Gris's Journal

Food for thought

So. Earlier today I was attempting to snack on a bag of Smartfood popcorn (if FritoLay wishes to pay me for that product placement, I won't object) without getting my fingers all gooey, as I was *also* attempting to type and turn pages of a journal I was reading. As anyone who has eaten Smartfood would know, this is a nigh-impossible task, and I said something to that effect to my friends online. Lo, Matt's response was this: Popcorn Fork. I'm still... a bit leery of it. (But it needed to be blogged.)

And... did you know why Oktoberfest beer (which is traditionally drunk in, er, October) is called Marzen (March) beer? It's all in the timing. Very quickly-- because beer made in the summer months was typically "off" (read, no refrigeration), Germany forbade production in the summer months. To keep up with summer demand, German brewers laid in a *lot* of a higher-alcohol content beer in March. The first Oktoberfest, celebrated in honor of a royal wedding, happily coincided with the start of the new brewing season-- an excellent excuse to trot out the last of the "March" beer and polish it off. Hence, March beer in October.

Librarian Practical Jokes

So about a year ago, when I first shouldering big-time collection development responsibilities for the library and selecting new books for purchase, my then-boss came to me with this book in her hand:

And she scowled at me and said, "This is just the sort of weirdness I was afraid you'd start ordering. Did you order this book? Why exactly did you think we needed an entire *book* on some sort of sausage war?"

Given that we are a mid-sized suburban library with an emphasis on popular materials, with some support for pre-college students... er... I couldn't answer that one. And, well, the title seemed sort of familiar, but I was *sure* I hadn't ordered anything so crazy as that, and I didn't have ordering for the food books anyway, and... well... er... um.... was I in trouble?

As it turned out... no. Because, you see, THIS was the book I'd actually ordered (make with the clicky to see the description and reviews on Amazon):

Oh, what havoc the application of a little tape, paper, and a picture downloaded off the Internet can cause in the librarianly heart....

Librarian practical jokes. Gotta love it.