Walt at Random

Meredith Farkas just posted the results of her request for people’s “three favorite librar* blogs.”

It’s an interesting list; I’ll have to check it out at leisure to see which blogs I need to add to my already-bulging Bloglines list.

Oh, and this here blog came in #9, next to last of those actually listed in descending order (a thoughtful choice on Ms. Farkas’ part). “Favorite.” Hmm. I’m pleased and a little surprised.

That’s one lower than in the OEDb post that convinced Meredith to do her survey.

If either of these means a lot, I’m much more pleased by this #9 than by the other #8.

A key point here, though, is one of many excellent ones Meredith (or Farkas or Ms. Farkas–so I’m inconsistent…) makes about “favorite,” particularly for people like me who don’t have clear favorites (but did respond):

When forced to pick only three favorites, though, we pick the ones that mean the most to us at that particular time.

Noting one of the comments–Cool Librarian is in my Bloglines list; I do read it; I do enjoy it. It just wasn’t one of the three that sprang to mind as having been most thought-provoking over the two or three weeks prior to the survey. (I don’t remember my response, and I’m sure it wouldn’t be the same today.)

Yes, I do plan to check each link in that list, and I’m sure I’ll add several of them to Bloglines–at least for a while.

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What? Two posts on a Sunday afternoon? Well, you know, this is the second day of a 16-day weekend for me, so…

OK, that’s not quite true. I like the idea of doing absolutely nothing for two weeks but clearing my mind, becoming one with the universe, going for long walks, etc. But in the real world…

• Tomorrow: Put in hotel requests for Midwinter (yep, I’m going to Midwinter…); send in final paperwork for OCLC; deal with contract stuff for new position (I think).
• Later in the week: Probably make travel arrangements connected to new position. Certainly go back to MVPL and start checking books out again.
• Realistically, get at least one or two essays done for the November C&I–since I haven’t done any so far.
• Do at least a couple of dozen blog analyses for the academic library blog project, to keep that moving.
• Probably come up with topic for at least one column, maybe write the column.
• Rearrange home office space to clear out old crap and leave room for new important stuff.
• And, yes, take enough time to relax, clear my head, do even more walking than usual, and get used to a different pace.

I’m most assuredly not complaining. But taking two weeks “between jobs” isn’t quite the same as a two week vacation. Fortunately, we’re planning one of those too…for next spring or summer, that is.

I am delighted to announce that I’m returning to ONLINE Magazine in 2008, with a new column, “Crawford at Large.”

One of the many bright spots arising from my public job search was that Marydee Ojala got in touch and we discussed whether it would make sense to return. We’d agreed to drop “PC Monitor” at the end of 2006 because I couldn’t come up with six worthwhile PC-related topics a year to write about–in 2007, it felt like writing a “Modem Monitor” column: Maybe interesting at one point, but past its sell-by date.

The new column will cover a range of topics relating to the intersections of libraries, media, policy and technology. If you hear an echo, that’s partly right: In some cases, the new columns will be partially based on previous material from CItes & Insights, updated, further synthesized, and cleaned up to offer coherent 2,000-word standalone pieces. (ONLINE’s columns are typically three pages.) For example, the first column is mostly new, but roughly a third comes from a three-year-old C&I discussion that’s specifically relevant to the new situation. In other cases, the material will be entirely new. In all cases, I intend to craft interesting stories that help to move the field forward.

I’m delighted to return to ONLINE. It’s been a leading magazine in the field for many years (the current volume is volume 31!) and Marydee is an excellent editor. (So, of course, is Michelle Manafy at EContent Magazine, where I continue to write the “disContent” column in alternate issues.)

[In case there's any confusion: No, this isn't the new core position. You'll hear about that later...]

Once again, I’m going to bend my promise to simply note new reviews of Balanced Libraries: Thoughts on Continuity and Change.

John Miedema posted a thoughtful review on September 18 on his eponymous blog (well worth reading, by the way). Here are the second and sixth paragraphs (of a six-paragraph review):

Balanced Libraries is a response to the discussions surrounding Library 2.0, the movement that has tried to use Web 2.0 technologies to reinvigorate library services. Some assert that Library 2.0 is about much more than technology, with each stone in the library system being overturned and re-evaluated, hopefully leading to better service for library patrons. Inevitably, change is met with resistance. The library crowd is reasonably adept at getting at the best of the enthusiasts and the resistors, but sometimes an experienced and clear voice is needed. In his book, Crawford lives up to his blog tag-line, “The library voice of the radical middle”. It could be the bible of the Slow Library movement.

Balance is not a sexy idea, but Crawford helps makes sense of the debate, showing how both change and stasis can be troublesome for libraries, providing a fresh take on the timeless wisdom that technology must serve library the mission, not the reverse.

There’s more, to be sure; please do read the whole review. Do know that I take “It could be the bible of the Slow Library movement” as high praise–and if you think “Slow Library” means resistance to change, you need to follow that link.

What else can I say? Buy the book–it makes an important contribution to a number of continuing conversations.

In a very minor way, it’s the end of a (personal) era. Around 2 p.m. I turned in my “fob,” card key, corporate credit card and calling card. Around 2:30, I left with the last box of personal stuff from the office.

The post title gives the time I spent as a systems analyst (senior programmer/analyst, always the same job title) at RLG (or after June 30, 2006 the OCLC RLG Service Center), beginning June 11, 1979.

I really began working more-or-less full-time as a library systems person in 1968–June again, if I remember correctly. That would bring the total to 39 years, three months, some days. I could honestly claim “five decades as a library systems professional” (60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 0s) and was hoping for six–but things change.

So for now I’m gainfully unemployed. Not for long, I don’t believe, but I’m taking two weeks before starting in on new endeavors. (I’ll announce that endeavor/those endeavors as soon as they’re finalized and approved as public knowledge.)

It’s been an interesting ride. I wasn’t part of the first generation of library automators, but I was part of the second wave. Some day I might write more about that–or maybe not.

I’ve worked with lots of first-rate people and generally enjoyed it thoroughly, learning and contributing along the way. Of course, I’ll continue to work with all those colleagues I’ve gained in the profession as a whole, since my “professional self” is the basis for most future plans.

One victim of the on-and-off technology goblin that’s been haunting us was the scanner portion of my four-year-old Epson all-in-one. The printer was fine; the scanner was fried. That’s now an old story. I was able to return unused supplies still in sealed packaging and a colleague (for a few more hours) took the printer off my hands for a mutually agreeable price ($0).

And, based on technology magazine reviews and our expected needs, I purchased a Canon Pixma MP610 all-in-one–an oddly difficult-to-find model (the award-winning model is the MP600, but it’s been replaced by the MP610, which I’m simply assuming is nearly identical). It specced out as fast, capable, and had duplex printing capabilities–something I really wanted. (I’d talked to my wife about the desirability of adding a high-speed duplexing laser printer, but wasn’t really wild about having two printers or spending the money.)

Got the all-in-one home, set it up (painless), tried it out: Noisy scanning-head return, a little squeaky on startup, excellent print quality–visibly better even at the low-quality “fast” setting than the Epson–and, indeed, pretty fast, whether at “fast” or normal.

Until I tried duplex printing. At which point it slowed down a lot–to somewhere between two and four sides a minute, instead of the 9-11 full text pages a minute of single-sided printing.

So, I concluded, you can get fast printing or duplex printing–but you can’t get fast duplex printing. Too bad, but I can live with it.

Then, a couple of days later, it struck me. See below the fold.

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I have a sleek, small (about half as tall as the Epson) scanner/printer/copier that does a sensationally good job in all three uses. It cost less than $200. It’s not fussy. The text print quality on cheapo copy paper is better than I remember getting from lasers.

Oh, and it duplexes. Automatically. Which you just couldn’t do on an inexpensive printer two years ago.

This is a wonderment. The story isn’t that duplex printing is slow–which, it turns out, is deliberate: the “text ink” doesn’t dry quite instantaneously, so the process allows five or six seconds for one side to dry before printing the other side. The story is that duplex printing works, even with cheapo copy paper, and yields excellent results.

Oh, and given that ink jet printers have traditionally been “ink delivery systems,” going through large quantities of expensive supplies at several times the per-page cost of laser printing, there’s another new development: A standard for defining per-page costs. The first group review of printers claiming to meet that standard (including the MP600, which uses the same ink) found that they do indeed meet it. And this one’s per-page cost for monochrome text is 2.7 cents a page–about 0.7 cents a page more than typical laser costs.

Let’s see. Now that I’ll be doing all my printing on that printer, including blog posts I want to save for use in C&I, I’ll probably print, oh, 500 text pages a month. A fast duplexing laser printer would cost maybe $300, maybe more. At a per-page differential of $3.50 a month, it’s highly unlikely that such a printer would ever be cost-effective.

So there’s the story: Lots of remarkable virtues, mostly simply not available at a reasonable price four or even two years ago.

One of those virtues isn’t quite as snazzy as it might be. Big whoop. If I’m doing big duplex jobs, I can always do it the way I did on the Epson: Print odd pages, reinsert the output stack, print even pages.

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I’ve been doing a few slightly negative posts lately. I thought a more positive one was in order. Here it is…with the moral that even an upbeat guy like me can occasionally focus on minor faults when they should be focusing on major virtues.

A few LSW acquaintances picked this up this morning. A colleague at work, and a colleague at my future place of work, heard about it later this morning: I might be off the air for several days.

Why? Yesterday, when I turned on the home PC (a five-year-old Gateway, 2.2GHz. P4, “only” 80GB but I’m only using half that, XP/SP2, and it generally still “feels new), it basically didn’t respond. Oh, Windows came up, as did ZoneAlarm and the other tray items–but if you clicked on anything, it might respond a minute later, it might respond two minutes later, it might not respond at all. Tried a couple of things, including trying to bring up Windows in safe mode. Nada.

Arggh. Panic. Well, it is a five-year-old PC, and that is pushing my luck, but still…

So: Came home early today (hey, I’d been working extra-long days), tried some futzing around, no help. Went to Office Depot and Best Buy looking at possible replacement computers (which still might make sense)…but could I even retrieve non-backed-up data (e.g., settings, typefaces)?

Came back and had an Aha moment: Maybe I couldn’t get into safe mode because I use a wireless keyboard–and the “F lock” key wouldn’t be recognized until Windows was operating. To the garage to retrieve the “wired” keyboard. F8 at the right time, Safe Mode…and everything runs like a champ.

Hmm. Disabled Zone Alarm autostart (and unplugged the network cable). Restarted Windows. Everything runs beautifully. But, of course, without internet access–just fine for writing, spreadsheets, photo work, not so hot for email and blog reading and blogging and checking book sales…

Our local big-newspaper tech columnist asserts that you don’t need security software anymore, that your router’s firewall and the virus scanning built into most email systems is enough. I wonder whether his PC is being used as a bot… let’s say I’m doubtful of that theory, Pollyanna though I may be.

So, just for fun, I re-enabled Zone Alarm autostart…but turned off the automatic weekly scanning. I had noted that it was trying to start an incomplete scan–and most of virus software protection should come from real-time scanning, anyway, not the full-disk scans.

And it works just fine. For now, cross fingers.

Best guess: Zone Alarm Suite does separate virus and spyware scans. If you set both autoscans for the same starting date and time, the spyware automatically follows the virus. I’m guessing that the incomplete state caused them both to start simultaneously, and that the two scans went into deadlock (just as you can rarely use two virus programs simultaneously, as they’ll go into deadlock). My wife’s new Toshiba uses McAfee, which manages to combine both kinds of scanning into a single scan…

If I start scans manually once a month, it’s really unlikely that I’ll be idiot enough to start a spyware scan while a virus scan is running.

Comments involving Apple will be cheerfully ignored. In fact, if I do get a new computer, there’s a good chance it will have the same odd boxy logo on its front as this five-year-old beast does.

This post appeared at the same time as the October 2007 Cites & Insights, noting some uncertainties about C&I’s future because my own future in general seemed so uncertain.

As of right now, I’m about 99% certain that C&I will continue–not because of direct sponsorship (still up in the air), but because of a satisfactory “core situation.”

I’ll provide a more complete post when the last tiny uncertainty is cleared away, and probably in coordination with the people I’ll be working for/with. I thought it was important to get this out right away, though: The future’s looking a whole lot brighter.

There is a typo near the bottom right of page 14 of the current Cites & Insights: The SFWA vice president is Andrew Burt, not David Burt.

Thanks to Seth Finkelstein for pointing out the error. I’ll run a correction next issue.

Update: Oh, and later in the issue: it’s Jennifer Macaulay; there’s no “e” in her last name. I know that. Sorry.

Cites & Insights 7:11 (October 2007) is now available.

The 30-page issue (PDF as usual, but HTML separates of each essay are also available) includes:

• Announcing Public Library Blogs: 252 Examples – a new book that every public library (and library school) should own.
• Bibs & Blather – Incidents and Sideshows: the accidental theme of most of this issue.
• Library Access to Scholarship – PRISM: Enough rope? (Will AAP come to regret the new “partnership”?)
• ©3: Balancing Rights – SFWA Takedowns: A Copyright Incident
• Making it Work – Library 2.0 discussions (and another sideshow)
• Net Media Perspective: Tracking High-Def Discs – The Battle Continues

This post was part of Bibs & Blather for the October 2007 Cites & Insights (which will probably appear somewhere between this evening and Thursday evening). I removed it as part of the “copyfitting” process (in this case cutting 34 pages down to 30) and because I’ve generally kept “job search” stuff out of C&I.

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Those of you who read Walt at random will be aware that my future’s been somewhat uncertain since this spring. I’ve generally kept that set of issues out of Cites & Insights, which may be a mistake. I’ve also generally said that the future of Cites & Insights was not in doubt, barring some personal or general disaster.That was true enough–on the basis that I’d have a secure job until I was ready to retire. That basis no longer exists. As I write this, my future sources of income are largely unknown. Cites & Insights is sponsored–but (currently) at a level that only makes sense when it’s over and above my salary.Here’s what I can say at the moment:

• Three conversations should take place in late September or early October. If some or all of those conversations poroduce appropriate results, the future of Cites & Insights will be assured.
• If that proves not to be the case, I’ll have to do some hard thinking about the future in general.
• The first hundred issues of Cites & Insights are assured (barring even more unforeseen circumstances). But…well, see the masthead at the end of this issue. [Insertion: That is, the October 2006 issue is Issue 95.]
• If you care about this stuff, follow Walt at random over the next few weeks. I will certainly post something if things work out as I hope–and I will probably post several things if the future continues to be up in the air. I’ll probably write something here as well, but that’s not likely to happen until late October, and a lot can (and should) happen between now and then.

I care about C&I. I think you do too. I believe it offers significant value to the field. I hope it makes sense to continue doing it.

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That’s the text that would have appeared (with the bracketed insertion added). While two of the three “conversations” don’t seem to be happening (that is, they haven’t been scheduled), the third (and possibly the most promising) does seem to be moving along.The last six months have been personally disruptive and revealing. I’ve tried to keep the problems from damaging C&I–and I believe I’ve succeeded: I think the set of issues since April 2007 has been as strong as any in the ejournal’s history. As noted, I’m now thinking it may have been a mistake to shield C&I almost entirely from what I’ve been dealing with–but it’s a little late to stop now.

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Postscript Monday, January 24:: Things are looking considerably better. See later post “Future of C&I (& this blog): blue skies”

If you’re wondering: I took the supplies back to the store where I purchased them, told them the exact situation (the truth and the whole truth)–and they took back all the fresh-stock supplies (hey, I’m a regular customer, and the refund is in the form of a store merchandise card…), amounting to considerably more than $50–more than twice that, actually.

I don’t do commercials, but it’s fair to say I’m happy with Office Depot.

[In addition to Tex Ritter, star of the five flicks on Disc 1], two other singing cowboys also made loads of westerns in the 1930s, 1940s and beyond, winding up with their own TV shows: Gene Autry and Roy Rogers (who both died in 1998, Autry 91 years old, Rogers a mere 86).

This disc includes five more one-hour oaters, apparently with slightly better budgets and certainly more skillful production and acting than the Tex Ritter quintet on Disc 1. All five are Republic pictures directed by Joseph Kane; four of the five have dual timings on IMDB (original and a slightly shorter TV-edited time), and in most cases the version here is the shorter one.

It’s interesting to compare the three heroes, noting that these movies aren’t necessarily characteristic for their careers—particularly not for Roy Rogers.

Where Tex Ritter plays some character with the first name Tex, a cowboy who also happens to sing a little, Gene Autry always plays Gene Autry, a singing cowboy—who might also have some other job (he’s a ranch foreman in one of these but also an entertainer), and pretty much always has a group of singers with him. He sings far more naturally here than Tex Ritter does in his early flicks and also acts considerably better. Oh, and his sidekick’s always Smiley Burnette, clearly a costar with high billing and his “Froggy” character name and vocal abilities.

Then there’s Roy Rogers. In his early movies (1938-1939—there are earlier ones but he’s not credited except as part of the Sons of the Pioneers), he plays a character named Roy Rogers. In his later movies, from 1942 on (he did more than 100 in all), he plays Roy Rogers, frequently with his wife Dale Evans. In these three 1940 movies and in a group of other 1940 and 1941 movies, he plays entirely different characters—and he hadn’t met Dale yet. While Gabby Hayes is a costar of all three films, always as a boastful lovable old coot, he isn’t always Rogers’ sidekick (but always has the same character name, Gabby Whittaker). There isn’t all that much music in these; then again, none of Rogers’ characters are musicians as such.

If you remember the later Autry and Rogers, both consistently fine singers but a little more weathered, the young Autry and the very young Rogers (freshfaced and 29 years old) are remarkable. Rogers is instantly recognizable, particularly with that voice and smile. My last (and lasting) memory of Roy Rogers comes from 1990: His duet with Randy Travis on “Happy Trails” (written by Dale Evans)—and his voice at age 78 or 79 was still fine.

Round-Up Time in Texas, 1937, b&w, Joseph Kane (dir.), Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, Maxine Doyle, LeRoy Mason, Champion. 1:03/0:54 [0:55]

Here’s a curious one. The title is the name of the song under the titles and elsewhere in the movie—but the movie, at least most of it, is set in South Africa. Seems Gene Autry’s brother has found a big diamond mine and needs horses, so Gene and his sidekick have to take a whole bunch over by boat. Naturally, evildoers intervene…and, sigh, a “native” tribe gets involved, with a bunch of kids who instantaneously learn five-part harmony singing flawless English. As with the next flick, this is supposed to be contemporary. While the singing is great and the acting’s decent, the plot’s even more ridiculous than most and the stereotypes are unfortunate. $0.75.

Springtime in the Rockies, 1937, b&w, Joseph Kane (dir.), Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, Polly Rowles, George Chesebro, Champion. 0:56/0:54 [0:55]

Were cattlemen still fighting against incursion of sheep in 1937? I thought the range wars were pretty much over by 1920 or so, and maybe this flick is set slightly in the past (but it does mix seemingly 1930s-vintage cars and horses). Anyway, Gene’s the foreman at a cattle ranch and an entertainer; the young woman who actually owns the ranch shows up fresh out of college with an animal husbandry degree. Somehow she buys a bunch of sheep—and the cattlemen will gladly kill her and Autry to get rid of them. Autry convinces her that a dilapidated, worthless farm (which he won in a poker game and can’t give away) is her ranch and too poor even to raise sheep. Lots of action ensues, including the usual “frame the hero for murder” bit. Well played, and apart from historical issues the plot’s pretty good too—as is the music. $1.00 as a one-hour flick.

The Carson City Kid, 1940, b&w, Joseph Kane (dir.), Roy Rogers, Gabby Hayes, Bob Steele, Noah Beery Jr., Pauline Moore, Francis McDonald, Hal Taliaferro. 0:57 [0:53].

The jacket copy says “Roy Rogers, posing as The Carson City Kid, is determined to exact vengeance on his brother’s killer, Morgan Reynolds.” The way it looked to me, Roy Rogers played the Carson City Kid, an “outlaw” who stopped stages only to look for a particular letter leading him to Reynolds. Unfortunately, his sidekick (not Hayes) is a thorough scoundrel. Fairly typical plot, but Rogers brings flair to the role and the rest of the cast is good as well. $1.00

Colorado, 1940, b&w, Joseph Kane (dir.), Roy Rogers, Gabby Hayes, Pauline Moore, Milburn Stone, Maude Eburne, Arthur Loft, Hal Taliaferro. 0:57/0:54 [0:53].

Set in the Civil War, with Rebs posing as a Preservation of the Union group in Colorado financing Indians and renegades to keep the troops too busy to go fight. Rogers is Lieutenant Burke, sent to investigate. Among other things, he finds that his brother’s one of the problems—but Burke eventually saves the day. Another good cast, fine acting, a coherent plot, and Roy Rogers—who here as in the other pictures gets the girl (except that Rogers tends to marry the girl as well). Even for a short flick, this gets $1.25.

Young Bill Hickock, 1940, b&w, Joseph Kane (dir.), Roy Rogers, Gabby Hayes, Julie Bishop, John Miljan, Sally Payne, Hal Taliaferro. 0:59/0:54 [0:53].

Also set in the Civil War, near its end. Rogers is Bill Hickock, sent with his sidekick Calamity Jane to investigate Indian uprisings that threaten to cut communications to the West Coast. The villain is a highly-respected townsman who’s actually an agent from some unnamed country, out to seize California and its gold while the Civil War’s progressing. Some great stunts and solid acting; if you can ignore the “history” it’s a nice little movie. $1.25.

Tomorrow I turn 62. It’s been (to put it charitably) an odd year–but hey, I produced two excellent books that everybody should rush out and buy, so it hasn’t all been bad. Anyway, I got a present of sorts that made me feel even a bit older…

Michael McGrorty posted this at Library Dust. It’s his non-contribution to a meme I haven’t contributed to. Here’s the money quote:

I write a blog; actually a couple of them, this being one. I am primarily and essentially a writer; I predate the Internet. In fact, I predate the personal computer and the electric typewriter. I do not predate Walt Crawford, who was present at the Big Bang and responsible for the current dimensions of the visible universe.

It’s a compliment, to be sure–an honor, even, given the high quality of McGrorty’s writing.

In keeping with which, I think this might be a good time to clarify my opinion of my own writing quality, given that I’ve called myself a hack writer more than once.

I believe I’m a pretty good writer–OK, I’ll say one of the best X writers in the library field, but don’t ask me to turn “X” into a number. (Somewhere between 5 and 100?) I think my zero-draft writing is clear and coherent–that’s what you see in this blog, which is, 99% of the time, written and posted in a single setting without revision. I think my 1.25-draft writing works well: you see that at Cites & Insights. The books? Second draft. And when I have the help of good editors, as at EContent (and soon, Online), I point with pride.

I don’t regard “hack writer” as a putdown. I regard it as a label, maybe the wrong one. I’m not a literary writer–I don’t consider myself an Author. I aim for clear, natural, idiomatic prose; I try to organize, analyze, synthesize and produce something that is both informative and interesting. I don’t agonize over each sentence and paragraph. If I produce memorable phrases at times–and I do believe it’s happened–that’s nice, but it’s not my primary goal. Michael is a prose stylist. I have a style, but I’m not a stylist. Both good, just different.

I started using an electric typewriter while still in high school, incidentally. (We had a magnificent old glass-sided Royal manual at home before that.) I started writing with a personal computer in, I think, 1983. The Big Bang happened 4,000 years ago–or maybe a few billion, if you’re fact-oriented.

Oh, and I don’t work on the web. I work in Mountain View, and use the web as one of several tools…

I’ve never added a cloud to this blog or tried to do one for my writing in general…but, well

here’s one for my longform published output–that is, the items you’d find in WorldCat itself (not Worldcat.org, which includes a couple hundred articles as well as these “27 works in 35 publications”)

Thanks to Thom Hickey for pointing out this new feature at WorldCat Identities. Hickey, Lorcan Dempsey and crew continue to do really interesting things… Note that the words (at least some of them) link to their own identity pages. (Hmm. “Library science literature–Publishing” and “Library science–authorship” are much more exclusive clubs than “MARC formats.” That surprises me.)

I bet the cloud for a true polymath would be a lot more interesting…say, Isaac Asimov. Well, no, not so much…I guess there’s a limit to the size of the cloud or the number of works included–I don’t see “Bible” or “Shakespeare” in little tiny letters, and Asimov wrote important works on both topics. (Other than economics, there aren’t a whole lot of major topics Asimov didn’t write about…)

Interesting stuff.

Three-quarters of a mile from my almost-former-place-of-work (I’m terminated as of 9/30 and in any case the remainder will be moving to new smaller quarters) is a block with two food facilities. One building (and big back lot, with a decent-size parking area) is a sports bar that’s mostly a restaurant during the day. I think I’ve written about it before: good food, inexpensive, particularly noteworthy for the $2 freshly-made “cup” of soup that’s most restaurants’ bowl-size.

The other building is a big rectangle with five food places: A Subway with maybe half a dozen seats (almost entirely takeout); Bueno Bueno, a very good burroteria (like taqueria but their specialty is burros) with no inside seating at all (but two outside tables); a small corner place that’s been through four different iterations in the three or four (?) years we’ve been here, most recently the second iteration of a Japanese restaurant; a fairly good-size sit-down place that was Indian when we moved here, has been a Hawaiian lunch-plate place (and a couple of others), and is now a wrap/falafel/gyros place.

And a big sit-down space, probably 150 or so seats in all, that was always New Ma’s, a Chinese Muslim restaurant that served very good food and frequently had busloads of tourists *from* China visiting. (By unfortunate happenstance, the first time I tried it must have had an assistant cook on a really off day–but after staying away for a year, I went back and found the food quite good, as did my wife.) No sweet & sour pork, of course, or pork of any kind; all meat Halal; they did compromise enough to have a beer & wine license.

About a year and a half ago, New Ma’s closed for remodeling. The process turned the light, airy space into more of a nightclub space–black walls, heavy curtains, flat-screen TVs up on the wall. Eventually, after what seemed like way too long (and with an incongruous permit application for a full liquor license), it reopened–sort of. As a Japanese restaurant with almost no menu. They said “Oh, we’ll have Chinese too, next week.” By “next week” it was closed.

Then it reopened as an Italian restaurant with the emphasis on 5-9 p.m. happy hour. Tried it once for lunch. Wholly dispiriting “buffet” (four items, I think) or half a dozen menu items. The only thing I could plausibly imagine eating was the burger. It was OK, but seriously overpriced. That restaurant lasted for oh, three or four weeks.

Now…well, last week the doors opened again, this time as a different Chinese restaurant, with its name followed by “@ Green Lantern” (Green Lantern was the name of the shortlived Italian restaurant), and with the Green Lantern “grand opening” banner above the Chinese restaurant “grand opening” banner. Oh, and the building still says “New Ma’s”–the other rapidly-changing spaces always manage to replace the building-mounted signs, but maybe the management(s) here know something…

So, to get to the second part of an absurdly long lunchtime post, I tried the place today…after all, I’ll still be here three weeks…

Huge menu, but the lunch specials were the usual list, most of them $6.25. Ordered one. What I got: slightly gloppy hot-and-sour soup (plenty good enough for many suburban areas, way below what you’d expect in Mountain View) with a standard metal soup spoon. Then, a platter of the chosen entree (really too much for one person) and a cup of white rice. Fork and knife: No chopsticks, no separate plate for dining, no hot tea offered. The food? Again, adequate for some suburban areas (I think), but gloppy and dreary by local standards. $6.25. I won’t return.

At which point I thought about the little (50-60 seats) shopping-strip Chinese restaurant I went to last Friday, and will probably go to every week or two from the end of this month until we move out of Mountain View (if we do that, which we might if job possibilities continue to, um, pan out so well–we can take some money out of our house), and what I got there for $0.30 less:

• Cup of light, non-gloppy egg flower soup (with porcelain spoon)and
• Nice little salad and
• Plate of fried wonton strips.

after which, you get

• Slightly oversize dinner plate with a rational-size serving of your chosen entree, fresh, not gloppy, nicely prepared
• Plenty of vegetables added to the entree if needed–and the broccoli, at least, is just properly cooked, still bright green and al dente
• A good-size scoop of either white or vegetable fried rice
• A crisp, light, small egg roll
• A small serving of vegetable chow mein

and, of course, both chopsticks and fork–and tea unless it’s a hot day and you indicate you don’t need it.

Oh, and with the check:

• Orange slices
• Fortune cookie

Let’s see. Big-deal big restaurant versus inconsequential little neighborhood restaurant. No contest. At all. China Cafe (the one near home) actually belongs in Mountain View. The new place might just belong in Modesto…I give it a month, two tops, but I won’t be around to find out.

[We have Saturday dinner fairly frequently at China Cafe, even though it's a slightly shorter walk than we might prefer, 0.7 miles each way. All of the dishes we've had are lively, fresh, well-prepared, "ungloppy"...]

Hmm. Wonder how the neighborhood Chinese places are in Fremont or Livermore or, maybe, McMinnville or Portland…