Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:15 AM

Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don't care, I'm still free
You can't take the sky from me

I saw a preview screening of Serenity last night.

Joss Whedon is one hell of a storyteller/artist.

Don't want to say any more at the moment, but I have a feeling Star Wars: ROTS will look even more disappointing in comparison.

There's no place I can be
Since I found Serenity

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:00 PM

My time and ability to read other blogs (and LiveJournals) has been extremely limited and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. I know there are a lot of memes making the rounds where the takers are tagging others. I'd like to request that if anybody sends one of those memes along to me (not that I'm begging for an invite nor asking to be ignored), would somebody please let me know with a comment here? Otherwise, I may never see it.

Thanks.

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:40 AM

Reviewed in this morning's WSJ, A history of the world in 6 glasses by Tom Standage. The six glasses are: beer, wine, spirits, tea, coffee and cola. Sounds nifty, and I think I want to read it.

And under the category of Oh, how appealingly geeky: The Books of King Henry VIII and his wives. Quoting the synopsis on amazon.co.uk:

Henry VIII was one of the most intelligent and widely read kings who ever lived. He read or dipped into a huge range of books, in many languages, and amassed several libraries. From surviving catalogues, which tell us what books he had, it is clear he was deeply involved in theological debate and monastic history, especially when moving to the Break with Rome (the English Reformation). At the same time, he was a Humanist scholar ahead of his time in all the liberal arts, especially music and poetry. Equally, most of his wives were also avid readers who collected a variety of books. The fact that we know what they owned, and then left to posterity (including several now in The British Library), gives us a fascinating new perspective on their personalities. This book is a major contribution to the study of Tudor intellectual life as well as the history of the book.

Meanwhile, computer troubles are keeping me from updating my website, but I've just finished reading Quinine which was both fascinating and enlightening.

[Don't worry, not all my reading is so edifying. I'm also in the midst of rereading the Harry Potter series before Book Six comes out, and the previous book I read was a well-done piece of fluff titled The Unhandsome prince.]

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:00 PM

I'm getting somewhat concerned about being able to get back into the house again.

As described yesterday, the plan our insurance adjuster came up with to get us back into the house promptly was:

...to (1) have the burnt out kitchen demolished and removed, (2) get the couches out of the house to an upholsterer, (3) repair the hole in our bedroom wall. By removing those items from the downstairs that might have absorbed (and are thus expelling) the noxious fumes, and by patching up the hole that might be conveying it into our apartment, we hope to make our place habitable.

Yesterday, we had somebody come to the house to look at the kitchen, for a demolition estimate and to design some concepts for the reconstruction. Waiting for him to arrive, Ian couldn't stay in our living room -- he said his eyes were burning (that's one of the reasons I came along for this; so I could wait in the house as Ian sat in the car).

Against my advice, Ian came back in to chat when the designer showed up to measure the kitchen. Standing near the burnt-out kitchen, standing alongside the smoky couches, Ian was fine. [More-or-less. We could smell smoke, and my throat was sore by the time we left, but Ian experienced none of the dizziness/wooziness/faintness that's been our problem.] But in our apartment, in a room that only had some smoke damage (not the room directly above the fire whose wall had been ripped up) and then was cleaned thoroughly by ServiceMaster, Ian couldn't stay.

This does not bode well.

Of course, the first two days after the fire, Ian was okay around the house; it was only after the (insurance-supplied) cleaning had proceeded did Ian start having problems. [What really sucks is that when ServiceMaster started using the VaporShark, we phoned them that first night to complain about the perfumes and ask if they could just pump ozone without the aroma. I no longer remember whether they outright said no, or if they just equivocated and continued using the scents. Either way, we can still smell it more than a month later. And because he majored in communications, Ian blames himself for not explaining the problem more clearly.]

I think we need to return to our earlier plans of finding environmentally-friendly/chemically-sensitive cleaners to reclean everything ServiceMaster did...

Meanwhile, I continue to look for a new laptop for myself.

I'm getting a lot of mixed reviews of Dell laptops, with some people saying they've been burned in the past. And the last thing I want is an(other) unreliable computer. On the other hand, they've got some real good deals, many of which require a rapid decision today, this week, this month... I don't know... Any advice?

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:10 AM

No, I haven't seen it yet. But I'm really enjoying reading everybody else's opinions and analyses, both positive and negative. So keep 'em coming, and if you see a particularly high quality review, please send it my way...

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:10 PM

Since people are wondering, it's been 40 days since the house fire. Our apartment is still not habitable by Ian.

Our current goal to get back into the apartment as soon as possible is to (1) have the burnt out kitchen demolished and removed, (2) get the couches out of the house to an upholsterer, (3) repair the hole in our bedroom wall. By removing those items from the downstairs that might have absorbed (and are thus expelling) the noxious fumes, and by patching up the hole that might be conveying it into our apartment, we hope to make our place habitable.

Much of Ian's time has been spent calling contractors to work on the house. I'd call it "telephone tag" but that would imply they were returning our calls and not getting thru to us. No, we've been placing a lot of calls and hearing a lot of silence back.

Ian and I are still living in the hotel. [This particular hotel doesn't allow pets, so Boopsie is being spoiled rotten by a friend in Arlington.] It's nice, but at times I get stir crazy, particularly without my computer and the Wonderful World Wide Web to distract me.

Yes, my computer is well and truly dead. The hard drive is damaged. Tech Fusion says its going to be a couple thousand dollars just to get the data off, if possible (which is a necessity as far as I'm concerned). Considering it was a new hard drive (replaced barely eight months ago), soot damage is an extremely likely verdict.

Ian got a new computer (Toshiba M35X-S311) while in Florida. Unfortunately, not only have those sales and rebates concluded, but searching Toshiba's other dealers, only a handful have any in stock. Must've been on the verge of discontinuation, which is a shame because it's a great and versatile machine and I want one.

Needless to say, I don't think I can be happy with a computer any less capable than Ian's. My company does offer an employee discount thru Dell, but I've heard reports that Dell laptops can be inconsistent (the most recent Consumer Reports and an old article on TechFusion). ThinkPads are always top-rated, but are also pricy. I'm wondering if any Loti or IBMers reading this would be willing to let me use your employee ID to see the employee discount price. [It is good for "personal friends" of employees, and I promise I wouldn't share it with anybody.]

Other opinions on laptops to consider or avoid would be most appreciated!

And that's the news from Lake Wobegon...