Bike Commuting, Vikings Cheerleaders, and Cool Links

The weather is perfect for bike commuting, but I haven't quite taken the plunge yet. While it used to take about 40 minutes for me to get to work, I'm afraid it's going to take more than an hour from the new place. I need to get a pump to bring on the commute, since my mini pump is shot, and getting a flat 30 minutes from home is a distinct possibility. Until I get up the gumption to pedal my arse to work, I'll keep driving the trusty '89 Dodge Caravan.

A couple interesting reference transactions in the past few days:

A big bearded fella came up to the desk, and said he wanted a printout of all the new Vikings cheerleaders for the 2006 season. I offered to show him how to do it on one of the public workstations, but he asked "Can't you just do it for me?" Absolutely. I found the page on the Vikings Website, and told him I could print out the list (headshots and first names), and that it would cost him 10 cents per page, for a grand total of $1.10. "Huh? Last year they gave it to me for free." Tough to come back from that one, but I just said "I guess that was your lucky day. We have to charge you for printouts." If this was a fifth-grader needing an encyclopedia article for a school project, I'd be willing to waive the charge, but for a list of Vikings cheerleaders? Sorry, pal. He grudgingly agreed to pay, then told me he works at the Dome, and likes to study up, so that he knows the cheerleaders by name. Sure, or maybe he's some sicko perv- what do I care? (We don't judge at the public library.) He then spent a good 10 minutes telling me about how the cheerleading tryouts work- no one is guaranteed a spot for the following season. They have open tryouts, and politics abound. Fascinating.

A woman came in yesterday, carrying a list of extremely obscure book titles, and acted shocked when the library didn't own a copy. When there are only 12 libraries in the entire country owning a book, odds are we're not one of them. One of the books she wanted was supposedly titled Castonados, written by Max Plank. When I couldn't find anything close to that, she said, "How about another Plank book? Fire from Within." When I searched that titled in WorldCat (an interlibrary loan database searching library catalogs across the country), I found a book written by Carlos Castaneda. Hmm...Also, it turns out Max Planck was a German physicist who is credited with inventing quantum theory around the turn of the century. We put in a request for Fire from Within, but she couldn't figure out what Mr. Planck's name was doing mixed in with her notes.

Finally, here are some fun links:

A live action Super Mario Brothers skit from some college in MA. Good stuff!

Mike Gordon, Phish bass player & Leo Kottke jamming partner, set up his own Web site, which, not surprisingly, is very strange. He has a link for the only music video Phish ever released, the Gordon-directed Down With Disease, which MTV largely ignored, although Beavis and Butthead did get ahold of it. It's actually not as bad as I thought it would be...

My buddy Tim got a gig writing for a new online music magazine, and they just posted his first article. Check it out!