I’m in the middle of reading About Town: The New Yorker and the World It Made by Ben Yagoda. Reading about the 1920s and the 1930s in New York, about the Algonquin Round Table, and about the contents of the Magazine during those days, I’m struck by the degree to which the New Yorker was “weblog like.” Or, to be fair, the degree to which the style and subject of modern weblogs echos the style and subject of the Magazine in those days.

Although I would never suggest any resemblance between what you read here and the missives of E.B. White, reading the internal memos of the day wherein White and Harold Ross and others describe the role of features like Talk of the Town and Newbreaks, I realize the great influence the New Yorker style, and White specifically, has had on my writing.

Just out of interest, how many of you in the Readership are regular New Yorker readers?

A week or so ago I happened to have a period where The Guardian was mistakenly delivered to my door every morning. One day I opened the mistaken paper and a tabloid titled “Charlottetown Race Week” dropped out. For a brief second, until I clued in, I thought that our fair city had been struck by a sudden expression of racial openness to the extent that an entire week had been dedicated to exploring the issues of race in modern Prince Edward Island.

Then reality struck, and I realized it was all about yachts.

If my reading of the subtleties of Island weather talk is accurate, I think that today can be best described as a “large” day. Beautiful, sunny, a nice breeze, a feeling of endless promise in the air. Better and more noticeable coming after almost a solid week of rain. Take advantage.

Perhaps this is in the “things everyone else has known about for years” class, but I just discovered, by accident, that when viewing a web page in Camino if I just start typing, the page will automatically just to the first occurence of what I type. For example, if “FOAF” is halfway down a page, by the time I’ve typed FOA, “FOAF” is highlighted and the page has scrolled down to that section of the text.

This may also work in other browsers, I’m not sure.

There are two types of people in the world: those who listen to the spiel about the Empire Theatres Stash Your Trash program and think it’s a good idea, and obey by placing their cinema trash in the containers provided, and those, like me, who refuse to act as a corporate shill, and enthusiastically leave their trash under the seats as God intended.

If the full trash cans are any indication, mindless conformity is winning, and few are profiting from the ironic delights of disobeying corporate garbage policy.

After watching David Neeleman on Charlie Rose and finding his approach to customer service interesting, I went to the JetBlue website, and used their web form to ask David to lunch.

Now I’m pretty certain that (a) I will never get a response and (b) David Neeleman is too busy and important to have lunch with the likes of me.

Which got me wondering: who isn’t too busy and important to have lunch with me, and where is the cut-off line?

For example, I’m pretty sure that if I invited my local City Councillor, Clifford Lee, to lunch, he would come. Same thing for my local MLA, Bobby MacMillan. If I made a compelling enough case, and took advantage of some connections, there are a couple of members of Cabinet that I could probably get to the lunch table. But I’m pretty certain that Premier Binns falls in the “too busy and important” class.

I’m pretty certain Dave Moses would come to lunch. But probably not Brian De Palma. And somewhere between the two of them is a dividing line that separates the lunchables from the unlunchables.

In music: Sally Taylor, Jane Siberry, Stephen Fearing, Lucy Kaplansky, Garnet Rogers, yes. And James Taylor, The Dixie Chicks, Bono and Mick Jagger, no.

I could probably swing a meal with Ian Hanomansing, but not with Peter Mansbridge. Dick Gordon, yes. Noah Adams, no.

That all said, I’m reminded of the wise words of a former teacher of mine, Judy Libman. She went to the huge University of Minnesota and took first year psychology with hundreds of other students in a large lecture hall watching recorded lectures on closed-circuit television. One day she decided to go and seek out the professor on the television, and when she found him she was amazed that she was the only student who had done so. And he was amazed to see her, and compelled by the notion of meeting a real live student. He asked her if they laughed at his jokes. They got on well. And both profitted from the meeting.

And I recall the experience a professor from Trent who got into Harvard mostly because he bothered to apply when so many others didn’t even try, because they assumed it was impossible.

So maybe David Neeleman will write back, and maybe we will go to lunch. Never hurts to ask.

I’m unclear as to the mechanism by which this plan to outfit concertgoers with PEI potatoes is going to work. Are they expected to take bags home with them?

Oliver and I were down by the docks tonight drinking lemonade, and I spied Anne MacKay and Wayne Barrett across the way. I did some work for Wayne and Anne’s photography business when Oliver was still still in the womb, and this was their first meeting.

Oliver, true to form, grabbed ahold of Anne and Wayne’s daughters’ hands and took them off into the depths of Frosty’s Finds to try on hats, look in mirrors, and generally get to know each other.

His social skills at age 2 have now surpassed mine at 37.

On my July 9 home telephone bill from Aliant there was a $28 charge for a 9 minute call I made with my calling card from a Bed & Breakfast in New Hampshire to home. That’s about $3.00 a minute, which is crazy.

The call was noted on my bill as being processed by ZPDI.

I called Aliant (listen to the comical audio of my first try), and talked to one of their operators and learned, much to my surprise, that all “calling card” calls are not created equal, and that the actual rates charged are not necessarily Aliant’s rates.

The operator suggested that, when in doubt, I call 1-800-555-1111, which is a toll-free call that connects directly to Aliant’s long-distance network, and ensures that calls placed are billed at Aliant’s rates.

Added later…

I just received the following email from ZPDI:

Thank you for your inquiry. You have reached ZPDI which is a billing clearinghouse that processes records on behalf of operator service providers and long distance carriers that provide service for hotels, motels, payphones, and correctional institutions. The operator service provider who processed the collect call is NCIC. The collect call was placed from a phone located at the Peterborough Manor on 50 Summer Street in Peterborough, New Hampshire.

Mr. Rukavina, I realize you were not aware of the rate, however, rates for carriers are designed to recover unique expenses associated with the telephone from which your call was placed. In addition, rates are available upon request and each carrier is required to identify them selves prior to connecting the call. Mr. Rukavina, I am able to offer you a one-time complimentary credit for $10.04 in American funds. The total amount of the calls is $19.50 in American funds. Please let us know if you would like this credit applied to your bill.

As much as a laud them for their quick turnaround, I am suspicious of the quick rush to offer me $10 American. I’ll take it, and be happy, but I wonder if they’re just trying to shut me up.

Just a note about a couple of minor renovations to the website here.

First, you’ll notice that you can now enter the address of your very own website when you’re responding to a note here using the DISCUSS link. Not only will this get your post linked back to your own home base, but the automagical system will go looking there for a FOAF file, and will incorporate your FOAF into mine if it finds one (watch the Reinvented Labs space for results).

Also, I’ve cleaned up the display of discussion items a little — to separate your text into paragraphs you can now simply leave a couple of carriage returns (aka “press [ENTER] twice”) between each paragraph. No need to insert your own paragraph or line break tags.

If the preceding has left you dazed and confused, please ignore and continue on as you ever have, as things are mostly same as they ever was.