Between being slammed with summer work, and partying like a rock star when my day ends I’ve been extremely busy as of late. However, not so busy that I didn’t notice the man who wore a johnny coat into the library yesterday… He had pants on, but was wearing a johnny coat… And browsing the periodical collection. The funny thing is, it didn’t even phase me, I was like… Oh yeah, a guy wearing a johnny coat.

Oh! The Fisher King… Or Aqualung if you prefer, or Stuck-Out-Of-Time Man is back. He limped on by the Reference Desk today. He is always an unbelievable sight to behold. Truly our most show stopping freak with his bandanna, long torn leather coat, walking staff, and the gimp leg that he drags laboriously behind him. The first time I saw him I really though that he was just hit by a car outside the Library but somehow managed to haul what was left of his sorry carcass into the building for help.

… Then I realized that he was just another Irregular.

We had a visitor from Florida stop by the Library who said that a North Carolina library he had recently visited had a sign that read something like:

We support your right to carry firearms. Please show permit to clerk so we know that there is a gun on the premises… Absolutely NO cell phones allowed. Thank You!

LMAO… Thank God!!

Today was the first relatively slow day since school ended. This is a good thing because when it’s balls to the wall busy I don’t have time to assess the clientele which makes for a boring blog. Anyway, this afforded me the opportunity to notice a few strange characters @ the Library. First, the little boy with the stuffed monkey on his back. The monkey was part of a harness, and the tail was a leash that the mother was holding… Charming! I’m sure it will be excellent training for when the little tyke grows up and discovers the poppy. Then there was the man wearing the pajamas who wandered around while loudly talking to himself and gesturing dramatically with his hands.

My day was complete when the elevator went awry and trapped two 11 year old girls. The hysterical screaming and the intermittent sound of the elevator alarm grabbed my attention like a fart in car. When I hit the button on the elevator the door opened and revealed the two terrified children who then thanked me profusely for freeing them from their captivity. I went back to the Reference Desk, made a few “Out of Order” signs, and called the problem in.

All in a days work…

On this dark day for our Republic, a few people took a stand and shed a ray of hopeful light on the otherwise bleak path that we have decided to follow. The ACLU filed a lawsuit in New Your City on behalf of many groups including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and The Electronic Frontier Foundation as our Dumbass in Chief signed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act. The lawsuit aims to declare the FISA Amendments Act a violation of  Constitutional law and dismantled.

We can only hope…

In other news, President Bush concluded a meeting at the G8 summit in Japan today by declaring, “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter,” while punching the air and grinning. And no, this is not a story from The Onion. Needless to say, the other attendees including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in horror as this unfolded. I cannot believe that this buffoon is the leader of the free world. Bush seems to have an infinite capacity to further sink to lower levels. This man has absolutely no respect whatsoever for anyone or anything.

What have we done?

Although Christopher Dodd and Russ Feingold introduced an amendment to strip immunity from the telecom companies, the Senate caved and approved the FISA Act with retroactive immunity. Obama voted for the amendment but it failed by a margin of 32 to 66 and ultimately voted for the Act “as is.”

This is a sad day for America. Those who are sworn to uphold the Constitution, and supposedly represent us just voted in favor of letting those who knowingly break the Fourth Amendment do so with impunity. Congratulations, the Constitution is now not worth the paper it’s printed on.

Well Done!

Oppose telecom immunity and FISA by signing this petition at the American Civil Liberties Union right now! It’s not too late to let your Senator know how you feel. They have postponed the vote twice already, but they’re scheduled to finalize this issue today… Let’s do everything in our power to uphold the Constitution.

I really needed to get away so I’m glad to write that I had some good fun in the sun while vacationing in the Caribbean. First off, I’d like to send a special shout out to the three bartenders who were very good to me during my stay: Bryan from India, William from the Philippines, and Cho from China. Bryan kept my glass filled during the day with Long Island Iced Teas, while William and Cho kept the Johnny Walker Black flowing at night.

Although this vacation produced less fodder than last year’s, there were some highlights that I feel the need to write about. First, I made it a whole three days before getting sunburned. This beats last years 20 minutes with SPF 15. I wised-up and bought a lotion with a 50 SPF. Sadly, in the six or seven minutes it took to apply it to my front (where I got a nice tan), my back was burned. Thankfully, the resort has a very nice spa where a cute little Dominican girl named Maria applied an aloe wrap on me that saved my life.

But that’s not what I want to write about… I love people watching, and travel abroad gives me ample opportunity to watch people I wouldn’t normally observe anywhere else. Case in point, there were many French, Dutch, and even an Italian couple vacationing on the Islands. What I find fascinating is that Europeans smoke cigarettes as if it was still the 1940s. That cancer memo apparently hasn’t fully sunk in yet across the Pond…

The Italian couple was comprised of a middle-aged man who bore a striking resemblance to a short and flabby Richard Lewis. This character really liked to advertise European labels too as evinced from his affinity for a shirt, or jersey if you will, that made him look more marketable than a NASCAR stock car. I didn’t recognize any of the brands, nor did I understand what the purpose of the shirt was? Anyone with any ideas on what this kind of garment is about I would appreciate the clue in. Rounding out the duo was the guy’s 20 something girlfriend. She was very attractive and followed the guy around like a puppy dog from dining to the pool, etc… The funniest thing about the Italian, however, was the fact that each day he actually looked worse than the day before contrary to the usual vacation wisdom that a little rest and relaxation will do wonders for one’s mind and body. My theory is that the young woman was actually a succubus. Anyway, sure enough after breakfast each day he would stagger off wearing his Adidas sandals, cigarette dangling from his lips with girl in tow as they headed for the pool.

Next up on our list of unusual people were two families from Texas who were traveling together. The matriarch of one family sported an egregiously low cut one-piece bathing suit that left her horrendously large and saggy mammaries hanging out to dry… Nobody needs to see this. The apple falls not far from the tree either for her youngest daughter was doing everything within her power to compete with Paris Hilton on the thin and slutty front. Her oldest daughter, however, was attractive yet remarkably normal. She has a kind of understated class. Where she inherited this from is anyone’s guess? Her only flaw was her choice for a boyfriend who we’re going to refer to as, “Kid Rock.” I believe that Kid Rock was the other Texas couple’s son. He was ridiculously thin, and had long thin sandy-brown hair that he would whip around in the pool from time to time.

Then there was what I am going to refer to as “High School Musical.” Eleven people, mostly teens who traveled together primarily from what I gathered, to occupy as much space as possible for no good reason whatsoever. One of the girls would go out around 8:00 AM and throw towels on 11poolside chase lounges thereby marking their territory. The only problem with this is that she would be the only one actually sunning herself while the rest would come out hours later, and then only for relatively brief appearances. My favorite character in this crew was a boy who would appear around 11:00 each morning. He would remove his shirt to reveal the hairiest chest I have ever seen and apply copious amounts of spray on sunscreen. His oily hide will not soon be forgotten. I referred to him as the Wolfman from that point forward during our stay.

The coup de grace, however, was the destination wedding that took place on Independence Day at the resort. Around 3:30 in the afternoon the staff began clearing lounge chairs and preparing the cabanas for some big event. We noticed a buffet being set up under the cabanas, and wondered what the resort had planned for dinner. I asked one of the waitstaff about what was going on poolside that evening and was told that all the preparation was for a wedding.

The ceremony took place on the beach under a cabana. The bridesmaids wore fuchsia, and the groomsmen wore white linen shirts and khaki pants. The groom wore nothing that distinguished him from the groomsmen, and the bride wore a white dress. This was humorously ironic since she was obviously preggers and had a bun cooking in the oven for some time. She was well on her way to forming a family unit with or without any impending nuptials. I listened in delight as the bride and her father danced to Billy Joel’s, “Just the Way You Are” while I ate what was one of the two best meals I had while on the Island, a perfectly cooked angus tenderloin prepared in a nice cognac peppercorn sauce… The other truly outstanding meal was a 2lb. lobster thermador that I ate three days prior. Absolutely amazing!

This is the greatest action figure ever, man!

I already pre-ordered a copy…

The Dude Abides.

Special Ed popped the button on his shorts today. He was bright enough to ask if we had a safety pin so he could fix it. Sadly, we don’t have any safety pins @ the Library so I gave him a large paper clip thinking that might do the trick temporarily.

With his shorts half undone, Ed spent the next 10 minutes in front of the Reference Desk trying to execute this Rube Goldberg strategy to no avail. Despite his best efforts it just wouldn’t do. Disheartened he turned and said that he would be back later because he had to change his shorts…

Ed’s sartorial situation must have been far worse than it appeared because he never returned.

I found this fortune cookie and mint near one of our online catalogs:

Just another mystery of the Library universe…