Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:15 PM

We're supposed to fly into Tampa late Monday morning. This bloke named Ivan is supposed to hit the area later that evening. I have a feeling we're going to postpone our trip. The last thing emergency workers would want is more people coming into potential evacuation zones. [Mind you, my parents live on the highest ground in the county, with two evacuation centers within a mile of their house, but still.] Also, my brother's a cop, and since one of our goals in this trip is to see my nephew, it may be better to do so at a time they're not quite so busy. Of course, rescheduling does mean missing my grandfather's birthday and missing my mother's holiday meals, which are definitely regrettable, but I don't think that can be helped.

At any rate, the airline's policy on rescheduling seems relatively reasonable:

JetBlue is waiving change fees and all associated fare penalties for customers traveling to and from Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Orlando, Tampa and Fort Myers who are booked for travel through Sunday, September 19th provided travel is rebooked before and completed by Thursday, October 7th. Customers booked for travel on these dates may also rebook for travel at any other time, and JetBlue will waive its standard $25 change fee with only any difference in fare being collected. Please call 1-800- JETBLUE if you wish to change your flight.

There's a wedding in Ian's family in DC Columbus Day weekend; maybe we'll try to combine the trips...

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:49 PM

It's been quite a while, but who am I to ignore a blogging tradition that even NASA recognizes. At any rate, I've been talking a fair game of Violet, our regular downstairs visitor, so let me share a few pics:

I don't really think either picture does her justice, so I'll try to provide some better images in the future. Meanwhile, Ian continues to defame the cats on his journal, Violet and Boopsie (Part 2). Enjoy!

Added later: Well, I took a few more snapshots of the kitten. I'm not sure how well this will work, but I used a demoware tool to create this (955KB) animated gif of her settling in beside my keyboard. Look closely, and you'll see her on the screen as well... After that, she settled in on Ian's keyboard tray for a nap. Even when she sleeps, she's in the way. She's just talented that way.

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:05 PM

Even though I don't watch much television, I just picked up the Fall Preview TV Guide. It's a habit I adopted from my parents, who have a collection of Fall Preview TV Guides back to the early 1970s (I've only got about 15 years worth). Really nifty to go back and reread previous years with current knowledge.

But just to save a few braincells of memory, here are the shows that really grabbed me for this upcoming season:

I plan to continue watching Smallville (the new season starts September 22), but nothing else really cries out to me. November may be a busy month, otherwise more free time for books and blogging, I suppose.

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:55 PM

The British Library has put digitized versions of their collection of Shakespeare's quartos on the web. You can zoom in to the point where you can see the texture of the paper. You can also compare different versions of the plays to see how they changed over time. Plus, they've included a lot of background material and a timeline to help non-scholars follow it all.

It's all free, and it even includes the bad quarto of Hamlet, aye, there's the point.

Credit to Matt Blum, for being the first place I saw it. And thanks to everybody else who called my attention to the story.

Posted by Lis Riba at 3:23 PM

[via Peg Kerr]

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:25 AM

From the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee:

A little understood fact about legislation over the past few years is that even once bills are passed, they have to be worked into a compromise between the two chambers, and since both sides consist of or are dominated by GOP Leadership, they often simply churk whatever Karl Rove and Tom DeLay don't like. This has often worked out conveniently for rank and file Republicans, because they can vote for something such as giving all Members of Congress the same health care as they give to seniors, knowing that it will be stripped by GOP Leadership later on. Needless to say, this arrangement essentially deprives Democrats (representing half of the country mind you) of virtually any leverage.
This is why [Democrats] need the Majority. With the Majority in even one of the chambers, all of this comes to a grinding halt.

This is a practice I've noticed increasingly over the last several years. I've seen a number of provisions to bills where both houses voted one way and the joint committee put the exact opposite in the final bill sent to the President. Would anybody who supports this practice be willing to explain why this is both reasonable and beneficial?

While I understand the necessity for disparate versions to be reconciled, this seems incredibly unfair. If majorities in both houses voted for it, it shouldn't be the committee's place to remove it. If majorities in both houses voted against it, it shouldn't be the committee's place to add it. That seems to negate the authority of the elected Senators and Representatives and put an undue power in the hands of the Commmittee. I mean, if this is permissible, what's to stop the committee from doing anything to any bill? Why couldn't they turn the uncontroversial resolution on schoolbus doors at railroad crossings into a pork-laden screed about abortion, gay rights, weapon policies, and a host of unrelated personal peeves?

I suppose I should add this to my list of proposed fixes to lawmaking. [Then again, my first suggestion, reducing the size of bills, would also give less room to hide such chicanery.]

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:10 PM

For no good reason, a copy of the Boston Globe was delivered to our house yesterday (we have a Sunday only subscription), so I got to see this article on the Globe Theatre in London Wanna go...

In Shakespeare's day, yard spectators were known as "groundlings,'' often raucous, drunk, and talking back to the actors. For [director] Harvey today, groundlings crammed around the center of the open-air theater create a vital energy her actors respond to.
"The audience is an extra character,'' says Harvey. "I try to persuade my friends to be groundlings. The Globe on a summer's eve is quite magical.''
But modern-day peasants, beware: Groundlings are at the mercy of inclement weather, and three hours of standing takes its toll.

I don't know if I could stand a three-hour... stand for three hours, but maybe one of the shorter plays like Comedy of Errors... I wanna go...

Meanwhile, I wrote to Dominica Borg, whose talk on Elizabethan theater practices I attended last month. I asked her to recommend some further works on the subject (may as well ask the experts when you can). So I'm adding Shakespeare at the Globe to my list of books to read... [It's available at the local library, but I think I've got enough on my plate at the moment; which reminds me: I've got to photocopy those maps of Elizabethan England/London before the trip to accompany Elizabeth's London]

And though I couldn't attend, due to scheduling conflicts with Worldcon, the Christian Science Monitor wrote up Shakespeare & Co's experimental Othello workshop. Some very interesting thoughts emerged.

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:01 PM

While I continue trying to organize my Worldcon reminisces (chronologically? by subject?), I should add that things will continue to be quiet around here because next week I'm going to Florida to spend Rosh Hashonah with my family. I'll be down for six days, and over the past week have been checking books out of the library to read on the plane and during downtime. Am I being a bit excessive here?

There's one other title I'm interested in, Window seat: reading the landscape from the air (something I read about from an inflight magazine), but the library's current copy seems to be missing, and at the present time it's not worth request from another branch.

I've also checked out Shadows over Baker Street, but I'm really only planning to read Gaiman's Hugo-winner and the story by Elizabeth Bear, so expect to finish that before the trip and won't be taking it with.

Do you think I'm overdoing it?

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:35 PM

Saw this quiz and couldn't resist:

You are a... PARLIAMENTARIAN!! You're a feisty WASP with attitude, and your hobbies
likely include fishing, fowling and being a hardworking Member of Parliament representing
both voters in your rotten borough. Your disdain of King Charles is no secret and you
have God on your side (although its probably worth mentioning that the deepest ring of Hell
is reserved for traitors and mutineers...).

What English Civil War Political Faction would I have supported?
brought to you by Quizilla

Posted by Lis Riba at 3:46 PM

350 years ago yesterday -- on September 7, 1654 -- 23 Jews arrived in New Amsterdam, the first Jews in America (unless you believe any of the "Lost Tribe" myths). Head Heeb has been blogging about this anniversary for the past several years, and always has some good links and insight.

Given the big round number of this particular anniversary, several special commemorations are planned. Celebrate 350 seems to be compiling a central hub, including resources and a calendar of events. And tomorrow, a Library of Congress exhibit on American Jews will open.

Posted by Lis Riba at 3:30 PM

Somebody else has written a short and sweet essay on the biases in the Dewey Decimal Classification system, so I can spare you all a long-simmering rant I've been brewing on the subject. To quote one of my particular peeves:

Of the hundred numbers set aside for topics concerning religion, 88 ? numbers 201-287 ? are reserved for Christianity. Jews and Moslems get just one each. But those single-digit religions are still doing better than Buddhists (294.3) who share a decimal point with the Sikhs (294.6) and Jains (294.4), looking up enviously at Christian "Parish government & administration" which gets its own whole number (254).

Not to mention (as Cedar pointed out) that Wicca isn't even in the religion section, but is classified in the 130s among paranormal phenomena and the occult.

I understand why that is and why it's so difficult to make the necessary largescale changes (both of which are explained in the article). I also understand that OCLC has been working on a gradual revamp of the 200s. But those don't make the situation any less annoying when dealing with it in practice.

Posted by Lis Riba at 2:59 PM

Yesterday was officially Google's sixth birthday (did you notice the special logo?). According to their company timeline, "[o]n September 7, 1998 Google is incorporated and moves to its first office in a friend's Menlo Park, Calif. garage with four employees." Although, they didn't actually launch their official site until the following year. I thought I'd share this trip down memory lane, courtesy of Kevin Fox's Fury:

(click to enlarge)

More seriously, the Internet Archive Wayback Machine provides an interesting retrospective of Google's homepage including their pre-dotcom Stanford days. Pretty nifty stuff for a search guru like me. I don't recall precisely when or how I discovered Google, but I first added it to my Opera bookmarks in October 1999, shortly after they officially launched their "destination site" and the earliest references I've found to my own use of Google (so far) date back to November 1999.

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:54 AM

Boy I'm glad Boston got the Democratic National Convention, and not the Republican one. Ian (who works as a bartender) has often observed that Democrats tip better than Republicans, which is also apparently common knowledge among service workers. But still, get a load of this (via Atrios):

Jenna and Barbara Bush's love for partying and vodka seemed evident as they let their hair down while campaigning for their father, President Bush, during the Republican Convention.
According to New York Post, the duo partied with a group of 20 guests till the early hours of morning at Chelsea hot spot 17.
"Jenna seemed more wild than Barbara. They probably got through about three bottles of Level vodka, and they were given a tour of the club by management," an insider was quoted as saying.
They also smoked cigarettes while supporting Kid Rock, who was performing on stage at Sixth Avenue nightclub Avalon.
"They [and their entourage of about 25] drank 4,500 dollars worth of drinks - bottles and bottles of vodka. Then, having been comped all the alcohol, they left a 48 dollar tip. We thought 1 per cent was kind of outrageous, considering they are the president's daughters," the insider added. (ANI)

Well, technically it's a 1.06 percent tip, but that's hardly better.

At Worldcon, we got into a conversation about tipping with several non-US fen. In most places, restaurant workers make well below minimum wage, with the expectation that the difference will be made up for in tips. For example, the minimum wage in Massachusetts is $6.75 per hour. For employees who are expected to earn more than $30 per month in tips, employers only have to pay $2.63 per hour. Thus, tipping isn't just a social nicety to reward good service, but a survival necessity for the employees.

Furthering the double-bind on employees is the situation we experienced which led to the conversation on tipping. Service at dinner was pretty poor, and if the bill for our party (of 8) hadn't automatically included the gratuity, we might've tipped less because of it. But the reason the service was poor was because the restaurant was clearly understaffed. So management saves money by hiring fewer people *and* paying them less, expecting customer tips to compensate for lower wages. And yet tips are diminished because service is poor because the management won't hire enough people. Doesn't that suck?

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:00 AM

Yes, I am back from Worldcon, but I'm still feeling a bit too brainfried to blog about it yet. In the meantime, you might want to read some of Ian's con reports from the first, second, and last days of the con.

September is going to be a light month, since next week, we'll be going to Florida for the High Holidays to visit family. But I'll try to get some kind of summary up before then.