Pardon me while I experiment with writing product reviews at Viewpoints and attempting to post them on the blog. Why? Well, why not? I'm not trying to sell anyone anything, but I'm addicted to couponing and, thus, try a lot of strange things that I might as well review. But it would kind of be nice to get all of my content together in one place (that isn't Facebook). So bear with me. Either it'll work, or it won't.
Kashi Honey Sunshine is a wholesome cereal that doesn't suck. - Kashi Honey Sunshine Cereal - Viewpoints
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Friday, October 09, 2009
Monday, August 31, 2009
Definitely a badder-girl librarian than me
Librarian roller girl 3:38
As a 53-year-old librarian by day and roller derby player by night, Beth Hollis smashes stereotypes and opponents on and off the track.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Food not Bombs
Random thought for the day: I wish I'd known how to coupon back in the day when I did Food not Bombs (which wasn't all that often because I'm lame, I admit). I've been obsessed with this picture of a barbecue sauce stockpile (Kraft, which apparently isn't even very good) from Slickdeals, wondering what the hell anyone needs 145 bottles of barbecue sauce for and hoping that they're using it to feed a large family or help out a non-profit that feeds large numbers of people on a shoe string.
Would couponing--getting stuff for free/cheap using a manufacturer's own advertising--be considered subversive? Does it really matter if it's subversive if you're feeding people reasonably wholesome food in a relatively ethical matter?
Would couponing--getting stuff for free/cheap using a manufacturer's own advertising--be considered subversive? Does it really matter if it's subversive if you're feeding people reasonably wholesome food in a relatively ethical matter?
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Weekend Wrap-Up
Saturday we had two bad fast food experiences, which you'd think would learn us, but it won't. McDonald's somehow charged us $9 for two Egg McMuffins, a couple hashbrowns, and a small soda. The girl offered us the combo with two Egg McMuffins, but because it was after 10:30 (We pulled into the drive through at 10:31--the manager came out and switched the sign over while the person in front of us ordered.), they apparently weren't obligated to give us the combo price. The hashbrowns still made my morning, though. That night, Wendy's didn't over charge us (unless you count no longer having french fries on the dollar menu) but they didn't fully fill the over-priced large fries container and, sin of sins, put mustard on the burgers when it wasn't asked for. Some days are like that... Don't think we spent any other money on Saturday beyond that, though. I did go to the library and restock on fun reads.
Did amazingly well at CVS on Sunday: $29 worth of stuff for $0.90, thanks to the $5/$25 coupon I got for taking a quiz on CVS's ReadyFill program and the sweet Extra Buck deals that Southern California is finally having. (Quite a few were available in the rest of the country several weeks ago and we didn't get them.) Had to go back to CVS later in the evening when it turned out that hubby was out of Irish Spring bodywash, but it turned out to be an unadvertised Extra Buck item, so at least the damage was less than full price. The two Hot Wheels we wound up buying did not generate Extra Bucks--so I spent $0.73, but only got back 2 EB for my 8 EB investment.
The big horrendous expense was, once again, Walmart, who also had the gall to be out of everything, like various flavors of Friskies Party Mix and manageable sizes of kitty litter. Their snazzier Hot Wheels were mismarked, so with the extra buck I spent apiece on three of them and forgetting to use my B1G1 coupon on the cat treats (I got distracted bagging my own groceries since I brought my own bag and it seemed to throw off the cashier's rhythm.) as well as the ever increasing price of canned goods, I spent about $15 more than I meant to. At least it's all stuff we'll use.
We splurged on sandwiches and beer for dinner, but we filled up our free sandwich card on one and got the other free. We forgot to get into the beer, so it's still in the fridge for tomorrow.
I'm experimenting with Home Ec 101's schedule of chores (see the post-it) idea so did the bathroom on Thursday, swept and spot-cleaned the kitchen and bathroom floors Friday, cleaned out the car and gave the outside a dusting (inspired by my neighbor, though he has a nifty tool and I used a rag) today, and did laundry tonight. I'm adding the chores as recurring tasks to my rememberthemilk to-do list, which I have embedded as a sidebar widget in Gmail (among other places).
An incredibly boring weekend, though I did manage to shock hubby by my self-motivated cleaning.
Did amazingly well at CVS on Sunday: $29 worth of stuff for $0.90, thanks to the $5/$25 coupon I got for taking a quiz on CVS's ReadyFill program and the sweet Extra Buck deals that Southern California is finally having. (Quite a few were available in the rest of the country several weeks ago and we didn't get them.) Had to go back to CVS later in the evening when it turned out that hubby was out of Irish Spring bodywash, but it turned out to be an unadvertised Extra Buck item, so at least the damage was less than full price. The two Hot Wheels we wound up buying did not generate Extra Bucks--so I spent $0.73, but only got back 2 EB for my 8 EB investment.
The big horrendous expense was, once again, Walmart, who also had the gall to be out of everything, like various flavors of Friskies Party Mix and manageable sizes of kitty litter. Their snazzier Hot Wheels were mismarked, so with the extra buck I spent apiece on three of them and forgetting to use my B1G1 coupon on the cat treats (I got distracted bagging my own groceries since I brought my own bag and it seemed to throw off the cashier's rhythm.) as well as the ever increasing price of canned goods, I spent about $15 more than I meant to. At least it's all stuff we'll use.
We splurged on sandwiches and beer for dinner, but we filled up our free sandwich card on one and got the other free. We forgot to get into the beer, so it's still in the fridge for tomorrow.
I'm experimenting with Home Ec 101's schedule of chores (see the post-it) idea so did the bathroom on Thursday, swept and spot-cleaned the kitchen and bathroom floors Friday, cleaned out the car and gave the outside a dusting (inspired by my neighbor, though he has a nifty tool and I used a rag) today, and did laundry tonight. I'm adding the chores as recurring tasks to my rememberthemilk to-do list, which I have embedded as a sidebar widget in Gmail (among other places).
An incredibly boring weekend, though I did manage to shock hubby by my self-motivated cleaning.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Bad advice and the academic library
I cringe when people give bad advice, especially when it involves the library.
Usually, Lifehacker is dead on, but I was really disappointed by some of their Get Your Textbooks for Free (or Cheap) advice. Yes, I'm glad they suggest that their college student readers learn to become library savvy (and "hit up the research/reference desk where your school probably employs a lackey whose sole responsibility is to find material for you"), but some of the information they give is impractical and some just plain wrong!
First of all, academic libraries generally don't buy textbooks. We may buy humanities or social sciences anthologies that are used as textbooks, but generally we only get textbooks when an instructor requests that the item be placed on reserve for their class. Just as often as not, the textbooks placed on reserve are the instructor's or department's personal copies.
Note, too, that the article doesn't once mention the concept of reserves. For those who don't know, this is where instructors request that we hold copies of books for their class in a separate section, in our case, at our circulation desk. They're searchable in our catalog by course name and number and the instructor's name. They can usually be checked out for three hours at a time so that everyone in the class gets equal access. Checking out the textbook for the class before we can get it on reserve is actually kind of a douche-y thing to do, and more often than not it'll be recalled on you and you'll have to bring the book back early so that we can put it on reserve.
Then there's the idea of either a) piecing together an anthology by finding the individual essays else
where or b) using old editions of the textbook. Both of these have merit, but if you're going to have to cite these work in your papers, you'll wind up pulling out your hair. You'll wind up spending a lot of precious time trying to find everything in an anthology (though maybe not so much if it's just a matter of finding a reading or two) and the library, especially if you're at a smaller school, probably won't have everything in there anyway--and only books published after the 1990s or so tend to include tables of contents in the online catalog. For older works, expect to be using... old school print indexes.
Using older editions of a textbook could work just fine, but if you have to do assignments out of the book, make sure they're the same assignment. Also note that even for a popular title we tend not to have more than two or three copies. So if the older edition isn't also on reserve with the newer one, you'll be competing for two or three copies with everyone else in your class and probably constantly recalling the item on each other. You won't be able to rotate different copies of the same book (as suggested) because if you've already got it checked out, we won't ILL it for you. And everyone in your class will already have our other copies checked out.
The suggestion of using "intercollegiate book sharing networks" (aka interlibrary loan) isn't bad if you have an obscure title, but we probably won't borrow it for you if we already have it on reserve. If it's a popular classroom title, it'll probably be in use at those universities, too.
Better is the advice that you may not have to buy everything. I did quite well in a classics class (Greek Civ, I think) using only the old Monarch Notes to Greek plays I found at a used bookstore. Granted, it was a huge lecture hall class and our entire grade was two in-class, closed book essay tests, so your mileage may vary.
I admit that for a couple classes I was less than thrilled by I took the unethical/illegal route of buying the books, photocopying them, and returning them. This might work especially if you just want to make sure the assignments in your Calc book are the same as the ones in the old edition.
But the best advice I have (and granted, I'm just a reference desk "lackey") is to a) talk to your professors and get them to put the books on reserve and, if that fails, b) share books you buy used (and/or online) between a handful of classmates, especially if you're in a big, huge boring introductory lecture class where you're not going to want to keep the book anyway.
Usually, Lifehacker is dead on, but I was really disappointed by some of their Get Your Textbooks for Free (or Cheap) advice. Yes, I'm glad they suggest that their college student readers learn to become library savvy (and "hit up the research/reference desk where your school probably employs a lackey whose sole responsibility is to find material for you"), but some of the information they give is impractical and some just plain wrong!
First of all, academic libraries generally don't buy textbooks. We may buy humanities or social sciences anthologies that are used as textbooks, but generally we only get textbooks when an instructor requests that the item be placed on reserve for their class. Just as often as not, the textbooks placed on reserve are the instructor's or department's personal copies.
Note, too, that the article doesn't once mention the concept of reserves. For those who don't know, this is where instructors request that we hold copies of books for their class in a separate section, in our case, at our circulation desk. They're searchable in our catalog by course name and number and the instructor's name. They can usually be checked out for three hours at a time so that everyone in the class gets equal access. Checking out the textbook for the class before we can get it on reserve is actually kind of a douche-y thing to do, and more often than not it'll be recalled on you and you'll have to bring the book back early so that we can put it on reserve.
Then there's the idea of either a) piecing together an anthology by finding the individual essays else
where or b) using old editions of the textbook. Both of these have merit, but if you're going to have to cite these work in your papers, you'll wind up pulling out your hair. You'll wind up spending a lot of precious time trying to find everything in an anthology (though maybe not so much if it's just a matter of finding a reading or two) and the library, especially if you're at a smaller school, probably won't have everything in there anyway--and only books published after the 1990s or so tend to include tables of contents in the online catalog. For older works, expect to be using... old school print indexes.
Using older editions of a textbook could work just fine, but if you have to do assignments out of the book, make sure they're the same assignment. Also note that even for a popular title we tend not to have more than two or three copies. So if the older edition isn't also on reserve with the newer one, you'll be competing for two or three copies with everyone else in your class and probably constantly recalling the item on each other. You won't be able to rotate different copies of the same book (as suggested) because if you've already got it checked out, we won't ILL it for you. And everyone in your class will already have our other copies checked out.
The suggestion of using "intercollegiate book sharing networks" (aka interlibrary loan) isn't bad if you have an obscure title, but we probably won't borrow it for you if we already have it on reserve. If it's a popular classroom title, it'll probably be in use at those universities, too.
Better is the advice that you may not have to buy everything. I did quite well in a classics class (Greek Civ, I think) using only the old Monarch Notes to Greek plays I found at a used bookstore. Granted, it was a huge lecture hall class and our entire grade was two in-class, closed book essay tests, so your mileage may vary.
I admit that for a couple classes I was less than thrilled by I took the unethical/illegal route of buying the books, photocopying them, and returning them. This might work especially if you just want to make sure the assignments in your Calc book are the same as the ones in the old edition.
But the best advice I have (and granted, I'm just a reference desk "lackey") is to a) talk to your professors and get them to put the books on reserve and, if that fails, b) share books you buy used (and/or online) between a handful of classmates, especially if you're in a big, huge boring introductory lecture class where you're not going to want to keep the book anyway.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Frugal Weekend
This past weekend wasn't too bad financially, which is lucky since the weekend before was super splurge-y. (Meaning, last weekend we lived the way I think normal people should live--$20 on take out, $20 each on something fun, and $20-some on special beer.)
Last week I did a deal at Albertsons where I got a bunch of stuff we actually eat/use (Ragu, Knorr Lipton Noodles/Rice mixes, All detergent, Lipton Cold Brew tea) for $30 (minus coupons) and got $15 in $5 off your next grocery purchase coupons. This week I spent the last one on pasta (with expiring coupons) and cans of Kern's nectar.
CVS is having a great free-after-extra-bucks sale in Southern California until tomorrow:
Revlon ColorStay mineral mousse foundation
Aussie/Herbal Essences shampoo
Sara Lee bread
Playtex Sport tampons (free after EB and $1 coupon)
Yay! Stuff!
Otherwise, I bought milk ($2.29 at CVS, still spitting back an EB), Electrasol/Finish Quantum (the good coupon expired Sunday) and a newspaper at Walmart, and a plant for the Mr. I Freecycled a desk chair for the Mr., too.
I have no idea what I actually did this weekend aside from take a short walk at the lake and read Women's Day because I just can't get into the novel I'm reading and haven't been back to the public library to restock.
It's a vapid life but someone's got to live it.
Last week I did a deal at Albertsons where I got a bunch of stuff we actually eat/use (Ragu, Knorr Lipton Noodles/Rice mixes, All detergent, Lipton Cold Brew tea) for $30 (minus coupons) and got $15 in $5 off your next grocery purchase coupons. This week I spent the last one on pasta (with expiring coupons) and cans of Kern's nectar.
CVS is having a great free-after-extra-bucks sale in Southern California until tomorrow:
Revlon ColorStay mineral mousse foundation
Aussie/Herbal Essences shampoo
Sara Lee bread
Playtex Sport tampons (free after EB and $1 coupon)
Yay! Stuff!
Otherwise, I bought milk ($2.29 at CVS, still spitting back an EB), Electrasol/Finish Quantum (the good coupon expired Sunday) and a newspaper at Walmart, and a plant for the Mr. I Freecycled a desk chair for the Mr., too.
I have no idea what I actually did this weekend aside from take a short walk at the lake and read Women's Day because I just can't get into the novel I'm reading and haven't been back to the public library to restock.
It's a vapid life but someone's got to live it.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Death of the Literature Review?
Has this happened to you?
Student comes in looking for historic BMI or obesity data. When prodded, he says he found something from the CDC but they averaged years and it wasn't usable for him. (Had he read more about the surveys he rejected, he'd find that it wasn't so much that they "averaged" years as collected the data for the survey over time. It took longer back then.) He hadn't checked scholarly literature and once I got him to give me the most promising CDC url, clicking on a link at least gave him more data over time, and clicking on a link on that page had the data for all available years. It just happened to be raw data in SAS and he wanted a table, preferably Excel, but he was willing to experiment.
Yesterday I had a question from someone who wanted data on how much soy Asian-Americans in California consume. It's sort of odd to me that the USDA doesn't track it in their "Per Capita Consumption of Major Food Commodities" table (209 in this year's Statistical Abstract), but who in the world would possibly track food consumption by race? The closest I could find was references to a national consumer survey (Ipsos, I think) that broke respondents down into white and "other ethnicities."
What bothers me about both of these questions is that somewhere along the way folks have lost the art of following the paper trail, seeing what work's already been doing, DOING A LITERATURE REVIEW. Google Scholar makes it really easy to get too much research on a topic, and if someone hasn't worked with the dataset you want, it's probably not available in a user-friendly format (unless it's very, very new). And if they have, they'll probably tell you in their bibliography (or possibly the text) where they got it. All it takes is a little trial and error and patience.
Student comes in looking for historic BMI or obesity data. When prodded, he says he found something from the CDC but they averaged years and it wasn't usable for him. (Had he read more about the surveys he rejected, he'd find that it wasn't so much that they "averaged" years as collected the data for the survey over time. It took longer back then.) He hadn't checked scholarly literature and once I got him to give me the most promising CDC url, clicking on a link at least gave him more data over time, and clicking on a link on that page had the data for all available years. It just happened to be raw data in SAS and he wanted a table, preferably Excel, but he was willing to experiment.
Yesterday I had a question from someone who wanted data on how much soy Asian-Americans in California consume. It's sort of odd to me that the USDA doesn't track it in their "Per Capita Consumption of Major Food Commodities" table (209 in this year's Statistical Abstract), but who in the world would possibly track food consumption by race? The closest I could find was references to a national consumer survey (Ipsos, I think) that broke respondents down into white and "other ethnicities."
What bothers me about both of these questions is that somewhere along the way folks have lost the art of following the paper trail, seeing what work's already been doing, DOING A LITERATURE REVIEW. Google Scholar makes it really easy to get too much research on a topic, and if someone hasn't worked with the dataset you want, it's probably not available in a user-friendly format (unless it's very, very new). And if they have, they'll probably tell you in their bibliography (or possibly the text) where they got it. All it takes is a little trial and error and patience.
Decluttering
The back seat of my car is a mess. A horrible, embarrassing mess. There are two croquet mallets, balls, goals, and a set of wickets. There are maybe 8 or 10 reusable grocery bags. Water bottles. Half read copies of American Libraries. For a while there was a thrifted tiger suit that turned out not to fit my hubby. (It may still be there, I'm actually not sure.) I've been on a decluttering kick in the house, mostly following Marcia Francois's weekly challenges over at Organising Queen.
A few weeks ago I decluttered a pile of shirts and dresses. I was so pleased with myself I even remembered to photograph it, even if I didn't get around to posting about it then.
Unfortunately, I've been driving around with them in the car ever since, meaning to stop at Goodwill on the way to the bus stop (since it's only a few stoplights out of the way). Yesterday I noticed the Red Box in the parking lot across the street from the transit center, and, this morning, I finally dumped my stuff in!
Apparently the Red Boxes are run by U'SAGain, a textile recycling company that will package them up and sell them in the third world. I'm not sure how I feel about that (because there are so many people here--including myself--benefit from cheap thrift store clothes and do people in the third world really want to wear our cast-offs?), but I'm glad to get them out of my car and I hope someone out there can enjoy them!
A few weeks ago I decluttered a pile of shirts and dresses. I was so pleased with myself I even remembered to photograph it, even if I didn't get around to posting about it then.
Unfortunately, I've been driving around with them in the car ever since, meaning to stop at Goodwill on the way to the bus stop (since it's only a few stoplights out of the way). Yesterday I noticed the Red Box in the parking lot across the street from the transit center, and, this morning, I finally dumped my stuff in!
Apparently the Red Boxes are run by U'SAGain, a textile recycling company that will package them up and sell them in the third world. I'm not sure how I feel about that (because there are so many people here--including myself--benefit from cheap thrift store clothes and do people in the third world really want to wear our cast-offs?), but I'm glad to get them out of my car and I hope someone out there can enjoy them!
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