Holiday party plans

This is amusing. We've been letting the library staff Christmas/New Year party creep later and later. Three years ago, it became a Chinese New Year party, in fact. This started from the idea that it was just too hard to find a date when everyone could make it during the holidays. Two years ago it came around Presidents Day in February. Last year (or early this year, if you like) it somehow never happened at all. So this year we are having a National Novel Writing Month Party in November. This is sort of like the state's library grant budget, which has been creeping later and later every year, until this year the check arrived about eight months late.

Anyway, it should be fun all the same. This year the party will center around "Authors and their books." We will have a trivia quiz with multiple choice answers and prizes. (Not my idea, but then someone said "Gary will get them all anyway, so he can make the quiz." Boo. The curse of being "the reference librarian" I suppose.) Options include bringing a pot luck dish that was mentioned in a novel, or had a recipe given in a novel. (Like Water for Chocolate anyone?) Another option is to dress as a character from a familiar book and let people guess who you are. I think much merriment can be expected. I said I would wear the Argos costume and represent White Fang except that I can't imagine eating goodies while wearing all that spotless white fur. ;p

I guess the trivia quiz will include things like "Name the first novel submitted to the publisher as a typewritten manuscript" or "Which of these 'trilogies' actually does have just three books, no more and no less?" I'll welcome any clever suggestions. The questions should not be too obscure or difficult, or I'll be tarred and feathered for my trouble.

In other news, I've had an open problem with a software vendor for over six months. They have not fixed all the aspects of it, and in fact some of their attempts have generated new issues. Every so often one of their tech support drones comes along and tries to close it "because it has been open too long without action." They did that again Monday and I reopened it, using some rather strong language about how my opinions of the company and their support had fallen over the edge as a result of this thing. That finally got some action. The manager of their technical support group called me today and we talked for almost an hour. She now understands some of the issues and where the company failed to communicate properly or failed to respond appropriately. She promised to act to keep these things from happening again to others, and is reassigning our problem to herself. Unfortunately, some of the issues are related to incorrect information having been given to us about a software upgrade, and I don't think there is a satisfactory way to resolve them unless I suddenly get a miracle budget grant to buy half a dozen newer PCs. There also is an issue about some "hardware guy" at the company using the excuse that "Dell hardware doesn't work right," which is simply an excuse that won't fly. They are in the business of selling software and support to a market that is dominated by Dell. They jolly well better figure out what their problem is with Dell hardware and fix it (if in fact there is such a problem, which I very much doubt.) Trying to blame a problem on Dell is the same as trying to blame it on Microsoft. You can say it as loud and as often as you want, but no one will be paying attention. If their software doesn't work on Dell, they are cutting off their own appendages.

Thunder in the distance? Yup. Latest weather forecast says scattered thunderstorms on the way, and I see some on the radar heading toward us. Time to post this and shut down.