Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:09 PM

A couple quickies:

A Panda sneezes from Cute Overload.

A loose wheel at an auto race from Mark Evanier.

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:30 AM

You know, it's news like this that makes me wish Ian was still tending bar for the Harvard Club.

Dick Cheney will be coming to the Harvard Club on Comm. Ave on Sept. 8 for a 5 p.m. celebration of the life of GOP money fountain Dick Egan.

Then again, Republicans are notoriously stingy tippers, and I wouldn't want the rhetoric making Ian sick.

Oh, and while watching Ian get ready for today's gig, I just remembered one other book I was telling Tobin about at dinner the other night:

Thirteen and a day: the bar and bat mitzvah across America by Mark Oppenheimer.

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:00 PM

On my drive home, NPR had a story about an investigation into cases where the US military lied about the cause of death of fallen soldiers. [Link] They mentioned two cases, Pat Tillman being the most famous.

And then, in today's TPM Cafe, I see another war widow's account:

[Halley] told me that her husband, Patrick Damon, who's long been active in Democratic politics, had been in Afghanistan as an engineer building roads when he died in June. She said she was first told that it was of a heart attack, but that subsequently she was told there was no sign that a heart attack had killed him. An invesigation into his death is continuing.

There's a common expression that these things happen in threes. Any other such cases making the news?

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:45 PM

Since the TSA didn't seem to give too much thought to the risks of mixing prohibited liquids inside our airports, I'm sure this wasn't even a blip on their radar.

But...

How are they disposing of the barrels once they're full?

I've heard concerns expressed in the past of chemicals/pharmeceuticals leeching into the water supply.

How much of this mess is going to end up in our aquifers?

Oh, and while I'm on the subject of idiocy in the name of "airport security," last week a flight was diverted and the bomb squad called out because someone dropped their iPod in the airplane toilet. The "culprit" tells his story, and it seems like a clear case of overreaction. If you think he's exaggerating, The Ottawa Citizen published another passenger's account, and they seem to line up...

6:15pm Update: TalkLeft lists other recent flight disruptions and asks "how much longer can the airline industry take this?"

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:15 PM

The universe has changed radically since I woke up this morning.

First, Pluto's no longer a planet.

I think I understand the debate, but it feels like a loss: the solar system has shrunk; our horizons are smaller than when I was a child.

But now, the folks at BoingBoing point reveal The TSA has changed the laws of physics:

[O]n All Things Considered, Tony Jabbour mentions that ice is now prohibited from being carried onto aircraft - because it is a liquid.

Anyone care to guess what other longheld pearls of scientific wisdom will be overturned this week?

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:54 PM

Mankas Hills Vineyards is offering a free sample bottle of their 2004 Amelie Cabernet Sauvignon - Merlot to anyone who has a blog and lives in the United States.

Details are here; in short, email them that you're over-21 with your shipping address and blog URL. No obligation to actually blog about the wine.

Unfortunately, the winery doesn't ship to Massachusetts, so I may be out of luck. [Anyone with a NH shipping address willing to accept delivery and convey it to me?]

But just because I can't take advantage of this doesn't mean others can't benefit.

Only one request -- if you do get a bottle after hearing about it here, would you let me know how it is? Thanks!

 — via Majikthise

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:35 PM

A few random rambles following up on last night's dinner conversation:

The books I recommended were both by Jo Walton.

They are Farthing and Tooth and Claw.

You can read the first chapter of Tooth and Claw and the first two chapters of Farthing totally free of charge.

And, though I didn't mention it, you may enjoy my current reading matter, Shakespeare and the Jews, for a fascinating and bizarre look at some of the stereotypes.

The restaurant we mentioned was a Brazilian barbeque, which (according to Wikipedia) are also known as churrascarias.

We went to Fire Bull in Peabody (back in May), though there are several others in the Boston area, including Midwest Grill in Cambridge.

A strong contender for the next Snakes on a Plane is the horror flick Black Sheep, with the tagline:

Click here for movie posters: clean(ish) and nasty.

Pink Five is an award-winning Star Wars fanfilm series, which you can view freely on the web.

Remember the attack on Death Star in the original Star Wars with the colorcoded fighter teams? You know the scene:

GOLD FIVE: Gold Five to Red Leader...
RED LEADER: I copy, Gold Five.

Well, these films focus on Pink Five, aka Stacey.

“So hey, little robot guy? Um, I kinda zoned out during the briefing...”

Supposedly, Return of Pink Five, Vol. 2 debuted at SDCC, but I can't find it online anywhere. However, I have now seen all three available installments in the series and laughed my ass off. I strongly recommend them.

[I discovered this through this Peter Sanderson piece on San Diego Comic-Con via Mark Evanier. Sanderson also mentions Dream On Silly Dreamer, a documentary on the death of Disney 2D animation that really sounds fascinating.]

In a similar vein, Beagle by Jacob Kafka. [Jacob, if you're egogoogling, my mother-in-law instructed you for your Bar Mitzvah.]

Here are the links to Comedy Central's official online streaming video for The Daily Show and Colbert Report. They're in WMV format; the last couple weeks I've gotten a 3-second blank video before the clip starts. [At times, they'll show a commercial in that slot; be forewarned.] They're posted about a day late, and don't include the entire show.

If those links don't work for whatever reason, search YouTube.

I do enjoy YouTube. I search around and find all kinds of enjoyable clips. We may not have cable, but I've seen large portions of Stargate SG-1's 200th episode (really funny!), and such entertaining randomness as the Animaniacs translating Midsummer Night's Dream and a Shakespeare skit by Rowan Atkinson and Hugh Laurie.

Also, as long as I've been filling this entry with random matter, I've been meaning to pass along this uncomfortable piece on Jewish jokes by Gary Farber.

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:00 PM

Last night, Icarus posted her responses to a meme making the rounds:

If you happen to be working on some creative writing project, fanfiction or NaNoWriMo or what have you, post exactly one sentence (or more) from each of your current work(s) in progress. It should probably be your favourite or most intriguing sentence so far, but what you choose is entirely your discretion. Mention the title (and genre) if you like, but don't mention anything else -- this is merely to whet the general appetite for your forthcoming work(s).

I find the ambiguous exactness amusing...

Tracing back the meme to the people it's been ganked from (auburnnothenna -> sdraevn -> rivier -> ?), folks generally seem to err on the side of "more" rather than limiting themselves to "exactly one sentence."

But I'll try to keep things short. Two lines apiece:

• A Marked man:

  Percy faced a vision straight out of Ron's overblown imagination and saw red.

  "Rat bastard!" Percy lunged for the animagus, but death grips on his arms held him in place. "I should've left you to the twins!" he screamed.

• Untitled Potterverse/Firefly crossover:

  "She's not a witch," Simon replied. "Just a very troubled girl."

  Draco snorted. "Of course. Which is why she was nearly burned at the stake."

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:55 PM

Via Jessamyn West, a marvelous page of Red-Hot Library Smut!!!

It's officially worksafe (unless your company frowns on any recreational computer use) but I will admit to drooling over some of the photos.

I wonder if I can get away with making one of these my desktop wallpaper...

And if you want more of the same, these folks make a pinup calendar.

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:20 PM

J.P. Licks has some yummy flavors of ice cream.

Mojito sorbet and cucumber are both really tasty, and together in a small cup they make a good palate cleanser after a heavy meal.

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:02 PM

As I wrote this morning, I've read 62 books this year.

Running the numbers, that breaks down as follows:

• 19 novel-length works of fanfiction
•   9 novels
• 12 works of YA fiction
•   1 YA nonfiction book
• 21 adult nonfiction books

Of those books, two (one fanfic, one YA fic) were works I'd read before, and the other sixty were new to me.

Meanwhile, I've been taking a closer look over Bush's list, where things don't add up so neatly.

First of all, the list provided by US News and World Reports is described as "[a]sampling of the president's reading list so far this year, according to White House aides." However, I clearly recognize three titles from Bush's summer reading list for last summer. So either we have conclusive proof that the President didn't read everything he claimed last year (thus providing further reasons to doubt this year's list) or the staffers didn't know what they were talking about and just threw out any old books they could associate with Bush. Either way, we have good grounds to discount any titles unique to that report.

C-SPAN (which claims to be the President's "summer reading list provided by the White House Press Office") has 27 books: 9 works of fiction, 15 nonfiction, and 3 I'd call "classics" (Shakespeare and Camus).

Let's take a closer look:

Bush's Fiction 2006
(alphabetical by author)

Flash for freedom! George MacDonald Fraser

Flashman at the charge George MacDonald Fraser

Challenger park Stephen Harrigan

Through a glass darkly Donna Leon

Quick red fox John D. MacDonald

The Dreadful lemon sky John D. MacDonald

Cinnamon skin John D. MacDonald

Beach road James Patterson and Peter de Jonge

The Messenger Daniel Silva

Bush read three of the Travis McGee mysteries by John D. MacDonald: the fourth, sixteenth, and twentieth.

Likewise, he read the third and fourth of George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman series, but again none of the rest are listed.

Now, it's possible that Bush read the first two Flashman books last year, and is slowly working his way through the series. But the random smattering of Travis McGee strikes me as odd. Are those particularly good ones?

Through a glass darkly and The Messenger are also isolated series books, but those strike me as more credible since each is this year's installment, and he may have read the earlier books in previous years.

Bush's Nonfiction 2006

Mayflower: a story of courage, community, and war Nathaniel Philbrick	Revolutionary characters: what made the founders different Gordon S. Wood	Lincoln: a life of purpose and power Richard Carwardine	Lincoln's greatest speech: the second inaugural Ronald C. White, Jr.	Manhunt: the twelve-day chase for Lincoln's killer James L. Swanson	Promised land, crusader state: the American encounter with the world since 1776 Walter A. McDougall
Decision at sea: five naval battles that shaped America history Craig L. Symonds	Polio: an American story David M. Oshinsky	Finding fish: a memoir Antwone Quenton Fisher and Mim Eichler Rivas	Clemente: the passion and grace of baseball's last hero David Maraniss	The Big Bam: the life and times of Babe Ruth Leigh Montville	American Prometheus: the triumph and tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
After Fidel: the inside story of Castro's regime and Cuba's next leader Brian Latell	The Places in between Rory Stewart	The Bridge at Andau James Michener	The Stranger Albert Camus	Hamlet William Shakespeare	Macbeth William Shakespeare

Certain themes do crop up. Three books on Lincoln (maybe he's trying to understand all the "talk about civil war" he's been hearing; or maybe it's just because Lincoln was the first Republican president), military history, a couple old baseball heroes, two Shakespeare tragedies, one actual relevant policy book...

For what its worth (since I'm coding the HTML anyway), here are the five books unique to the US News:

The Great influenza: the epic story of the deadliest plague in history John M. Barry

Alexander II: the last great tsar Edvard Radzinsky

Nine parts of desire: the hidden world of Islamic women Geraldine Brooks

Mao: the unknown story Jung Chang and Jon Halliday

Salt: a world history Mark Kurlansky

Since so few people actually believe Bush has actually read these books (aside from perhaps a skim of the covers and TOCs and/or a Cliffs Notes-style executive brief), I suppose Carpetbagger raises the more interesting question:

Even if we assume that this is all transparent White House spin, and that the president didn't read "The Stranger" or much else from his reading list, the question then becomes, why bother with this narrative anyway?

It feels like sloppy stagecraft.

On the other hand, I have just written two posts about Bush's purported reading list, rather than other more important issues, so maybe that's it's purpose...

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:45 PM

You know, I really did intend to finish writing that short Percy Weasley fic by yesterday, which canonically was the character's birthday.

I never expected it would be quite so difficult. I know how it's supposed to end, and have a decent idea what's supposed to happen before the kickass conclusion.

But, for no reason I can explain, I've totally stalled out when it comes to putting it all on paper.

I haven't quite given up yet, but resolution may take longer than anticipated.

[Any readers of the story who desperately need to know how he gets out of it, contact me -- I'll spoil my own conclusion so you aren't left hanging.]

Of course, that doesn't mean I haven't been writing...

For no good reason, I spent the last several days writing the opening for a Firefly crossover fic, based on an idea that I've been percolating since StarrySummer proposed the Space Cowboys and Wizards Crack!Challenge.

Mind you, among the reasons I never actually started that fic (until now) is because I have no plot.* All I ever had was a concept and setup.

So, after 3500 words I've got the characters plausibly together.

And that's all that I have...

There's maybe one more scene I'm sure of, and that's it.

I've been vaguely trying Bear's suggestion for story middles, throwing complications at the characters to see if anything sticks.

I've got a few more ideas, but nothing that's really grabbing me.

Anybody interested in reading 3500 words of unresolved Draco/Firefly gen? It is most definitely a rough draft first pass.

I would be most grateful for any suggestions of possible story directions.

[Alternately, I have been posting all my fanfic under Creative Commons licenses (given fanfic's shaky legal ground, it doesn't seem right for me to copyright derivative works), so if anybody wants to pick up the story where I left off and run with it, that's fine, too.]

^* One of the other reasons I avoided the story for so long was concerns over recreating the Firefly characters' dialect. That I think I handled fairly well...

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:30 AM

According to US News and World Reports:

Bush has entered a book-reading competition with Karl Rove, his political adviser. White House aides say the president has read 60 books so far this year (while the brainy Rove, to Bush's competitive delight, has racked up only 50).

Speaking as someone who does regularly read over sixty books a year (just finished #62 for the year!), I cry bullshit!

The Carpetbagger Report has more:

U.S. News & World Report's Kenneth T. Walsh published a portion of the president's 60-book list, while C-SPAN posted an even more complete list.

I try to avoid categorical statements about people I've never met and don't know personally, but I feel comfortable saying there is absolutely no way on earth the president read all of these books. None.

First, while the reading list has its share of baseball titles, there are some fairly serious books here, including John Barry's "The Great Influenza," Geraldine Brooks' "Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women," Gordon Wood's "Revolutionary Characters," and (I kid you not) "Macbeth" and "Hamlet" by Shakespeare. I don't want to say these books are above the president's reading level, but for a guy who doesn't read newspapers and has never shown a hint of intellectual curiosity, it's a bit of a stretch.

Second, there's the time element. Some of Dan Froomkin's readers started crunching the numbers.

Of the twelve books listed, I come up with a total page count of 5,356 pages, including 1,585 pages not available until at least 4/2006 of this year. That is an average page count of 450 pages per book. Multiply by his 60 books so far this year for a total page count of 27,000. 27,000 pages means the President would have to average a little over 115 pages per day. Reading a quick pace of a little over a minute per page, that is two hours a day of reading, and let's be honest, longer if you want to retain information in these types of books. And this from a man who prides himself in not reading the paper. I don't buy it.

And those are just the 12 books Walsh listed. The White House press office gave C-SPAN a list of 25 books -- which were just part of the president's summer reading list. For a guy who likes to get to bed early, who devotes a couple of hours a day to exercise, and who ostensibly oversees the executive branch of government during a war, let's just say this is more than a little "ambitious."

When Ian overheard my outrage, he too commented about the time-consuming aspect of my reading habits. My most ambitious reading years were when I was unemployed, partly because I used the escapism as a coping mechanism.

But the President has a job -- and an important one, which he's fallen behind on. Time to put the books away and get back to work. [Something I sometimes have trouble with, too, which is another reason I read less when I'm employed -- avoiding temptation.]

As Ian put it, while it might be nice to have someone running the country who's already read many of these works...

"It's a little late, when you're already drowning, to try to learn how to swim."

PS: I wonder what some of these analysts would make of my reading list. There's quite a bit of non-fiction, but also a lot of fluff: YA and fanfic. A decent balance, I think...

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:49 AM

Geoffrey Chaucer hath a blog.

And, this morning, he wrote about Serpentes on a Shippe! (wyth spoylerez):

Al of Londoun ys aflame wyth newes of the grete entertaynment of 'Serpentes on a Shippe,' the which ys perfourmed ech daye by the menne of the gild of beekeeperes (and thus ys ycleped a 'b-movie'). Ich haue just nowe retourned from a trippe to see yt wyth Litel Lowys and Tommy Vske. Whan ich was ther, Tommy founde for me a copye of the romaunce in fyve chapteres on whiche the performaunce ys based, and Ich shal pooste yt heere for yower redyge. (This writer hath a verye good style - ich am reallye jealous. Oon daye, peraventure, ich shalle write sum thyng of Arthur; and yet, the matir of Troye hath alwey ben easier for me.)

Spoyler alert: If ye haue nat yet sene the performaunce of 'Serpentes on a Shippe,' rede nat of the romaunce, for it doth telle of the manye suprises and straunge eventes that happen in the course of the storye, and thus it mayhap shall lessen yower enjoiement of the performaunce yt self.

Via Julia

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:56 AM

I have arrived!

BTW, my husband -- the Massachusetts native -- scored a perfect 100% and actually takes issue with one of the answers, complaining "there's no 'P' in Swampscott."

For folks from different parts of the country, the site has other state quizzes, and you can always create your own if you don't like the options available.

[Via Bikergeek]