Tales From The "liberrycast"

During the five year course of writing the original Tales from the "Liberry" blog, I wrote a substantial entry almost every single weekday. However, there were a few occasions when I skipped out on my blogging duties and not only said EFF it to myself, but posted it as well.  And usually that day fell upon my birthday. That said, there are still a number of longer entries devoted to my birthday or involving birthdays in general.  There are also an even greater number of entries devoted to the patron we called Birthday Lady, who phoned us faithfully every time a celebrity died to learn from us the day on which that fresh dirt-napper was born. So, in honor of the fact that this particular episode drops on my 2nd 39th birthday, I present a podcast that chronicles both of the above scenarios and more: The BirthdayCAST.

The day we hoped for and dreamed of had to eventually come: the day the Queen of the Eternal Newbie Greenhorns, Ms. S, left the employ of the "liberry."  And when the day came, she went with barely a whimper, but a whole lot of whining.   What we didn't realize was the freeing her from the employ of the "liberry" freed her up for a new calling: fiction writer. Also features the long sought-for 5th Grumpiest Old Man in All the World: William Shatner.

A podcast over a year in the making featuring a cinematic theme. Yes, just in time for Catwoman's appearance in The Dark Knight Rises comes the second part of the much delayed Halle Berry's Catwoman Blows Goat Wang entry from nigh on a year back. Plus there are the touching tales of the best flat-footed mountain dancer and Elvis impersonator in the world (or at least our state) and why Star Wars Episode III made me cry. (Hint: It wasn't Hayden Christensen's acting, though it should have been.)

On many occasions during my time at the "liberry" I expressed my deepest desire to call the police concerning our resident pedophile, Chester the (Potential) Molester. This is the story of the time I finally got to call them... about his illegally parked car.

As you may have heard for approximately 5 minutes on the national news, Appalachia recently got the smackdown put on it by a series of violent thunderstorms packing hurricane force winds. Fortunately, before the power went out for nearly a week, I'd already banked a couple of podcasts to cover the time I was already planning to be out of state. We got caught in the storms first-hand and the wife had to deal with them for the duration. This is our story.

Of our dangerous patrons, one of the more benignly dangerous ones was Gene Gene the Genealogy Machine. And he was only dangerous because anyone near him had a far greater chance of having to gnaw their own leg off to escape the boring details of his family history than those who were not in his presence. Gene's greatest enemy, other than the neighborhood children who often encroached upon his ancestry computing time, were our computers themselves and the near dialup speeds they tended to run at. And while he proposed many fanciful solutions for the problem, getting him to listen to the ONE THING he could do that MIGHT have some effect was the major point of conflict in our relationship with him. This is that story.

Our Summer Reading program was far more stressful than most. We didn't just make kids read X number of books over X number of weeks, we also put together three hour-long programs for them each and every one of those X number of weeks, with crafts crafted, stories read aloud and snacks snacked upon. However, what made our Summer Reading even more stressful was our insistence on producing one of those hour-long Summer Reading programs on Mondays, which, as we all know from prior podcasts, are insanely chaotic all by themselves. So take the lines of screaming children, bewildered patrons, understaffed circulation desk, and general Monday Madness, during which no one has a moment to spare, and add a terrifyingly dangerous element: the patron who must not be named. Yessir, this is the one where things come to a head and yours truly gets to do the honors.

Over the 64 episodes of this podcast, I've told many a tale about mothers of questionable quality. Today, I present a few about the dads. Okay, so none of the dads in today's story are particularly questionable. I have to say that, cause my own dad is featured prominently and behaves admirably. But when it comes to dad stories at the "liberry" you have to pick from what's there, cause there's only a few to be found. But you do get to hear the tale of the time my dad and I nearly had to lay a beatdown on a frat guy in a Huddle House.

Newbie Greenhorn Ms. S was not only an eternal newbie greenhorn, she was their queen. Never before had I met a person so willfully unwilling to burn a single calorie in the execution of her job that could have gone unburnt with her ass planted in a chair. The fact that she remained an employee as long as she did is a mystery for the ages. After hoarding away a number of the best Ms. S stories, I finally unleashed them in a weeklong torrent called L is for Lazy Week (much as Ms. S could unleash a torrent of dumbass questions just as you were trying to walk out the door for home). This is that week adapted to podcast form.

One of the most confounding "liberry" mysteries put before me, years even before I began blogging about my adventures, was the mystery of Mr. Little Stupid. Like his near namesake, Mr. Big Stupid, Mr. Little Stupid enjoyed using our public computers. Unlike Mr. Big Stupid, Mr. L.S. was a small, meek fellow who walked around carrying a Girl Scouts binder and wanted to read the poetry of tragic figures cut down too soon. He also had the perplexing inability to remember the most basic of internet access concepts, such as how to load internet explorer, despite repeated lessons from me personally. It was a mystery that I came to solve, and chronicle here.

Take a coffee cup that has a lid... and is stationary... and has no backlighting... and has a radioactive isotope inside of it that could release a molecule that has a 50/50 chance to punch a hole in the side of it, revealing whether or not it's full... and... and... Oh, yeah, did I mention the room is completely dark? Yeah, it's dark, all right. Anyway, after you think about all that for a while, listen to this week's episode featuring Mr. Hinky, a Rogue Patron who was a repeat offender at sneaking coffee to our computers.

Throughout my time at the "liberry" I was able to identify and classify the top five grumpiest old men in all the world. So far Mr. B-Natural and Mr. Crab (#1 and #3, respectively) have had podcast episodes devoted to them. Now we turn to Grumpiest Old Man in All the World #4: Mr. Dent. This was an older gentleman kwho closely resembled Sam the Eagle from the Muppet Show, albeit with a massive dent in the side of his head. Oh, and he was also known for his infatuation with the alleged genetic impurity of a certain section of the English Countryside. I also discuss the concept and origins of Fake Shemps.