No Chaser

Off to the city of dreams

Tomorrow a.m., I will be heading down to the land of big rivers and fabulous beer and great food and beautiful parks for a pleasant weekend.  This means I may not be blogging for a bit but will have time to think up some more colorful adjectives, like "purple."

I know, I know, you're like, totally bummed.

posted by: NoChaser at March 29, 2007 23:36 | link | comments (3) |

Alt.heimer's

Via Rob Brezsny, I have learned a new term, "Alt.heimer's," defined as "a condition afflicting chronic hipsters who can no longer recall if they like something genuinely or ironically." 

Brezsny asks we of the Scorpionic persuasion to reflect upon which things we like genuinely and which we like ironically.  And, the first thing that comes to mind is, "Do I genuinely like Dancing with the Stars?  Or do I just like it ironically?"  The answer may alter my whole worldview.

posted by: NoChaser at March 28, 2007 10:11 | link | comments |

New Paper Source

Keep hugging those trees folks; here's a new renewable paper source.  I've added some links in the articles below for your reading pleasure.

Via Yahoo (via the ExLibris listserv)

Panda poop to do double duty in China
Mon Mar 26, 7:04 AM ET

BEIJING - There's a new Chinese saying: When life hands you panda poop, make paper. Researchers at a giant panda reserve in southern China are looking for paper mills to process their surplus of fiber-rich panda excrement into high quality paper.

Liao Jun, a researcher at the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Base in Sichuan province, said the idea came to them after a visit to Thailand last year where they found paper made from elephant dung. They thought panda poop would produce an even finer quality paper, he said.

The base is currently in talks with several paper mills on how to turn the droppings of Jing Jing, Ke Bi, Ya Ya and dozens of other pandas at the base into reams of office paper and rolls of wrapping paper, said Liao. They hope to have a product line available by next year, he said.

"We are not interested in doing this for the profits but to recycle the waste," said Liao. "It's environmentally friendly. We can use the paper ourselves and also we can sell whatever is left over."

The center's 40 bamboo-fed pandas produce about 2 tons of droppings a day, but Liao said he was not sure yet how much paper would result.

What about squeamish customers who might consider the paper unsanitary?

"People won't find it gross at all," Liao said. "They probably won't even be able to tell it's from panda poop."

The Chiang Mai Zoo in northern Thailand already sells multicolored paper made from the excrement produced by its two resident pandas. Making paper there involves a daylong process of cleaning the feces, boiling it in a soda solution, bleaching it with chlorine and drying it under the sun.

Also via the listserv:

From the January/February 2006 issue of Fine Books & Collections:

Patty Paper

Over the last two millennia, paper-makers have experimented with bamboo, mulberry, seaweed, cotton, linen, wood pulp, and other materials. Undoubtedly, some adventurous papermakers realized that the basic component of paper—crushed plant fibers—was also the primary ingredient of cow patties and the dung of other large herbivores. But the idea didn’t catch on until the late 1990s when the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in northern Thailand began manufacturing and selling elephant dung paper to support its pachyderm-preservation efforts.

The process the center used is similar to standard papermaking. The dung is sterilized by boiling and then pulverized dissolved into water to make a slurry that is poured into forms and dried. The paper proved extremely popular with tourists, garnered international press coverage, and inspired papermakers around the world to attempt other dung-based papers.

More than a half-dozen dung papers are now commercially available, including papers made from giraffe, zebra, African and Asian elephant, and kangaroo (“Roo Poo”) dung. Most recently, Victor Bruha and David Hidalgo, a pair of Idaho artists calling themselves Dung and Dunger, started manufacturing paper made from bison dung gathered around
Yellowstone National Park. They add recycled paper to the mix for strength, a common practice in the manufacture of dung papers.

Kentucky papermaker Gin Petty has made donkey and horse dung papers. She notes, however, that “without the addition of another fiber, such as abaca, the quality was poor. Animals aren’t too picky about what they eat, and they definitely aren’t as picky as papermakers are about the fibers we choose for papermaking.”

       

posted by: NoChaser at March 27, 2007 10:58 | link | comments (3) |

Cuteness

Because sometimes Cute Overload is not enough, we now have Cutecast.  My standard goof-off website is Go Fug Yourself, but because it activates schadenfreude or maybe an awe of ignorance more than, say, an awe of innocence, it doesn't give me the cheery little lift I get from the Cute sites. 

Really, try it out.  Next time you are feeling sad or cranky or even really pissed off, go to one of the Cute pages and see if you can hang onto that foul mood.  I'm betting you can't, and if you can, your soul is made of tar.

posted by: NoChaser at March 26, 2007 14:26 | link | comments |

My first bad tattoo

Let this be a warning to all interested in getting tattoos:  even if you are getting something small and simple, make sure you go to someone who's really good.

Mr. X really flubbed my tattoo, and it was a very simple, short piece of text.  He rushed through it, the lines are totally sloppy, the last word completely veers from the template, and there are even spaces that aren't filled properly.  Everyone thinks it looks fine, but it absolutely does not, especially when there is a very well done piece on the other arm to compare it to.  There were a few signs that he was not going to do good work:  the shabby condition of his own tattoos, the not-so-hot portfolio, the way he placed my arm to do the piece.  At any time I could have changed my mind, but I just kept going.

I was pretty upset right at first, but then I relaxed and accepted it, and that allowed me to see that this bad tattoo was actually an opportunity to do what I really want.  I've been wanting a larger botanical piece for years, but have shied away from something kind of large and traditional.  Now, I have an excuse to get, say, a large cherry branch in blossom since I need to do something to cover up this crappy tattoo.  And, Andrea Ottlewski, who did my back, does amazingly beautiful stuff along those lines.

So, I'm glad to report that even a bad tattoo (if it's small enough) can be cause for celebration.  I have a photo of it, so maybe I'll post a before and after of bad tattoo and good cover up work when this is all over.

posted by: NoChaser at March 23, 2007 08:29 | link | comments (8) |

More Librarian Love

You may recall my bitching about a certain doctor wandering around the Hill in a fleece proclaiming his profession under the advertisement for a pharmaceutical company.  Well, now, I can have a fleece just like his, and have my name embroidered underneath the title of my profession.

In other library news ...

I was perusing the program for the summer conference of ALA and was quite pleased to notice the following event:  Book Cart Drill Team World Championship.

And, of course, there is footage on YouTube. So, for your viewing pleasure, I offer you last year's winners, Tulane University. No sound on this one, but the videography on the others is so bad, it will nauseate you.

posted by: NoChaser at March 22, 2007 18:06 | link | comments |

Motion Typography

Via Drawn, I've tumbled into a land of motion typography on YouTube.  It's certainly the next logical step in typography, and I like how it signifies on new levels. 

Like the way this one uses motion



or the way this one responds to the rhythms of the song

posted by: NoChaser at March 21, 2007 14:33 | link | comments |

Way to go NYU

The US Communist Party has given their papers to NYU.

Although the article makes it sound as though the Communist Party just called the Tamiment Library (collection of labor history at NYU) to offer their papers because they were moving and didn't feel they could care for the materials properly, I suspect there was some patient archivist(s) or curator(s) somewhere in the mix working to get this collection housed in the right place.   Kudos to them.

"The primary source of American party documents available to the public has been the Library of Congress, which microfilmed a batch of Communist Party USA records in Soviet archives that had been shipped there 50 years earlier for safekeeping. John Earl Haynes, a historian at the Library of Congress who was the first American to examine the Soviet files, said that since N.Y.U. has a copy of the Library of Congress material, 'This will give Tamiment the enviable position of being able to offer researchers access to what is in Moscow as well as the new C.P.U.S.A. collection.'"

Man, they're gonna' have some enviable exhibits.  Maybe they'll need to hire a new curator to deal with all this.

posted by: NoChaser at March 20, 2007 10:31 | link | comments |

A Dream Come True

Oh.  My.  God.  Apolo Ohno doing the Cha Cha.  No, for real, this is a dream come true -- only in the dream, he was dancing with me.  I think I may have just swooned.

posted by: NoChaser at March 19, 2007 22:04 | link | comments |

CIA-Curious

In the process of looking for jobs today, I had to check out the posting for Reference Librarians for the CIA.  No, not the Culinary Institute of America (I wish), but our very own Central Intelligence Agency. 

While it's not a job I would ever apply for, I found the ad fairly fun.  Here are some excerpts:

"All applicants must successfully complete a thorough medical and psychological exam, a polygraph interview and an extensive background investigation. US citizenship is required."

To be a librarian.

"To be considered suitable for Agency employment, applicants must generally not have used illegal drugs within the last twelve months."

Among the librarians I know, this might be tough.

"Important Notice: You are interested in a position as an overt employee—which means you can acknowledge your affiliation with the Central Intelligence Agency. But should you? There may be friends, family, individuals or organizations who would be very interested to learn that you are an applicant for or an employee of the CIA. Their interest, however, may not be benign or in your best interest. You cannot control whom they would tell. We therefore ask you to exercise discretion and good judgment in disclosing your interest in a position with the Agency."

Be wary.  Be very very wary.

posted by: NoChaser at March 16, 2007 12:09 | link | comments (1) |