Category: Geeky

Randomly Wednesday

Sorry I’ve been busy and just haven’t had all that much interesting to say lately.

Consuming my time recently:

  • Turning twoscore and two years of age last Thursday.
  • Working on three new websites for hire simultaneously.
  • Brainstorming my own new site.
  • Picking the remaining meat (figuratively, and at a 30% discount) from the rotting carcass of Southern Family Markets.
  • Visiting Boone NC and realizing (a) that I’m not a big fan of college towns in general, and (b) that Boone isn’t a particularly good college town to begin with.
  • LibraryThing.com.
  • Pondering a midwestern road trip with the hubby this fall.

Librarything

This, via here, is making me all warm and squishy tonight and keeping me up later than I might have preferred. On early assessment, I am not surprised to see that we have a relatively obscure collection of books here at Murdering Stream Estates. I am very pleased to see that, at this stage in the import, the three most “popular” titles I own are all “Bloom County” collections. Somehow, that makes me feel a lot better about humanity in general.

There are still lots of tags to enter. And alas, Mark and I between us have over 150 titles without ISBNs, all of which will have to be entered manually rather than imported from our own book database.

Why, yes. Of course we have our own book database. Don’t you?

Geek Hangover

Ah, my old block. I can almost smell the urine.

I hate days like this. I got to bed a little too late last night because I was being an übergeek, but I still got what I thought was a reasonable night’s sleep. Nevertheless, I’ve felt like I have a hangover all day: I’m dehydrated and headachy and I alternate between belching and having the munchies. One of the most appealing things about giving up booze and cigarettes was the fantasy that I’d never feel like this again. Oh well…

Triangle Weekend

The above was, of course, a photo opportunity which couldn’t be missed.

We spent the past weekend in Durham, with a quick side trip to Raleigh. Mark excelled at keeping my mind off something that was bothering me by feeding me regularly and driving me around in the snow all day on Saturday. We ate at Honey’s and Grayson’s and The Angus Barn and Le Coco and Spanky’s. The Angus Barn was particularly fun, because I’ve been driving by the place on the way to the state fair since I was a kid, and I’d never once been inside.

On Sunday, we got to see Becky, who I hadn’t seen in over a year, and who showed us more of Chapel Hill than I’d probably ever seen before. Then we headed home, loaded down with newspapers I’m still reading. Aside from our accommodations at the worst Red Roof Inn in the country, it was a very good weekend.

 

Mood Lifter

I can wake up in the bleakest, nastiest of moods and feel as happy as a clam after a few hours spent in the library and a few dollars spent on photocopies. In fact, I can only think of two other things that can make me that happy that fast. One of them is food and the other isn’t — or is, depending on how you’re mind is working today.

I had a realization today, one that I’ve had before and will probably have again. There’s probably no better career choice for me than to become a librarian. Whenever I think of it, I can’t come up with any compelling arguments against it aside from the potential of having to deal with the public. It’s something I really need to think more about.

But now I’m going to read about the grand opening of Charlotte’s first self-service A&P store in 1938.

Fall Has Arrived After 13 Years

Y’know, I’m not exactly sure if I should be flattered or depressed at the several mash notes I’ve gotten based on that old picture I posted a few days back. After all, no one prefaced their remarks with “of course you look great NOW too….”

Alas…

I’m gonna go drive around and take pictures of dead shopping centers now. I was going to hang around the house today, but I’ve got two thirds of a tank of nice, cheap $2.49/gallon gas from Greensboro in the Toyota, and it’s exerting a tremendous pull on me…

By the way, did I mention how happy I am that fall seems finally to have arrived? I’ve been looking forward to it for several years now…

Feeble-minded

Only seventy years ago, the World Book Encyclopedia read like this:

North Carolina was one of the pioneer states of the South in the systematic care of defective and dependent classes. A state board of charities controls charitable and correctional institutions. In 1925 the control of the state prison department was given to a board of seven directors appointed by the governor and the senate. The institutions include hospitals for the insane at Morganton, Raleigh, and Goldsboro (colored); and institution for the feeble-minded at Kinston; a tuberculosis sanitarium at Sanitarium; the state prison at Raleigh; a colored orphanage at Oxford; Stonewall Jackson Training School for white boys at Concord; a home and industrial school for girls; and Morrison Training School for Negro Boys.

The terminology used and the assumption that tuberculosis, insanity, and crime were all pretty much the same problem seem terrifically offensive to most people today, but this was no doubt the height of cultural sensitivity at the time. Do you think currently-fashonable PC jargon will hold up any better over the next seven decades? Will people find ridiculous acronyms like “GLBTQ” or unweildy and imprecise terms like “communites of color” any more acceptable? I have my doubts…

I do rather like the idea of being able to say “feeble-minded” in an academic setting, though….

Chain vs. Franchise

One of my pet peeves: when people use the terms “chain” and “franchise” interchangeably. Of course, it’s a mistake usually made by squishy granolas who are complaining about what a social evil these type of businesses are. This is what makes it even much more annoying, because franchise businesses can actually encourage local entrepreneurial spirit…

For the record: Wal-Mart, Borders, Best Buy, Safeway, and the like are NOT franchises. These stores are 100% owned and operated by their respective parent companies, making them chain stores. As a rule, non-restaurant retail establishments tend to be chain stores rather than franchises, although there are exceptions…

Franchises, on the other hand, are owned by someone other than a parent company (often a local operator), but operate using that company’s brand name and image through a licensing agreement. Franchising is common to the restaurant industry, particularly in fast food, but a few retail stores and service businesses are also franchises: Hallmark card stores, IGA supermarkets, and Sir Speedy printing, for example. Franchises offer varying degrees of local control, and the agreement may be little more restrictive than requiring the use of a name. In some cases, the local entrepreneur’s name may even precede the “brand name” (e.g. “Bubba’s IGA” or “Lurleen’s Hallmark”)…

Now that I’ve made that clarification, I can safely return to my job search, message boards, and “In the Heat of the Night” reruns…

10 October 2005 Later

Wow. My hometown just lost its primary industry. That’s a blow it wasn’t really prepared to take right now, I fear…

Unrelated: do any of you typography nerds (and I know there are a couple of you out there) have any idea what the font pictured above might be?