Good news

Not to jinx myself a mere two weeks before my six-month review* -- and the end of my probation -- but the budget is keeping six-days-a-week service for libraries, so I think it's very unlikely that I'd be laid off.

I am very relieved.

*On the 7th, it'll be six months since I started working here. I've got a four-day weekend then, and I have to go to another branch while our roof is being done, and for any number of reasons it might be a good bit later than that. But I am not too too worried.

Temptations and Oddities

The library closed early because the glue they were using to fix the roof got into the air conditioning vents and it smelled awful, so I had the afternoon to myself.

And stumbled into a two-day sale at Guitar Center, to find they had discounted the keyboard I want by $80. Eventually I managed to convince myself that all this told me was that if I waited long enough they would discount it by $80 again. If I can just keep that resolve until midnight Saturday.

Later, at the Japanese bookstore, I saw one of the strangest books I had ever seen. It was a book of headphone reviews, going from low-end headphones up to over $2000. So, one page would have a review, along with one of those polygon-graphs that shows you that particular model's strong points and weak points. And each review was accompanied by a pin-up drawing of a pretty girl wearing the headphones, in a variety of styles and by a variety of illustrators. I'm not sure who the audience for this would be. I guess there's being an audiophile and then there's being an audiophile...