HSU IT Department

Finished Karel Capek's Apocryphal Tales a couple of days ago. Excellent reimaginings of vignettes throughout history -- an account of the miracle of the loaves and fishes from the viewpoint of a not-so-happy baker, a poignant insight into the life of Martha the sister of Lazarus and her unappreciated love for her family, a letter from Alexander the Great to his mentor Aristotle explaining how his obsessive conquest of the world was all based on logic and the demands of national security (timely and a tad alarming!). Love, patriotism, greed, jealousy, affection, fear, all the core human emotions on parade in a collection of witty, lively, thought-provoking stories.

Wish I had more thumbs so I could give it more than two thumbs up :)

We may have lost, but it's still thanks to us y'all are here at all. Yes, it's true: March Madness, the Final Four, even the NBA would not exist if it weren't for John Naismith and his successor at the University of Kansas, the legendary Phog Allen. And don't you forget it!!

For just a hint of Allen's enormous influence, consider the history of two other college programs, North Carolina and Kentucky. Both schools...play in buildings named for their greatest coaches. Just as KU plays in Allen Field House, the Kentucky Wildcats plays in Rupp Arena, named after Adolph Rupp, while North Carolina's Tarheels play in a dome named for the legendary Dean Smith...[And] Rupp and Smith both played college ball, and learned coaching, under Phog Allen at Kansas.

Go here and learn more about why hating on the Kansas Jayhawks means hating on mom, apple pie and yes, basketball.

I can't decide:

Sheen, Beck, or Qaddafi?

FWIW I didn't get a single one right LOL!

Just discovered a good aggregator of special collections and archives jobs and internships, right here on our very own LiveJournal. Those of you looking for something new -- or just something, full stop -- take note of archivesgig!

I have received the most excellent present ever. I knew it was coming, as it was a promised Christmas gift and I'd had a very small sneak preview, but the Real Deal arrived today and it's even more Lucius -- er, LUSCIOUS -- than I expected.

Behold, the rich and sensual artwork of the talented stellamoon, as gifted to me by the kind and generous nursedarry:



I especially love the attention to detail, like the carving behind him that hints at the aristocratic pile of stone that is Malfoy Manor, the expression of the eyes and the little half-smile. And of course the texture of the hair (or The Hair, as I like to call it). This Lucius, I think, has not yet acquired his snake-headed pimp stick and still believes in the possibility of happiness, which is a lovely Lucius to have on my wall.

Does this not rock beyond words? I think I will take him to work. Everyone will be green with envy :)

So to stellamoon and nursedarry: The undeserving recipient of your beneficence and skill offers her humblest and deepest gratitude.


(In an amusing twist, I had just completed a very demanding and complex freelance consulting job I'd been working on for two solid months; receiving this the very day I submitted my final report was like a sort of karmic "Congratulations!")

A friend of mine pointed me to this post which I must share with you, my fellow Nerd Girls. On her list of nerd qualifications, I'm eight of nine and working on the last one in my spare time (of which, due to being a nerd and therefore a person of wide-ranging and varied interests, I of course have never enough). Herewith, an excerpt:

[W]hen I think of nerds, I think of smart people who are willing to be different, interested in learning pretty much all the time, and good at looking at the world in a highly detailed, specific, and informed way. I think of people who are willing to be weird. Who wear the wrong clothes, not because the wrong clothes are suddenly the right clothes, but because they either can’t quite remember what the trend is now, or they don’t care at all, or they are comfortable with what they happen to be wearing. I think of people who become inspired by a tiny topic that no one else cares about and set out to discover everything they can about it. People who constantly ask the world questions, who challenge all the premises that other people take for granted, but who do it without being mean. Who do it because they’re curious and because they like to push their own minds. And nerd girls are the best.

Read the whole wonderful article here. It's almost enough to make me forget that as of this week, I am halfway to age 90. La la la, birthday, I can't hear you...

We started off the Christmas festivities with a bang, in the form of emergency surgery for the dog early in the day Christmas Eve. The incredibly expensive diagnosis listed on her discharge sheet three days later when we brought her home was "Malposition of abdominal contents" which means...well, basically this, but I'll let you imagine. Suffice it to say that for the surgeon it was a bit like untangling thick skeins of Christmas lights. So all those Christmas checks from family and friends? Spent. Completely.

After that there's really nowhere to go but up. Did the usual family thing on Christmas Eve complete with hordes of small jammy-handed children running/screaming/yelling. When they were finally unleashed on their Christmas presents it was like watching a school of sharks frenzying in a pile of chum. We had fun but were pleased to get home to our own house, which has NO small jammy-handed children. Then Christmas Day, the other usual family thing, but this time with fewer jammy-handed children (two) and large quantities of my great-grandmother's infamous and highly potent egg nog, so that was a Good Thing. The kids liked their present: an enormous two-level cage for their family of gerbils (which is quickly increasing due to a delay in sexing and separating the last litter). The cat seemed to enjoy it as well.

The dog is home now; no appetite but then if my innards had been rearranged I probably wouldn't be hungry either. We're glad she's home, though we're trying to not think about how much poorer we are now than we were three days ago -- pound for pound, I believe the dog is now as expensive as white truffles LOL!

Thanks to ladyoneill for the meme (when I should be working...)

Favorite Classic Christmas Movie: It's a Wonderful Life. Yes, it's cheesy, but I love it.

Favorite Modern Christmas Movie: National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Every year we make a giant pot of hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps, put this movie on, and decorate the tree. I also like the Christmas scene from the movie version of Auntie Mame, with Rosalind Russell. I want to be Rosalind Russell in my next life.

Favorite Animated Christmas Movie/Show: The Grinch!! "It came without ribbons, it came without tags, it came without packages, boxes or bags!!"

Favorite Christmas Episode of a TV Show: Buffy, Amends.

Favorite Reindeer: Clarice. The only known female reindeer. Booyah.

Definitive Version of A Christmas Carol: The book.

Favorite Christmas-Themed Commercial: I get all mushy over the Maxwell House ones, where some faraway child makes it home for the holidays. *snif*

Most Annoying Christmas-Themed Commercial: Everything else.

Favorite Religious Christmas Song: Oh Come All Ye Faithful but only in Latin. I just like it better in Latin. If I were Catholic I'd be agitating to bring back the Latin Mass. I'm weird, what can I say? After that it's a toss-up between The Gift, by Aselin Debison, which makes me effing WEEP every time I hear it (*snif snif*) and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts Little Drummer Boy, which makes me want to drive a convertible very fast with the top down in December.

Favorite Secular Christmas Song: Snoopy and the Red Baron (Christmas Bells)

Favorite Christmas Sweet: Mom's home-made fudge. Nothing beats this. Nothing.

Favorite Christmas Beverage: My great-grandma's egg nog, which has rum, brandy AND bourbon. Grandma was quite a woman, as you might imagine.

White Lights or Colored?: White.

Artificial Tree/Real Tree?: Real, always and forever. Nothing is as sweet as that piney smell that infuses the house.

Fruitcake: Gross or Yummy?: Gross, gross, gross.

Favorite Christmas Ornament: No way I could choose LOL! My mom had a tradition of giving my brother and me an ornament every year, so I have 44 of those (yes, all the way back to my pre-first-birthday Xmas!); Spouse and I have continued it so we have eight together.

Favorite Christmas Tradition: see favorite movie tradition above. I had favorites when I was a kid but since we've all grown and scattered those have fallen by the wayside.

Mistletoe? Yay or Nay: Theoretically yay, practically nay, since I've never managed to find it or hang it. And of course there's my favorite fictional appearance of mistletoe, which I'm always in favor of.

Presents: Christmas Morning or Christmas Eve?: One (the smallest) Christmas Eve, the rest have to wait until Christmas morning. As a child we were allowed to get out of bed and open the stockings IF and ONLY IF the sun was up; after that we had to wait for the grownups to get up, make coffee, make breakfast, etc. and THEN we had the big present-opening. Orderly. One at a time. Which was nice, because we all got to admire each others' loot and it stretched it out much longer :) These days it's a much shorter process.

For you, when does the Christmas season start? Spouse says the day after Thanksgiving, but for me it doesn't start until we get the tree, whenever that is. That's what really makes me feel Xmassy.

Finished my annual re-read of Atlas Shrugged, yay! I do enjoy spending time with Dagny and Francisco and the rest of them. I recently heard it referred to as nerd revenge porn LOL!! I suspect he has entirely missed the point. Who better to hang out with than intelligent, motivated, honest people who want to be the best they can be? Not to mention it's a great antidote to stupid television, idiotic , rabid pundits and the rest. (Speaking of pundits: I'm annoyed, but not surprised, to learn Glen Beck is also a fan of the book. I hate to share anything with that guy!)

At one point during the re-read I happened to glance at the front page of the New York Times and was startled to realize that having been immersed in that world had quite altered how I viewed the headlines in this one LOL! I should have expected it, remembering how he experience always leaves me in an interesting mood: a mixture of disaffection with 99% of mankind and determination to live my own life better. Personally I think we need more books that have that effect...

1) If you go to a movie at the mall at 2pm on Thanksgiving Day, there will be no one else in the entire theater. Even if the movie is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Which was made of awesome, by the way.

2) Surprisingly few people actually travel by train on the day after Thanksgiving, if my observation of Union Station in Chicago right now is anything to judge by. All the hordes of people must be flying. Or too comatose from yesterday's overdose of tryptophan to move.