Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

Convenient money changing

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine

… for the inconvenience, on a recent Sunday, to customers who expect to swap pounds for Euros with no waiting, no fuss, and no commission!

If you have ever stood in line at a cashier’s window to change local money into some currency for an upcoming trip, if you have ever reached the head of the line only to shake your head at the exorbitant fees they were planning to charge you, look longingly at this machine in a Marks and Spencer, parked in between the bakery and dish soap!

I’m sure the store loses no money on this machine, which attracts people who will probably spend more money and time buying even more stuff in their store.

Frank is a physicist–I am an engineer, which means I can’t help looking at all the world to see what practical changes would somehow improve it.

Today we walked miles into beautiful Stockholm through beautiful September sunlight. Our goal was the Saluhall market at Östermalmstorg, with Frank’s favorite vegetarian restaurant, the Örtagården.

No, there will not be a quiz on those Swedish names.

It was wonderful, and I’ll be posting some photos over at Flickr, but what I can’t resist writing more about is the Örtagården’s truly clever chair-covers.

Chairs that get lots of wear will start looking worn. Normal slipcovers drape over the top of a chairback–even though the chairback itself rarely gets worn or dirty. Furthermore, any time someone sits down on the chair, it pulls the slipcover cloth down–so before you know it, you have a slipcover that looks worn or frayed or even ripped.

The Örtagården re-covers just the seat of each chair, using flat pieces of cloth (with corners cut out) that tie onto each chairleg. With the same amount of material and effort needed to make one normal slipcover, they can spruce up six or seven chairs!

And their food is delicious, even to this non-vegetarian.

Smoked salmon with horseradish-flavored whipped cream

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine

Mmm, restaurant food–but that quickly gets old.

My quick-dinner fall-back, which I learned about in the Netherlands, is handfuls of mixed chopped vegetables tossed into the boiling water when I’m cooking pasta. Top with pesto or nuke some chunky red sauce in the microwave.

Today’s NYT has 101 more ideas, including an easy recipe for gazpacho.

Wow, looks spacious–clean–no cat hair on anything–we’ll, we’ll soon fix that.

Cecil Coupe with his MvManila software managed to collect all the posts and all the pictures I created using Manila over the past four-years-plus, and move them into Wordpress so that they all link to each other in the appropriate way, despite the changed URL. Pretty amazing–we ran into some ISP obstacles along the way–through it all, Cecil remained a (very hard-working) pleasure to work with.

Thank you, Cecil!

I found Cecil using a Google search for “move Manila blog” but I put some links in here so that you can find him even faster.

If you’re rolling up the rug to practice dancing, here are a few tunes to put on a playlist so that you don’t have to keep restarting “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” on the DVD from Complete Idiot’s Guide to Ballroom Dancing:

16th Avenue (nice clear beat, love her voice, but don’t listen to the words if you don’t want to get all teary-eyed)

Lacy J. Dalton — Greatest Hits

Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree (fast but not too fast, nice to hear little Brenda Lee rocking instead of being “Sorry”)

Brenda Lee — Great Women Of Christmas

How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You (sweet indeed, and also sweet to dance to)

James Taylor — Greatest Hits

Jingle Bell Rock (caution, the music makes you want to bounce up and down a little but that’s not how foxtrot is supposed to look)

Brenda Lee, — Great Women Of Christmas

To Know Him Is to Love Him (a bit slow, but who can resist this pretty old tune in this amazing rendition?)

Dolly Parton, Linda Rondstadt & Emmylou Harris — Ultimate Dolly Parton

Yep, my iTunes library has some varied stuff!
……………………………

Update–revised list, and thanks to my little sister for the James Taylor suggestion! I’ve demoted a few from my danceable list, but they’re all such good songs, I’m keeping them in this blogpost, in case I turn into a whole lot better dancer, on a sub-list of “Foxtrots I love that aren’t quite idiot-danceable”: I Can’t Stop Loving You Ray Charles — The Very Best Of Ray Charles If I Could Phish — Hoist End Of The Line [this one's a bit fast] Traveling Wilburys

But I can’t stop smiling. The Democrats won–not just the House but the Senate!

It’s not just that the party whose policies I approve and whose leaders I trust is headed to Washington to curb the crazy excesses of Republicans who imagined that nobody would ever interfere with their corruption and cronyism.

It’s that Diebold machines didn’t steal this election, as people had feared. We do really have a democracy. That’s much more important.

And better than either of these wonderful things, the American people showed that Karl Rove’s ugly tricks couldn’t keep fooling them forever.

You know, it really hurt to believe that Republicans around the country really believed that I, personally, Betsy Devine, was a sleazy person who hated families and babies and soldiers and wanted to “cut and run” and was too stupid to understand the danger of terrorism and…but you get the picture.

Republicans around the country didn’t believe that about their neighbors who were Democrats. Thank you, thank you, Republicans! Let’s work together to make our wonderful country a better place for everyone!

So here I sit in my brand new Tshirt, etc. fresh from the hotel gift shop last night. Ready to go–what a wonderful, wonderful day!

I love you, beautiful, beautiful Norfolk, Virginia!

Why not, I once asked Dave Winer, organize your next unconference in IRC, or maybe give up on the time-synch and conference in wiki? Nobody would come, said Dave. Even an unconference is much more than text on a webpage.

Text on a webpage is the ultimate fate of most Web 2.0 thunderbolts. Once the hot story scrolls out of Tailrank, Tech Memeorandum, or Technorati, its yesterday’s sushi and nobody wants to touch it.

Even so, let me be just maybe be the last to link to Russell Beattie’s “WTF 2.0″ critique of Web 2.0 business models. And, as a public service, here are some examples of how Web 2.0 does make money:

• …most successful businesses on the Internet are about aggregating the Long Tail…By overcoming the limitations of geography and scale,.. Google and eBay have discovered new markets and expanded existing ones.
• The availability of offbeat content drives new customers to Netflix - and anything that cuts the cost of customer acquisition is gold for a subscription business.
• In a Long Tail economy, it’s more expensive to evaluate than to release. Just do it!
• .. free has a cost: the psychological value of convenience. This is the “not worth it” moment where the wallet opens.
• Use recommendations to drive demand down the Long Tail. This is the difference between push and pull, between broadcast and personalized taste. Long Tail business can treat consumers as individuals, offering mass customization as an alternative to mass-market fare.

The pre-Web-2.0 source of these recommendations is “The Long Tail” (Wired, December, 2004) by Chris Anderson. Congratulations on your new book, Chris!

Flying (two segments) from Kentucky back to Boston, I rampaged through Eurasia with help from Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. But, just in case my diet of mare’s milk went sour, my backpack contained a back-up paperback mystery. (Say that three times, fast!)

Even on long flights with many, many movies, a good book is more absorbing for longer times.

I remember one rocky flight from Chile, with a jolting emergency stop in Ecuador because one of the passengers had a health emergency, when I was completely absorbed by The Perpetual Orgy, a wonderful book of essays about Flaubert that I could have included in my blogpost about books with embarassing titles. (But that book was hardcover, an exception to my rule.)

Here’s a new challenge for Amazon’s API: create a mathematical formula that minimizes book weight and maximizes the number of 5-star reviews for two very different paperbacks. That’s a formula I’d use for picking my airplane-book-pairs.

Won’t you join me in a new blog category? Welcome to Useful. What task-related URLs are keeping you sane and productive? Hey, I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours!

1. If I need to be there by October 5, 2006, can I avoid flying on a weekend?

World clocks and calendars for many countries and multiple years.

2. How many sweaters do I need to pack?

World Climate: Weather rainfall and temperature data.

3. What kind of electric plugs do I need?

Electricity around the world: everything about plugs, sockets, voltages, convertors, etc.

4. If a hotel room costs 800 Swedish Kronor, what is that in dollars?

Universal currency converter.

5. Give me a quick overview of the sights of Boston/Barcelona/Barbados, etc.

Fodor’s miniguides to many destinations

6. What do some real people think about the hotels there?

Virtual Tourist’s amateur reviews of hotels.

7. Where can I ask some random travel questions?

Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree travel forum.

8. Last minute forecasts: Am I flying into a hurricane or a heat wave?

CNN weather, scroll down for clickable world map.

Last minute–wear or carry!
Passport, visas, driver’s license, etc.
Tickets
Enough money, credit–travelers checks?
Layered, loose comfortable clothing, inc. shoes.
Earplugs or earphones and inflatable neck pillow

General travel supplies to have ready beforehand
Itinerary list printed out by home computer.
presents for people you’ll visit
camera, maybe binoculars?
guidebooks and maps
notebook and pens
Credit cards and ATM card–check with your bank about fees when you use these abroad.
extra plastic bags for laundry, wet bathing suit, etc.

Clothing–general considerations
How long is the trip?  Or, how long is the interval between being able to wash clothes?
How will clothes be washed — Laundromat, hotel valet, hotel sink, friends’ washing machine?
Special occasions to pack for–Dress-up?  Hiking?  Old clothes?   Shoes for these, too!

Clothing–generic list
walking shoes, dress shoes
trousers with shirts to match
dresses–(simpler and more comfortable than skirts)
sweaters and jackets
underwear including socks and stockings–and long-johns if needed!
outerwear, inc. coat, gloves, boots, etc. if appropriate
bathing suit

Toiletries and meds — generic
If 1) you might need it on board or 2) you can’t replace it easily, pack it as carry-on.
Any prescription (enough for trip), plus Advil, Sudafed, Immodium, Dramamine
pkg. Kleenex, pack 10 Q-tips inside to keep them tidy.
small shampoo, toothpaste, and toothbrush, all tied up in plastic bag to prevent leaks
2 bandaids, tube Lanabiotic ointment, and cough drops to fill up the rest of bandaid box
Don’t bring too much–there are probably drugstores at your destination.

Pack more stuff!
Bring some Cheerios, nuts, dried fruit, etc.
Bring logic puzzles to help you fall asleep.
When these are used up, you have extra space in your luggage to take new things home.