CGHS Library

Hemingway's Defeat

Inventory Cocktail

I know spring has arrived in the library when House makes me do inventory. As I run the grueling barcode gauntlet, moving methodically from shelf to shelf, scanning each and every book for the third day in a row, my withered body cries out for food.

“House, know what I could really go for right now?”

“What’s that?” she replies, feigning interest in my thoughts.

“A 99 cent shrimp cocktail from the Golden Gate in Vegas. At that price, if you eat enough shrimp, the plane ticket pays for itself.” 

At this point I’m feverish for shrimp. 

“If I’m living in Vegas when I go to cooking school, I’ll be 22 years old. I’ll be able to eat all the shrimp cocktail I want.” 

-Scott

Ode to Plaid

Plaid is an ancient and regal tradition.  Originally used to denote clan in Scotland, it has spread like wildfire across the lands, infecting every nation and every culture with the tartan-streaked color wheel of godless beauty.  Today, plaid no longer denotes clan, but instead denotes mental toughness and astonishing bravery.

It’s a well known fact that men and women all over the world choose plaid for its warmth, feel, quality, and of course, beauty.  No matter where you live, you can rest assured that a plaid clad warrior is off somewhere not so far away defending you and everyone you love from menial labor.  These plaid soldiers do things like chop wood, get into bar fights, have beards, live in the mountains, and generally are tougher than everyone else.  Thus, is their value to society.

If you’d like to join the plaid cult of personality, too bad, you aren’t plaid worthy.  Spend a year learning to handle an axe, then maybe you’ll have what it takes to be considered for plaidhood.  Plaid: it’s the magic that makes the world go round.

Many posers attempt to choose to wear plaid. What they do not realize is that you don’t get to choose plaid.  Plaid chooses you.  Because so many have attempted to disgrace the holy vessel that is plaid by wearing it without divine right, certain measures have been put into place to keep these pretenders under control.  This includes anyone who wears aviators with their plaid.  That, though, is really the only stipulation.

For the ladies. . . .  All you really need to do to attract manly, stunning, plaidwearing beasts is to wear plaid yourselves.  This is because it takes courage just to wear the stuff for you fashion sensitive types.  Anyone who knows me knows that the way to my empty heart cavity is through plaidwearing women.  I salute you plaidchosen women, for being of that genus that makes me so giddy with the joy of the chase. Thanks for being there, the only type of female capable of handling a true plaid warrior. Written in the stars through time, we were made for each other. 

-Scott

Ripped

 

Actual Cover of Actual Book Scott is Actually Reading

Have you ever wanted to see the mountains of South America first hand?  Have you ever wanted to trek through the jungle dodging poisonous fauna of all kinds?  How would you like to camp in the rain, catch rare diseases, swim in shark-infested waters, and mingle with possibly hostile natives? 

Nah, didn’t think so. 

However, if you would like to enjoy all that suffering from the comfort of home, I recommend Jaguars Ripped My Flesh, Tim Cahill’s first book in his series of adventure/exploration essay collections.  Cahill goes all the places you won’t, sees all the things you would have missed, and then writes them down in a way that is both awe- inspiring and hilarious.  Even if exploration isn’t your thing, Cahill probably is.

-Scott

Venn Diagram Runs Amok

-Scott

I Like You. Duck.

Boys hit girls they like.  If you are something other than a boy, this is a fact you may not know.

Listen up cute girls, we think you're swell, but we don't know how to say it, so we figure hitting you is the next best thing.  We know that you like it, so just quit pretending.  Seriously.  What says, "I want to get to know you better," like a physical blow? Nothing.  It’s like poetry in motion, really.  There are no words, just desire and pain.  It’s beautiful, like an autumn moon, or a newborn baby is beautiful.  It’s like a courtship dance conducted on a grandiose scale; a romance of the gods.

Romance at this level should be carried past junior high, through adolescence and into adulthood.  Think about it.  You're at the office, and you have a crush on one of the typing girls, but you just don't know how to tell her!  Eureka! You walk up behind her and hit her across the back of the head.  She says, "How ‘bout lunch tomorrow?" and you give her the thumbs up, your best smile and a wink, and go back to work.  It’s simple, really.

This practice would essentially eliminate 90 percent of the problems that arise from dating, including conversation, personality, awkwardness, and body odor.  A few issues remain, including physical appearance, and also where you will go on your date, but really you don't need to go anywhere. Just stay home and hit each other.

-Scott

Vague Recommendations

If you're sitting on the western side of the library and also happen to be using the northernmost computer, then you are in great position to read a good book.  Not only are you in the library, but I can give you step by step instructions on how to find a specific book within the labyrinthine corridors of shelves and stacks; a book you will actually enjoy.  In fact, I guarantee your satisfaction, or I will refund your time.

            It’s simple to find the book.  Stand up and look to your left. You'll see Some Small Shelves. The book isn't on those shelves.  Far to the right of Some Small Shelves are Some Big Shelves.  Head in this direction.  About waist high, you will notice a medium-sized book in cornflower blue.  This is your target.  Once you have picked up the book, you are well on your way to finding the book you want to read.  Place Cornflower Blue back on the shelf and take a right.  Roughly seven and three fourths feet to the left and two shelves down, or up, give or take a shelf, is your book.

Enjoy.

-scott

Watchmen

The critically acclaimed graphic novel WATCHMEN has at last been made into a full length motion picture, but, to be honest, I would rather talk about the appearance of writer Alan Moore.  He was actually thrown out of high school for selling LSD and never graduated.  I was not surprised to hear this, because I know how Alan Moore looks.  He has a tangle of long, tousled dark hair with the beard to match.  He looks even more disturbed than Charles Manson.

            WATCHMEN is essentially about normal human beings who choose to be more than what they are.  The heroes of WATCHMEN were not born heroes, and most don’t have powers.  They are simply men and women who have chosen to become extraordinary, and they dedicate their lives to making the world a safer place to live.   The only watchman with any real powers is Dr. Manhattan, whose origins alone make for an entertaining story.   

-scott

Fictional Fiction

Looking for a good read? Keep looking.  I recently read the recently released release Galaxy Girls.  I don’t know what it was that drew me to the book, but I suspect it was the title, or maybe it was the blaze orange lips on the cover coupled with broken hearts and celestial bodies.  

Galaxy Girls gets right to the point.  It’s about some girls from a galaxy seemingly based on our own.  In the world of the galaxy girls, though, doughnuts are good for you and rollerblading is still cool.  Imagine the future as it’s portrayed in Back to the Future, with worse clothing.  Essentially, five girls in moon boots bounce around their bustling metropolis shopping for crappy outfits and wearing too much plastic.  Of course they’re each beautiful in their own unique and distinguished way and have their share of comic misadventures, particularly with the metrosexual robot-like futureboys.  (All the boys in the future play water polo and are occupied with generally inept skullduggery.)   Who doesn’t love the classic story of the slightly overweight girl with a heart of gold winning the heart of the crew cut, water polo playing, captain-of-the-team type boy? 

I like to rate a book based on how it makes me feel.  After I read the last sentence, I like to lie back and think about the book’s events, mood, and style.  After Galaxy Girls, I can only say that I felt depressed--the kind of depressed that makes you slink your way to the fridge under the cover of darkness so you can eat a jar of strawberry jam while you lock yourself in the bathroom for the next several hours.  The kind of depressed that makes you eat that jam with nothing but your fingers.  “This is it”, you will say to yourself, “this is how it ends. No friends, no toast, not even a spoon.”

-scott

Physics Degree

While in the library this last Tuesday, I happened to bring up the subject of technology to the House.  She proceeded to tell me a story about a videodisc player she bought circa 1987. I had no idea what a videodisc is, so she went on to explain that it’s essentially a giant, record-sized cd.  Right off the bat, this image strikes me as both preposterous and hilarious.

             House tells me how this particular piece of very expensive equipment was obsolete something like six minutes after she paid for it.  This riveting conversation segued into another technology-themed opus of conversational skills as House began to rant hysterically about how cell phones and television remotes are far too complicated, and that they should not require a Physics degree to use.

            Call me an opportunist, but I felt this a good time to point out several things. House doesn’t even own a TV, let alone an overly complicated remote, and she doesn’t have a cell phone either.  The reasoning behind not owning such devices of convenience is to the House, a very simple thing.  “I don’t have a Physics degree!” 

            A Physics degree? 

“Actually” I began, “I programmed my remote so that I can just bark out the equations at it, and it responds accordingly.  E equals m c squared quantity n over k x to the third root, gets me channel three every time.”  

            Some older denizens of the planet just cannot seem to comprehend the simplicity of this, no matter how much time they spend using the remote.  My father, for instance, spends hours watching football on our basement TV, yet he can’t figure out how to switch from dvd mode back to television.  No matter how many times I do it for him; no matter how many times I tell him to watch, learn, pay attention, he always winds up calling me back down to the basement to do it again.  “Scooooooooooot!” I hear from my mother, relaying the message for my dad.  “Dad needs you to fix the TV for him!” 

Sigh.  The TV is not broken.  He just doesn’t know how to use it, and apparently refuses to learn, or even to try to learn.  So, I switch from dvd mode back to television mode again, and I tell him to watch, to learn, but I know I’ll be back, switching it over for him again next weekend. 

He should get a Physics degree.

-Scott