New MacBooks are here

Apple finally released the new MacBooks today. It’s a good option for people like me who think that the MacBook Pro is a bit too expensive. The entry level MacBook is $1099, the entry MacBook Pro is $1999. Sure, the MB Pro has dedicated video chip/memory and a few bells and whistles like a illuminated keyboard, a FireWire 800 port, and an ExpressCard slot. While I’d like dedicated video I can live without the rest of the “upgrades”. It’s not really worth $800. Apple has a full comparison chart..

I’d buy a MacBook, but I’d definitely upgrade the hard drive a bit and max out the RAM. It’s not a new problem but why do Apple RAM upgrades cost so much? Upgrading the MacBook from the stock 512 MB to 2GB costs $500. RAM is not that expensive from other places, is Apple memory gold plated?

Update: Macworld has its first impressions

St. Louis style pizza

One of the few things I like about Missouri is St. Louis style pizza from Imo’s. It’s a thin crust pizza that may not be for everybody but Stephanie and I like it a lot. We were just discussing today that we’ll miss Imo’s when we leave Missouri.

Well, it turns out that you can get all the ingredients needed to make Imo’s pizza or even frozen pizzas delivered to you by UPS. So we don’t have to leave Imo’s behind. Wonder how an Imo’s franchise would do in East Tennessee?

People dialing the wrong number that won’t give up

Last night around 8:30 or so, we get a call on our home phone. We don’t use it much, we only have a land line for emergencies and the occasional local phone call. Usually the only calls we get are telemarketing calls.

This call was not a telemarketer, caller ID said it was from C. McClain 404-246-9353. We’re used to people dialing us as a wrong number, our number used to belong to a Jeff Bridges. No, probably not that Jeff Bridges. We figure whoever this is will hear the answering machine message and realize that they have the wrong number.

No such luck, the guy calls back in less than a minute. This time I answer. He asks for Danielle. I tell him he has the wrong number and hang up. I figure that’s the end of it. Nope, he calls back, again less than a minute later. Stephanie answers this time, angrily tells him not to call back and wake up our sleeping baby.

That’s got to be the end, right? Nope. We go to bed and around 11:00 he calls again. We let it ring. He calls again, we let it ring. The third time he calls, I’m really mad. I answer and tell him he has the wrong &^%*@$ number. Then I leave the phone off the hook.

6:30 a.m. and it’s time to feed Lisa. I figure we’re safe and plug the phone back in. We feed Lisa and crawl back into bed. The phone rings, yep, it’s Mr. McClain. I answer. This time he asks to speak to Jessica, different girl than before. I tell him he has the wrong number. He argues with me, he doesn’t have the wrong number. I tell him he does and to not call this number again.

So it’s 10:45 and I think we’re safe. Hopefully, Mr. C. McClain, 404-246-9353, a cell phone user from Atlanta has sobered up, dialed the right number, and hooked up with whatever women he was trying to find last night. Ladies, if you are trying to find Mr. C. McClain, remember his cell phone number is 404-246-9353. Write it down, maybe on the walls of a bathroom stall somewhere, preferably a men’s room. 🙂

Update: He just called again at 3:20 p.m. He just won’t give up.

What is a librarian?

Library Journal has a short article about a session at the recent PLA conference in Boston, titled “Is the MLS Needed for a Career in Public Librarianship?”. Daniel Walters, director of the Las Vegas–Clark County Library District, sees nothing wrong with hiring non librarians, especially in technical areas such as cataloging. Cataloging is being outsourced in many libraries. Michael Gorman, president of ALA, took issue with outsourcing, saying to leads to lower standards.

I don’t know who’s right on that score, it depends who you outsource to I suppose. But Gorman has a great quote in this article in response to whether library science and information science are the same discipline. “Information people work in kiosks, librarians work in libraries.”

Some may liken this quote to the now famous “blog people” article. But Gorman has a point when he says that the ALA degree accreditation system is flawed. What ALA accredited programs need is a well defined core. If a degree is going to be accredited by the American Library Association, it needs to prepare librarians. If you can get an ALA degree without having taken a collection development course or a reference course, something is wrong.

I’ve got nothing against the I schools, I’m a tech oriented library person myself. Nor do I think information science and library science are entirely separate. But you have to wonder if LIS programs shouldn’t offer different degrees for information science and library science.

Well…

Haven’t posted in a while, been a bit busy. Can’t really seem to get a whole lot done, something is always coming up. Usually related to Lisa 🙂 I’m not complaining, I’ve just realized that my time management skills are exceptionally bad right now. Not that they’ve even been that good.

But this next week is spring break, so it’s time to hit the reset button. I’ve got a paper that’s due April 4, and two more papers that are due around the end of April. I’ve also got to start working on a poster session for LITA 2006 , “Web Services Librarianship 2000 to 2005: Analysis of Position Announcements”. At least the Downtown Sheraton Hotel in Nashville looks nice.

Weather and Sirens

I don’t like a state where they have to use sirens to warn you about the weather. We had some nasty weather last night and the tornado sirens went off twice. So we went and hid on the bathroom for a while. The dogs and the cat hid under the bed. I didn’t think I was very claustrophobic until being forced to shut myself in a bathroom for a while. Fun, Fun.