The Misadventures of Super_Librarian
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Friday, August 29, 2003Yeah I know - another new look. I just can't help myself I guess. Long weekend here I come - and the best part is I am not traveling. No fighting with the traffic on the highways and byways. I plan to do my normal weekend rountine of laundry, shopping and cleaning - just maybe with some more reading time in. I am reading a pretty good romantic suspense novel right now, The Shadow Side by Linda Castillo. The heroine is a scientist for a drug company and is getting a major award for helping to create a hot new anti-depressant. Then the hero has to show up and ruin it all for her. He's a burnt-out cop on disability (he took a bullet in the head - Ouch!), who is desperately trying to find a "reason" for his brother's part in a murder/suicide (he killed his pregnant wife, then shot himself). The hero thinks he has found a link when he learns his brother was taking the hot new antidepressent. Turns out, his brother wasn't the only non-violent person taking the drug that later ended up commiting a violent act. It's been a real page-turner so far - can't wait to get back to it. Happy Labor Day! Tuesday, August 26, 2003I've been remiss in posting lately - my deepest, sincerest apologies for those of you who can't get enough of my blog. This is of course assuming that anybody is actually reading it other than my older sister. I'm always more than happy to hear from cyberlurkers - just follow the link on the right to Wendy's Bookworm Corner and you'll find an e-mail form right there on my home page. The only interesting tidbit going on at the moment is a discussion that has popped up among TRR's review staff. One of our faithful has decided to write a piece on the sexiest moments in romantic fiction - and she naturally needs examples. Who are we to refuse? I provided my vote with a book I recently reviewed - Standing In The Shadows by Shannon McKenna. I'll pretty much read any book thrown in front of me (occupational hazard) - which means I can read a "just kisses" romance right after reading one that would give my father a stroke. McKenna falls into the stroke category, as she is published under the Kensington Brava banner. I read a lot of Brava books - mainly because I love a good barn-burner - so I feel fairly confident is saying that McKenna is their rising star. Her sex scenes are never silly, tend to be emotionally messy, and the best part is - there's tap dancing. By tap dancing I mean the build-up leading to that first sexual encounter - sometimes taking several chapters. Foreplay if you will. Which made me realize that the foreplay is often the sexiest moment for me in a romance novel. Go figure. My other vote went to a wonderful early Pamela Morsi novel, Courting Miss Hattie. Anyone who has ever read Morsi knows she does not write sexually explicit books. In fact - they tend to fall somewhere in between my PG/PG-13 radar. While this is true for Courting Miss Hattie - it is the way the author writes those love scenes that had me practically melting into my favorite reading chair. It also helps considerably that her couple goes from best friends to lovers - giving them just the right amount of awkwardness when exploring their true feelings for one another. Sometimes the journey can be more fun than actually arriving at your destintation - and I think that is what appeals to me in a well-written romance novel. One theory anyway.... Wednesday, August 20, 2003While talking with my mother on the phone last night, she asked if I read the Travel section in the local Sunday newspaper. While I do get the paper every Sunday - I tend to skip the Travel section, so I told her no. Turns out there was a little blurb about the 2nd Annual National Buffalo Wing Festival. I lived in Buffalo, NY for close to 6 years while attending college and have pretty much determined it takes a special breed to live there full time. I sort of had a love/hate relationship with the city (for a variety of reasons - most pathetic), but I do miss real wings with real bleu cheese and reasonably priced Canadian beer. So I hopped online this morning and sure enough the festival has a web page. The whole thing sounds too twisted for color TV - only in Buffalo.... Tuesday, August 19, 2003I can finally come up for air - albeit briefly. We're currently going through some personnel changes here at work, and the one that directly effects me is the hiring of a new library page. Since I am the page supervisor, it's my job to train the young man. Pages do things like shelving, working the circulation desk, and various other office duties. Besides that, I was temporarily walled in at my cubicle by 5 boxes full of paperback books that a couple of my branch locations weeded. I managed to get through those today - but it took a good portion of my afternoon. I expect more books to continue to arrive over the course of the next couple of weeks. Now all I have to do to get caught up is to go through the 3 book review magazines that have been sitting in my In-box since last week. I'd do it tonight - but I have to get back to training. What else? I'm down to the last 2.5 tapes of Harry Potter #5 on audio. It is getting too good for words! I'm half tempted to take it in my apartment tonight, put on my headphones and tune out the TV (and my boyfriend). Alas, that would put my man in a foul mood and I'd probably miss Nip/Tuck. Can't have that now can we? Friday, August 15, 2003Yes lucky bloggers - it's time for another patented Wendy Rant. You can thank the ALA and ACLU for losing the easiest legal argument on the planet and the Supreme Court for being a bunch of dottering old fools. The massive power outage that has blanketed the East and Midwest really didn't effect my happy neck of the woods directly. However, the problems in Detroit are making my head hurt here at work. First, our dial-up access users can not get online because our server is housed - guess where - near Detroit. However, that's not what currently has my panties in a bunch. Because of the Supreme Court ruling saying libraries have to filter or lose their federal funding, my library system is currently testing out filters. How this works is through what is known as a "proxy server." Well the power outages have also knocked out power to our proxy server - also housed off site - which means no Internet on public terminals. See, in order to filter the Internet, the URL has to go through the proxy server first. No proxy server means that the URL cannot get verified - therefore it won't load. So why haven't I gone around and taken all the filters off yet. Well we have 7 locations and both of our technical guru people are on vacation. Since this problem will likely be fixed sometime this weekend, my boss isn't real keen on me clocking in hundreds of miles to dismantle filters we'd have to put back on the computers on Monday. Sounds confusing doesn't it? However, in the grand scheme of things is could be worse. After all, we do have electricity, air conditioning, fans, and reading lights. Those poor saps in Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Syracuse, NYC and various other locales have it much worse. After all - we all got along fine without the Internet in our lives before - we can certainly live without it for a day or two now. Still it just rubs me raw to think if not for the filters everything except our dial-up problems would be nonexistent. Wednesday, August 13, 2003Oh Happy Glorious Beautiful Day! One of my online romance reading buddies gave me the news that I have been waiting to hear for the last 2 years. Kathleen Eschenburg has a new book coming out! WooHoo! Seen By Moonlight will hit stores in January 2004. I will very likely preorder it - that's how much I loved this author's debut novel, The Nightingale's Song. My mother did not come home from the hospital yesterday as expected. Her doctor wanted to get a couple of more doses of IV antibotics and another day of therapy under her wing before discharging her. My father should be bringing her home this evening. Dad said that she was moving around pretty good with the help of a walker yesterday - only one day after her doctor sliced her knee open! The wonders of modern medicine.... Tuesday, August 12, 2003I swear if Blogger changes their interface one more time - I'm likely to scream my fool head off. Anywho, it's been an interesting couple of days here at work. We had hacker problems on Monday (what kind of pathetic excuse do you have to be to hack into a library?), and I came in this morning to discover our fax machine went to electronic heaven. It will be interesting to see what falls from the sky tomorrow. My mother had partial knee replacement surgery yesterday - and is currently having fun with a morphine pump at the hospital. She was a little on the woozey side and in quite a bit of pain when I stopped by to see her yesterday. If everything goes well she should be home this evening - keep your cyber-fingers crossed! I'm working on Tape 10 of Harry Potter #5 - and it's getting really good! I have decided that I am madly in love with Snape. I know - I'm completely sick and should probably have my head examined. I just keep seeing Alan Rickman in my head though.... Friday, August 08, 2003This just hasn't been my week. Went out to dinner with my best friend last night and ate some lovely seafood ravioli. At about 10PM I was in the bathroom, praying to the porcelian god. After I got whatever it was out of my system, I felt much better - so here I am back at work today. My boyfriend and I are currently batting around a couple of theories - but I'd bet money that it involved my last dose of antibotics, the glass of wine I had, and the rich sauce that accompanied the ravioli. Just a hunch anway. No big plans for the weekend as of yet. Do need to see my parents sometime so I can give my Dad some more audio books. Also need to do mundane stuff like cleaning and laundry. How terribly exciting does all that sound? Wednesday, August 06, 2003I have found a new TV show to be addicted to - Nip/Tuck. In a nutshell it's about two plastic surgeons who are partners in their own practice. Dr. Christian Troy is the morally bankrupt one and Dr. Sean McNamara is the one trying to be ethically. There is quite a bit of gore thanks to the plastic surgery scenes (I discreetly tend to avert my eyes), plenty of messed up clients, and Sean's own disfunctional family along for the ride. What I particularly find shocking is that my boyfriend is also enjoying the show as much as I am. Nip/Tuck is basically a primetime soap opera with more blood. While it lacks the camp factor of most shows of this genre (probably why my boyfriend likes it - since he doesn't do camp) - it's serialized. In fact, I find striking similarities between Christian and J.R. Ewing and Sean and Bobby Ewing. In fact, Seans' wife could pass as Sue-Ellen Ewing - but without those boozey over-the-top drunken scenes. Lordy, I miss Dallas reruns. Could someone please issue it on DVD? Anywho, I love Nip/Tuck - if only for the fact that it's filling my trashy-TV void that was created after Melrose Place went off the air. Tuesday, August 05, 2003I didn't feel 100% last night before bed - but didn't think much of it until I woke up at 5AM this morning with a Urinary Tract Infection. So I call the doctor, naively hopeful that since I have seen her before for UTIs that she'd just phone in a prescription. Nope - the office wanted me to come in to pee in a cup to "make sure." So I called work - told them I'd be a few hours late - drove across town - peed in a cup - only to have the lab guy tell me "Yes - you have a UTI." Duh. If you are one of the very lucky few who have never suffered from this malady - first let me say that I hate you. Secondly - consider yourselves lucky. UTIs suck eggs. While this one was minor, I've had ones before where I was wishing for a quick and expedient death. 64 ounces of cranberrry juice (if I never see another cranberry again....) and one dose of my antibotics later, I'm starting to feel better. Almost through Tape 7 of Harry Potter. My sister had warned me that the new Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher was a piece of work - and I have to say I concur. And while Harry is still acting like a 15 year old boy - the Weasley twins and McConagle (I listen to these books - so sorry if my spelling is off!) have provided several laugh-out-loud moments. Saturday, August 02, 2003Another Saturday working at the library. This weekend is a little different from the norm, since our annual book sale is well into full swing. Lots of people currently milling around, shuffling through boxes and bags filled to the brim. I'm currently working on Harry Potter #5 on audio. Ugh. I'm not sure if this is a criticism or not - but Rowling has written Harry like a normal, surly 15-year-old boy. Frankly, I'm ready to bitch-slap the kid. He does have reasons for being surly - but the fact that he's being surly to everyone, his friends included, makes me less than sympathetic. I still have 12 tapes to go - so I'm hoping he simmers down some. I'm also finally down to the last 100 pages of Thunder Creek by Jill Gregory. I'm having a mixed reaction to it at the moment. Gregory has a lovely writing style, her characters are nicely fleshed out, and she's sort of come up with a romantic suspense/contemporary romance/women's fiction hybrid with this book. Unfortunately, the romance isn't quite working for me. I think it's because for many, many pages the heroine turns into a bitch every time the hero comes around. See, she blames him for her beloved brother's death 14 years earlier. Thing is, her brother's death was so blatantly made to look like an accident (hence the romantic suspense comment above) and the hero was so minimally involved - well I'm thinking now that she's 28 she should just "get over it" already. But maybe I'm being too cold-hearted. I reserve final judgment until I see where this suspense thread is going. It's looking pretty obivious right now, but I've been fooled before, by less talented writers I might add. |
