Interlibrary Loan of the day

The Small Woman is a biography of a woman who was, apparently, small. More interestingly, the title reminds Captain ILL of the time he accidentally sat on one of his colleagues, The Wasp. She was understandably upset, and the Captain was horrified, but really, if you're only a half inch tall you shouldn't be using full sized furniture. One of her wings was slightly bent, so for several weeks after "the incident" she tended to veer slightly to the left when flying. This wouldn't have been a great handicap except that, while flying through the kitchen of the Avenger's Mansion, Captain ILL accidentally trapped her inside the refrigerator. The Captain hasn't received any invitations back there since.

Interlibrary Loan of the day

Captain ILL knows all about getting into pots; he gets into a pot every day when he dons his adamantine headgear and shuffles out to fight crime. Getting Into Pots: A Basic Pottery Manual refers to something a bit different-the making of pots out of clay. Captain ILL knows at least one potter who occasionally reads this blog (but has yet to leave a comment), so he will refrain from going on at length on a topic he knows nothing about. There is one thing he can say with a fair degree of confidence though: a clay pot would be a poor substitute for the Captain's trusty metal headgear. If he had been wearing a clay pot on his head that day when Freddy Furious threw a truck at him, the truck would have crushed the clay pot (and the Captain's head) instead of bouncing off his adamantine pot and crushing his elbow instead.

Interlibrary Loan of the day

Healing Secrets of the Native Americans purports to enable the reader to "discover all-natural treatments for more than 40 ailments from acne to wrinkles". Captain ILL used to be skeptical of this sort of thing until he broke his elbow a few years back when a truck fell on it. Now hospitals are notoriously incapable of treating superheroes, so when the Captain's old buddy Apache Chief, of the Super Friends suggested a Native American healer, Captain ILL was in no position to refuse. This fellow, who went by the name Don Juan, did a bang up job, though the Captain isn't sure exactly what sort of treatment he used because the first thing he did when he arrived was to feed Captain ILL several peyote buttons. Everything was kind of a blur after that ... a fantastic, multi-hued, blur of shapes, sounds, and smells. Afterward the elbow was much better and, other than an occasional tendency to smell colors, Captain ILL suffered no adverse side effects and, even better, didn't have to fill out any insurance forms.

Interlibrary Loan of the day

Captain ILL is always looking for new tips and tricks in his pursuit of justice, so when he saw Forbidden Advice: 1,703 Rarely Divulged Secrets To Save Time, Money, and Trouble he had to have quick skim. Unfortunately, there is no section on "crimefighting" or "justice" in the index, though there are entries for "earwax" and "gluteus maximus". In fact, most of the information in this book could be filed under "common sense", though the Captain is well aware of how rare "common sense" actually is. Captain ILL can't recommend this book for crimefighters but if you would like to know how to relieve anxiety with sunflower seeds, you may want to check it out.

Interlibrary Loan of the Friday

Baby Matters: What your Doctor May Not Tell You About Caring for Your Baby was written by a chiropractor. Captain ILL isn't sure that this makes any sense, but it is what it is; facts don't have to make sense! The Captain took some time off this past weekend from booting Evil to babysit his niece and nephew while their parents attended some beer festival. Neither of these two little folks is really a baby anymore, though you wouldn't know it from his two-year-old nephew's bathroom habits. He's supposed to be at the stage where he goes into the bathroom by himself now, but apparently he made an exception for Captain ILL. The little guy went through a half dozen pull-ups and three pairs of pants in the 24 hours he spent at the Captain's secret headquarters. Fifteen minutes before his mother arrived to pick him up, he left an extra-special package in his pull-up that the Captain was obliged to clean up. Luckily Captain ILL has special facilities for disposing of hazardous materials that he usually uses for doomsday devices and nuclear waste, but also serves for poopy pull-ups.

Interlibrary Loan of the day

If you're anything like Captain ILL, you feel that math can be pretty darned useful, even necessary, though often completely incomprehensible to those of us who aren't eggheads. Captain ILL remembers sitting in his differential equations class thinking "what the heck is this bozo talking about and what is Captain ILL doing in a differential equations class anyway?" Dinah Zike's Big Book of Math isn't a really big book, but it does have lots of pictures, charts, and diagrams, which is a big plus in Captain ILL's book. Compare this:



With this:



And decide for yourself which book you would like to learn math from.


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Interlibrary Loan of the day

The Chicken Health Handbook is "a must-have reference for the small flock owner". Just look at that chicken on the cover! Doesn't she look healthy? Captain ILL has had the misfortune of working with Chickenman, a third-rate superhero with delusions of grandeur. The delusions of grandeur didn't offend the Captain's sensibilities; most superheroes suffer from some sort of delusion. It was the chicken feathers and poor hygiene that Captain ILL objected to. How does a six foot chicken man shed so many feathers? Feathers in the food, feathers all over the costumes, feathers in the antimatter intake of the ILLmobile ... it was all just too much. Eventually, Captain ILL convinced Chickenman to retire. Last the Captain heard he had married the Chicken Lady and they were both very involved in the free range chicken movement.

Finetunes at last

Captain ILL has finally finished his Finetune assignment by copying a bunch of the files in his mp3 folder into a Finetune playlist. Unfortunately, Finetune only allows 3 songs per artists, and it was pretty difficult choosing just 3 for some bands so he ended up with only 486 songs instead of several thousand. Undoubtedly there are many splendid songs that the Captain has overlooked, but the Finetune interface doesn't seem very friendly for adding lots of titles. If anyone has any tips, please pass them on.

Interlibrary Loan of the day

TV Sets: Fantasy Blueprints of Classic TV Homes is an awesome book! Ever wonder how the upstairs bedrooms were arranged in the homes of the Brady Bunch or the Partridge Family? Do you want to know the exact placement of Gomez's steer-horn chair in the Addams Family's living room? Are you curious to see if the Flintstone's have a bathroom inside their home? All these questions and more are answered in this fascinating book. Captain ILL is a bit stumped by one thing though. There are two sets of plans for the Cleaver's home; apparently they moved at some point from 513 Grant Avenue to 211 Pine Street. Obviously the Captain needs to accelerate his viewing of his Leave It To Beaver DVD collection so he can keep up with these important facts.

Interlibrary Loan of the day

The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes details the adventures of the Great Detective in India and Tibet following his supposed death at Reichenbach Falls. Now Sherlock Holmes was one of the very first superheroes; he couldn't leap tall buildings, but he could bend an iron bar and his deductive abilities are without equal even today. Captain ILL has a great deal of respect for the Great Detective, even though their crimefighting styles are very different. The Captain prefers not to exercise his brain too much ... it gives him headaches. He finds it much easier to get out there and start booting. Very rarely has he booted an innocent person, but one of the advantages of boots over laser beams is that boots are nonlethal, and the booted persons in question are usually very understanding, if a bit bruised. So even though Captain ILL does not advocate the use of brains in the pursuit of justice, he can see how it sometimes might come in handy.