Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:08 PM

Author and LiveJournal poster Misia asked:

Tell me your favorite stupid joke.

It must be clean.

It must be something that would be comprehensible to / thought funny by a grade-school kid. You know, like "What's brown and sticky?" "A stick!"

If it's a really stupid joke and I really like it I might use it in a scene in the novel I'm writing. I've been trying to come up with my own stupid jokes (and I have a few that will work) but something tells me that other people know better stupid jokes than I do, and besides, it'd be really more fun if the joke is something I wouldn't think of, something that would come a bit out of left-field as far as the sensibility of the rest of the book is concerned.

She's gotten 220 responses so far, many of which I've been reading aloud to Ian.

Surprisingly enough, it really helped my mood.

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:20 PM

[Written before this morning's news.]

I discovered that some of the trackback search engines have RSS feeds, so I went around the lot to grab the links.

In the process, I found something rather odd:

From Google Blog Search, I get vastly different results depending whether or not I prefix the URL with www and/or http

Take a look:

• 24 linking to ribarambles.org
• 27 linking to www.ribarambles.org
• 2 linking to http://ribarambles.org
• 40 linking to http://www.ribarambles.org

• 285 linking to osmond-riba.org/lis/journal
• 295 linking to www.osmond-riba.org/lis/journal
• link:http://osmond-riba.org/lis/journal - did not match any documents
• 320 linking to http://www.osmond-riba.org/lis/journal

• 323 linking to osmond-riba.org
• 352 linking to www.osmond-riba.org
• 2 linking to http://osmond-riba.org
• 395 linking to http://www.osmond-riba.org

Playing around with the various results for ribarambles.org (since that returned the most reasonable number), there are 42 unique URLs returned by the four queries. However, not one URL was returned by all four searches.

Strange, isn't it?

Also annoying, because it means potentially quadruple the number of feeds if I want to track all this.

On a related note, anybody know of a way to filter out my own posts when conducting these searches?

Google has tags for inblogtitle:, blogurl:, and inpostauthor:. One can even negate them by putting a minus sign before it.

But for no reason I can discern, none of these tags work when paired with the link: tag.

Any advice?

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:15 AM

This morning, I was awoken by a call from my parents.

My grandmother -- my mother's mother -- passed away in the middle of the night. The funeral is taking place Monday.

A bit over 90 minutes have passed since we got the call. We've booked our flight^† and rental car (my parents took care of the hotel), flying out of Manchester in less-than-24 hours; I contacted work to tell them I'd be out of the office and cancelled my Monday meeting; we already contacted a catsitter, and just have to arrange details.

Now I'm blogging this...

If I were a better writer, I'd know what to say.

I'd love to write her a moving eulogy, but it's her story and, remarkable as I may find parts of it, not necessarily mine to share with the world.

I'm tempted to write about how I awoke with a start shortly after 3am, and stayed awake for an hour-and-a-half checking my email. I found out this morning, Grandma died 3:15am (though I'm not sure if that's Central or Eastern timezones). But that's probably coincidence and not worth dwelling upon or making this be about me.

I may write more on this; I may not. I may not be online much the next several days. I have a bunch of half-written rather-frivolous entries sitting in my notepad, but those don't seem terribly appropriate right now.

At any rate, I've now blogged to inform you guys about it. That's taken care of. Next item on the agenda is to pack. [Well, maybe eat breakfast, first.]

^*Because I'm in no condition to find a witty or appropriate quote right now.

^†I wonder if we'll be subject to extra TSA scrutiny for flying so last-minute.

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:55 AM

They say curiousity killed the cat, but nobody mentions what it does to utility bills...

Via Salon's Video Dog 

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:40 PM

...that an otter can juggle.

No, seriously, watch the video.

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:35 AM

As you may be able to guess from the subject, we went out for Chinese.

Mine:

So, clearly, my hair needs more attitude. :)

Ian's:

I'm particularly fond of this one, especially with the grammatical error. I wonder what other writers and copyeditors think of that?

BTW, for the person who asked "How is Boopsie adjusting to being home again?" in response to my Threat Level Yellow post:

When we came home last night from dinner, she had pissed on our bed once again. However, the tarp Ian bought as a coverlet is most definitely waterproof, so our beddings were undamaged.

We ran the tarp through the handwash cycle and hung it over the shower to dry.

Excellent idea, Ian!

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:36 AM

Making the news around the comic blogs is the fact that DC Comics has signed New York Times list best-selling author Jodi Picoult to write Wonder Woman.

What's ticking me off is that I keep seeing bloggers enthuse about a woman writer on Wonder Woman! how revolutionary! is this a first!?

I seem to recall Trina Robbins had a brief run on the title. And, checking about online, so did Mindy Newell.

As newsworthy as this week's announcement may be, let's not ignore the past to make it seem grander than it is.

PS: When Fangirls Attack (LJ feed) -- a great daily roundup of links for what's being written each day!

And catching up on other comic-related reading, two older blog posts worth reading: How To Get Your Boyfriend To Read Comics (I know the topic seems trite, but trust me!) and a 1987 PSA on SDI from Airboy. [Do you think somebody could send copies of that to the President and Congress? Maybe in a comic-book format they'll finally get it!]

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:05 AM

It seems a pro-life blogger found a 1999 Onion article and took it seriously.

Commenters try to point out his error. [My favorite comment, "I'm pro life, but sweet Jesus you're an idiot. For your next post, how about a passionate speech on the need to immediately free Prince Albert from the can?"]

If that weren't enough, the blogger then writes a followup post. Not a mea culpa that he was fooled, but -- despite now hundreds of comments explaining the joke -- insisting that the Onion persona must be real.

And, of course, he gets even more comments.

This one even made the wank communities: "Just think, that imaginary baby would be ready to start second grade"

Read it before somebody finally forces him to see the light and he deletes the posts from shame.

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:39 AM

So here's my third update to my Percy Weasley story, A Marked Man.

It's still incomplete, but I've finished another major scene.

[Judy, this is essentially the same as the draft I showed you Sunday night, except for the final two paragraphs.]

Although I have tweaked and improved earlier sections, people who have been reading all along who wish to jump directly to the new material can do so by linking here.

Enjoy!

PS: Previous updates (for anyone who wishes to compare, or observe my writing process):

• June 22: opening snippet
• June 26: second update

My goal is to complete this no later than August 22, Percy's canonical birthday.

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:35 PM

Over dinner, we were talking movies: long films and the demise of the intermission, and big films that shouldn't be seen on small screens.

And a brainstorm:

Gd, wouldn't that be magnificent?

Who could we contact that has the rights to suggest this?

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:10 PM

While running errands in Florida, Ian and I stopped into a pet store with a selection of shelter cats for adoption. We paid appropriate attention to the cats, cooing and scritching them through the bars.

And as usual, Ian and I expressed our longing for a kitten. Unfortunately, Boopsie loathes other cats, so we've said we couldn't get another cat while she's with us.

Then again...

"What's Boopsie going to do to express her displeasure?" I snarked, "piss on our bed?"

It's a very interesting point.

Although things have been better since we got back from vacation (in part because we bought a waterproof tarp as a bedspread), before that she was urinating on or beside our bed every day for weeks... [Thank goodness we have a washer & dryer on our floor]

My point is, she really doesn't have any room for escalation when she gets angry.

And there's possibly a lesson there for people, as well.

I've noticed a few people who will let go with both barrels for relatively minor offenses. And, as with Boopsie, that gives me little incentive to please them. What are they going to do that's worse than what they already inflicted? They've used up their threats.

^* My mother pointed out the most valid reason yet to wait for Boopsie's... departure... before getting a new cat.
Boopsie is habitually pissing on our bed, mostly because she's old (she was already litter-box trained when I found her fifteen years ago). And, unpleasant as it may seem to think in those terms, she has maybe another five years left, where we'll have to cope with this. On the other hand, if we adopt a younger cat, said cat may learn from Boopsie that the bed is an appropriate place to go, and perpetuate the behavior that much longer...

Posted by Lis Riba at 4:42 PM

I just went to check the headlines at Boston.com and spotted this:

I'm not sure whether the error was committed by Boston.com or Associated Press, but... yeesh

For the record:

• Statler and Waldorf heckle.
• Wolves and roosters have hackles.

Posted by Lis Riba at 4:25 PM

But sometimes one feels more like a sadistic pro-domme...

I was rereading the scene I wrote last night, and had a silly redundant thought:

Boy, Lord Voldemort is evil!

Also, one more thing about Elizabeth Bear and the difference between professional and amateur writers.

I've previously blogged my results for the (apparently-now-locked) What Kind of Fanfiction Writer Are You? quiz:

You write angst, angst, and more angst. For you, a story isn't a story unless someone gets molested/tortured/humiliated/abused. That's okay, though; nobody writes angst better than you! Not only that, but your plotlines, however dark, are quite often very original. Those who can stomach what you dish out will gladly attest to your greatness and brilliance. Some might even call you a god! A rather cruel god, but a god nonetheless. Your writing is probably hauntingly beautiful, and someone who's read your stuff will never forget it.

But compared to Bear, I'm an angel of mercy.

I'm still in the middle of reading Blood & Iron.

So characters have just discovered their role in ancient prophecies: the kind of prophecy that seems destined to cause misery, woe and death for them and their loved ones. Huge weight on their shoulders -- fate of the universe -level pressure... And while the character is still trying to come to grips with all that, trips and breaks hir toe.

Ouch.

It almost seems gratuitous -- don't they have enough to deal with? But it's also quite realistic that calamity doesn't necessarily strike when it's convenient.

I feel the need to repeat last night's excerpt, from about ten pages before the toe-stubbing:

"We're fucked."

"We're fucked," Seeker confirmed. "Welcome to fairy tales. Have a nice day. Canapé?"

Seriously, I'm truly impressed.

This is why some people get the big bucks Campbell and Locus awards...

PS: For those unfamiliar with my title quote, it goes:

Writing is like prostitution: first you do it for love, then for a few friends, and finally for money

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:30 PM

Ages ago, I created the image to your left from a dollmaker applet at ELouai.com.

Nowadays, it seems like all the cool kids are creating animated avatars from Meez.com, and who am I to fight it?
[Not to mention the fact that my hair has grown out a bit.]

So, behold:

What do you think?

PS: ELouai has a newer dollmaker, but I can't seem to save the images; the site keeps hanging on me...