Thursday, July 14, 2005

Short on substance, long on life

MP & I went to the library today. Earlier in the day, knowing this was coming, I went to Michelle's Amazon wishlist to see if she had any books on her list that looked promising. She and I generally have similar taste in books and she is quicker about finding new stuff than I am. I found a series that looked promising and searched the library database. I searched first by author's last name (last name comma first name although I did not spell out his entire first name and just used the first initial). Nothing. I tried misspelling the author's name just in case. Not so much. I tried the ISBN of the book, and couldn't find it. At the library, I'm ready to check out and MP walks up, carrying the fucking book. And worse, he's all smug about it and asking me questions as if I was an idiot. Damn Gayman Smugpants. Although, now that I know it is findable I have to figure out what weird interminable method they've used to classify it and find it after he is done with it.

Sandra Day O'Connor is retiring from the Supreme Court. I remember when I was little and she was named the first woman Supreme Court Justice. I was about 7 or 8 at the time but I remember that my teacher made a big deal about how she was the first and she was a woman too, and from my state to boot! I remember being proud of that fact. I'm sad she's stepping down, mostly because, well goodness knows what kind of Conservative Bush is going to try to get in there. I'm glad she's going to be able to care for her husband, especially considering how supportive he was during her appointment. He left his practice for her. I feel sad for her though that he has Alzheimers. That's got to be a terrible way to end your (and your spouse's) life.

I had something else I've been meaning to post for days but I can't for the life of me remember.

7 comments:

Kate the Peon said...

Okay, but no matter how they classify it, it should have shown up with the ISBN.

Unknown said...

I did not ask questions like you were an idiot.

Secondly, the book I checked out last night was the 2nd in the series, so you're really looking for the first in the series.

I have three of his books at the house right now (2, 3, 4).

I looked him up again today with no problem, in all the ways you mentioned, and got all the correct results. I don't think you're an idiot; I think perhaps you're cursed.

Joanne said...

Matty, Did you or did you not point to the author's name and ask me if I spelled it correctly? And then point out the double consonant in the man's first name?

And I just tried again using ONLY fforde, j and only the last name fforde and came up with nothing. However, if I search fforde, jasper the books came up. How retarded is a system wherein I have to spell out an author's entire name? The only one I'll concede on is that you had the book in your hand and were able to use THAT ISBN wherein I just used the one from Amazon which may have been a different edition than the library has.

Unknown said...

I was merely attempting to help you problem solve, not trying to make you feel like an idiot.

And in fairness, I didn't search by the ISBN because a) that's geeky, and b) I didn't have to.

Unknown said...

And I just repeated your attempts with "fforde, j" and "fforde" and got the same, correct, results each time. Please, for the love of juniper berries, tell me what you were doing differently than I. I want to know; I need to understand.

(Actually, I made the following searches: "fforde", "Fforde", "fforde, j", "Fforde, j", "fforde, J", "Fforde, J" "Fforde, Jasper" and "fforde, jas")

Unknown said...

I know what you're doing wrong.

Are you using the search field on the library home page? If so, that's a keyword, not an author/name, search. You should click on "more search options" below the search field and do a name search.

... said...

I am sad about O'Connor leaving too...hope we get someone moderate like her as a replacement but I can totally understand why she is leaving. After all, nothing else matters in life but who you love and who loves you. All the rest of it is BS and doesn't amount to a thing at the end.