Lisa Rabey: Founder, CEO, President of Evil Temptresse’s INC.

Aug 19th, 2010
by lisa.
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First fan letter circa 1996. Evolution of a nickname: Seducer -> MstrssDth -> Simunye -> Lisha -> Modgirl -> Academichussy -> PnkRckLibrarian/Biblyotheke

In the spring of 2008, upon breakup with TheEx, I moved back home with my ‘rents1 for the first time since my early 20s. This was to be a temporary arrangement, a stop gap until I moved to Detroit in January of 2009 to finish library school. All of my belongings, consisting mainly of books/journals but excluding furniture which I had given away, were boxed up in the bottom of their basement. Somewhere to the tune of 40 boxes, almost 2/3rds of which were stuffed with paper goods (re: books/journals).

For those of you who can recall, the winter of 2008/09 was one of the worst in recent memory. Upon packing for my move to Royal Oak in January, 2009, I discovered that 18-20 boxes, mainly said paper goods, were destroyed in some fashion whether by being waterlogged, dampened or mildewed. The boxes were all stacked along the north wall in the basement with almost all of the bottom boxes and several second and third row boxes damaged. Because it was not a case of pipes bursting or water heater exploding or an Act of God2, insurance would not cover the damage either on my policy or my brother’s.

What had happened was that due to all the rain in the fall and blizzards and snowstorms nearer to winter, the snow/rain seeped ground and eventually into the “waterproof” basement, along that northern wall in which my entire life sat.

I lost A LOT of books.*
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Posted in: 1996, 2010.
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So, You Want To Be A Librarian/Archivist: Job Hunt Part III: 75 and counting.

Aug 17th, 2010
by lisa.
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Hire me./QR code shirt I made for ALA's annual conference this year. Yes, the QR code DOES work.

Since I’ve got a number of entries in draft format that are more or less about the same topic (various statuses/commentary of The Great Job Hunt, 2010 ™), I thought it would be easier to write one entry in bullet form then pontificate endlessly on. This is how I roll.

  • As I mentioned before, my “So, You Want To Be A Librarian/Archivist?” series is fairly popular. To make it easier to keep track of posts that fall under that heading, there is now a tab at the top of the header bar, SYWTBAL?, that will take you directly to a page with posts in that categorythat is automatically updated. For everything else relating to the library and archives world, there is a second category, Library*.*, that includes not only all posts on SYWTBAL? but everything else written on the topic.

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Posted in: 2010, Library*.*, SYWTBAL.
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To: Consume: Recipe – The Throbbing’s Granola Mix

Aug 14th, 2010
by lisa.
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The Throbbing's version of granola.

I had not realized finding a granola recipe that we liked would be that difficult – it’s oats, nuts, dried fruits and whatever else is thrown in the mix. How fucking hard can finding a decent recipe be? Apparently, damned difficult: Finding a recipe that doesn’t depend on granulated sugars, preservatives or some form of artificial sweetening (even from the supposed “all natural” recipes) to sweeten it up proved to be a tricky task. Also, the timing for baking it was also odd as many recipes had super high temps for long periods, instead of a more moderate temp. The super high suggestions nearly ended up near scorching the oats and nuts.

The following is the cobbled mixture with the base nod to Alton Brown’s Granola recipe plus experimentation.

We totally love this version and it’s become a staple over these last few weeks. We hope you enjoy it too.
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Posted in: 2010, To: Consume.
Tagged: · · ·

To: Make: Knitting – iTardis, an iPod cozy (v1.0)

Aug 13th, 2010
by lisa.
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iPod, iTardis, iPhone

Roughly about 18 months ago, Lindsay sent me a link to an Etsy page of a seller showcasing their knitted Tardis iPod/iPhone cozy. Lindsay, in her infinite cuteness, said, ” Make me this!”

The design and concept of the Etsy version was pretty poor: The person essentially knitted (with acrylic yarn no less) a tube, unseamed, and then cross-stitched Xs in for the white/shadow on the doors. I was more appalled that the seller wanted $20 for the thing, even though essentially it was wrist cuff, just slightly longer. I knew I could do a lot better version that would also be much cheaper.

When Lindsay came to visit a few weeks later, I had constructed the pattern (more or less) and all we just needed to get needles and yarn. I also guessed, based upon my knitting speed, it shouldn’t take more than a few hours to turn out. Since Lindsay was going to be in town for a few days, I figured we could leisurely get this going and have it done at a later time.

Little did I know that it would be fits/starts spanning 18 fucking months, not a few hours as intended. The design, implementation,needles, yarn weight and colors: Everything was frogged and ignored by me for months only to beredone and then frogged again!

With all that being said, here is the iTardis (FINALLY), HUGE thanks to Krazy Kate, this really only took me a few hours from start to finish as I had predicted all those months ago. Krazy Kate showed me the path of how to streamline and design the cozy, and yet there are improvements to the design and construction to already be made and thus, this is a prototype. Lindsay was so excited about this being finished before she left today, that she left with the prototype on her iPod. This version fits my iPhone (seen above) better than the classic iPod above (it’s slightly longer).

If someone can give me measurements to their iPad, I would adore that as I want to knit up a prototype for it. Whomever helps me out with the iPad version, will get the prototype for free when I’m done (shipping will also be on me).

Leave contact information via comments or the usual locations.

Pattern for all versions, with tweaks, coming soon-ish. Image above, however, will take you to the Flickr set showing the entire thing in-progress.

Posted in: 2010, To: Make.
Tagged: · · · · ·

Reviews: Books: Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict #everythingausten

Aug 10th, 2010
by lisa.
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[Cross-posted to GoodReads and LibraryThing. The entry chronicling my #everythingausten list, has also been updated.]

Several years ago, while working at $corporate_bookstore, I came across Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler which promised a fresh perspective in the Jane Austen paraliterature canon. I had been burned before by authors who use Austenmania as the foundation for their work, usually bogging themselves down by trying too hard to emulate Austen instead of just using her or her work as inspiration. What I really adored about Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict was that it didn’t seem to fall into the same tangles and missteps as other Austen inspired novels: the writing was contemporary and not fake-Georgian/Regency era, story was well paced, background was well researched, the comedic errors were indeed funny and above all else, I really liked the heroine Courtney Stone.

Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict

I could relate, which is hugely important when writing chick-lit, to the heroine’s experiences and I could also identify with her. This is really where Rigler excelled: she wrote chick-lit without making the heroine vacuous or implausible and she stayed (more or less) true to Austenesque style, which is where 90% of Austen regenerators fail.

One of the advantages of working in a bookstore is that you usually have your finger on what is going in the world of books and publishing much sooner then the general public, which was fantastic for me since I could keep atop on my Austen paraliterature better than the Austen blogging world. Having not worked at $corporate_bookstore since January of 2009, I’ve not been as diligent at finding new authors and books. Thus when finding out Rigler had written a parallel novel, Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict, to tell Jane Fairfax’s side of the story, I was intrigued and hopeful. If Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict was fabulous, how much more awesome would be Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict?

The answer is: Not so much.
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Posted in: 2010, To: Read.
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