Taco Soup - Naked IM Professional Style

Noonie’s Taco Soup (Noonie is my mother-in-law)

Ingredients:

·         1lb ground beef or chicken (can be made with a vegetarian meat replacement)

·         1 large onion

·         3 x 15 and a ½ ounce cans of Mexican style chili beans (undrained) – can’t get those around here so I just use white and red kidney, sometimes pinto beans -whatever you fancy

·         15 ¼ ounce can corn, undrained

·         15 oz can tomato sauce

·         14 ½ oz can diced tomatoes (undrained) – I get these with chili if I can to make up for not having flavoured beans

·         4.5 oz can chopped green chiles (or jalapenos)

·         1 ¼ oz envelope of taco seasoning mix (I use hot)

·         1 oz envelope of ranch-style dressing mix

·         1 ½ cups water

toppings: tortilla chips, shredded lettuce, chopped tomato, sour cream, shredded cheese, home-made salso

Method:

Cook beef and onions in dutch oven over med-high heat until meat is browned and onions are tender, stirring until meat crumbles; drain.

Stir beans and next 7 ingredients into beef mixture; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer, uncovered, 15 munutes, stirring occasionally.

Spoon soup into bowls; top with desired toppings.

Slowcooker: brown meat etc. as above and then bung all ingredients in slow cooker

Serving Instructions - Naked IM Professional Style:

Put slow cooker on side board, at big drinking party, with bowls, spoons, napkins and toppings. Ensure all guests have lined stomachs with this fine, fine meal. While guests are eating, guzzle large quantities of wine and take new arrivals on "charming though somewhat stuttering"  tour of house (do not absorb a morsel yourself). When guests are satiated take them downstairs to recreation room for quiz, dancing, pool whatever (keep drinking wine). Eventually pass out on girlfriend of youngest employee (owing to lack of food and great quantities of wine), be put in bed by husband who continues to run the party. Next morning wake with minor headache and great appetite - scrape remaining soup from dark edges of slow cooker (which has not been turned off all night) - enjoy while deciding how to "frame" the "turn" of the night before. ;-)

 

 

 

 

All Your Base Are Belong To Us - From the CBO Radio Archives - The Naked IM Professional When She Was CBC Radio's Internet Maven

Feeling a Little Unhip These Days - Try out a little
"All Your Base Are Belong To Us"

June 5th, 2001
Lindsay Fraser

Introduction
Today I am treading into the waters of my esteemed colleague Alan Neal by discussing an Internet trend, phenomenon, whatever you want to call it, called "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" also referred to as "AYB".

Unlike Alan Neal, who I understand is very cool, I am finding myself extremely uncool these days. Is it age, is it my job, is it the very nature of motherhood that affects my coolness factor? I don't know.

All I do know is that I sound, look, feel and am, very uncool. To paraphrase that colourful wordsmith, Zaphod Beeblebrox of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", "I'm so unhip, it's a wonder my bum doesn't fall off."

Perhaps because of this lack in myself, when I recently came across an obscure reference to a funky and seemingly cool Internet fad, I was immediately intrigued. In an effort to demonstrate the coolness I have found through knowing about something that you, dear listeners, may not yet be aware of, I have decided to devote this program to sharing with you this fad so that you too may go to your colleagues, partners and children and demonstrate your "hipness" or is that "hippidity"?.

Background
Perhaps you have heard someone utter the phrase "All Your Base Are Belong To Us"? Perhaps you have seen a T-shirt emblazoned with this bizarre and syntactically incorrect phrase? Perhaps you have received in your email, or seen on a Web site, a photograph of something ordinary like a highway sign or an airplane carrying the phrase "All Your Base Are Belong To Us"? If you have then you are not alone. Proliferating throughout the Internet are hundreds of cleverly adjusted photographs carrying this phrase. In fact you can now buy "AYB" t-shirts, canvas bags and mugs and you may even find your favourite manufacturer or retailer using the phrase but what, pray tell, does it mean?

Everyone has their personal interpretation of the nonsensical line but the general consensus is that it is an in-your-face way of saying "I own you. I've just beaten the pants off you." Another possibility is "I'm not really sure what I am talking about, but I sound hip" and my personal favourite "you are a total lamer for not understanding what I'm saying, although I'm not sure what I just said either".

Well, as the story goes, in 1989 (yes, 89), a now-defunct Japanese company called Toaplan released a video game called "Zero Wing" intended for the coin-operated arcade market. This, by all accounts, eminently forgettable game was later sold in Europe for Sega console machines. As is the case with many video games, the creators attempted to make up for the lackluster appearance of the interactive game proper by creating a sexy multimedia introduction that brings the player into the gaming environment. When the game was shipped overseas the manufacturer could not afford to professionally translate the introduction so the game, in English at least, featured that very special sort of English that the Japanese have long been known for (just think about the instruction manuals for Japanese products that you have had to decode before installing or building the product). With no professional translator, Zero Wing's Japanese-English shift turned the multimedia introduction into a grammatically challenged series of animated silliness. While the villain Cats snarls in Japanese "Thanks to the co-operation of the U.N. Forces, we've taken over all of your bases" the enemy's threats in English are reduced to a mere "All your base are belong to us".

Years later, some sources claim 1998, the first "all your base" sighting was made on the Internet. In no time the phrase began to spread both online and off. Apparently gamers starting "shouting" it (typing it all in caps) while playing online group computer games while others started adding it to their email signature files. Fans of "Zero Wing" began talking about it on electronic bulletin boards, the more rabid among them began posting digital photos that they had modified by inserting the "all your base" phrase in random spots.
The images proliferated - Budweiser-girl ads, airline fuselages, mug shots of Bill Gates, O.J. Simpson, commemorative plaques, Surgeon General's cigarette package warnings and fortune cookie fortunes - All digitally emblazoned with vaguely sinister slogans from "Zero Wing". Soon photos were appearing all over the Internet, and in email boxes, making it look like the whole world - from street signs, to advertising, to presidential billboards for George W. Bush - was in on the fad.

By early 2001 the "in-joke" had made it into the mainstream. An animated slideshow, featuring the game intro, was made available at the official fan site . Then Kansas City computer programmer and part-time deejay, Jeffrey Ray Roberts, sampled the quote and layered it over a dance track. According to Roberts he did it for the inside joke value and as a bit of one-up-man-ship. Roberts was soon one-upped by a member of the TribalWar game site who created a two minute music video pairing the techno tune with a healthy selection of the altered photos. Instead of using a regular bandwidth sucking video format the file was created as a slide show (in .swf format) and could be loaded in seconds. At the end of this May (we have heard) much of the spreading of the word was being done by dotcom workers in Silicon Valley.

How mainstream has it become, this underground joke? In the last few months the message has begun appearing on T-shirts and posters, tucked alongside the ads for the upcoming "Tomb Raider" movie and hidden inside new video games. The "all you base" line is well into its proverbial 15 minutes, as conservative and stodgy companies such as KMART and Hewlett-Packard are picking up on the trend. HP has been using images from the video game in advertising. KMART, until last week on its Bluelight.com Web site, allows for the user to search for "all your base are belong to us" and then presents to the user the full-blown multimedia file. You might wonder what purpose serving up that file serves. While KMART is not selling the file, the original video game or even "AYB" promotional material, it is making an attempt to be cool, hip and geeky. What KMART has done that is interesting is that it has customized its recommendation engine which normally says "if you like this, you might like these even more" to say "Other geeks that know about 'all your base are belong to us' also bought:". Needless to say the "other geeks" bought pretty predictable stuff - video games, digital cameras and MP3 players.

While KMART was making the file available last week it is no longer doing so - though if you search on "all your base are belong to us" you do get the recommendation engine's response instead of a simple "sorry, no results found". Why they have pulled the file is up for speculation. Were too many people hitting the site for that file alone? Was it slowing down their service? Or, and this is my suspicion, has someone been on to KMART and asked what right they have to publish the file?

One wonders how many mainstream companies have attempted to track down the creators of "AYB" to licence the slogan for commercial use? As marketers know, this sort of phenomenon (referred to as a meme "a unit of cultural information, such as a culture, practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.") cannot be intentionally manufactured. A great example is last year's Wazzzup commercials for Budweiser beer. Apparently the marketing types behind the promotion thought they were launching "true, true" as the Budweiser catchphrase/slogan. They, in fact, had no idea what they had until it took off. A meme, it seems, truly does evade manufacture.

Internet memes are of course, not new. Many who have received the file and examined the phenomenon have found it to be not unlike the dancing baby video that was passed around the Internet for months on end before it truly hit the mainstream when it was used on television's Ally McBeal. Another example was the ridiculous "I Kiss You!" home page of a Turkish journalist. The question is, whether anyone can take that freely distributed file and idea and truly make it work for themselves in a commercial, big-business context?

Conclusion
So here I am at the end of my exploration of the "AYB" phenomenon. While very interesting from a cultural perspective, and while I will be on guard for veiled references to it in advertising, I am sad to report that knowing about it hasn't made me cool.

In fact, my digging around has revealed that in sharing the "in-joke" with a broad audience at such a late date in its existence, I am probably about as uncool as I can be. This particular meme has slipped in and out of popularity multiple times in the last year. When the popularity has dropped, another magazine article makes reference to "AYB", the uninitiated find out about it and send on to all their friends and relatives the story of "Zero Wing" at which point the popularity of the meme peaks again. According to some Internet histories of "All Your Base" the phenomenon is pronounced dead several times every day, yet its 15 minutes of fame continue for some reason. Sooner or later though there will be a line in a major network sitcom, at which the mass audience will be expected to chuckle knowlingly, and perhaps then the "hip, counter-culture, in-joke" will be put to rest.

Lindsay Fraser is a Senior e-Solutions Strategist for Burntsand Inc. and all your base are belong to her. She can be reached at lfraser@burntsand.com or by telephone at 613-940-2172.

2013 - Lindsay Fraser is the Naked IM Professional and can be reached through this blog.

Gustav Klimt - From the CBO Radio Archives - The Naked IM Professional When She Was CBC Radio's Internet Maven

Enhance your Experience of the National Gallery's Klimt Exhibit - Use The Internet.

June 19th, 2001
Lindsay Fraser

Introduction

On the cusp of the eighties and the nineties, I had the wonderful opportunity of living in Vienna for a couple of years. Our first apartment fell through at the last minute and we had to house-sit for the first few months of our time in Vienna. The house that we "sat on" was in fact a penthouse apartment (or dachboden) situated in the heart of Vienna's first district. The couple who lived in this apartment loved Vienna, and in particular they loved the work of Gustave Klimt. The entranceway to the apartment sported an enormous reproduction of Klimt's work Judith I (known to many as Judith und Holofernes). Their living room held an equally enormous reproduction of the extremely well known "The Kiss". Now everyone needs to recall that this was before Klimt's work became a mainstay of poster shops in the mid Nineties.

Given this background, how could I be anything but ecstatic when I heard on the radio that the National Gallery of Canada was about to hold an exhibit of Klimt's work?

Background

As of the 15th of June, the National Gallery of Canada is featuring an exhibit of the works of Gustav Klimt. The exhibit features 35 paintings and 90 drawings and is the first retrospective of the artist's work to be held in North America. In addition to the exhibit, there will be numerous events and activities including a number of really interesting looking lectures with titles like "Gustav Klimt: Modernism in the Making" and "Cosmos and Pysche: Klimt, Mahler, and the artists of the Kunstschau". If this sounds a little too intellectual for you then you might want to attend the "Klimt Fashion Show" by students of the Richard Robinson Academy of Fashion Design. If none of the above is to your taste then how about a Klimt inspired concert series? On the National Gallery Web site you can visit a "visual preview" of the exhibit which will give you a taste of some of the works you will see. I noticed that Pallas Athene, which is a glorious painting, is just one of the works in this exhibit that is on loan from the Art History Museum in Vienna. There is also a section of the Web site, that I was very excited about, called "Behind the Scenes". Sadly this section is completely empty, but promises that some time in June there will be interviews with the National Gallery Creative Team about the making of the Klimt exhibition. This should be a very interesting section, as I understand that it was quite a challenge to put this exhibit together.

Though the National Gallery site was beautifully designed, it was disappointing in that it served only to promote its own exhibit and events. I had hoped that there would be biographical information about Klimt and perhaps information about his influence on the art of his time. Sadly there was nothing of the sort, not even links to other locations on the Internet for such information. This lack, is likely a reflection of the problem that the National Gallery currently has with so much of its staff out on strike. So I was compelled to sneak off to search tools such as Yahoo and Google to find out what I could about this great man.

Online Galleries of Klimt's Work

In looking for a site on the Internet that would take me on a tour of all of Klimt's work, I came across a very interesting site called the Gustav Klimt Art Gallery . (I must, as an aside, mention that this site is a personal Web site and it sits on a Magma.ca server - Magma is an Ottawa-based Internet provider.) This site features 114 works painted by Klimt between 1890 and 1918. The works are sorted thematically and each image can be selected for a larger view along with a modicum of information. I particularly liked the section about the extremely famous Beethoven frieze, of which I had only seen little bits before. Here each section of the frieze has been broken out with a short explanation of the associated symbolism. The great disappointment about this Web site is that there seems to be some limit on the number of bytes that can be transferred from that site in a 30 minute period. After only looking at about a third of what the site had to offer I was given a message that read "this website has exceeded its 30 minute transfer allotment".

For more sites that feature a gallery of Klimt's work try the Web Museum , or the Artcyclopedia site which provides links to over 30 sites that feature the works of Gustav Klimt.

The Stories Behind the Paintings

I had always thought of the painting of Judith und Holofernes as simply a portrait of a glorious, seductive and provocative woman resplendent in gold. It was my mother who pointed out to me, in disgust at my total ignorance of the biblical reference, that the painting was of something else altogether. A little research on the Internet taught me that Judith was a rich widow, known for her beauty and respected for her devotion to God. When her town of Bethulia was besieged by the Assyrian army under Holofernes, Judith deceived Holofernes with a false report about the situation in her town. Invited to a private party with Holofernes, she waited until he got drunk and chopped his head off. The next day Bethulian soldiers, armed with the head of the enemy's commander, drove the Assyrian army away. Wow, what an ugly story! Revisiting the painting, knowing the story, I now see an exhausted yet self-satisfied woman incompletely clad no doubt as a result of having to submit to Holofernes "private party". I also notice that the arm, bent at the elbow and crossing her body to a blurred and darkened area of the painting actually holds, at the very edge of the canvas, the bloody and hairy head of a man.

Interestingly there is a second painting by Klimt called "Judith II". This painting seems also to be known by the name "Salome" and it also depicts a partially clad, dark haired beauty, clasping the severed head of John the Baptist. Again though, the head is only partially exposed on the canvas and largely obscured by shadow.

History of The Man

"If you cannot please everyone with your art, please a few. To please many is bad."

Dramatist Schiller

- included in the Klimt work, "Nuda Veritas".

Klimt was a painter of frescos, of landscapes, of portraits and of themes as well as a prodigious sketcher. In his early days, Klimt painted frescos in such Viennese landmarks as the Burgtheatre and the Museum of Fine Arts. In those days, working with his brother, his art was very much "historicist" in flavour. Later though, as his style and personal ethos changed, his work carried much deeper messages and began to cause eyebrows to raise. In fact, his paintings of "philosophy" and "medicine" evoked such a storm of protest that he withdrew himself from a commission he had already been given to paint frescos at Vienna University. (The university Congress conducted a poll and Klimt was condemned for "pornography" and "excessive perversion".) This intense opposition did not intimidate Klimt. In his next work, called Goldfish, the foreground was dominated by one of his typically gorgeous and sensuous women showing her backside to the audience - it is said that he wanted to call the painting "To My Critics".

As time progressed Klimt became more and more of a radical and, in 1897, together with other rebellious young painters, architects and decorators, he founded a movement in Vienna called the Association of the Secession of Pictorial Artists (referred to now as the Secession). The movement was called "Secessionist" because these young artists began by "seceding" from the traditional Artists' Association which they considered too "official" and mediocre, and from the esthetic of historicism favored by Emporer Franz-Joseph which they considered thoroughly decadent. In 1905, after endless arguing between the "artists" and the "builders" (who wanted to merge art and practical items for the purposes of business) Klimt stepped down as President of the association.

The Austrian Tourist board maintains an excellent Web site that provides an introduction to "Art Nouveau in Austria". It is an interesting site for the Klimt fan because it does a good job of introducing the neophyte to the history of Art Nouveau (known as Jugendstil) within the Viennese context. In addition to Klimt, the site features short biographies and featured works of such influential artists and artisans as Otto Wagner, Kolomon Moser, Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka and Josef Hoffman. I also particularly enjoyed the section of the site called "In The Footsteps of Jugendstil in Austria". Here you can see photographs of some of the major Art Nouveau-influenced buildings around Austria. I particularly enjoyed the collection of photographs (http://www.austria-tourism.at/eindex/jugendstil.html) of most of my favourite places in Vienna. If I have any complaint about this site it is that the information is on the light side (I would have liked more detail) and the photographs are rather small.

In search of better photographs of Vienna, and the Secession building in particular, I found an excellent site with gorgeous photographs called simply "Welcome to Vienna". All of the photographs on this site can be clicked on in order to pull up a larger version of the image. If you have never seen the Wiener Secession building I highly recommend these photographs - they are gorgeous - and in seeing the building you will suddenly understand the influence of, and the influences on, Klimt.

For more information about Klimt and the Secession visit the following article hosted at the "Birth of Modern Europe" site. Here you will find many other short articles about Vienna, its history and its culture.

You may also be interested in seeing what has happened to Klimt's Secession. The Wiener Secession Web site can be found at http://www.secession.at/e.html. Here you are able to find out what the Secession Association of Artists is doing today, look into upcoming exhibitions and read a little of the history of Klimt's famous Beethoven Frieze.

The Best Klimt Site on the Internet

Of all the sites I found on the Internet that related to Klimt, the "hands down" winner in terms of appearance, mood and information was iKlimt . This is a fantastic full multi -media site (you need Flash I believe) featuring a chronology, biography, drawings and paintings from Klimt's life.

If you work your way through all of the paintings in the iKlimt gallery, you will come to a final painting called "The Bride". This unfinished painting was left on an easel in his studio and found after his death. It is a very interesting exercise to take the magnifying tool that is built into this gorgeous Web site and look in great detail at the unfinished areas, with the sketches behind them, trying to determine where Klimt was going to take the painting. If you read the excellent biography of Klimt at the same site, you will find that Klimt in fact painted women nude before covering them with clothes. This "secret" was revealed after his death when "The Bride" was discovered.

Another work that I had never seen but found on the iKlimt site, is a beautiful canvas called "Women Friends" that portrays a lesbian couple. Apparently, this work was one of many of Klimt's pieces that were destroyed by retreating German troops in 1945.

Because of their bold colours and "Art Nouveau" look, Klimt's works are often seen as purely decorative, eye candy as much as anything else. It has been my experience that if they are investigated in sufficient detail many of his seemingly innocuous works do in fact contain much more macabre and serious messages.

Looking through the chronologically organized painting gallery on the iKlimt site, which is accompanied by the most beautiful and moving piano music of Erik Satie (Third Gymnopedie), you can see a change in his paintings. One of the last paintings shown is called Death and Life, which he in fact began in an earlier period but when he returned to it he painted over that signature gold background and replaced it with a black background. In this painting a column of human figures, ranging from a young mother and children to a grandmother to a man in his prime, are all confronted with a terrifying anthropomorphic rendering of Death. Similarly the painting Hope (which is in fact owned by the National Gallery of Canada), while featuring a beautifully pregnant red-headed woman in the foreground, depicts disturbing images of pain and death and sorrow in the background.

I cannot suggest strongly enough that if you are interested in Gustav Klimt you should visit this site. The detailed biography contains photographs of his birth house, his passport, his grave, his friends, his loves and more. The chronology is a fascinating discovery of the man and how he was influenced by his time.

Conclusion

If the exhibit and the background material available on the Internet is not enough for you then you might want to go and see a new film called Bride of the Wind. This film set in turn of the century Vienna, while not about Klimt exactly, is about Alma Schindler, the woman who at various times was involved with Mahler, Klimt, Kokoschka and others. For a review see http://www.canoe.ca/JamMoviesReviewsB/brideofthewind_braun-sun.html .

Lindsay Fraser is a Senior e-Solutions Strategist for Burntsand Inc. and great appreciator of Gustav Klimt. She can be reached at lfraser@burntsand.com or by telephone at 613-940-2172.

2013 - Lindsay Fraser is The Naked IM Professional and can be reached through this blog.

Books Online - From the CBO Radio Archives - The Naked IM Professional When She Was CBC Radio's Internet Maven

Books, Glorious, Used, Dirty (and Possibly Valuable) Books

May 22, 2001
Lindsay Fraser

Introduction
With the garage sale season looming, many of you may already be making plans for treasure hunting. My particular favourite is going through all those dusty, dirty boxes of old books and finding gems, particularly children's books, from the past. How do you know, when you find one of these classics, if it has any value? Use the Internet of course.

 

Background
Recently, at a garage sale, a friend in California bought a big, old volume of Shakespeare's works for her husband for 99 cents. She got home and checked the value of the book on the Internet and discovered it was worth $800. How about that?

 

Well it so happens that when I was in California I went to an event called a "swap meet". Like an outdoor flea market this "swap meet" featured many stalls selling everything from hair pieces, to socks, to art painted on glass to Harley Davidson kid's clothes. At the only book stall, I bought a children's picture book for me, not my daughter (this book has real paper pages and not the cardboard and vinyl pages she is accustomed to). This book, which looked rather interesting to me, is called "The Bunny Book", was published in 1955 and was written by a woman called Patsy Scarry (recognize that last name). Well it was also illustrated by a much more famous Scarry, Richard. Richard Scarry almost all of us know from the endless series of "small animals at work" books that he has published under the heading "The Busy World Of Richard Scarry". In this particular book you can see the very beginnings of his so totally recognizable style. I wondered, from the moment of picking it up, if I had found a "special" book.

I have decided, for the purpose of this radio show, to use the Internet to find out more about his book, and its author, to see whether I had found myself a .99 cent "treasure". I am not as shallow and avaricious as you all might think. I am planning on getting full enjoyment out of this pursuit of knowledge so have deliberately chosen not to go straight to a site to value the book. Instead I will wend my way around the Internet looking for all sorts of information that will help me understand the potential of my purchase.

Because I'd like to know a little about Richard Scarry - for example how old he was when he illustrated this book - I started by going to Yahoo and performed a search on his name. My search brought back links to many sites along with a category link at Yahoo for children's authors - this immediately told me his age as his category is called Richard Scarry (1919 to 1994). How about that then? He was 36 when he illustrated my book.

Visiting his category I elected to visit a biographical page about Scarry that was called Richard Scarry Fundamentals. Here I discovered that he married in 1949 and illustrated his first book in 1951 (not too soon before my book - oh, the excitement mounts). The biographer points out that Scarry underwent a lot of criticism for his gender stereotyping - animals in dresses always doing women's jobs, animals in pants always doing male jobs. Well, I have read "The Bunny Book" and I can tell you right now that it is definitely charmingly dated.

Visiting another Scarry bio at The Lowly Worm Zone, I was disappointed to note that in 1953 (two years before my book) he had his first major success with "Richard Scarry's Best Word Book Ever".

My third biographical site on the Books and Writers Web site (which looks very professional) proves to be quite illuminating. Furthermore, the information here completely contradicts that which I have read so far. Here I am told that his first book was published in 1949 and that his breakthrough book "Richard Scarry's Best Word Book Ever" was released in 1963 not 1953. Oh, I'm still in with an outside chance I think. It says that in the 1950s he illustrated and wrote for Little Golden Books (that's what mine is) and that several of his books were written by either Kathryn Jackson or Patsy Scarry. According to the biographer "Gradually his animal characters started to behave more like real people, and the drawing became much looser in style." Which certainly makes sense if you can see the illustrations in my book. In a Selected Works list I am disappointed to find that 17 books preceded "The Bunny Book".

In the final biography I visited I discovered another fascinating fact which confirms in my mind the significance of this illustrator. In 1955 Scarry illustrated a book called Smokey the Bear and his illustration determined the appearance of what would go on to become a huge national icon for fire safety. Who knew?

Moving away from biographical information, and wanting to know more about old books in general, I found an excellent FAQ file (Frequently Asked Questions) called Your Old Books . This file, which is hosted by the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of the American Library Association, is full of excellent information such as what makes a book rare or important. I notice they have a question "what is the difference between a rare book and a second-hand book?" Unfortunately the answer is "a second-hand book is a used book that is not distinguished by its edition, provenance, binding, or overall condition; its retail price generally is quite modest. " Also "books found in attics, basements, and yard sales often appear to be old, interesting, or valuable to people unfamiliar with the vast numbers of books that survive from earlier centuries." Hmmm, this could easily be me.

I thought the following, from the FAQ, was an interesting set of dates to be kept in mind while book sale shopping for rare books - look for books printed before 1501, English books printed before 1641, books printed in the Americas before 1801 and books printed west of the Mississippi before 1850.

More good news for my book was discovered in the FAQ as condition is a determining factor in a book's value. Condition refers to external appearance and internal completeness. A book in "fine" condition is complete in all respects, has no tears, or other signs of misuse or overuse and is in an original, appropriate and intact binding. Phew, good thing I have been keeping this book away from my daughter the marauder because the book is in excellent condition, even at the edges that typically get quite frayed on a Golden Book.

The FAQ also provided a very interesting list of old books that are typically not rare, they include: bibles, collected editions of author's works, encyclopedias, and textbooks. Also I discovered that though many people fuss about first editions, most books only appear in one edition so that is no great indicator of value. In fact I looked at The Bunny Book and it looks to me like it is a first edition.

Excited, I was now ready to try to get a price on my book. I visited a site called the Bookmine which specializes in old books. Here I looked up their index of available children's books and found a Richard Scarry worth $50. Upon reading the description I found that this book, which dates from 1967, was a first edition (which we know may mean nothing) and that it is a "near fine copy" that has suffered "very light wear".

I then visited a site called Abooksearch.com which specializes in out of print, old and rare books. Their search engine searches the databases and Web sites of thousands of booksellers. Here I entered into their search engine the author's name and the title of my book. Much to my surprise they actually had a copy of "The Bunny Book" for sale. The copy they have is a first edition, like mine, is from a private collection and is "tight, crisp and clean" and has never been read. They claim it comes from a Whitman employee estate (whatever that means) and that it is "unfaded, like it was printed yesterday" (so is mine). The asking price for this book is, are you ready for it, $43.75 US. Yippee, I only paid .99 cents US - talk about a good return on investment!

Further scrolling down the page, at abooksearch.com, proved rather disheartening as they in fact have about 50 listings for "The Bunny Book" ranging in price from $43.75 to $15.00. I soon realized that this book had actually been produced in numerous editions and that I didn't understand what "A" printing meant or what 8vo meant so that in order to properly understand what I had, I would have to do more research. One of the descriptions indicated a source called "The Little Golden Books Guide".

A quick trip to Yahoo and a search on "Golden Books" brought me a link to the Golden Books Web site at. This site is primarily designed for kids (the readers of Golden Books). To get background information on the company you have to go into the "Parents and Teachers" section and then select from across the top of that page, in very small text "About Golden". I found out that in 1907 two brothers bought a company called West Side Printing for $2,504. In 1910 the firm changed their name to Western Printing and Lithographing Company. Well, my copy of "The Bunny Book" was in fact printed by this firm. As a result of a business deal that went wrong Western acquired a publishing company and created a division called Whitman Publishing. Even more interesting, as that copy of the book that I found at $43 US, was described as being "Old Whitman stock from an employee estate" - which would explain why it was never read. Turns out that Whitman and Western struck a deal in the 30s to create books around Disney characters (the first one being Bambi). These were sufficiently successful that the Golden Book line was introduced in 1942 - 42 page hardcover books for children that sold for 25 cents each.

All of this information from Golden Books was great but it still hadn't answered my questions about what 8vo and "A" printing meant. I decided to visit my friend Norm's recommended site called The Advanced Book Exchange (http://www.abe.com). At this site I went into the "Help" section and was presented with a glossary of terms that covered such subjects as book sizes and book condition.

Browsing through the alphabetical listings in the glossary I found out that 8vo (also known as octavo) refers to a book of about 5 inches wide and 8 inches tall to about 6 by 9 inches. So I now know that the book in my possession is also an 8vo (like the $43 book).

In the section about book condition I found that condition of a book is usually expressed in the form of VG/VG, Fine/Good, VG/--, etc. The first part is the condition of the book, the second is the condition of the dust jacket. If a "/--" is present, it usually means that the dustjacket is not present. The $43 book is expressed as Fine/None as Issued. My book also does not have a dust jacket and I would be surprised if one was ever issued. The expression "Fine" means that the book approaches the condition of "As New", but without being crisp. For the use of the term "Fine", there must also be no defects, etc., and if the jacket has a small tear, or other defect, or looks worn, this should be noted. "As New" can only be used if the book is in the same immaculate condition to which it was published. There can be no defects, no missing pages, no library stamps, etc., and the dustjacket (if it was issued with one) must be perfect, without any tears. My book appears to my untrained eye to be "Fine" as the cover is just the tiniest bit dirty (fingerprints really, sadly I suspect they are my own).

I also found reference in this glossary to grading but I note that the grading is for paperbacks though the book I have in my possession is a hard cover book. The $43 book is described as "A" or First Edition. The glossary says that "A" grade is basically an unread book. "No book store stamps on the edges, inside the front cover, etc. The book is as close to perfect as possible. These are typically very difficult to find for older books written in the 1980s and near impossible for those in the 1970s and earlier." My book certainly has no stamps anywhere and has hardly ever been read but it has been read - if not by the previous owner then certainly by me and my daughter.

So where am I now after all this effort? I know I have a book worth more than 99 cents. I may have a book worth as much as $43 US (if of course I could privately find a buyer willing to pay that much). I know a little bit more about books and a little bit more about what to look for in a "used" book. I sure did have a lot of fun though.

My friend Norm has been a big fan of online used book services for a number of years now. In university he discovered a book by A. N. Wilson called "Gentlemen in England". In 1986 he loaned the book to someone and it never came back to him. In the 90s he went to England twice and kept going to used book stores expecting he would be able to find this book as it was fairly recent (1985) though it was out of print. In his search for the book he discovered that every year there is an annual used book show in the Congress Centre - he went to the show but couldn't find the book. He then saw an article in the Citizen about the number of used books dealers who were getting out of the bricks and mortar business and going online. They provided the URL for a site called the Advanced Book Exchange which he found very easy to use. He searched their database of thousands of booksellers for his book and was astonished to see 15 listings come up in the $30 to $40 price range. He ordered a copy for 22 pounds sterling (including the book and shipping costs). He was thrilled with the result. You know, this was the first e-commerce transaction he had ever performed.

My friend Norm is also a small-time collector of books. In fact he has over 2,000 hardcover books and he regularly surveys prices online and establishes the value of his own collection - he has found that he has some $20 books that are in fact worth more than $100, just as he has found that some books for which he paid $40 are actually worth about $5.

Norm points out that if you are going to buy books online you should remember the old adage "caveat emptor" - because you are at the mercy of the integrity of the seller. He points out that some used book sites, like the Advanced Book Exchange, do have generous return policies and that you should look for such guarantees before buying. On a more positive note, he has ordered 5 books online and all of them have been in better condition than described.

 

Conclusion
Norm really feels that the advent of services such as the Advanced Book Exchange changes the very nature of used book buying. Gone are the days of trailing into every used book store you see in search of that elusive title. Sites like the Advanced Book Exchange not only tell you of the world-wide availability of your desired book - they also allow you to comparison shop for price and condition. From my perspective (that of hunting for undervalued treasures) the advent of used book buying, selling and trading on the Internet really removes that likelihood that you are going to find a "treasure" in a used book store. The bookseller's themselves are now able to use the Internet to easily determine the price that they should place on a book so it is highly unlikely that you'll ever get a deal on a rare book at a used book store. It looks like it's going to have to be garage sales and flea markets where you'll find your book deals in the future.

Lindsay Fraser is a Senior e-Solutions Strategist for Burntsand Inc. and owns a copy of Patsy Scarry's "The Bunny Book" (first edition, Fine/--, 8vo). She can be reached at lfraser@burntsand.com or by telephone at 613-940-2172.

 

2103 - Lindsay Fraser is now the Naked IM Professional and can be reached through this blog.

Career Guidance - Naked IM Professional Style

Unlike my esteemed colleagues who ride bicycles to support cancer causes and otherwise use their annual volunteer day for noble and charitable causes, I tend to randomly use volunteer hours in community-based activities.

Last Spring I received an email from the elementary school indicating that the Grade 7 and 8 students were having a career day and were interested in hearing about the following careers:
·         Manicurist
·         Fireman
·         Engineer
·         Doctor
·         Etc.

This is a favourite old hobby-horse of mine (dating from my triumphant university graduation after which I had no career direction or prospects) which I willingly mounted again. I noted that whether young people are in the 4^th grade, 8^th grade or the 12^th grade they typically know of only a handful of careers – those of their parents, those on their favourite television shows (vampire executioner) and those they learned of in Richard Scarry books ( e.g. the raccoon postman, the bear nurse).

With a conversation recently held with a new hire to our firm clearly in mind I proposed a session entitled “How Do You Prepare For The Career You Don’t Know Exists”. This young man had expressed, only a few weeks earlier, that he was so lucky to have a found a great job, and one related to his studies (Masters of Library and Information Science). He confided to me that things were different “today” and that almost none of his friends had found work in their chosen academic fields. Presumably he meant not like in “my day” where we all went off to school and were handed a job on a silver platter by virtue of having completed a degree program. You can be sure that I set him straight on that one. I pointed out the range of academic qualifications in our strategic consulting firm of 16 people which include, but are not limited to:
·         journalism and quantum physics
·         classics and humanities
·         public administration
·         documentary film making
·         English literature
·         history
·         science
·         aeronautical engineering
·         mechanical engineering
·         geography
·         5 Masters of Library and Information Science
·         Master of Science
·         Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in biology
·         Master of Business Administration

I told him that almost no-one that I went to school with works in a career related to their qualifications. Similarly, I told the Career Day Co-ordinator that I wanted to talk to students about how to prepare for anything that might come, instead of preparing for a career that may not even exist by the time they are ready to embark upon it.

Shockingly she agreed to my presentation, with great enthusiasm in fact, and I decided that if this effort was to be useful for me and for Systemscope, that I would use the opportunity to learn the basics of a new online presentation tool I’d recently been shown called Prezi.com.

When the big day came, I entered a sweltering classroom of sullen and awkward teenagers who eventually loosened up and, I am told (by my spies), enjoyed the presentation. My favourite part was when the young girl in the front row, upon reading my list of high school jobs yelled out aghast “You were a stripper?” To which I had to respond “No darling, double p would be stripper, I worked in a hospital.”

To see the presentation please visit the following address:
http://prezi.com/fnrzgyuhmby5/copy-of-career-development-how-to-prepare-for-the-career-you-dont-know-exists/

Was it volunteer time well spent? I wasn’t really sure (of course, this certainly isn’t Kidney Research Fundraising) until I received a thank-you card from the school that read: “Thank you so much for taking time to volunteer today at Huntley Centennial. Our Intermediates’  have had a wonderful learning experience with you. The effort and time you have taken out of your schedule to help mould our students into career-minded young adults is invaluable to our future community.” Awwwww

Jinny's Cheese Biscuits

These are the best savoury "cookies" you will ever taste. The recipe comes from my pal Jinny, another IM Professional though not naked. They make a beautiful Naked IM Professional meal with a bottle of cold white wine. Enjoy.

My Neighbour, Jinny Freeland’s Amazing Cheese Biscuit (Cookie) Recipe 

 

Fun Fact: a two day job but well worth thinking ahead - these hard biscuits go beautifully with a bottle of white wine

«««««««««« This was the biscuit I prepared for our work 2011 Xmas Cookie Exchange – it was very popular – no one expected a savoury biscuit. They go fast and kids love them too so I make a double batch each time ««««««««««

Ingredients:

·         1 cup all purpose flour

·         1/2 tsp baking powder

·         1/2 tsp salt

·         1/4 tsp cayenne

·         1/2 cup cold butter cut into small pieces

·         2 cups grated extra-old cheddar (I use the 3 yr Baldersons)

·         3-4 tbsp ice cold water

·         1/4 cup poppy seeds or black or white toasted sesame seeds.

 

Method:

Put flour, baking powder, salt and cayenne in a food processor with metal blade (or a bowl).  Whirl till combined.  Add butter and cheese and pulse until evenly combined and mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Pulsing machine, drizzle in 3 tbsp cold water. Dough should begin to clump together.  Get in there with the hands and make a ball.

 

Gather dough and shape into a log, about 1 1/2 inches in diameter.  Spread poppy seeds on waxed paper. Roll log in poppy seeds to thoroughly coat. Wrap log in plastic wrap and refrigerate until very firm (at least 4 hours but preferably overnight).

 

(One day later)...

Preheat oven to 400; reach for your non-stick cookie sheet.

Thinly slice log into 1/4 inch slices.  Place on baking sheet and bake in preheated oven until golden-orange (about 9-12 mins).  Cool on wire rack.

 

(Twenty minutes later)

Pour large glass of wine.  Eat about 15 biscuits drinking wine and watching Corrie. Bring rest to favourite neighbour.