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Thursday, December 11, 2003
I'm bored
Posted by Lis Riba at 4:30 PM
 So here are a few brief diversions. Last night, a friend forwarded me, Qveere Eye for thye Medieval Man. "The series of panels depicts a roving band of do-gooders and samaritans who use their talents to make life better for various peasants and serfs in the area" and was created using the still-fun Bayeaux tapestry generator. In a similar vein, Queer Eye for the Fandom Guy is making the rounds on LiveJournal. A few excerpts: Lex Luthor In a similar vein, via KightP, I found the What's your porn name? generator. And this isn't the old meme using your first pet and street name. I find it particularly amusing to enter the names of fictional characters and see what it comes up with. Considering how many slash-fiction fans of various stripes and ships I know, this could be useful:
Kit Marlowe is Storm Jammer
Lex Luthor is Valentino Winters Severus Snape is Nick Coxx Jack Sparrow is Clay Longfella BTW, on Tuesday, the Guardian had a brief article on fanfic (scroll down to the bottom of the page; there are several stories on this link). It analogizes the "What if?" nature of fanfic as "rather like a school assignment to 'write a suicide note as Romeo might have done in Romeo and Juliet'." And I thought Harry Potter fandom might appreciate this: JK Rowling's literary agent, for instance, has asked some internet service providers and website operators to remove any pornographic fanfic based on Harry Potter, simply because children would be able to access it. But this is an issue about internet policing rather than the act of writing itself. In fact, a representative for Rowling's agent states that "the general feeling is one of flattery" - as long as it's clear that the author isn't JK Rowling. Speaking of which, the pace on my story has slowed down a bit, particularly since phone staff was halved the last two days, leaving me the most senior rep on duty. But even though I haven't gotten many more words down, I have worked out a bit of a character timeline and a few other complications. Sucks to be my characters... I somewhat wish I could just chat/gloat about these with somebody besides Ian (who tends to get bored with this stuff after a while) Riffing on the Firesign Theater quote, "You mean, to Draco?" "I'm not mean to Draco, I like him that way..." And now it looks like I have to run, because Ian forgot his bag in the car and needs to get to work. 
How utterly unsurprising
Posted by Lis Riba at 1:35 PM
The Regency Romance Quiz: What kind of Romance Heroine are you?  Oh dear, you are Bookish, aren't you? You are a highly intelligent and witty bluestocking, whose beauty is hidden behind spectacles. Your dress sense is eccentric and a little unfashionable, and you consider yourself plain. You have very little use for men, who find your knowledge of Shakespeare, interest in politics and forthright speech formidable. You are undoubtedly well-off. The only reason for your presence in a novel of this kind (which, I might add, you would not dream of reading, although you have occasionally enjoyed the works of Miss Austen), is your mother, who is absolutely determined that you will make a good marriage. Rather than defying her directly, you are quietly subversive, dancing with anyone who asks you, but making no attempt to hide your intellectual interests. The only person who can get past your facade is the man who is witty enough to spar with you, and be amused at your blatant attempts to scare your suitors away. While you will, no doubt, subject him to a gruelling cross-examination to find out whether his respect for your intelligence is real or mere flattery, you may be sure that he is your match, and that you, he AND your mother will all live happily ever after Courtesy of Rosamund
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Two brief observations
Posted by Lis Riba at 3:45 PM
Star search?
Posted by Lis Riba at 1:30 PM
Rob Brezsny's Free Will Astrology posts the new horoscopes on Wednesdays. I just checked mine for the week ahead: The world's most famous Cancer, U.S. President George W. Bush, has described his relationship with newspapers this way: "I glance at the headlines just to kind of get a flavor for what's moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who read the news themselves." Please don't imitate Bush's approach as you gather information in the coming days, my fellow Crabs. It's crucial that you never rely on third-hand reports as you penetrate to the root of every unfolding plot. You know how journalists sometimes bury really interesting and mysterious details at the end of their stories? That's what life will do. Aside from my reflexive Ugh at the thought of Bush as the most famous Cancer, I am quite amused. Particularly since so far this morning, I've:
And that's just what I can recall off the top of my head. <chuckle> "never rely on third-hand reports"? Somehow I don't think I'll have much of a problem with that.
You don't say
Posted by Lis Riba at 11:15 AM
So why is it that Ian's post about my job woes garnered more responses than my own?
I'm number one!
Posted by Lis Riba at 10:15 AM
So, the stupid anti-Dean chainletter has spread to WeirdJews, and I decided it was time again to search the blogosphere for any other copies and share my rebuttal. So, I Googled on some of the less-common terms used in the letter: howard dean israel arafat coterie adherents That was fast. In debates over free speech, I'm a firm believer in letting good speech drown out the bad. Don't censor, rebut. And this is a perfect example of that. Instead of burying my head in the sand or wishing it would go away, I've done exactly that. And I think the fact that my page is top-ranked by Google when searching for specific terms within the letter, and #10 when Googling on howard dean israel (#13 when set to display 100 results per page) shows this tactic can be effective. Three other points that didn't make it into my initial essay:
I just wish I knew who started this stupid thing. If anybody reading this received the chain letter, would you be willing to either give me the sender's email address or ask the sender yourself who sent it to them? I'm wondering whether there's any way of tracing this back to its source somehow.
Tuesday, December 09, 2003
Comfort food
Posted by Lis Riba at 6:05 PM
After such a frying day, I think I deserve a treat. Ian's working the evening shift, so I'm thinking of going out to get something nice for dinner. [Besides, no lunch and little breakfast make Lis a hungry girl.] I'm open to suggestions. [It may not be in time for tonight's dinner, but who knows when this kind of thing will happen again.] Oddly enough, what I'm really in a mood for is a good Cobb salad. My last couple years at Lotus, a Cheesecake Factory opend across the street from our offices. Every so often, I'd treat myself to a lunch-sized portion. I'm missing that proximity. Since I could never finish the lunch-sized salads, their dinner ones are sure to be too huge for my tastes. Last time I got into one of these moods, I went to Friday's, but their cobb salad was nowhere near as good. Any recommendations for good Cobb salads in the northern suburbs of Boston? Thanks.
Free associating
Posted by Lis Riba at 5:27 PM
Almost forgot to the image I intended to accompany the previous post:  Despair.com is a great site. Apathy seems to particularly suit my present mood, along with Disservice, Laziness, Potential, and pretty much everything from the classic collection. [For a good laugh compare Bill Gates' old homepage with Cluelessness. Microsoft has since changed the look of that page; I wonder why... In a similar vein, I also recommend the less-well-known seven deadly motivational posters.] I find it almost ironic that just before everything went to hell in a handbasket, I was writing about my penchant for torturing my protagonist characters. Of course, within fiction, the pain and suffering inevitably leads to some kind of redemption and betterment. Hey, universe, I'm waiting... Instead of lunch, I spent an hour swapping the car with Ian. I'm so glad we keep the Chess soundtrack (London) in the car. In certain moods, it helps to blast "Argument", "Deal (no deal)" and "Pity the child" and sing/shout along. Such wonderfully angry music when one needs to yell and vent... Another interesting conjunction of timing is just yesterday I found this fascinating post on blogs, anonymity and the workplace. I responded here, but considering my previous post I feel there may be more I have to say. Because I blog under my real name, I've made it a personal policy to obscure details about my workplace and never ever reveal its name nor other identifying details that might benefit a competitor or hurt the company. And, of course the alternate risk is that a prospective employer will read all this and think less of me. But I want to make clear that I'm neither disloyal nor one to cut-and-run when the going gets tough. One of the reasons this situation sucks so badly is that theoretically, at least, I did everything right. I played by the rules. Straight out of college, I got a tech support job at Lotus -- one of the few of my friends in the 1991 receession to actually get a decent job in the field. During the Dot Com boom of the mid-nineties, recruiters tried to lure me to jump ship and join lucrative startups. I didn't go. I stayed loyal to Lotus/IBM and up to two years ago, I think I was the only one among my college friends to have had the same employer since graduation. Then, of course, after over ten-and-a-half years, I got laid off. I'd still go back to Lotus/IBM if they'd have me (particularly if I could keep some of my seniority) When hired by my current employer, the manager commented that they looked for people planning to stick around; he'd been with the company for thirteen years. And I was excited by that. I don't want to be a transient fly-by-night type. I want to make relationships with coworkers and be able to call a place home. Of course that manager has since left and it seems like those who remained in charge decided to move in a completely different direction than was initially portrayed to me. There's more I've been pondering about technical support departments in general, but it's nearing quitting time and I want out of here, so I'll write that up later. Or maybe not. Byeeee!
Hee hee hee hee... Wipeout!
Posted by Lis Riba at 1:15 PM
In the animated Jackie Chan Adventures, Jackie's catchphrase when he's in a precarious situation, outnumbered by the villains, and facing certain death is "BadDayBadDayBadDay!" Welcome to my workday since 11:15 AM. When I first accepted this job, I knew that tech support jobs had a high-risk of burnout. Heck, I burned out on tech support eight years ago at Lotus. But, water under the bridge. I'd had enough time to recuperate and I was forewarned, so I knew to take care of myself. Besides, during the hiring process, I was told that shifts involved half-day on the phones, half-day off to work on open tickets or other projects, which seemed like a reasonably balanced approach. There were four of us answering phones in the department: two worked the morning shift and two the afternoon. And all was well for several months. Then, when I returned from vacation the last week of July, I discovered my manager and one of the other reps were laid off. Just three of us answering phones now, with the manager's duties split between the head of development (who had authority, but was new to the company) and the most senior support rep, K, (who got the responsibility, but no extra time nor authority). With only three of us to handle calls, that meant we were all on all day. Add to that the fact that standard start and end times here are nine hours apart, with the assumption we will take an hour for lunch, which doesn't always happen. [Generally, about 11:50, IMs start to circulate among the three of us to determine who's taking lunch when.] Burnout potential, meet accelerant. At any rate, about the middle of last month I was told that a major training class was going to take place in December and January. J & K -- the two more senior support reps -- would both be attending. Now, keep in mind, I've only been with the company for six months. They were trying to bring M, the newest support rep, quickly up to speed so both of us could take calls. Aieee! I thought. Particularly when I saw that many of the other technically-literate and more-experienced coworkers who I rely upon when I get tough calls would also be attending this training class, including all of consulting and the developers. But, much to my relief, I did spot a safety line. L over in QA has always been my best resource, and the list of attendees I got did not include her. I emailed her the schedule I'd been sent, with the comment: Are you aware of this yet? In her reply, she merely informed me of other days she planned to take off this month, none coinciding with this training. Relief. Today: So, today was the first day of training. Honestly, most of the morning went surprisingly well. My mood was positive, I was handling the calls like clockwork. No problems. Couldn't be better. And then I got a caller who couldn't open her files. I knew there was some trick with the error message she was getting, but couldn't recall it off the top of my head. So I hopped on IM to check with L... And found her listed away with the message "Training." Nathan Lane's rendition of "Betrayed" is running through my mind right now. I keep trying to come up with analogies to describe what it felt like. I'm a trapeeze artist, soloing for the first time without a net. Most of the rest of the crew is off doing something else (something that I really wish I could be doing, since (a) I love to learn and (b) this will apparently be on the test (meaning we'll be receiving calls on this topic)). But at least I know that one of the old hands would be there to catch me. I swing towards her, hoping she can grab my hands for a minute... and find out that she's not there either. Had I been told in advance, I could've prepared myself for it -- mentally and emotionally at least. But to be totally hit by surprise with the news in the middle of a call... I felt like the rug was pulled out from under me. I was counting on her as a resource to get me through these days, and wham. From zero to stratospheric in ten seconds. I mean, the least they could've done was notify me when the situation changed. Or take all of support off the phones so we can attend the training too. Needless to say, it's thrown me completely off my stride. I could barely keep from snapping at the caller and my coworkers. Even though both were Away, I left venting IMs to L (a simple "drat. I thought you said you weren't taking these training classes..." to which (when she saw it over lunch break) she at least had the class to reply "sorry") and K (nominal supervisor of the group, prefaced with "pardon me, but I need a moment to vent" and describing my take on the situation). I griped a bit over lunch to K and a few others, but the basic attitude seems to be one of tough luck, I'll just have to deal with it. Last week I asked if I could have time off the phone the day after these multi-day training sessions off, both for stress and to work on the open tickets I assumed I'd accumulate. I just realized that I never got an answer. I think I'm going to push back hard on that. I am not a happy camper. Stop the world, I want to get off! Assistance greatly appreciated. As is emotional support, good vibes and hugs; particularly today and tomorrow, along with the other days they're taking this training... Here's what Ian wrote when I first IM'd the situation to him.
Something I wrote earlier this morning, before my mood completely crashed
Posted by Lis Riba at 11:53 AM
[More on my current mood later; hugs and good vibes extremely welcome.] There's an old comedy routine, I believe it comes from Firesign Theater, parodying hospital soap operas: Doctor 1: As I was saying to the nurse... That sequence comes to mind all too often when I plot or write fiction. Because somehow it seems to describe my relationship with my characters. You see, I inflict all kinds of mean nasty things upon them, present them with situations where it's not in their nature to take the easy choice... Invariably, by the end of the process they will emerge stronger characters; I analogize it to a crucible. Ian likes to chide me for enjoying it, and when I say it's for their own good, he replies, "Sure, sure. That's what all the abusive authors say." Fortunately, some clever LJ user created the apologia community: Every writer, at some point, does something really, really wrong to a character or muse. It's part of the job. No matter how much we love them, the story must go on. This is the place to apologize. In public. To people who understand your pain. Come on in... sack cloth and ashes are on the right, horsehair shirts and rose whips on the left. All apologies are accepted. Oh, and look! Somebody's created a sister/affiliate community called reparations, "for people who drag their characters facedown and naked through the seventh circle of Hell and then try to find some way to make it up to them." The community userinfo is a really cool read, but unfortunately, the regulations restrict people to original characters, for no readily explained reason. I suppose that's a longwinded way of saying that in the middle of the night I actually did work out the next scene (switching to the other character's POV, since I've been feeling like I'm treating her unfairly in dialog, and this is a way of demonstrating more of her strengths), and I've even come up with a speedy way for the lead to get out of his dilemma -- which, unfortunately, he's too honorable to take. <sigh> Sucks to be him.
Monday, December 08, 2003
A story short
Posted by Lis Riba at 8:41 PM
And at about 8:30 PM, having written over 9700 words, more than my first nine days of NaNoWriMo, I think I hit a breakpoint in the story. I've pretty much finished all the setup, and am not quite sure what happens next. I can certainly see several avenues I want to avoid (such as turning it into an exercise in pedantry), but currently the correct path eludes me. If anyone's really interested, I can share the link to the story so far (comments and feedback greedily solicited), otherwise I may let this sit on the back burner for a while. Considering how easily this flowed, I'm now wondering what to do with Second Chances, and whether it's worth continuing. One possibility on that is I merely clean up my outline which describes the rest of the plot and make that public, so readers aren't left hanging. Or I grit my teeth and try to force it out. Just wanted to update folks on that -- I haven't forgotten about you or the story, I merely haven't decided what to do about it.
Shoveling it
Posted by Lis Riba at 10:40 AM
We got 23 inches over the weekend. Ian had to work a double-shift on Saturday, so he dug out our car early Saturday morning before much so I could get him to work. I managed to get stuck slightly trying to get back into the driveway. By the time he thought he might be ready for a pickup, at about 12:45 AM the following morning, I knew there was no way I'd be able to go downtown to get him. Fortunately, the Harvard Club also has lodging, so Ian was able to stay the night. [As he put it, he never thought the "next train at 8:45 AM" would ever be relevant working the late shift.] You can read the full account of his day here. Needless to say, with maybe an hour's sleep, Ian wasn't up to much shoveling. Thank heavens for my father-in-law, who offered to come over with a snowblower. I had Ian take a yardstick out with him, which is how I got the measurement above. ["Aaaaahh," his father pooh-poohed us, "you didn't even get two feet!"] Meanwhile, I continued to write my latest story. And I'm disturbed by it on a lot of levels. Among other things, I came up with this idea on Friday, and as of last night I had written 8,155 words. I didn't reach that milestone until seven days of NaNoWriMo, and I did this in barely three. And now I'm hitting one of those points when I feel awkward knowing my parents read my blog. Because I really did think, when I came up with this premise, that it would make a great piece of quick-and-dirty smut. And instead it's turned into a serious dramatic work (depending how serious you take Harry Potter fanfic). As Ian's been teasing me: which is sadder, that I tried to write Harry Potter mind-control porn, or that I failed at it? [And if that admission doesn't kill my political viability, I'm not sure what will.] On the one hand, I should feel proud that I managed to give the characters so much depth and complexity in such a short time. And yet, (Ian's words again) I failed to write characters shallow enough to take advantage of the erotic potential of the situation. But I did show it to several people yesterday and they all seemed to like the premise and execution. One of the scenes actually managed to creep me out, and after describing the concept to Ian, he's refused to read it. That's largely why I wanted/needed the validation from others. It helped to know I was on the right track, even it was a far cry from the path I intended. [If you guys want to keep reading, I've advanced the plot as far as the following breakfast.] I'm trying to keep this character-driven rather than trying to shoehorn them towards any particular conclusion as has happened with Second Chances (which started out similarly with a brief premise, and then I worked the rest out backwards based on what the villains were up to). I have some vague ideas of where this might lead, and I don't see any genuinely happy endings. Bittersweet at best. Without any roadmaps, I'm worried that I'll run out of steam or write myself into a corner. And I'm really not sure what will happen after the next scene (although I think I've been saying that for the last day or so). If I'm not careful, I'm afraid this could turn into a lecture series titled "Everything I learned about running a manor house I learned from PBS and Channel 4" which sounds dull even to me. At any rate, with all this writing, I've fallen way behind on reading LJ and other blogs. If there are any posts out there you really want to bring my attention to, let me know in the comments, okay? Finally, people have mentioned in comments that (a) the blogroll isn't displaying correctly under Mozilla and (b) the yellow highlighting on my Dean essay is too light on laptop screens.
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