this happen on Seinfeld?

One of the lawyers there is keeeeyooot and maybe gay. I fear my impulses.

What happens in Moline stays in Moline.

You know how you start an argument on the internet?

Discuss the pros and cons of circumcision.

i guess i missed that thread

It was elsewhere on the internets. The Netherlands is proposing a ban on circumcision. (heh heh, nether)

Hey - look at this:

http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/dan/food_lies/margarine2.jpg

This article is causing me to chuckle at my desk http://www.cracked.com/article_16785_p2.html

These pretzels are making me thirsty.

^^^haha just watched that episode drunk @ 3am last nite

Hey. Does anybody know why some of the streets around the Rock and Roll McDonald's were closed tonight?

I was driving around there and traffic was phenomenally bad. There were cops all around and traffic directors at every intersection for blocks and blocks.

Oh. Festival of Lights. I was hoping it was sarin gas.

the office is a ghost town this morning, holy wah

does anyone need any office supplies while I can still steal them?

Does anybody know why some of the streets around the Rock and Roll McDonald's were closed tonight?

Iowans on leave from the Navy, probably.

haha - a theater reference i actually get!
did you like that one? i thought the guy was really good in it.

Yeah, me too.

Does anyone want to go see Wilderness tomorrow night at Schubas? 9PM

i want to but can't

Did you know...

If you need a replacement Chicago Card Plus, you can either pay $5 and have it mailed to you, which will take 5-7 business days, or you can go to the CTA HQ at Lake and Clinton, get one immediately, and pay nothing.

I was just at CTA this morning, putting more $$$ on my plus card.

Hi.

I have questions for librarians and librarians to be:

I paid my library fines (NO THANKS TO NICK) and got a pile of books out from HWLC last night and noticed that in the general fiction section, books are alphabetized by: 1) author's last name, then 2) title of the book. So if you are there after, say, Lush Life by Richard Price, you will have to find all books by people named Price, and then once you're in the Prices, look under "L" for Lush Life, rather than under "R" for Richard and then under L.

So my questions are: Has it always been this way and I just tended my entire life to read authors with unique last names or is this new? And if this is new, when did it happen? And most importantly, why? Because I don't like it. Change it back.

As far as I know, that is something unique the CPL. I'm not sure how long it's been going on. It is obviously unacceptable, I'm assuming it is just to make shelving easier or something???

^^this could be nick's campaign platform when running for Library President

(btw nick i emailed you, still using yahoo address?)

oh nevermind

yeah i replied ... i had never noticed that cataloging system before patronizing the CPL and i agree it's retarded. i can ask one of my profs and classmates about it

Librarian Johnson, I'm glad that you find this to be unacceptable, too. I was worried I was being a pedantic twit. It just seems to make a lot more sense that you would want all of a particular author's books to be together on the shelves. It certainly makes it easier to find the books. And I'm not always after a particular title; if I like the author, I will usually go back and see what else this person has written. That's a little more difficult to do if the titles aren't grouped together.

I've got some free time on my hands. Who can I complain to about this? Barack Obama?

xp - Thanks, Nick! I am really interested to know the thinking behind it.

I just got my severance contract! So much legalese! But I get health care under COBRA (aren't they evil?) for 18 months wha wha whaaa?!?

COBRA isn't a they, it's an it. Basically, COBRA is a law that says you are eligible to continue your health coverage for up to 18 months BUT (and this is a big ole but), you have to pay out of pocket what your employer paid for it, plus a little extra as an administration charge. If you can afford it, it's a good idea to keep your insurance coverage going or else you can get fucked re: pre-existing conditions if you fail to get coverage elsewhere within a certain time limit. But it can be reallllllly freaking hard to afford to extend your coverage under COBRA.

For example: The last time I got offered COBRA coverage was in 2000 and it would have cost me ~$400 a month to continue my coverage. There should be a quote in that contract somewhere that tells you what you have to pay to keep up your coverage.

COBRA = Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (yes, I had to look that up)

http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/faqs/faq_consumer_cobra.HTML

Oooh, crazy. Well, I have my regular insurance for the time being, but I guess I need to make an appointment to talk to the benefits office about stuff.

see I was thinking of this:
http://www.80stees.com/images/products/GI_Joe_Cobra_Commander_Is_Back-PosterDouble.jpg

i posted a question about the CPL bullshit on one of my class bulletin boards, we'll see if i get any answers

Under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, you can continue your health benefits as before, except Cobra Commander is your new doctor.

I will be happy to review your severance contract for $200. However, I am not qualified or allowed to give you advice with regard to it.

I never noticed that CPL filing system, just that books aren't likely to be filed exactly where I think they will be. I usually scan the surrounding shelves.

COBRA is the logical next step in the evolution of health insurance -- they've got tanks.

xps I reviewed it myself thank you very much

i'm not sure if it's all CPL branches that files that way - i think sulzer regional does it the "normal" way - but harold washington definitely does it the weird way

I never noticed that CPL filing system, just that books aren't likely to be filed exactly where I think they will be. I usually scan the surrounding shelves.

Yeah, me too. I only noticed it last night because there at HWLC there's an entire section of Prices and I kept finding Richard Price novels scattered throughout. Then as I was making my way to the As, I saw little signs posted on the ends of the rows explaining this last-name-then-book-title system. I probably would not have figured it out otherwise. In fact, I was going to complain to the person at the information desk that the books were woefully disordered. (LOL I complain at the library I am so old)

Hmmm... Merlo is my home branch and I can't remember how they do it. I go to Harold Wash more often than I go to Merlo, though.

I am gonna get a big fuck-off pastrami sandwich on my way home today.

http://web.mit.edu/ryangray/Public/Gnus/thumbs_up.jpg

Happy pre-Thanksgiving everybody.

here's what my cataloging pref said about the CPL filing controversy:

When I starting paging (shelving) at the St. Louis County Library I was shocked to discover that I was supposed to shelve novels by title under the author's last name and ignore the fact that we interfiled different authors. I think it's pretty common, though I'd be interested to find out what others have observed at their local library.

A more extreme version of it interfiles everyone with the first three letters of the last name. HarperCollins Publishers, which puts out the LIttle House series, has taken advantage of this known library quirk. All the writers who a hired to write prequels and sequels and spin-offs of Laura Ingalls Wilder are required to take a pen name beginning with Wil...

It's not the best for patrons, but it does give an unambiguous rule that doesn't require omniscience on the part of shelver or browser. If you've gone through the Smiths, you know whether something's there or not. In actual practice, you have to completely understand the collection to reshelve the books by grouping the authors with the same last names. At my daughter's school library (a typical small collection), the media assistant wants it done by last name only because most of her volunteers don't know the authors.

Cutter numbers are magical for this because you can express an entire last name with only a fixed-length code without having to do fancy processing on the book itself.

We don't have enough time to get into the nitty gritty details of book processing, but how you put things on the spine is key to ordering your shelves for browsing, and it's not just DDC numbers. Look at these books from my local public library (where a woman nearing retirement is in charge of cataloging and keeps the old traditions, including writing inside the book for pre-processing). Her staff does an insane amount of work just to make sure that the books browse on the shelves (St. Louis County never even had spine labels for author's names on fiction!) Look at the complex stuff: underlined last names of the main entry, a sticker supplying the author's name if it's not clear; Demco labels for genres and subjects, reading levels and new books (which have to be reprocessed when they're de-"newed." Cutter numbers would be way easier for the staff!

https://courses.lis.uiuc.edu/file.php/535/images/IMG_0004.JPG

still doesn't really make sense to me