You've noticed, I know.

Things have slowed down 'round these parts; apologies.

I started a new job, now part time, but for the past two weeks it was 39 h/wk + the fucking commute. It's 45 white-knuckle minutes there in the morning—if I drive like Batman—and usually a good hour plus of continuous stop/go street traffic on the way home. Thankfully, that lessens now that I'm cutting hours.

That's right! Now I'm a part time library slave. Four hours less per day of

SHELVE THOSE BOOKS.
MOVE those books.
ALPHABETIZE!
DEWEY IT RIGHT!
"Yes sir, I understand that the new location of DVDS/BIOGRAPHIES/REFERENCE/XX is INCONVENIENT/CRAMPED/DIFFICULT TO REACH/XX and you wish it magically appeared in your hand at home instead. You could always apply for shut-in status."

...and wondering why everyone else working there is bored senseless. I'm still endlessly fascinated with The Library and how it works. Everyone has a very small job that they do the same way every day—Librarians, Support Services, The Friends OTL, etc. Some lucky souls (circ Clerks, mainly) have multiple small assigned jobs that they rotate through over the course of the day. I do everything else, and shelve the collection.

Shelving the collection isn't as bad as it might seem. At Borders I was about as eager to haul out a cart of books as I was to lick the banister on the main staircase. There was never enough room for the product on the shelf, or too damn many of the product to fit anywhere in the store, and usually a combination of both. There are very few crowded sections in the library. It is generally sprawling, with multiple odd-shaped rooms and two levels and vaulted ceilings. Beheld glorious by these tired IPT eyes.

And full of books! Well, not completely full, I guess, which I'm counting as a plus due to the nature of my job. 'Handling media' is probably the most succinct job description I could come up with, though 'shelving books' describes a damn big portion of my time spent on the clock. My department is Circulation, an apt name. It resembles the inventory process at Borders in many ways, but one difference delighting is the constant variety the patrons drop off in my bins every day.

The DVDs especially. I've been watching that section closely for two weeks now (the allotted check-out time) and am positive that I've only seen maybe 70% of the discs available. The selection doesn't come close to Borders out on the shelf, of course, but I think it'd be a fair fight if everybody brought back their checked-out discs on the same day. Collection size aside, it's the day-to-day variety that's really refreshing. At Borders the same 25 DVDs (or CDs, or books, too) came in pretty much every day, 15 or more of those with 5+ copies, and usually 1 or 2 with 25+ copies per. It would change up a little every week or so, with a total rotation of all new popular material taking 3 to 4 months. At the library I see new stuff, very low repeats, every single day.

This I like.

OK, I'm running out of steam (it's almost 10 on a Friday night, and I'm ready to drift off to sleep), but there's lots more to tell. I'm learning cool new stuff every day, like how to mount newspapers on the big sticks. Important stuff. I'll tell you about it now that I've got a bit more time (for the [hopefully] short while before I snag a second gig) and I'll rumble out the link machine and get it going again to boot.

This Ted, he vibrates?

Boy, work was a long day today. I can never get to sleep properly on Monday nights, and I have to be in early early Tuesday mornings. I was late today, which always puts me in a mood, and it just so happens there was a metric buttload of new releases to shelve and sticker and so forth.

Luckily, Ted showed up to entertain me around mid-morning, about ready to explode with excitement. He's been keeping track on the calendar for the release of Airwolf season 3, and blew right by my What's up, yo? to find it. Six toppled tweens and one disturbed elderly mall-walker later he had it in his hand, visibly thrumming with excitement.

He asked me if I knew why he was so excited, and I speculated that it was because he could go home now and watch more Airwolf. I was only partially right. Shifting from foot to foot like he had to take a leak, Ted informed me that originally for season 3 the writers of Airwolf penned dialog for the helicopter. As Ted took a moment to catch his breath, I ventured that it must be very much like Kitt (of Knight Rider fame, of course), and asked if the helicopter had a name or a scanning blue light or some such. The withering look Ted gave me was enough to tell me I was dead wrong. Don't be silly, he went on, helicopters can't talk. Cars can't either, for that matter. Knight Rider is dumb, he opined.

No, Ted informed me that the dialog was written but never spoken, never even broadcast to the show's original TV audience. Further demonstrating the greatness of television on DVD, this new release is the only way one can access Airwolf helicopter dialog, as a subtitle track. Ted was all worked up, bouncing and stuttering through the checkout and out the door. As he left I told him he might as well watch a foreign movie, and could I maybe borrow that sometime?