http://mt.confusticate.com/karen/ Litterata obscura. en-us 2008-12-25T00:20:29-05:00 http://mt.confusticate.com/karen/archives/003070.html My friends have expressed some dubiousness (and a great deal of mirth) upon my recounting the German tradition of the Christmas pickle (the "Weihnachtsgurke"). (And yes, this is related to the English word "gherkin"-- tho' the etymologic descent is actually... Random Bits gris 2008-12-25T00:20:29-05:00 http://mt.confusticate.com/karen/archives/003064.html I know most of you aren't up at 12:30 am to catch The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson live, but I feel strongly that his monologue of last night deserved a MUCH larger audience than us night owls. (The... Public Service Announcements gris 2008-09-11T15:13:52-05:00 http://mt.confusticate.com/karen/archives/003054.html Yes, yes, it's been awhile, lovely to see you again too, no, I'm not dead. Now that we've gotten that all out of the way... I've taken the next step into Web 2.0-ness, and created a Google Reader account and... Two New Things a Day gris 2008-07-19T19:56:15-05:00 http://mt.confusticate.com/karen/archives/003042.html I love AlphaDictionary! Today Dr. Goodword taught me about a whole class of verbs I'd never heard of before. They're known as "frequentative" verbs, and they are formed by adding -le or -er to an existing verb to indicate repetitive... Two New Things a Day gris 2008-02-25T17:50:26-05:00 http://mt.confusticate.com/karen/archives/003039.html My, it's getting dusty around here. Time to do something about that, I think! I had a lovely New Year's, I hope you all can say the same. As per usual, my family went up to our place in the... Random Bits gris 2008-01-09T19:57:13-05:00 http://mt.confusticate.com/karen/archives/003034.html I cut our tree this afternoon just as the sun was going down, and it sits trussed in the back of the van, awaiting our return trip. We had dinner. And now...... Random Bits gris 2007-11-30T21:35:16-05:00 http://mt.confusticate.com/karen/archives/003004.html Tidbits lifted straight from LJ's January "frontdesk" page which were too funny not to share: The ALA has a MySpace page! (Gender: Female. Age: 101. Who said MySpace was only for teens? Though, strictly speaking, we lied about our age--... Random Bits gris 2007-02-05T17:24:55-05:00 http://mt.confusticate.com/karen/archives/002991.html A nifty little tool I saw on Neil's journal... here's a nifty visual representation of the U.S. states, European countries, and countries of the world to which I've been. (Yes, I know, I don't get out much.) The really sad... Random Bits gris 2006-12-13T18:48:45-05:00 http://mt.confusticate.com/karen/archives/002988.html ...this is what happens when one reads reviews of books about a CSI's work. (That's "Crime Scene Investigator" for people who haven't watched television in several years.) I'm sure most people have heard the term rigor mortis (one of the... Two New Things a Day gris 2006-12-12T16:26:32-05:00 http://mt.confusticate.com/karen/archives/002985.html My job is a constant education... two new N-words from the same journal (Booklist 11/1/06, if you're rabidly curious) that turned out the be vaguely related! I suspect the first word was not used correctly, or else I'm missing something... Two New Things a Day gris 2006-11-26T13:26:03-05:00 http://mt.confusticate.com/karen/archives/002978.html A stereotypical day on my reference desk.... I got these five questions one after the other, about five minutes apart: 1) I'm doing a paper for math class. Do you have any books on Cevian triangles and Giovanni Ceva? (Not... gris 2006-11-10T16:35:56-05:00 http://mt.confusticate.com/karen/archives/002972.html Banned Books Display... Banned. Original article is here.... Public Service Announcements gris 2006-10-06T10:56:58-05:00 http://mt.confusticate.com/karen/archives/002968.html A regular patron of ours has been trying to authenticate a piece of artwork by a particular artist. Today he came in and said that he heard about a series of volumes put together by a gallery, a museum, and... Two New Things a Day gris 2006-09-28T12:21:59-05:00 http://mt.confusticate.com/karen/archives/002967.html I found this single-page graphic story outline (of sorts) called "Characters for an Epic Tale" on the back page of a catalog for First Second (which is a new graphic novel imprint), and went looking for more. Go look, he's... Random Bits gris 2006-09-27T19:58:13-05:00 http://mt.confusticate.com/karen/archives/002962.html So, it's raining again. Bleh. But on the upside, I got a new rainbow-colored umbrella! It includes one panel of sky blue as well as the seven, yes SEVEN! colors of the rainbow. Poor, neglected indigo is included, and I... Two New Things a Day gris 2006-09-05T17:48:43-05:00