A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Library

Life has been busy for me lately, leaving little to no time for internet surfing. In fact, its sort of twisted in a way that the internet is the only place a person's absence is mourned when they get involved with a life offline! But oh how I've missed it and missed out on so much!

I ended one year as Katy Zwick, Philosopher extraordinaire, but the dawn of a new one as seen an evolution—of rumored and hushed sorts—with the emergence of Katy Zwick, Librarian extraordinaire! This job opening took me by complete surprise, but it has been exciting to tend to such a deep well of information. So for now, though I may not get to spend the last days of Socrates with him, I am thrilled to at least be in a position to share them with others.

It's another thing entirely trying to wrap my head around the idea that all of that time spent in grade school having the ins-and-outs of the Dewey Decimal System drilled into us seems like a futile effort to teach kids today now that everything is computerized and automated.

Or maybe that's just what they want me to think!

Who is "They" exactly? This guy, apparently.

A couple weekends back, errands for the library took me past the corner of 4th street where the Game Developer's Conference was being held. Most of the crowd consisted of young, hip programmers who know that two bytes are better than one, but this guy stood out like a lustering diamond around a sore thumb. His name is Dry Bones, and he is on a mission.

Dry Bones introduced himself, though distracted and skittishly, as an agent of the Elsewhere Public Works. He offered a slew of warnings about everything from "Poly rocks in the free lunches" to, more importantly, the goon across the street he cautioned was "Subverting the neural limitations" of those in attendance.

These two contenders seemed to mostly stick to their own corners, but always ever so slightly pushing the boundary.

On my return trip to the Library I witnessed the breakdown of whatever shaky armistice originally kept both sides at bay. There was a lot of shouting and some accusations "microwave harassment" and something about "hypnotic puppetry".

I think it's safe to say their tiff was upgraded to a full scale scuffle at the time of my second visit. Dry Bones was awfully agitated by something, and when things turned physical between the two he brandished an eye-dropper against the goon with what he described as "untainted polywater."

It was quite a spectacle but over so fast! Did anyone else see them or catch any documentation of their scuffle?

Crazy stuff, or just crazy enough?