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.