Interlibrary Loan of the day

The Big Bento Box of Unuseless Japanese Inventions is one of the greatest books ever to be interlibrary loaned. This is a book full of "bizarre and logic-defying gadgets and gizmos, which must work but are actually entirely impractical". Some samples include: the Hydrophobe's Bath Body Suit, a giant plastic baggie you can crawl inside before settling in the bathtub. Then there's the Umbrella Drip Collector, a small plastic cup that attaches to the tip of your umbrella to prevent it dripping on the floor. And of course there are the Detachable Tooth Covers so you don't have to brush after every meal. These descriptions simply don't do justice to all the marvelous gadgets in this book. Pick up a copy so you can see these wonderful things in full living color!

Interlibrary Loan of the Wednesday.

Captain ILL was busy shopping for gardening supplies at Fred Meyer yesterday, so he wasn't able to get this report out in a timely manner. He did get a big jug of weed killer, a pair of gloves, and some fancy knee pads though (unlike Superman, the Captain's knees are not invulnerable).

A book like Gunshot Wounds is of interest to anyone in the superheroing business. Captain ILL usually doesn't have to worry about ordinary guns; most bullets just bounce right off him. He does try to stay out of the way of RPGs, tanks, and atomic explosions though. Fortunately the evildoers that Captain ILL usually deals with don't have access to that kind of firepower. Sometimes he wishes that some of his regular supervillains would put a little more thought into their weapons though. For example, The Insidious Carrot has a device that shoots carrots at hypersonic speeds. Sure, they hurt, but being hit with a hypersonic carrot is just embarrassing.

Interlibrary Loan of the day

While Captain ILL normally objects to obscenity in books, and especially in titles, he made an exception in the case of The Two Farms, since the selection of ILL books today is so limited. He supposes if you have to use a bad word like "farm", you might as well use it as many times as possible. Unfortunately, despite the expectations raised by the title, the word "farm" doesn't seem to appear with much frequency throughout the book. The Captain is much too busy to do a page by page count, but he did flip through the book a bit and didn't see "farm" used a single time after the blatant appearance on the cover. Come on people! Let's see some more farmin' ILL requests for farmin' books full of farm ... but only non-gratuitous farming please.

Happy Birthday!

Today is this little fella's second birthday. It's for folks like Jacob here that Captain ILL boots evil; his boots are still too small for effective evil-booting, so he needs somebody bigger to boot evil for him. Captain ILL dedicates his fight for justice this year to Jacob. He wishes his little buddy a long life filled with peace, joy, and as much justice as this old Captain can wrangle.

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Interlibrary Loan of the day

How Everyday Products Make People Sick: Toxins at Home and In the Workplace is far from being a comprehensive work. There's no mention at all of kryptonite or mint in the index. How can you have a book about things that make people sick without mentioning mint? Or kryptonite? Captain ILL has had a hard time getting his hands on even a small amount of kryptonite (not for any malicious purpose, of course) and he had hopes that this book would put him on the right track. How hard can it be to locate a substance that glows with a sickly green light? Pretty darned hard it turns out. Even ebay turned out to be a dead end, though the Captain did find several very nice locks for his bicycle. If anyone out there in the internets has any kryptonite to spare, would you please send it the Captain's way? Please though, no mint.

Interlibrary Loan of the day

Journey Into Now is a book about being spiritually awake. Captain ILL sometimes thinks it would be pretty neat to be spiritually awake. He could show up all his colleagues; he's pretty sure that goober Superman isn't spiritually awake. Unfortunately, he's always very busy thinking about all the injustices that have been perpetrated, and worrying about all the injustices that will be perpetrated. Plus, he kind of likes shooting miscreants with lasers, and he's heard that zen monks and all those guys aren't allowed to shoot miscreants with lasers. To top it off, he thinks he's a pretty swell guy, and when you have an ego so swollen your mind can barely contain it, you don't need anything else. Do you?

Interlibrary Loan of the day

Sled Driver: Flying the World's Fastest Jet has the distinction of having been ILLed a dozen times in the last 5 years. Unfortunately, it is out of print and running about $150 at Amazon so the library won't be picking up any copies.

In any case, while full of pretty pictures, the book is inaccurate on at least one point: it is not the world's fastest flying jet. Wikipedia indicates this aircraft has a top speed of mach 3. The Batplane, however, can fly at nearly mach 6. That's twice as fast! It's too bad that authors can't get their facts straight, especially when there are so many facts available out there on the internets.

Interlibrary Loan of the day

Dear Ann, Dear Abby: The Unauthorized Biography of Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren has a pretty descriptive title, so there's no reason to describe the book in greater depth. What is interesting is that Captain ILL once wrote a letter to Ann Landers regarding a tricky situation he found himself in. The situation in question was very complex, but he managed to trim it down to just the salient points in the following letter:

"Dear Ann,

My name is Captain ILL (No doubt you've heard of me, I'm a very famous and successful superhero) and I'm writing to you at the suggestion of a certain amphibious colleague of mine who wishes to remain anonymous. See, I was at this superhero exhibition at Sea World; all the big names were there, but I won't mention any names. Everything went fine until my turn onstage came and, well, to make a long story short, I don't have very good control over my laser beams and I ended up boiling alive half the exibits and giving a certain amphibious colleague of mine third degree burns all over his body. My question is this: to what extent am I legally, financially, and etiquetly responsible for replacing the boiled fishies?

Your greatest fan,

Captain ILL"


Unfortunately, she never responded.

Interlibrary Loan of the day

Captain ILL is a pretty classy guy. Ask anyone, and they'll tell you that the Captain is so full of class that he's got it leaking out of his ears. However, a brief flip through of Class: A Guide Through the American Status System finds no mention at all of Captain ILL. Fortunately, that insufferably arrogant twit Superman also gets no mention. In fact, there's no mention of any superheroes at all, even those few who are billionaires in their secret identities like Batman and Iron Man. In spite of this deficit, there is a useful tip for discerning social class on page 162: "Proles say tux, middles tuxedo, but both are considered low by uppers, who say dinner jacket or (higher) black tie." So if you find yourself at a fancy dress ball where all the gentlemen are wearing black tie and you can't tell the proles from the people who matter, just walk up to one and ask "What the F&@* are you wearing?" It should be immediately obvious after this who the classless twit is.

A Mission at Last!

I got a call late last night from Captain ILL. He told me that he had a hot tip that Professor Perfidy was building some sort of doomsday device in his secret headquarters in the mountains out near Big Four. Unfortunately, the ILLmobile was low on anti-matter, so he needed a lift. Always willing to lend a hand in the fight against injustice, we hopped in my Honda this morning and headed east.

After about an hour of driving during which we occupied ourselves by singing various Neil Diamond songs, we arrived at the trail base:

We applied sunscreen and bug repellent, and started up the trail. Unfortunately, we didn't get far. Professor Perfidy must have gotten wind of our arrival, because the bridge had been blow out:

I wanted to keep going on, but Captain ILL insisted that the park rangers certainly wouldn't approve of us going off the trail and fording the river. The Captain is a real stickler for the rules, but I could see his point, so we came back down and found this nice warning that the kind rangers had left for us:

Apparently, you're not allowed to go tramping about in the woods for free, and they now want me to send them $5 even though the bridge was out and we were unable to complete our mission.

While we were driving back down the mountain (singing more Neil Diamond songs), Captain ILL thought he spotted a giant robot rampaging around up on Mount Pilchuck, so we may be headed up there next. If so, I'll be buying a yearly pass to keep the rangers off our backs.

Poem of the day

Nothing came around one day
took up space, with nothing to say
Nothing's not bad, though not exactly kind
then nothing left but left Nothing behind
if you don't have Nothing, you don't have anything
in a world full of everything, can you do Nothing?


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Interlibrary Loan of the day

Optics by Eugene Hecht brings a nostalgic tear to Captain ILL's eye. This is the very same optics textbook that Captain ILL used when he was in ... uhh ... superhero school. All superhero students who can shoot laser beams out of their eyes are required to take a course in optics. This class covered basic stuff like reflection, refraction, diffraction, polarization, Maxwell's equations, and interferometry. Best of all though, it covered lasers! Everyone loves lasers, of course, but lasers have a special place in Captain ILL's heart for obvious reasons. Even the mind-boggling math on every single page of this book couldn't diminish the Captain's love of lasers. Optics, like most things learnt in school, isn't the sort of thing you use in your day to day life. However, there are a few useful nuggets like the Law of Reflection: "The angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection." This is extremely useful to know when you have to bounce a laser beam off a mirror and into the posterior of some villain. Remember kids, use knowledge responsibly!

Weeding

Captain ILL has had a lot of requests for referrals for The Hulk since he posted here Sunday about his weeding project at the Captain's house. He did a splendid job of weeding the gravel bed, as you can see in this photograph:

Unfortunately, The Hulk has a bit of a temper, which makes employing him as a landscaper problematical. Here is a photograph of the Captain's living room after The Hulk finished "remodeling":

So while Captain ILL can easily recommend the Hulk for any demolition work, he can't recommend inviting him into your home.

Interlibrary Loan of the day

Captain ILL has never eaten SPAM, but he has lots of it stockpiled in his Secret ILL Hideout in case some disaster prevents him from going to Costco for an extended period of time. He also has something called a "SPAM filter" in his computer somewhere, but he doesn't understand why he needs it because none of the slots or holes in his computer are big enough for a can of SPAM to fit through. For that matter, none of the tubes that the internets uses to get into his computer are big enough either. In any case, SPAM: The Cookbook is pretty much what you'd expect: a book packed with lots of recipes involving SPAM. For those of you who don't know what SPAM is, it's a pinkish substance that resembles a pencil eraser that can be consumed when your need is great and your standards are low. On the back cover is a SPAM endorsement from Nikita Kruschev: "Without SPAM, we wouldn't have been able to feed our army." No doubt this is how communists came to be called "pinkos".

Interlibrary Loan of the day

Captain ILL would never condone lying of any sort, but if you have to lie, then lying to small kids is certainly an entertaining way to go. Great Lies to Tell Small Kids is a book of cartoons that reminds the Captain of Calvin's dad:


Calvin's dad doesn't make an appearance in this book, but there are a few gems in there nevertheless. For example: "Keep a chicken nugget in a shoe box, leave it some water and corn, and soon it will grow into a live chicken." or "Your dad is a super-hero. He was bitten by a radioactive MAN, giving him all the powers of a MAN. His super-hero name is MAN-MAN. His super-hero costume is jeans and a shirt from Gap. His arch-nemesis is called 'All The Stuff That Needs Doing'. Thrill to his exploits!" Hmmmm, that last one sounds an awful lot like Captain ILL's dad ...

Hulk Smash!

This Hulk typing on Captain ILL's computer machine. Captain ILL drink too much and pass out. Leave computer on. Hulk hate typing. Hulk's fingers too big for tiny keyboard. Tiny keyboard make Hulk angry! You not like Hulk when Hulk angry! Arrrrgghhhh! Whewh! Hulk smash Captain ILL's petunias. Hulk feel much better now. Captain ILL invite Hulk over to help pull weeds. Hulk good at pulling things. Hulk better at smashing things though. When finish pulling weeds, start drinking. Hulk big. Can drink lots more than Captain. When Captain pass out, Hulk start smashing things. Then Hulk see computer machine with funny pictures and words. Hulk take break from smashing and type instead. Hulk want people know he not all bad. He like to smash things, but he also like puppies and petunias. When Hulk smash Captain's petunias, Hulk sad. Hulk also sad when he smash puppies, but no puppies at Captain ILL's house. Hulk has to go now. Still lots of smashing to do here.

Interlibrary Loan of the day

If you're anything like Captain ILL, you sometimes have trouble making ends meet. Just re-stocking a utility belt with killer bee repellent, elbow grease, and grappling hooks can run into four figures, and that doesn't count replacement costumes, adamantine helmet polish, or anti-matter fuel for the ILL cart. That's why the Captain is so happy to see a book like The Smart Spending Guide: How to Cut Your Grocery Bills in Half, Save on Your Everyday Expenses, and Live Within Your Means. There are no entries for anti-matter, costumes, or killer bees in the index, but Captain ILL doesn't doubt that there is plenty of general advice that can be adapted to his particular requirements. For example, from page 130: "Window treatments, such as curtains and valances, can be found at reasonable prices at yard sales and thrift stores." Excellent! Captain ILL will be stopping at the Goodwill this evening to look into getting his hands on some second hand anti-matter.

Interlibrary Loan of the day

ABC of Reading by Ezra Pound is apparently a book that teaches you how to read. Dizzying paradoxes like this tend to give Captain ILL a headache; understanding great literature is not one of his superpowers. As if this weren't enough, paging through the book reveals not a single picture, no references to Dick or Jane, and Spot doesn't run, or indeed even make an appearance. There are lots of big words like "atrophies", "incarnadine", and "comprehension". What the heck does "comprehension" mean? On the very first page Mr. Pound writes "There is a longish dull stretch shortly after the beginning of the book." This is true enough, but it seems to extend all the way to the end. Two thumbs down!

Interlibrary Loan of the day

Captain ILL is a bit of an elitist since he always buys things he needs from stores instead of going around back and fishing them out of the store's dumpsters. Apparently though, he's missing out on quite a lot. From the back cover: "The Art and Science of Dumpster Diving takes you on a guided tour of America's back alleys where amazing wealth is carelessly discarded: Food (tons of it), clothes, toys, furniture, books, photos, flowers, and much more." The Captain gets the willies thinking about eating food out of a dumpster, so he feels a less disgusting arrangement is called for. Perhaps a series of racks and shelves for the discarded food to be placed on is in order. It would require some sort of of cover, or canopy to keep the weather out. And refrigeration for the items that require it. Maybe what they really need, is another store behind the main store for all the discards!

Interlibrary Loan of the day

Voices of Qi: An Introductory Guide to Traditional Chinese Medicine is an interesting title because it contains the single most useful word in the English language. Even more interesting is that it was not originally an English word, and didn't really become useful until March 2006 when it was first included in the Scrabble Official Word List. The word is "Qi", and is so little known outside the Chinese and Scrabble communities, that at this moment Firefox is complaining that it isn't in its dictionary by putting a little red line under it. In Scrabble, however, it is a very useful word since it is one of the few "q" words that doesn't require a "u" and it is only two letters long. It's only worth 11 points all by itself, but Captain ILL has seen someone score a cool 62 points with this word alone! As an extra bonus, it can even by made plural by adding an "s" at the end. Captain ILL challenges anyone to find a more useful word than this.

Interlibrary Loan of the Thursday

Captain ILL has alluded in a previous entry how insufferable Superman can be to work with. Even his holier-than-thou attitude is superhuman to such a degree that it can be difficult to be in the same room as him for more than a few minutes at a time. The Captain doesn't have to work with Superman very often, but for those unfortunates who do, How To Work With Just About Anyone will be a handy book to read. In all honesty though, it probably is much easier to work with Superman than a power hungry megalomaniac like Lex Luthor or Dr. Doom. A constant barrage of condescending remarks can be a pain to deal with, but probably not as bad as a death ray from a boss piqued because you pointed out the laser burns on his shiny new body armor. Captain ILL is sure that this book will make it much easier to work with folks like Brainiac or Magneto, but please note that the title says "Just About Anyone"; it won't be able to help someone who works with Dick Cheney.