Once when I was 17 and in NYC with my class, we ditched a trip to the Statue of Liberty to hang with some kids from a NC high school. There was an actual fire in the hotel. We had to vacate to the street in front of the hotel for a couple of hours while the firemen put the fire out and assessed the damage. We had to climb down 8 flights of steps to get out.

It should have been scarey, but we were 17! It was scarey for our teacher/chaperones when they returned to the hotel and found us outside in the street with the other hotel guests and various ladies of the evening.

Sorry for the rude awakening, EL. I bet you thought it was good fortune to find a hotel with toasters in the rooms...

In my college dorm in Boston, someone inevitably thought it would be a hoot to pull a fire alarm on a Friday or Saturday night. in the dead of winter. Every..freakin...weekend. But as Joyce points out, we were young, so we managed to turn them into social events...

When I was at college, I gave in to my lifelong desire to pull fire alarms by becoming the dorm fire captain, so I could legally pull them.

I've gotten much better since .

My parked car in the driveway was hit by a 19-year old who apparently dozed off around 1:00 a.m. last July 4. The car caught on fire and my family was thankfully, awakened by neighbors who were banging on our home windows to get out. I heard the crash but thought I was dreaming.

Campus Police. Army. Fire Captain.
I'm seeing a pattern here.

I know this isn't the place for it but it took me 10 minutes just to get to the Sandbox this morning. And I have Fios and a brand new computer. This is disheartening. In looking at the new website did anyone notice that the National news is at the bottom of the page below "Entertainment" and "Good Life"? How ridiculous! I think I am jumping ship.

Maybe I'm just surly because I haven't had my breakfast yet (obligatory food reference).

Yeah, Laura Lee, I like annoying people.

The highpoint of my campus police career was towing that Mercedes. Owner threatened me. That was fun.

I also ticketed the college president. He was parked in the illegal space where we always parked the cruiser.

Gary, Indiana? You're lucky it wasn't gun shots.

Gary is how they say...a transitional town. It has been going from bad to worse back to bad.

I really don't want to get too down on Gary. My father in law grew up there.

Right now, I'm in a place that may be the polar opposite of Gary:Greenup County, Kentucky. It's the boyhood home of Billy Ray Cyrus. And with that, I need to get off to the fishin hole.

Christine, there is no obligatory food reference. I agree with you, though. I'm only coming here and hitting the occasional local article from the RSS feed. I hate the redesign.

Around 1980, I was staying in a Hilton in Syracuse with my parents. Unfortunately, Van Halen was in town for a concert and staying at same Hilton. Fans decided they wanted to see Van Halen and pulled the fire alarm at 2am. We evacuated. Van Halen did not.

Maybe ease up a little on the exclamation points.

Maybe ease up a little on the exclamation points

It's the lack of sleep, Mr. McIntyre!!!!!

Hmmm...maybe it's time for a nap...

I was WONDERING what the HELL John McINTYRE was TALKING about SINCE they're ARE NO exclamation point in RECENT COMMENTS. THEN I SAW THE TITLE of this POST. lMaO

It's Top Ten Tuesday and the Top Ten post languishes as the punctuation comedy corps is activated. Delightful.

I believe EL just used up nearly half of her lifetime career's allotment of exclamation points.

They have given me an unlimited number. :-) EL

That many exclamation points usually indicate some sort of seizure disorder. ;-)

From the John Martin Thomas Guide to Effective Business Communications (Chapter 3 - Punctuation)

Which brings us, finally, to the most erotic of all punctuation marks, the exclamation point.

Exclamation points are used to indicate excitement. The use of multiple exclamation points, right in a row, indicates the writer is actually having an orgasmic experience.

Exclamation points can even substitute for text such as, “Yes. OH…YESSSSSSSS.” One could write the same thing this way, using only punctuation: “!!!. !!...!!!!!!!!!!.”

They call exclamation points "bangs" in Commonwealth countries.

Which isn't to say I necessarily agree with Bucky. I've always had a thing for commas.

My life revolves around colons and semicolons.

Still punctuation, right dahlink?

Right, NEPA, but it's cataloging punctuation, which bears only a remote resemblance to good English usage.

Was the redesign supposed to slow everything down and drive us away?

You think you had a rude awakening. Just think of us who logged on this morning. Did you leave town just so no one could blame you for the new web site :-)? In any case get back here and slap around a few managers. What were they thinking? Cheers, Bill

Bill, I doubt this came from Baltimore managers. This design looks an awful lot like the Chicago Tribune's website.

Dahlink, cataloging isn't done in English, but in AACR2. Or are we up to 3 now? Been awhile since I decided to catalog every item on my computer desk one very dull evening.

Laura Lee

"Campus Police. Army. Fire Captain."

And then Librarian.

LEC, although I have had the job title of librarian, I am not technically a librarian since I dropped out of library school.

Those that hold an MLS are very touchy about that.

I've had enough jobs that one could find other significant triads. Bartender/waitress/grill cook would be one. Cabbie/transit bus driver/school bus driver would be another. So would system administrator/network administrator/help desk.

"They call exclamation points "bangs" in Commonwealth countries."

So that is why the combined exclamation point and question mark is called an "interrobang."

interrobang

No, that's a slap following by the question, "Who's your daddy"?

Lissa comma over here sometime ;)

Can I quote you on that, MrRational, or would that be an apostrophe?

Lissa, we are using AACR2R (R=revised) but there is a lot of noise about a new code called RDA. I personally don't think it's ready for prime time, but they just announced the test sites for it, so stay tuned.

From what I've heard about RDA, it is logically inconsistent, web2.0 infested and not ready for prime time, but I just hang with catalogers.

All true, Lissa. And it means more work for catalogers when we are being pressured to do more with less.

We all are, Dahlink. Do more with less, without the institutional support or tools you need.

I shouldn't whine. There are probably more library geeks than catalogers left. Which is exactly backwards to my way of thinking.

Lissa, no argument from me!