SemiConscious Dot Org

“Half-Clad Man Flees Carnival, Then is Hit by Train”

With that beautiful headline, the inaugural post of this here little ol’ blog landed smack dab on the interweb tubes, five years ago today. From its humble beginnings as the “Drivel Sideblog” on my original (now defunct) website, it gradually took on a life of its own, jumping domains and changing names numerous times in a valiant and heroic quest to shed all but the most dedicated (and bored) of readers. A reverse-elite corps, if you will…

And today, 1,826 days later and the successful purging long complete, a robust, loyal readership of five hardy souls visits for their daily weekly sporadic fill of foul-mouthed misanthropic cynicism, political tirades, patently unfunny attempts at comedy, and fawning reviews of obscure, screechy metal bands.

And, of course, the real reason that people visit: Monkeys.

(Oh yeah, and there’s another anniversary coming up a few days after tomorrow’s blogiversary. I hear these things are pretty important, too…)

Joe “Clean and Articulate” Biden?

Joe “Barack Obama is not ready to be President” Biden?

Joe “Voted for the Iraq War” Biden?

Joe “Backruptcy Bill” Biden?

I’m trying to console myself with the knowledge that, hey, at least he didn’t pick Hilary. But, frighteningly enough, I’m not sure that even she would’ve been a worse, more wretched choice. I mean, if you’ve decided that, for electoral reasons, you need a centrist war hawk Republican-lite Washington insider on your ticket, at least pick one whom people actually voted for.

More heated and foul-mouthed argument nyah.

What the rambling ring-tailed hell is wrong with everything? I’ve told everything to shape up, time and time and time again, but still everything utterly refuses to do what I command. I’ve had it!

Well, I don’t have to take everything’s bullshit any longer, because Giblets has finally done what needed to be done:

Attention everything! You are stupid and flabby and pointless and have not been pulling your weight and giving one hundred and twelve percent and with the growth in the last quarter and the new industry realities and the productivity and the GDP and the whatnot a lot of you have to go. Shut up Giblets is talking! The following things are fired, effective immediately! Pack yourselves up and file out the back when you hear your names called. Do not stop to pick up your severance packages, severance packages have been fired!

Yeah, that’ll wipe the smug, condescending smirk off everything’s face.

According to a survey conducted by the ALA, the mean librarian’s salary in 2008 is $58,960. Mind you, that’s mean, not average, which means that a few really high salaries aren’t skewing the curve. Supposedly, half of all librarians earn more than 58 grand per year.

Ahem.

AAAAAAAAAAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

Great Zombie Jesus. Who writes this shit? More to the point, does anybody believe it? Certainly no one who’s ever worked in, say, a library.

My guess is that such nonsensical drivel issues forth from the same crowd that continually hypes librarianship as a “hip,” “hot” or “best” career. The same people who are always yammering about the oodles of open, desirable library jobs that are going to be coming available any second now, just as soon as all the Boomers retire or shuffle off to the Great VW Bus In The Sky.

Reality check: I’ve held several professional, MLS librarian positions, at locations in New England and the Pacific Northwest, two of the wealthier regions of the country. In no year during any of those employment stints did I earn more than $38,000. Once, I took a position that paid twenty six thousand dollars per annum – salaried, no less – because it was the best paying job available at the time.

If jobs as easy as those in the library field were actually available for salaries anywhere close to that ridiculous ALA article, I’d still be working in a library right now. Eventually, however, I came to the regrettable conclusion that paying bills was important, and much to my chagrin, had no choice but to take a job that required me to work.

The Fifty Eight Thousand Dollar Library Job is as real as Bigfoot.

(Multiple links via Annoyed Librarian)

UPDATE: Whoops, Chris informs me that I screwed up some terminology, confusing mean with median. “Mean” actually does mean “average,” so it’s possible that a few high-end salaries are artificially inflating that 58K per year number. Of course, according to the same article, the median salary is over 53K per year, which is slightly less, but still wildly out of whack with everything I’ve experienced, salary-wise.

UPDATE PART DEUX: On an unrelated note, I just fixed the blog settings to once again allow anonymous commenting. Not sure when that got changed or how…

Once upon a time, there was a girl who owned an HP TC1100 tablet computer. She loved the little tablet most righteously.

Then she met a boy who spilled a beer all over the keyboard of her nifty little tablet pc, rendering it all but useless. She was most vexed. (She subsequently dropped the tablet down the stairs and fried the hard drive, but the damage had already been done.)

The boy, being most abashed at what he had done, endeavored to fix the situation and give the girl her beloved tablet back. Surreptitiously, he purchased and installed a new, larger hard drive, installed Ubuntu to replace the wretched Windows operating system that had previously hung around the little tablet like an albatross, and scoured the Interweb Tubes for a replacement keyboard, which he finally purchased for the hefty price of 100 American dollars. Then, amidst much pomp and circumstance, he presented the reborn tablet pc to the girl, who decided on the basis of this present that she maybe loved him again.

And all was well forever and ever.

Except that he just spilled beer on the keyboard. Again.

It’s been 24 hours since I frantically attempted to wipe the spilled Magic Hat Hi.P.A. from betwixt the keys, and I fear the rescue operation has been a total failure. The keys stick like 57 bastards. Hell, it took me two infuriating hours to type the post you’re reading right now.

I don’t have a hundred clams lying around to buy another keyboard. Anybody know of a way to clean the beer from this one? And don’t say “run it through the dishwasher.” That doesn’t work, and I don’t have a dishwasher anyway. I’m looking for constructive suggestions, people. Let’s hear ‘em.

I have decided, upon further reflection and much heavy drinking solemn prayer, that I am no longer worried about the outcome of the 2008 Presidential election. For awhile there, I was genuinely afraid that Oldy McOld and his handpicked cabal of liars, thieves and killers would somehow slither into office in November, insuring Four More Years of neocon reign and guaranteeing that, by November 2012, there would be nothing but a blackened cinder circling the sun where the Earth used to be.

Yes, it seems silly now in retrospect, but once Obama sewed up the nomination, I instinctively winced at the thought of the smear campaign that would soon issue forth from the fetid fever swamp of the American Right. The Rovian playbook would be dusted off once again, and another seemingly easy Democratic Presidential win would dissolve in a hail of manufactured conservative bullshit. After all, it worked for them in 2000 and 2004; why should this year be any different?

But then I got a good look at some of the truly desperate, pathetic b.s. that the 101st Fighting Keyboarders are attempting to sling against Obama, and I knew that there was nothing at all to fear. For instance:

Obama is a “celebrity”and too good looking. And he takes vacations in Hawaii, which is practically a foreign country.

Plus, he’s a Negro.

Also, he’s too healthy and works out too much. No, really. No, really. NO, REALLY!

Oh, and finally, just for good measure, he’s the Antichrist.

Really? That’s it? That’s all you clowns got? I can understand that eight solid years of spewing the most mindbendingly stupid flapdoodle imaginable, all in the increasingly shrill and frantic attempt to prop up the deservedly plummeting approval ratings of the Worst President Ever, must have taken its toll, both mentally and physically. After all, how many Cheetos can a man eat in defense of his Preznit, and how many baldfaced lies can he belch forth, before there simply is no more to give?

Still, this shit is weak, even considering the source. If this is the best they can do, Obama will win by twenty points in November. With any luck, the Republican Party might even go belly-up in the wake of the utter pasting to come, consuming itself in a frenzy of self-flagellation, as the religious crazies and the corporate greedheads turn on one another like rabid dogs.

With any luck, the “Reagan Coalition” that has spent the past thirty years destroying everything that once made this country great may dissolve forever, leaving nothing but nine trillion dollars of debt, the shreds of our Constitution, several endless, unwinnable wars, and a lingering horrid stench to indicate that it had ever been here at all. And we will salt the earth on which it trod, and offer fervent prayer that future generations are not so blind and foolish as to ever let Republicans be in charge of running anything, ever again.

Hey, a boy can dream…

Ok, so here’s where I expect things will get testy. I’m guessing that most of the readership of this blog hadn’t been born yet in the 60’s, so it was hard to get too worked up about that list. And while many (or most) of us may have been alive during the 70’s, we hadn’t yet reached that age when obsessive music listening grips one.

But most of us passed through our formative rock and roll years in the 80’s (or possibly 90’s.) Those choices stay with one longer and often shape the rest of one’s music-listening life. It’s harder to be neutral and objective about those years.

Take me, for instance. I hated most of the popular music during the 1980’s, the decade in which I spent my teens. With the notable exceptions of REM, The Police, and U2, none of the acts listed below were multi-platinum. (Several bands on the list did go on to huge sales during the following decade, but during the 80’s, they were cult favorites at best.)

You will also note the total absence of any music from Prince. Since absolutely everyone I know worships and adores Prince and thinks the sun shines out of his ass, I expect this will elicit some anger. Look, people, I get it: he’s a genius. He must be, because everybody says so, and everybody is never, ever wrong. His shit just never clicked for me, ok? It’s not a crime, you know.

There is, however, another Neil Young album, just like there were Neil Young albums in the 60’s and 70’s lists, and just like there will be at least one in the 90’s list. Why? Because Neil Young has been around for a very, very long time, and he’s fucking awesome. That’s why.

Anyhooo….

Jane’s Addiction – Nothing’s Shocking
Husker Du – Zen Arcade
Public Enemy – It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back
Metallica – Master of Puppets
The Police – Synchronicity
Celtic Frost – Into the Pandemonium
U2 – War
Guns N’ Roses – Appetite For Destruction
REM – Document
The Pixies – Doolittle
Motorhead – Ace of Spades
The Pretenders – Learning to Crawl
Run-D.M.C. – Raising Hell
Slayer – Reign in Blood
The Replacements – Let it Be
Neil Young – Freedom
Faith No More – The Real Thing
Ministry – The Land of Rape and Honey
Living Colour – Vivid
The Beastie Boys – Paul’s Boutique
Camper Van Beethoven – Key Lime Pie
The Dead Milkmen – Beelzebubba
AC/DC – Back in Black
Ultramagnetic MC’s – Critical Beatdown
Nine Inch Nails – Pretty Hate Machine

“YEEEEEEEEEEE HAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

In these increasingly contentious times, librarians are often called to deal with complaints and/or challenges from patrons whose sensibilities have been offended by material in the library. Via Jessamyn, we learn of one librarian’s response to a challenged children’s book depicting a gay wedding:

Finally, then, I conclude that “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” is a children’s book, appropriately categorized and shelved in our children’s picture book area. I fully appreciate that you, and some of your friends, strongly disagree with its viewpoint. But if the library is doing its job, there are lots of books in our collection that people won’t agree with; there are certainly many that I object to. Library collections don’t imply endorsement; they imply access to the many different ideas of our culture, which is precisely our purpose in public life.

Sure, this passage sounds measured, reasoned, sensible, and entirely consistent with the constitutional principles upon which this country has always operated. But we know the truth: such high minded rhetoric is merely a Trojan stalking horse for the insidious advance of The Gay Agenda, that fiendish supervillain who flies mincingly around the world in his fabulous pastel tights, zapping innocent heterosexual boys and girls with his Big Gay Laser of Gayness. One direct hit from this terrifying weapon will instantly turn the victim gayer than an Idaho Republican senator, gayer than an Oklahoma schoolgirl, gayer than a meth-smoking televangelist, gayer than the Gay Mayor of Gaytown.

Mein Gott! If we can’t count on librarians to protect our children from the Communist-inspired, objectively pro-terrorist notion that all people in this country deserve equal protection under the law, than who will?