Maybe this is indicative of how much illegally downloaded television I watch (less than you’d think, now that I’m employed), but I’m seriously behind on my self-appointed role as pointer-outer of fictional libraries everywhere. I’m also expanding out into Records Management, because I’ve had it on the brain, lately.
#1: Dwight Schrute, with Kelly Kapoor’s Personal Confidential File
I just finished this file plan & retention schedule assignment for my records management class, and it involved a lot of pretty-much-made-up codes for various levels of files in a pretty-much-made-up university setting. But I did learn this: a mainstay of protecting employee privacy? Not filing by last name, but by employee number! Come on, Dunder Mifflin. I know Toby can do better than that: at the very least buy some locking filing cabinets.* Probably Dwight would jimmy them open with a buck knife, but then he’d be confronted with dozens of alphanumeric codes and have to turn to a subject index or some smug RM type for help. Awesome!
#2: Admiral Adama, blackmailing political prisoners with laundry lists
I think the most hilarious thing about this scene is the idea that Zarek actually believes Adama when he suggests that in a motley assembly of apocalypse survivors living either a) in airtight metal containers with 12 other people and no work or entertainment to occupy them or b) under slave-like conditions on sewage/munitions/fuel refinery ships, someone is monitoring inter-ship trade and communication. Monitoring, and then typing up reports on that awesome octagonal paper that is one of the primary conceits of this universe (along with green jello liquor, um). I realize that one of the defining traits of Colonial society is a certain technophobia, but seriously: typing everything up and printing it out? Don’t they need those store rooms for Baltar’s marginalized harem? Of course, I guess their hard drives might be the size of octagonal banker’s boxes, too, so who am I to scoff? Okay, I take it back: the most hilarious thing about this scene is that the hunted and decrepit remnants of humanity are keeping track of their laundry lists. Alright!
#3: Frank, with Janis Joplin’s wikipedia page
I heard more than a few weeks ago that Wikipedia might be pushing for some accountability in their article editing. Obviously, Frank got in just under the wire while torturing Jenna with deliberate misinformation. How much do I love this show that I can’t even articulate whether doing so is an indicator of the fundamental flaws of the mass collaboration non-system, or part of the glorious flexibility and creativity that makes it so awesome? I mean, if I want information on the 1867 Palliser Expedition, I’m not going to Wikipedia, I’m picking up Irene Sprye’s book. However, if I need to figure out which episode of English-dubbed Sailor Moon season 1 is the one where they introduce Sailor Mars, no one else besides some never-updated html sparkly-font homepage from ‘98 is going to tell me. I think you know what I’m saying. And besides, Janis Joplin is fairly dead, so this new ‘protecting living people’ thing from Jimmy Wales wouldn’t have saved her anyway.
& coming soon:
#4: Pete White, The Venture Bros, the internet vs. the dictionary.
By my magical nurse shoes, I swear I’ll get to him eventually!
*fun fact: it’s my parents’ anniversary this weekend and I’m buying them a filing cabinet. I’m also volunteering my Saturday to go through their papers and get them all prepared for this inevitable move into the B.C. interior that they keep threatening. I am so helpful, best daughter ever, I know, right?
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