Bibliophile Bullpen

the router of all evil

2009-07-11T22:20:00.003-04:00

Finally after three weeks of intermittent internet, i now have full access - mostly due to a gift of a second hand router from a buddy of mine. What's that they say about you don't miss something as much as when you lose it? Having limited access to the net is like having broken fingers. I couldn't get anything done fast enough.

and WHAT was waiting for me on the net? a few more psycho customers.

1. After 4 years and three previous editions, i finally had someone take advantage of my "no questions asked" return policy on my book repair book. Apparently one of the vendor links in the appendix is no longer valid. Mind you i only share links for vendors other than myself as a courtesy... but this particular pinhead seemed to think a broken link in a book was reason enough to recall and shred the entire print run...when i asked the customer if she was by chance 'stupid' she went a little berserk and promptly returned my book for a full refund...2 weeks afterwards.

2. Now this one is technically NOT a customer, but that's the only label i got. Today I got a message from an EBAYER - accusing me of blocking them from bidding on a set of books I have listed. Their email was whiny and defensive asking me why i was singling them out and telling me they are an honest customer and why was i doing this to them. Now i have never heard of this guy before and luckily have never had the occasion to block anyone so it took me a few minutes to figure out how it is done and if i had accidentally done such a thing. and NOPE i hadn't blocked him nor anyone from bidding on anything i had listed. I hadn't even limited my listing to US bidders. after trading 3 or 4 emails with this guy trying to convince him that i had NO IDEA what the hell he was banging on about, I finally just asked him if he was trying to pull something with all this nonsense. Well, you would have thought i had shot with a cattle prod. all of a sudden i was a criminal and falsely accusing him and i was being reported to ebay. perhaps this was the end goal of all these weird emails? what can he be thinking he is going to get out of it? cause i am still not sure what is wrong with this guy, cept i'd say he's probably missed some medication recently. So, just to make him happy I granted him his wish, and blocked him.

The more people i meet the more i like my cats.

change of scenery

2009-07-03T19:28:00.004-04:00

Some friends came by to save my sanity. We took advantage of this break in the weather to take a little run up to Books by the Lake in Bradford NH and Old Number Six Book Depot in Henniker.

Something about being nestled between deep tall shelves of books that is both relaxing and exciting at the same time.

for myself i picked up an old bike repair book with lovely exploded views and a book on the bicycle in Literature..see a pattern here?

well I also bought 2 or 3 books for reselling, or rather listing and hoping to sell or basically selling them off to another seller in hopes to make back the money I spent.

1001 uses for a book #150 planters

2009-07-02T17:06:00.002-04:00

i don't make this stuff up, i swear.

much to be said for misanthropy

2009-07-02T14:01:00.003-04:00

My router has died. So I am not logging as much online time as I am accustomed, it has taken me 20 minutes to upload this.

Sometimes i don't think it's a good idea for me to blog when i have nothing much good to say about humans. Sales of books or anything else have basically dried up for the summer. I manage to sell a refurbed bicycle now and then to keep the lights on, but with all this bloody rain (even the Boston Globe has provided Ark building instructions) the enthusiasm for cycling has waned.

My mother is bouncing back and forth between ICU and her room, seems she got an infection from all the needle pokes. And apparently my truck's alternator has decided to wait out the deluge, so unless i want to ride a bike in the rain, I don't get to spend much time force feeding her hospital jello.

The entire universe is wet. I spent most of the last sunny day sitting in a parking lot by the river throwing bits of McDonald's Cheeseburgers to a miniature pinscher someone had discarded. It had been robbing our cat feeding stations. After about 3 hours in the sun it finally relaxed long enough to let me scoop it up but it looks like the Animal Control Officer's kids have taken a shine to it.

Today's exciting email was from a 'customer' who thought I should have pulled the entire run of my book on book repair because one of the links in the addendum was now no longer valid. I offered a full refund, but and she continued to complain about couple of typos she found as well. I finally just asked her if she was stupid. I hope she did a spit take and spewed chunks over her keyboard. One takes the little joys in life where one finds them.

wasn't this blog about books?

2009-06-23T18:30:00.002-04:00

worth reading • from BBC NEWs - a feature on Dr Who novels

worth reading • from Salon - Laura Miller muses on books that suck..vampire fantasy

worth reading • and the Cozy Mystery List homepage has some summer reading recommendations...i hate lists like this..i end up getting yummy books and if i am lucky I finish reading ONE.

rock, paper, electrons v.1

2009-06-23T12:17:00.007-04:00

1001 reasons a paper book is better than electronic book

aerodynamics • You can throw paper books at a yowling cat and not have to worry about violating the warranty.

NO limit on downloads • There is a limit on the number of times you can download a book you bought for or from Amazon's Kindle....and there is no way to tell how many times before you buy the book, only after you have hit the download ceiling. (from Consumerist)

unlimited notetaking • Kindle Clipping Limits- small percentage of Kindle text can be copied to notes, whereas I can copy and entire book into my notes if I need to.

you can share them • Amazon Kindle: Books You Can Never Share "You may not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense or otherwise assign any rights to the Digital Content or any portion of it to any third party, and you may not remove any proprietary notices or labels on the Digital Content. In addition, you may not, and you will not encourage, assist or authorize any other person to, bypass, modify, defeat or circumvent security features that protect the Digital Content." so there.

rain rain go away

2009-06-23T10:33:00.003-04:00

I dunno about anyone else in New England but I started building an ark. My mom is doing good thanks for asking, she'll be in ICU for a while. I have the urge to ask them to let me pull up an empty bed and some sedation for myself.

It seems everything tends to crash and burn at the same time...my dvd player died, my laptop took ill and still hasn't recovered - no one has bought anything from sicpress in a week and I can't even remember the last time I sold a book. The torrents of raining turning my basement into a damp cave is just over the top. Did I mention that the apt above me leaks into my kitchen and I have been blaming my poor dog?

In the meantime, I am listing books I haven't listed before, delisting items I am tired of seeing. Trading in DVDs for actual cashy money. Taking stuff off Craigslist and Bonanzle and throwing it out on Freecycle: extra printers, tools, bicycles, even a bloody great dollhouse. The only frustrating part of selling to locals is getting them to show up, you are always afraid to say, "sorry I'm offering it to the next person". Because then you get the old "i don't have a car, i need to get a ride from my ex" yatta yatta yatta...way too much information. If you want something come get it, otherwise I have a nice big blue dumpster that takes away all my sins.

worth hearing • I spent many decades listening to comedy albums of some very observent people...and instead of experiencing deja vu, I experience moments when I hear voices in my head - Either it's Bill Cosby trying to get the definition of a cubit to build an ark, or George Carlin - talking about 'stuff', the acquisition and the storing of same. But I can't remember any funny rifts about divesting.

worth reading • Luckily the barter system is alive and well in the US Barter Economy: 14 Great Places to Trade Stuff Online

worth reading • from Small Living Journal, Radical Downsizing Techniques

groggy and confused

2009-06-19T12:35:00.004-04:00

I checked in on Herself this morning and as always, she asks to come live with me and promises to leave me 'all her money'. This is like the 90th time I have had to tell her, my brother has all her money and I live in 3 rooms, so she'd have to sleep in the bath tub. Her sister with the 10 room house can't find enough room for my mom's clothes never mind her entire body. She really doesn't want the surgery, but Himself makes her medical decisions and he doesn't listen to anyone but the voices in his head. All I can do is sit and watch Rachel Ray and the View with her. No, I didn't actually WATCH, it is daytime TV after all, I brought a fat book...always bring a book to the hospital, otherwise you find yourself reading the name plates on the very expensive machines that goes ping.

I told her I had to nip off to rotate the laundry and I would be back later.....her surgery is moved to 6pm....6 PM? what's that all about? I suppose there is no winning on this..either you worry about it entire night before for a 7AM tee-off time (but they have pills for that) or you hang around all day watching bad tv waiting for the nip/tuck. I suppose this way 'family' members can pop in and out all day expressing best wishes. Personally I find that way more stressful. The last time they assembled only for the entire time she was sedated, but the moment she was wheeled into recovery, they vanished. I predict this evening to go the same, with virtuous relations sitting vigil, with no time for her groggy and confused, luckily I am fluent in groggy and confused.

At some point today I have to ship backorders. Most of my vendors for book repair and cleaning products have raised their prices, almost all unexpectedly. So it takes longer for me to scrape up enough to buy the same amount of stock albiet at higher prices. Can't blame them, like everyone else in this economy (we say that like there is ANOTHER alternate reality economy out there) we are all treading water. Continually rising shipping fees and material costs while the products we sell devaluate. I can feel the water lap my nose. Meethinks it's these little pirahna's nibbling at away our extremeties that will probably do us in.

hell is other people

2009-06-18T18:59:00.002-04:00

i guess i finally said something amusing, and i wasn't even trying. too much pressure to be lucid 24/7. i do have 3 or 4 draft posts of this post in my inbox, just some uncompleted thoughts. like everyone else who does their work out of the house, i can't seem to convince people that 'yes' i am busy. I always end up finishing other people's errands....i'm just a girl who can't say no. and run out of time at the end of the day, just enough energy to sweep up the wreck of the day.

Herself is back in the hospital getting a bit of her insides trimmed off....and himself had the gall to call me after only two days. I really prefer people with tails - at least you know where you stand with them. People ask me what's with the 'cat thing'...it's not really a cat thing, i just don't like the way people treat them like disposables. I guess i'm just prone to cleaning up messes of all stripes.

worth seeing • The latest performance by Royale De Luxe, the French mechanical marionette street theater company. This time with Jules Verne characters in Nantes.
Jules Verne

the diminishing description

2009-06-13T21:54:00.004-04:00

anyone besides me notice that no one tries to 'sell' their books anymore? they just describe them. I like to cruise the flickr images of books...hey it's my porn so what? and quite often i see an image of a book that looks interesting, so I slap the title into a database and see if there are any out there. Sure what I find is usually adequate to BUY a copy if I absolutely know i want it...but fewer and fewer sellers describe the CONTENT of the books anymore. Just entering part of the blurb on the back of the book would suffice. Granted they are plenty of NEAR FINE MAY HAVE UNDERLINING OR HIGHLIGHTING and such like and so forth, but no one tries to make me WANT The book. WE are all just assuming that only a person who knows the book already would bother looking it up. I remember when the internet was all new and sparkly and just waiting to have one poke around all the corners and edges to see what turns up, one could browse for weeks on end just through the hundreds of uploaded text databases on Compuserve alone. Sellers were just uploading their mail order catalogs and internal databases which contained lots of descriptive text, making each book sound better than it actually was. Now I am lucky if ONE seller for every title enters any commentary at all about the book contents. Too bad to, cause these days I am only looking to buy books I don't know i want.

lost time and email

2009-06-12T14:54:00.003-04:00

i would have sworn i was just here....but then here isn't were i left it. the laptop is playing footsie with death by download and the desktop is starting to eat itself...how come things start breaking down the moment you can ill afford to replace them?

This morning ever faithless piece of shit Comcast modem took six resets before it would stay on for good...and that's when i found that old faithful Mozilla Thunderbird had lost its mind and eaten my entire profile. For anyone who has ever tried to recover your Thunderbird profile i.e. your folders and emails ...and you know who you are....the good thing is that Mozilla's website is chockablock filled with helpful step by step instructions....the bad thing is that is all presented as utter gibberish.

I have been using Mozilla's Firefox, Seamonkey and Thunderbird for a number of years now and can fully recommend them, however when Thunderbird goes awry which isn't often, it is usually a long tedious process to recover from. And no matter what the problem, i ALWAYS end up appealing to someone on the Mozzine Support Board. Odd that a terrific piece of software has unterrific help database. Sure the answer is in there but you better be ready to spend the day spelunking to find it.

In the end someone pointed me towards a lovely ADD-ON which should have been part of the damn build to begin with. ImportExportTools, which lets you go find the folder filled with your emails and bring it back into Thunderbird. Granted I had to set up all over again and clean up a lot of duplications, but I got everything back that I needed.....i stopped weeping all over the keyboard and put away the vodka and redbull. welll there's put away and theres 'put away'.

things you find when you really try

2009-06-09T12:00:00.000-04:00

i'm good at finding things . . . no really i am. if it's out there i can find it . . . years of practice from folks sending me on a lot of what they thought were snipe hunts. sometimes it takes me a wicked long time, but in the end i have that pelt on my cave wall.

like most of the book-ish persuasion i used to carry a little back book with the titles of all the books i was looking for. with the coming of the internet, the book was replaced with a database, which slowly dwindled into a spreadsheet and then a small text file - which i eventually misplaced. now if i want something i only have to reach out and type something. (hey, finding it and affording it are 2 different things)

since i am no longer acquiring thing, i try NOT to look in the first place; thus avoiding the urge to buy and squirrel junk away needlessly. But i caught a glimpse of the postcard depicting my house 100 years ago . . . and you know i just HAD TO HAVE IT.

2009-06-08T11:51:00.002-04:00

Herself was back in and out of the hospital this weekend....no surprise there...well not for me. But 'himself' has a new trick, he's now becoming unreachable - not that I would try to call him, but instead the home and hospital are calling me. Which in itself is surprising. Since he put his name on everything within easy reach, I have been cut out of my mother's medical circle, can only provide a lot of blank looks and speculation. which I hate...medical personnel marks your careless and indifferent when you aren't 'in the loop' on your parent's medical status. Folks should realize that HIPA allows certain family members to keep others out in the cold, regardless of their level of concern. So you end up in the middle of the night with a confused patient and no answers because some sonuvabitch doesn't feel like answering his phone and leaving his nice cozy mcmansion. If I start the week like this..i will never last.

blog-cum-movie

2009-06-03T23:06:00.007-04:00

i was getting a little fed up with Meryl Streep for a while there.....but damn it....this looks good

don't suppose anyone would make a movie out of my blog.....it would be nothing but book dust and cat hair. but now I am in the mood for a good coq au vin.. well, maybe just the vin.

conjugating the verb "to google"

2009-06-02T13:29:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago on town cleanup day, a bunch of us collected trash along the stretch of tracks that I have been pushing as a potential biking rail tail. Along with some golf balls, I pocketed a small brown patent medicine bottle.

While pushing unfilled orders and unpaid bills around on my desk, - I finally got around to googling the thing. Due to the preponderance of the number of patent medicines and the makers, there are very few actual references for this particular bottle. It took me all of fifteen minutes to find the history behind it; something which would have taken many pre-google months.

Google Books surrendered references to Gauvin's Cough Syrup made by JAE Gauvin of Montreal, which consisted of extracts of wild cherry bark, spruce gum, sugar, alcohol and water. And Googling JAE Gauvin, I found that the company had US distribution in Lowell, MA where my bottle was produced about 1911.

Googling around a bit more I found that the Patent Medicine boom from the 1910s was about to go bust in 1919 for Gauvins as US Government began seizing the shipments routed (smuggled?) through Maine, declaring them mis-branded. Gauvin's had flogged their two ounces of wild cherry and alcohol as a remedy for all manner of throat and pulmonary diseases, from catarrh to whopping cough - oops. I didn't find many mentions of Gauvin's after 1922 - so I can only deduce they gave up on the cross border market. However their anis flavored children's syrup sounded much more useful as it contained an unknown amount of morphine. Now THAT will put a smile on your face.

Some days I think we forget to be in awe of the great googly moogly, preferring to kick it swiftly in the backside because as yet it hasn't figure out how to be everything to everybody without costing anyone anything. Personally I try to savor tiny adventures in time travel contained in little brown bottles.

no excuses

2009-06-01T01:32:00.000-04:00

That's the name of the spay/neuter clinic with the rescue group sponsors. We only pull it off one Monday out of every two, but it's quite 'busy' and our generous vet takes only a fraction of what she could make elsewhere. Lacking any medical knowledge, I show up to herd cats and wash floors. Just a hint at what my day was like yesterday, and that was after I took my mother for a routine cat scan. Not that I mind doing it, I'd just wish I hadn't been called into pinch drive, 10 minutes before the appointment, when the truck was still inconveniently loaded with 15 cages... Well that's a lie, I do mind, as my mother still combines the memory of a gold fish with the temperament of a billy goat. I am trying to find it charming, and respond with equal nonsense if only to the amuse bystanders - every corridor and elevator presenting a new opportunity for performance art.

things you find when looking for other things.

2009-05-31T17:02:00.001-04:00

NYC 08 NY Public Library
Originally uploaded by kate.kansas.

NYC 08 NY Public Library
If you click through to Flickr you can see the larger size

shades of knee jerks to come

2009-05-29T08:41:00.006-04:00

Here's a little Bush doctrine landmine we conveniently forgot about.

well worth reading • In an obscenity first, a U.S. comic book collector has pleaded guilty to importing and possessing Japanese manga books depicting illustrations of child sex abuse and bestiality. The 39-year-old office worker was charged under the 2003 Protect Act, which outlaws cartoons, drawings, sculptures or paintings depicting minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct, and which lack "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."

I am kinda on the fence here, whereas child sex and bestiality don't add much to the argument. It seems a rather large loopy hole where the powers that be can basically hold you accountable for just about anything in your collection they don't like. I mean we aren't talking actual photos here of REAL children and sheep, we are talking comic books, which are as realistic as professional wrestling.

Personally instead of busting comic book geeks, they should go after those Toddler's and Tiara's broads who over-sexualize children who should be wearing Grranimals and playing with tea sets.

lost and found

2009-05-27T08:39:00.000-04:00

Is it just me? or have the postal delays become ridiculous?

worth reading • Lincoln letter returned to government hands.
"An Arizona collector handed over to the federal government Thursday a rare handwritten letter from Lincoln to Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase. The letter, dated four days before Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address in 1863, had been missing for more than 60 years."

fighting the good fight

2009-05-24T20:59:00.002-04:00

This is a real post over at Yahoo Answers : Is it OK to run an illegal library from my locker at school?

"I go to a private school that is rather strict. Recently, the principal and school teacher council released a (very long) list of books we're not allowed to read. I was absolutely appalled, because a large number of the books were classics and others that are my favorites. One of my personal favorites, The Catcher in the Rye, was on the list, so I decided to bring it to school to see if I would really get in trouble. Well... I did but not too much. Then (surprise!) a boy in my English class asked if he could borrow the book, because he heard it was very good AND it was banned! This happened a lot and my locker got to overflowing with the banned books, so I decided to put the unoccupied locker next to me to a good use. I now have 62 books in that locker, about half of what was on the list. I took care only to bring the books with literary quality. Some of these books are:

The Perks of Being a Wallflower
His Dark Materials trilogy
Sabriel
The Canterbury Tales
Candide
The Divine Comedy
Paradise Lost
The Godfather
Mort
Interview with the Vampire
The Hunger Games
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Animal Farm
The Witches
Shade's Children
The Evolution of Man
the Holy Qu'ran

Anyway, I now operate a little mini-library that no one has access to but myself. Practically a real library, because I keep an inventory log and give people due dates and everything. I would be in so much trouble if I got caught, but I think it's the right thing to do because before I started, almost no kid at school but myself took an active interest in reading! Now not only are all the kids reading the banned books, but go out of their way to read anything they can get their hands on. So I'm doing a good thing, right? Oh, and since you're probably wondering "Why can't you just go to a local library and check out the books?" most of the kids are too chicken or their parents won't let them but the books. I think that people should have open minds. Most of the books were banned because they contained information that opposed Catholisism. I limit my 'library' to only the sophmores, juniors and seniors just in case so you can't say I'm exposing young people to materiel they're not mature enough for. But is what I'm doing wrong because parents and teachers don't know about it and might not like it, or is it a good thing because I am starting appreciation of the classics and truly good novels (Not just fad novels like Twilight) in my generation?

(CONTINUE READING)

This actually smells like a set up (a kid this well read can't spell 'sophomore' and 'material'?) .....but part of me would like to think it's real, that somewhere in middle minded usa - some kid is still fighting the good fight.

staycation

2009-05-22T09:33:00.003-04:00

My choices are as always limited, with my room-mates insisting on being feed every so often . . . I did manage to craigslist six old bikes that i had been cleaning and tuning and raised just enough money for a new truck starter. . . but alas not yet enough for a new radiator, though I do have someone willing to install a new radiator in exchange for another of my bikes. Until that and a string of other things gets paid off, me go no where really fastly.

So instead of toiling away at my PC like a good do-bee, I try to take my camera for a walk (or a ride) everyday. I photographed all the National Registered Historic Places in my town and loaded them to Wikimedia. I have also scoped out the Registered places, state parks and civic buildings in the surrounding communities. Kinda of a dopey way to 'reconnect' with the world right outside my front door, but it keeps me from climbing the walls and wallowing in self pity, but allows plenty of room for PWA: "personal work avoidance."

WTF• and in the category of things that piss me off.....War On Photography blog reports that one particular department of our federal government is delusional...ok well several are delusional but this is just plain silly....the Department of Transportation thinks that photographing federal buildings that our tax dollars have paid for and are ostensibly a tourist attraction is . . . wait for it . . . illegal.

This idea is NOT limited to the federal government, apparently it has spread like wildfire through uncivil servants across the land. As this image of the fire station got me rousted by the local gendarme. The cop kept telling me that it was a matter of public safety. . . somehow chubby middle aged white women are endangering public safety by photographing 100 year old public buildings in pissant towns like mine - kinda makes me proud to be taken as a threat at this point of my life.

twitter • Some authors only plug their books or related products in their tweets, but some writers actually carry on a conversation or share interesting topics. This is a good chance to try Tweet following Literary Tweets: 100+ of the Best Authors on Twitter

and don't forget Sockington, who is a cat with a twitter account, he has over a half million followers...no shit, i am not making that up. I once trued to set dave up with a twitter acct. He got bored with it after a few days and just napped all the time..........

wtf? • a headsup from Boing Boing "Apple has rejected Eucalyptus, an ebook reader that facilitates downloading public domain books from Project Gutenberg, because some Victorian books mention sex" (read more)

it's the internet....go figure.

2009-05-21T22:43:00.006-04:00

Why is there a t-shirt here?--->

Because it's the #1 piece of apparel on Amazon.com (remember when they only sold books?) WHY? who they hell knows...but apparently the newest internet communal activity is to leave reviews for this t-shirt that are well.., completely absurd. The over 400 reviews have accrued so much attention that the BBC took a moment to notice. "Sales of the kitsch Three Wolf Moon T-shirt shot up 2,300% after a spate of ironic reviews went viral. "

site to see - Trustees of Edith Wharton 's Massachusetts estate, have restructured the site's finances to reduce its multimillion-dollar debt. Measures include adding Mount-hosted festivals, writing workshops, and lecture series.

2009-05-20T09:25:00.002-04:00

worth reading • Marty Weil has an interview with A Journey Round My Skull blogger - Will Schofield is a Philadelphia-based editor and book collector.

worth hearing • from NPR Did Shakespeare Want To Suppress His Sonnets? by Lynn Neary

dave's not here

2009-05-19T20:26:00.003-04:00

having a moment..dave was sleeping in the parking lot and one of the tenants ran him over.

Here's some better stuff to read

• Coelacanthbks.com has started blogging again • Republic of One has reviews some really good books they have been carrying: The Middle Parts of Fortune - Manning, and Glory - Nabokov.

from Britannica Blog by Robert McHenry • Was Shakespeare Really Shakespeare and Cervantes Cervantes?

and the new trail for Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes film with Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law.

expurgative

2009-05-18T23:56:00.002-04:00

stupid human tricks - a New Jersey principle decided to expurgate 2 pages from Paint Me like I am a poetry book for teens...apparently one of the poems had the F-word in it and We all know that word is hardly ever used in the teen lexicon.