Fifteen minute rule

Does that still count when you're 33? False alarm. Sigh. So yesterday Shiny and I bid adieu to the dear Mandy Patinkin. We will miss you and your sunny-cheeked baby (and your sunny-cheeked self), but hope springs eternal that one day I will visit Berlin.

Rob asked me last night if I had ever said goodbye to anyone leaving New York, and, full of three thimbles of wine, I said no. Of course that is patently untrue. My fake brown sister, Flushy, now Mandy. I'm just stuck in the past and extremely self-absorbed, so I feel like I'm the only one who ever leaves. And now, since I have decided to make New York my home for a little while, I know I'll see more friends go.

Why? Let's just talk about economics, because I don't want to write another screed about the train. (Though the train is about economics and now, maybe even more so. Bastards.) Most of my friends are in their late twenties and thirties. Some are paired up, some are not. But I barely know anyone who can afford to live alone. This is extremely frustrating--you get older, your accomplishments and ambitions or both pile up, you earn a bit more money every year, maybe you even decide to have a child, but you still can't afford to live in the neighbourhood you like. Forget about buying. It does something to your self-esteem, I think. Something like, no matter how you change or age or do, you will always be financially downtrodden in New York? Maybe this frees you from the rat race of modern conveniences and starter homes, raking leaves and creepy basements, and leaves you free to travel, to express yourself artistically, and to write your damned novel. And maybe it also means that your landlord, who goes through your mail and also your recycling, also tells you you can't grill on your Smokey Joe on the fire escape. I want my own fire escape!

I'm not moving to the suburbs, but it's hard to live here sometimes. Especially when dear friends leave.

It's all eu!

I recently read a sad article about a French town that is going to change its name for better Google search results. The term "eu" is often searched, what with the European Union and the .eu web domain, but it's rarely for "the chief town of a canton situated close to the coast in the département of Seine-Maritime, in the region of Haute-Normandie; in the eastern part of Normandy and close to the border with Picardy. Its inhabitants are known as the Eudois." Even sadder, the word (or prefix) eu- means "good" in Greek, how much more of an auspicious name for a town could you get? So go hang out with some Eudois, before they start calling themselves "WeloveGooglesalgorithm-ers"

Just when you think he couldn't get better...

Obama=Future of open access. Basically, the President endorses a looser definition of "copyright." Publishers, beware!

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If a google calendar fell in the forest...

Just in case you feel nervous about using Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Reader,and Picasa...here's an article about how to keep your nearest and dearest bits and bytes safe. And it's not that I don't understand the Great Eye potential of Google...I just like their cool tools. But the key here is that we shouldn't lose track of our personal information in the google clouds...

http://mashable.com/2009/02/02/google-backup

Does anyone else think that Bill Keller is hot?

Cuz I do.

The doves like my powers...

I am learning how to code!

...slowly...


I am going to learn how to do a table. Apparently "search" boxes are super hard. I will master it all. I mean webmaster it all.

I will leave you with this, from "Elvis is Everywhere" by Mojo Nixon...


You know whats going on in that Bermuda Triangle?
Down in the Bermuda Traingle
Elvis needs boats.
Elvis needs boats.
Elvis Elvis Elvis
Elvis Elvis Elvis
Elvis needs boats.

Aahh! The Sailing Elvis!
Captain Elvis!
Commodore Elvis it is.


I wrote this whole post in html. Elvis is my webmaster. I don't remember how to do an image. So I'm going to cheat and use blogger's image icon. Flushy, don't tell me. In seven minutes I'm going to be a better coder than you.

Thoughts on vertical farming...

A 30-storey building producing enough foodstuffs to feed 50, 000 people? I think it sounds wonderful, but as Armando Carbonell noted in today's Times, "Would a tomato in lower Manhattan be able to outbid an investment banker for space in a high-rise? My bet is that the investment banker will pay more.”

Wouldn't it be great if the economic downturn revolutionized the way that we thought about food, production, ethics, and the planet's dwindling resources?

I totally volunteer to have a victory garden, and by sheer force of will my thumbs will turn from black to green. And compost! It's a very sad and embarrassing fact that for the "greatest city in the world", we are woefully behind on environmental and conservation issues. Nyc.gov reports: "New York City has the largest, most ambitious recycling program in the nation. All 3 million households, plus public schools and institutions, receive recycling collection by the Department of Sanitation." Well, NYC wants props for the sheer number of households served, fine. But after hunting around a bit on the NYCWasteLe$$ site, I found this: "At present, the ONLY plastics accepted by NYC's recycling program are plastic bottles and jugs." CRIMINAL. Our yogurt containers, takeout containers, and egg cartons? All trash. As for composting...if you can transport your composting materials to Greenmarket sites, there is community composting. Not exactly convenient or enticing for a mostly public transit-dependent population. Picture it: a crowded N train and you with your leaking, stinking bag of compost-ables. You know my cat litter will be in there too.

So yes, the time is ripe for change. But for a 30-storey space-age building in Manhattan that can feed 0.5% of the population? Why don't we focus on the infrastructure that doesn't work first? Crumbling train stations, overflowing garbage cans filled with recyclables at every street corner in the city...the problem is money. The only way that this vertical farming project would be viable would be if it was supported by private funding. Then, could we afford it?

And more importantly, would the posh Manhattan-raised tomatoes move to Brooklyn and price us out of our neighbourhoods?

Yes, please!

Librarians Want to Out-Google Google With a Better Search Engine

Have you ever wished for a personal reference librarian, an information guru to point you to the most reliable sites whenever you search the Web? A new search-engine project aims to simulate something like that. The trick? Weighting search results so that librarians’ picks rise to the top.

Called Reference Extract, the project is being developed by the Online Computer Library Center and the information schools of Syracuse University and the University of Washington. OCLC is an international cooperative that shares resources among more than 69,000 libraries in 112 countries and territories. A $100,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is covering planning costs.

According to the project proposal, the search engine “will be built for maximum credibility by relying on the expertise and credibility judgments of librarians from around the globe.”

One of the founders is Michael B. Eisenberg, dean emeritus and professor at Washington’s information school, who has called for people to submit ideas on the project’s Web site. “Google is everywhere, easy to use, and somewhat effective in offering useful results. But, I can’t always trust the results,” he wrote. “Is there a way to improve on that?” The idea is to cull and promote recommendations from tens of thousands of librarians around the world. No word on the technical architecture that would power the search engine.

(The vision reminds me of The Librarian, the uncannily human-like software in Neal Stephenson’s famous science-fiction novel Snow Crash.)

Entrepreneurs have been trying for years to beat Google at its game. Could the combined expertise of tens of thousands of librarians conquer the juggernaut? —Lisa Guernsey

You don't say?

Apparently, the luxury lifestyle industry is taking a bit of a hit during this recession.

Seeing as I'm planning on making vats of hummus and serving Trader Joe's wine at my wedding, there isn't a lot of overlap between our worlds (other than a lovely equestrienne/40s movie star/Cinderella-style wedding gown, of course). Pity, maybe they could have helped me with my wedding-related questions. Can I afford cable for the last season of BSG and still save for our dj? Will anyone know that I bought my "meet-and-greet" shoes at Goodwill?

I'm going to start a frugal bride website. It's going to have links to the real world in it and nothing about weddings. HATE. Read a damned newspaper.

Report: Conde Nast to Fold Elegant Bride

The Friday afternoon magazine folding trend continues. Jossip is reporting that Conde Nast is folding Elegant Bride. Perhaps not a total surprise since it is one of three bridal magazines in Conde's stable. But still. More details to follow as we get them.

P.S. There is already a frugalbride.com. Unfortunately, it looks like it's from 1987 and was built my mom (I mean the collective internet-unsteady mom). "Feel free to use your computer and print out clear address labels if you don't have good handwriting or can't afford a calligrapher." Ouch.

Corrigenda

Fine, I can't do the backwards hand touch to the ground move, nor can I do the backwards running man.

Only the sexy chairdancing people

I'm sitting in my office and listening to "In a Big Country" on woxy.com and it was making me feel all teary because it's very earnest and hopeful. I wanted to hear it again, so I watched the video. Bad idea.
Suffice it to say, I think there was a scavenger hunt.
And the scavenger hunt map was titled, "Big Country."
Videos totally suck.
Except for the original Charlie. And Charlene.

But wait. Videos can be used for good. I just taught myself all of Pepa's moves (whatever moves are appropriate for chair dancing) in "Push It" and my office is not a bleak hellmouth for 4:33 minutes.

P.S. I'll tell you before my sister rats me out. I used to think this song was "Shut up, it's bullshit." So I used to run around the house yelling that. Until my 7-year-old sister corrected me. HATE. Still better than a 12-year-old singing the real words.

'Republicans, also seem to 'have opted for an anti-mind strategy,' Mr. McCumber said, adding that some of them 'seem to be in denial of obvious facts, such as the theory of evolution. How can you support that as an academic?'"

This week in obvious news: "Donors From Academe Favor Obama by a Wide Margin" (http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i09/09a00101.htm).

Usually I'm a sucker for the underdog, but I don't feel a twinge of that when I think of Obama outstripping McCain in fundraising (8 to 1, what what! I actually tried to donate yesterday and you have to be a legal permanent resident or a citizen. I'm sure I could fudge it, but somehow I can see myself bringing down the entire Obama administration with my donation--I can see it now--"PENNYGATE: OBAMA'S MONEY FROM BROWN CANADIAN HONEY.") There's actually talk of whether he will be able to spend all that he has in his coffers in the next two weeks. That's a new one for me too. Usually the idea of politicians rolling around in big piles of money chaps my behind, but now I think I would feel fine about Obama making busts of himself out of cheese and adding them to our stimulus cheque care packages. Why not? Wisconsin is a swing state.

Speaking of the coming of the end-times, I'm looking forward to this.

God, the butterfly effect, and the mattress theory of banking

Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., literally bent down on one knee as he pleaded with Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, not to “blow it up” by withdrawing her party’s support for the package over what Ms. Pelosi derided as a Republican betrayal.

“I didn’t know you were Catholic,” Ms. Pelosi said, a wry reference to Mr. Paulson’s kneeling, according to someone who observed the exchange. She went on: “It’s not me blowing this up, it’s the Republicans.”

Mr. Paulson sighed. “I know. I know.” (NY Times, 9/26/08)

She's so tough. I think she's going to wash Bush's mouth out with soap and take away his TV privileges next. If we did what Bush really wanted (“If money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down,” President Bush declared Thursday) he would declare martial law and let Halliburton rebuild the economy. Even though NO ONE understands how this happened, it stinks like profiteering, greedy, deregulation happy Republicans and Chicago School-style of economic buccaneering.

I'm reading a book about McCarthyism and academia (No Ivory Tower, Ellen Schrecker) and what I'm learning is that catastrophes don't just happen. They build, and are propped up by a complicit system, and it's not always the black hat Republicans that are to blame. Truman's 1947 Executive Order 9835, a new loyalty-security program for federal employees, was supposed to protect the Democratic administration from the Republican party. That failed, but "it succeeded in establishing anti-Communism as the nation's official ideology, and several years before Senator Joseph McCarthy entered the scene." (Schrecker, p. 4) University faculty, trustees, and administrators acted on HUAC recommendations, and often before charges were laid against their employees and before they were brought before the commission. In this same way, I think that it is easy and right to blame lack of oversight, greedy (hopefully fucking criminally liable. GO ADAIRDEVIL!) Wall Street, and opportunistic politicians and lobbyists that paved the way for this financial free-for-all. In fact, I love doing that. But there had to be an infrastructure that was sympathetic, that benefited, and that supported this chicanery. This isn't ONLY because of 8 years of Bush, and 12 years of Republican control in the Senate and Congress.* Too bad my knowledge of market trends and fluctuations is limited to knowing that my only investments in the world are not protected by the FDIC. (Goodbye, sweet 401K. I knew investing in my future was a mistake.) Zack Exley, in an interview with finance writer Max Wolff at HuffPo summarized the market crisis in this way:

"So let me make sure I understand this. Big investors made trillions in bad loans over the past couple decades. Everyone just realized it and now markets are flipping into turmoil. Treasury Secretary Paulson and other financial big wigs decided that without intervention, we'd get into a 1929 free fall. And so they stepped in and said, "Everyone can stop panicking, because we'll insure all your bad loans." Is that right?"

I think it's the "flipping into turmoil" part that we don't understand. When the movements of the market are explained by Chaos theory, I think I'm not alone in my confusion. (For real, economists that study chaos theory are called chaologists. There's a word for WordTwist. Bastards. Why aren't "noir" and "het" WordTwist words, but arcane alternate spellings of Arabic words are? Whatever, "jehad".)

*Actually, since I'm blaming my first white hairs, Sarah's catne, and the continuing popularity of the combination of leggings and skirts** on Republicans, maybe this is their fault too.

** As a child of the 80s, I would like to stipulate that I adore the combination of leggings and baggy sweaters with boots. Bring that back and send ugly tshirt material dresses back to the void.

Why won't the publishing industry just collapse on itself already?

This should help. Or this.

Ch-Ch-Check it out....

Fingers crossed for dark matter!

2 bum sniffs and an almost kiss

I have very little to report in the continuing series, Cat Wars. Yesterday and today, Sarah attempted to familiarize herself with Tonio's bum in a hesitant, sniffy way. He's very proper, so he reacted with some hissing, spitting, and running away. Sarah, pictured here, is not proper at all, and ran after him. Then she ate some food (his), threw up, and cuddled me for comfort. She's just so excited to hang out with anyone/anycat, so even though she knows it might be hissy/scary outside of her room, she and her white-fur bikini are game. Their super-tame war is making the moving proces less horrendous and more hilarious.

Cat Wars

I was doing research online about introducing cats to each other and surprisingly, I found conflicting advice. Internet, can you give me unified discourse on any topic, ever?

So far, Tonio is hanging out in the front room and Sarah is hanging out in the bedroom and the office (and the neighbour's apartment in one botched escape attempt). Sarah's bed looks like the one in this picture, so I'm hoping this will be a picture of their love.

Two more sleeps...

...and it's cohabitation central. It's going to be great, I think, but different from what I'm imagining living together will be like. I'm thinking of my parents, circa age 60 and their lunchtime salads and always having dinner together, watching Jeopardy together, etc. Not so much with us. Between jobs and school, we'll be like roommates. And that's good, because I know how to live with roommates. Poor guy, he doens't know that I'm going to make a chore wheel and put labels on all of my food in the fridge and hold meetings about cleaning and noise levels. 

A final kick in the pants

Goodbye, bastard stepchild of the MTA. Local trains don't actually have to go slower than express trains, conductors. Just more stops.

So, I'm finally moving away from the C and F train combo of doom, right? I'm counting down the days (3 more sleeps!) and thinking I'm going to get away without waking the sleeping beast of diarrhea-sick passengers and track fires...but no. This morning, I was on the train for a record 1.5 hours. But the most soul-killing part of it was the almost 15 minutes that we spent between Hoyt-Schermerhorn and Jay Street, in an un-airconditioned train car filled with at least 1000 passengers (don't argue with me). I'm a pretty sturdy girl, but even I felt a bit faint. As if I didn't get that the C train was giving me the finger, the woman standing beside me was fanning herself with a folded up newspaper and rhythmically hitting me in the face as she did it. I heard the sound of my will breaking (a damp splat, actually) and I didn't say a word.

Pain in my neck

Kali is coming for you.

To the a-hole who hit our car this morning near Jay St. and Flatbush, thanks. You left a piece of your car in the intersection in your hurry to speed away from the scene of your crime. I hope it was a crucial, expensive piece. I'm not wishing for your injury but who can argue with karma?