Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:20 PM

Ugh. Cramps.

Today wasn't as productive as I hoped. I took some painkillers, which put me to sleep for a while, and then started feeling queasy.

On the plus side, I skim-read through the book Confidential: how to uncover your competition's top business secrets -- and protect your own -- quickly and legally by John Nolan. It was recommended in my competitive intelligence class and is tangentially related to the assignment I'm working on. As Arte Johnson might say, "Verrry Interesting!"

There's a nice interview with Phil Foglio about Girl Genius on Comicon this week. However, I wouldn't recommend reading it yet. Issue #8 just appeared on the stands Wednesday (which is why I went to the comic shop yesterday to pick it up) and this article has major spoilers for issue nine. Even though I tend to enjoy spoilery-speculation for such shows as Buffy, this IMHO went too far even for me. Although I enjoy his description of the story and characters, I'm equally sorry that I read it. If this forewarning doesn't deter you, you can read the article for yourself here.

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:55 AM

Then, we were invited over to some friends for Shabbos/Hannukah dinner. Turkey and latkes. Ooh, yum! One of the nice things about being Jewish -- every holiday is celebrated with food! Mmmm...

Of course, as tasty as this all was, it probably isn't the best thing for my waistline. Just to refresh from my previous entry, Thanksgiving morning, my weight was X (Sorry, I'm enough of a lady not to mention my exact weight). Thursday evening, after the big meal, my weight was X + 2.4 lbs. Friday morning, I checked my weight again, and it had dropped down to X + 0.8 lbs. Then, Friday night, after Shabbos/Hannukah dinner, it gained another 2 lbs, to a weight of X + 2.8 lbs. Unfortunately, when I checked this (Saturday) morning, that extra weight appears to have stayed with me. At this rate, I'm going to need a new wardrobe.

At any rate, after dinner last night, we played a couple games of Chez Greek, a new variant of the Chez Geek line of card games. I had fun, although Ian thinks CGr is inferior to the original.

Right now, Ian's on the road to Ludlow, Vermont to spend the day with his family, including his niece and nephew. I bowed out to try to finish up one of my final papers, as the semester is nearly over and big things are due.

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:55 PM

Thanksgiving:

Because we recently got a digital scale that measures human weight to the tenth of a pound (yes, I do know the difference between accuracy and precision) I decided to weigh myself before we left and after returning home. In nine or so hours, I gained 2.4 lbs. Oh, but it was worth it...

As I hoped, we arrived early enough to partake of the traditional hors d'oeuvres -- mini-knishes, veggies with a spinach dip, and Papa's teeny sweet rolls (Ian says they used to be pecan rolls, but somebody asked him to leave the nuts and raisins out this year, and they were so much better!). For a little bit, I tried to go easy on them, because all too often at Thanksgiving, I fill up on the appetizers and have little room left for the meal itself. Then I realized (or someone pointed out to me) that if the end result is eating my fill anyway, I may as well eat of the foods I like best...

The meal was also delicious, but I didn't eat too much of it. I had some turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, a little broccoli, gravy over all those, a Chinese rice dish, and sweet potatoes. I know this sounds like a lot, but I didn't have more than a few bites out of any of them. Incidentally, over half of Ian's sweet potato crunch -- in a 9x13 baking pan -- was eaten. Relatives who don't like yams were asking Ian for the recipe. It was a success, as usual.

Everyone socialized for a while before the meal and after the meal before dessert. Some relatives watched the football game; Ian brought the card game "Lunch Money" and several cousins played it. I flipped through one of the host's books on the history of dentistry, which was actually very interesting. Ian also brought his guitar and jammed with cousins and uncles who played the piano. I got a chance to talk with relatives who I don't see very often, and had a good time.

Because another uncle's birthday is close to Thanksgiving, they had a store-bought birthday cake for him, but nobody ate much of it, because with all the homebaked goodies, why bother with storebought cake? Maybe next year somebody should bake him a homemade cake, which would be more likely to get eaten. Dessert offerings included lemon meringue pie, lemon mousse, mixed-berry pie, pumpkin pie, and of course, Ian's chocolate pie. Ian's pie was the only dessert that was completely eaten -- people had to take home leftovers from all the other desserts... Again, a cooking success for Ian.

After dessert, we hung around further and chatted. I talked history and candlemaking and the Monkees with cousin Todd and got to know Stacy (Kim's fiancee) much better -- she's really nice and I think we have a lot in common, and I wish we lived closer to socialize more often. However, that seems to be a thing with large families -- there's so many of them that they're less worried about staying in touch.

Out of curiousity, I counted the placesettings before the meal -- twenty-three. And that's only his maternal side of the family. Given that before I met Ian, my entire American family, from grandparents down to first cousins, numbered fourteen (In the last decade it increased to 18, due to two marriages, 3 children and one death). Still, it's a bit of a culture shock to suddenly be part of such a large family. Interestingly enough, our generation, "the kids" now outnumbers "the grownups" generation, especially with the addition of S.O.s over the year. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that until after we chose the traditional kids table to sit at and realized there wasn't enough room for us all. Ah well... Another point of interest was the realization that the youngest person at the meal was still over 21.

PS: For comparison's sake, here is Ian's account of the afternoon.

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:30 AM

Well, we went to see Spirited Away last night, the latest animated film by Hayao Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke and Kiki's delivery service). I really enjoyed it -- I think it's the best of his films I've seen, although I think Kiki is a better choice for small children.

The animation is gorgeous (I wonder how much the background paintings cost), the plot is clearer than Mononoke, and it's just a really entertaining story. There were also three characters (well, two characters and a race of critters) who were so funny that we couldn't help but laugh every time they were on screen. [Go to the official website, choose Multimedia and view the clip called "Ride on my shoulder" to see two of them.]

Anyway, I'm not alone in enjoying this movie. Out of 113 reviews cataloged on Rotten Tomatoes, they only list one negative one.

I realize the movie may not hit some markets and may have already left the theaters in others (we saw it second run) but I highly recommend watching it on the big screen. It's spectacular.

Aside from that, we leave for his aunt & uncle's house about 1 for Thanksgiving dinner. Yesterday Ian made sweet potato crunch, cranberry sauce and chocolate pie. All of them have gotten rave reviews when he's made them on previous events (and at least one he was specifically asked to bring) and I'm looking forward to tasting all of them. My own family never really had much in the way of Thanksgiving traditions, so it's interesting marrying into a family which does. There'll probably be about twenty people altogether, and far too much food for that many people. I already know the meal will be delicious, although the boisterous nature of Ian's family can get somewhat overwhelming at times. I'm going to bring along a book or two (I'm nearing deadlines on my final papers for the semester) and they're perfectly fine with me retreating into the corner every now and then.

Posted by Lis Riba at 4:25 PM

Now, this article provides a nice hopeful note for the end of the day.

And, I've actually had a fairly productive day, too, getting done a great deal of that which I set out to do. In a little bit I'm going to get a prescription filled before the holiday, wander down to Barnes & Noble to apply for a seasonal position, and then get together with friends, possibly to see Spirited Away at the second-run theater.

[Incidentally, the Regent Theatre, in Arlington Center, is going to be playing Singin' in the rain from December 18th through 25th. We're definitely going to go -- Ian in particular loves the movie, and we've never seen it on the big screen. Is anybody else who's reading this journal interested in making a group outing of it? RSVP in the comments field below, and I'll see what I can organize.]

Posted by Lis Riba at 2:05 PM

Aw, heck. I keep falling for some of those silly LiveJournal quizzes. But how could I resist posting this one, especially given the result?
Which Ultimate Beautiful Woman are You?

brought to you by Quizilla

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:10 PM

Let's see, this morning we woke up to an inch or two of snow. Really pretty. Unfortunately, several radio stations have decided that since it looks so Christmassy, it should be okay to start playing all the X-Mas carols. Come on! Christmas season officially starts the day after Thanksgiving; can't they even wait two days?

Meanwhile, Ian's been enjoying himself in cooking and baking, and the house currently smells wonderful.

BTW, I had a terrifying nightmare last night. I dreamed that I turned on my computer to discover some strange singing/dancing Jesus/Easter screensaver on my machine. When I moved the mouse, I found a horde of garish icons and toolbars appearing across my screen -- some virus had managed to get through our firewall and infected my machine by installing all kinds of invasive programs. I tried to load up my browser to find more info about it, I discovered it had supplanted my browser as well with its own over-busy proprietary thing. And somehow I knew that it was tracking every website I would hit and every keyword I'd enter in order to figure out how to circumvent it. I believe I tried several times closing every application and restarting, but these invading programs just kept reappearing. I was wary of just uninstalling, because I didn't trust it not to have ruined other parts of my system configuration. In my dream, I was screaming "Argh" and growling a lot and trying to decide whether I wanted to just copy to diskette the few files that changed since my last backup and then blow away the system and restore anew. Apparently I was thrashing about a bit in bed, because Ian then tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I was okay. That woke me up just enough to realize that this had all just been a dream, my computer was untouched, and I was thus able to fall back into a more peaceful slumber.

I'm not going to talk too much about the career front; I don't want to jinx anything by making anyone feel like they're on the spot. I did apply at the Border's bookstore yesterday. I even downloaded an application from their website and filled it out prior to going in, so I was all prepared. Unfortunately, when I asked at the register to see the manager, they told me his schedule was full, that he was "interviewing" all day. So, (a) I didn't get to see him and just dropped my application off at the front counter, and (b) wonder whether I'm too late already.

While I was there, I did check other stores in the mall; unfortunately despite their sign, the Godiva Chocolatier's wasn't hiring (though they've got openings in Faneuil Hall, if I want) and I really don't want to work at any of the many clothing boutiques where I'd probably have to spend half my salary outfitting myself in their clothes in order to work there. [For those who read Dork Tower, think of Gilly's job search in the latest issue.] After the lunch rush, I'm going to call the manager back, and see whether he got my resume. And I'm also going to call the Barnes & Noble on Route 1; I just think I really would be good at a bookstore -- between the library science study and my avid reading, I'm probably overqualified.

Speaking of Dork Tower, I just noticed this cartoon and find it sadly amusing. Sometimes as I write this, I wonder whether anybody's reading and (more to the point) whether anybody's really that interested in the minutia of my day, or whether I'm just writing these to refresh my own memory and for self-enlightenment. I really think blogging, and especially the communities and networks that form in LiveJournal, will make an interesting study for community researchers. I've seen a few news articles here and there, but not much scholarly work on the topic (yet) However, Yale recently hosted a conference on blogging (notes and comments from an attendee here) so maybe things will start to change.

Meanwhile in the news, the G.O.P. is floating a policy trial balloon in the Wall Street Journal suggesting that the poor aren't paying enough in taxes. The article appeared over a week ago in the WSJ; I'm hearing trickles about it from some of the liberal newsblogs I read, but haven't seen anything on it in the mainstream press. Is that apathetic or just pathetic? The Democrats should be all over this one, exposing it for as shameful a trick as it clearly is.

And if you haven't heard about this yet, here are articles from Washington Post, Slate (Part 1 and Part 2) and American Prospect.

That's probably about enough for now. I'm sure I'll post more later, as the mood strikes me.

Anybody in America reading this, have a happy and safe Thanksgiving! And anybody reading this from elsewhere in the world, best wishes for you too!

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:34 PM

Last night, I had the sudden realization that the holiday shopping season is upon us, and I could get a seasonal retail job for a month or so to supplement my unemployment. [Okay, so I'm slow sometimes -- and I'm not Christian, so sometimes these holiday things slide right past me.] Of course, the best source of such jobs that I can reach by public transit (so Ian and I don't have to counter-schedule with the car) is the mall across the street from Lotus. I called them this morning, and the bookstore is hiring, so I'm going to head down there this afternoon and fill out an application. [Actually, I downloaded a PDF application from their website, but can't get the text commenting feature to fill it out neatly.] The downside of this is that it may be embarrassing to be working retail where I'm likely to see so many former coworkers. On the other hand, it may also be embarrassing for them, and may serve to remind folks that I'm still looking for work, so maybe they'll know of something.

Of course, when I woke up this morning and read the online Globe, I saw an article Looking better: In tight economy, holiday retail jobs attract once-unlikely workers. So, I'm part of a trend; hopefully not too far behind the curve to get something decent for the season.

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:50 PM

Just like at Alice's Restaurant, it appears that you can get anything you want from online. I think I've mentioned some of the gag sites, like http://www.brains4zombies.com/ and http://villainsupply.com/.

But through friends' livejournal entries, I've recently discovered http://www.frozenrodents.com/ and http://www.predatorpee.com/. Real stores, serving real purposes, both selling exactly what their URLs describe.

Hey, it's the "holiday" season! What other unique stores do you know of on the Internet for last minute gift shopping?

I took another of those useless quizzes that meme their way around Livejournal: The What Soda Are You Quiz. And my result?
     

Ian took the test as well, with this result:
     

Oddly enough, ever since that I've had this craving for orange soda...

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:20 PM

A few tidbits for a Monday morning:

• Although there are traps on the fire escape near our bedroom, we're still hearing the squirrels in our walls. Only at night (or very early in the morning) and it's very irritating. This morning, the hour of scampering was between four and five AM. Even thumping on the wall and ceiling didn't get them to shut up or leave, so finally we got up and logged in for about a half hour until they left and we could fall back asleep.
• For those who don't have time to read as much as I do, try Book-a-minute hypercondensed fiction. Very funny. And there's also the PowerPoint anthology of literature.
• I've read recently that the Liebeck-McDonald's coffee lawsuit is back in the news again. Several years ago, when this came up in a Usenet newsgroup I was reading, I wrote an essay about the facts of the case.
• My internet problem is still happening, but only intermittently. It seems as if my connection goes out for about 10-15 minute intervals, during which time any site I try to hit (except for those sites already open) gives the AT&T Broadband error. And then, after this time period, things are fine for hours, before I have the problem again. Very annoying.

And that's about all for now, though I'm sure I'll think of something else once I post this...

Posted by Lis Riba at 4:15 PM

BTW, speaking of the sensuality of books as I had yesterday, I thought I'd mention an old poem I wrote over a decade ago on a similar theme.

Meanwhile, I'm taking breaks between my chores today to read one of the books I checked out at the Athenaeum: An Elizabethan progress. The book describes nearly day-by-day details of Queen Elizabeth's travels around England in 1578. The logistical demands of such trips are really impressive.