I was asleep when the 'quake hit the Greater Los Angeles Area late this morning (I'd gone to sleep less than four hours earlier), but when the shock reached Hillcrest, it woke me up. First there was a little rattling, then more aggressive shaking.

Yet I didn't hear any change in the activity in front of the building. People didn't raise their voices, and so forth. And, after I was out-and-about, I over-heard other people saying or implying that they felt nothing. My guess is that my apartment shook as much as it did because it is on the third floor, and the building amplified the oscillations.

I was glad that the 'quake itself wasn't stronger at its epicenter. Frankly, I'd be pleased if the Los Angeles area would just have a series of 'quakes of that magnitude, until the energy trapped in the fault were spent, rather than some eventual Big One.

Speaking of LJ, the behavior of legomymalfoy, the member-elected representative to the Advisory Board, is raising eyebrows and ire. Upon her election, she cut herself off from those not on her Friends-list. adameros is polling members about how they feel about this behavior.

David's Coffee Place is apparently now replaced with Babycakes. An expert came and inspected the piano, which is being sold.

Again, I regret these changes, though in most cases the new owners may be making the best choices available to them.

Meanwhile, a block-and-a-half north, a place named Mille Feuille is scheduled to open in August. They advertise themselves primarily as a chocolatier and bakery, but apparently will be offering tea and sandwiches as well. Since Babycakes has been envisioned as having more in the way of desserts and baked goods than David's Coffee Place, and as more of a restaurant, the appearance of Mille Feuille may be a problem for them. (There are many other restaurants in the immediate area, but Mille Feuille seems to be closer in intended product mix.)

Addendum (23 July): The piano that is being sold is a baby grand (in fact, an especially small baby grand, but with a good lower range). I was informed last night that Babycakes has an upright piano that they will be putting into service. (The notion being that it will take less floor space.)

I've been looking at background discussion on Wikipedia, and it seems to be doing a fair job of tearing itself to shreds.

There is a set of intertangled disputes involving two camps. The Request for Arbitration to which I earlier linked seems to be illustrative; it's certainly not the only example. See also Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Tony Sidaway and the resulting request for more arbitration. [(2008:07/24) I have up-dated the previous link.]

The requests for arbitration between these camps don't seem to be producing actual arbitration, even when the Arbitration Committee had earlier agreed to take a case. The Arbitration Committee is beginning to be hammered for failing to reach any decisions in that case to which I earlier linked. One member of the Arbitration Committee is trying to get the others to agree to just dismiss the case, but the Committee isn't even deciding to flee from responsibility. (There are grumblings that the Arbitration Committee should be abolished if it does flee.)

Now, as to that case, I'm not sufficiently informed to condemn all of the parties, nor to exonerate any of the parties, but I am sufficiently informed to identify the behavior of some of the parties as egregious. And those parties all happen to be in one of those two camps, which camp has strongly allied itself with Jimmy Donal Wales — that's right, the Jimbo Wales who provided the funding that launched Wikipedia, the Jimbo Wales who reserved the general right to over-turn any decision of the Arbitration Committee.

If the Arbitration Committee fails to come down on those parties hard, then those parties are going to become even more out-of-hand, and the committee will lose a lot of respect all-around (though one camp may prize them as fine toad-eaters). On the other hand, if the Arbitration Committee does come down on those parties, then they may alienate Jimbo Wales, who may even over-rule their decisions or so weaken the measures taken that they become not so much meaningless as ironic.

Famously, HDRC has a large campaign debt, which she and her husband are demanding Obama help retire. I'm not sure, then, how it is that she would be in a position to offer refunds. In any event, she is asking that money which would otherwise be refunded be contributed towards her 2012 Senate campaign, instead of being used to retire her debt.

It isn't really plausible that HDRC will pay-off her Presidential campaign debts in-full; instead, creditors will receive pennies-on-the-dollar, with the Clintons representing such settlements as-if they are payment in-full. If the Clintons channel monies that could have gone to the repayment of debt instead to her 2012 Senate campaign, then those creditors will in effect have been compelled to contribute towards that Senate campaign.

(I guess that Bizarre has confused the Canadian dollar with a Canadian pound of some sort, and thinks that the Internet is the only internet. In any case, this story came to my attention by way of an entry at the Horrors of It All.)

I am not, properly speaking, a fan of Metropolis; I have considered its message to be fascistic, and don't see it as plausible that its fascism was an artefact of the scenes in question having been dropped. But Metropolis is none-the-less a very important film, and I am actively pleased that this material has been found.

(I went looking for this story after reading an entry at the Horrors of It All.)

Last Tuesday evening marked the return of the Game Weasels to David's Coffee Place, but I must admit that this time they were reasonably well behaved, and certainly not so terribly noisy. Perhaps one reason for this was that only one male weasel was in attendance, at least while I observed them. (At some point, the Game Weasels moved outdoors to the front patio.)