Musings from Brian J. Noggle
Monday, July 31, 2006
 
Coming Soon to Ebay
Some people see the Virgin Mary in foodstuffs. Not us; we're patriots.

Steak in the shape of the United States



- posted by Brian J. @ 8:32 PM   2 comments
 
No QA in Raleigh, NC
If my current gig goes south and I ever get tired of not having a real winter in St. Louis and confuse North Carolina for a real northern state, I could get a job proofreading street signs:
    Pity the English teacher out for a drive, passing Raleigh street signs.

    Russling Leaf Lane? That's Rustling.

    Sherrif Place? That's Sheriff.

    Chinquoteague Court? Misty lived in Chincoteague!

    You can't even scribble corrections in red spray-paint. The city would just scrub them off.

    About a dozen Raleigh street signs display words that are flat-out misspelled.
Who am I kidding? There's obviously no official sign proofreader position in Raleigh.

(Link seen on Triticale.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:22 PM   0 comments
 
Post-Dispatch Can't Hang It On Sengheiser
As I mentioned previously, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch earlier this year had a mad-on for the local charity Gateway for a Cure, run by Lou Sengheiser (sample article here).

Now, another charity that wanted to raffle off a house has run into trouble:
    A new $175,000 home or $125,000 and 40 smaller prizes guaranteed to make the $100 ticket at least pay for itself would have seemed a temptation for even a non-gambler.

    But the Waterloo Sports Association's idea of making someone lucky person's dream come true while raising substantial funds for its youth sports programs fizzled.

    The Waterloo City Council approved the WSA's idea last November and for weeks the house raffle was the talk of the town.

    Unfortunately, people were just talking, not buying tickets.

    "We had 3,500 tickets, and we finally gave up when we couldn't even sell 300," said Rich Grove, who headed the WSA fundraiser.
We at MfBJN are waiting with bated breath to see if the St. Louis Post-Dispatch goes after the Waterloo whomever as crooks, or if Lou Sengheiser was just lucky.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:13 PM   0 comments
 
When Geeks Get Violent
Trivia events turn deadly in tough competition:
    In St. Louis County's VFW Halls and school cafeterias, a mistranslated Latinate, a misremembered movie quote, and even a sports record misstated by two at-bats have been motives for murder.

    Fourteen homicides struck neighborhood Trivia Night fundraisers over an 18-month period starting in 2001. The seemingly trivial reasons behind the killings led a prosecutor to label it "Ground Zero for Senseless Murder."
Oh, sorry, I misread the headline. It's "Trivial events turn deadly in tough neighborhood," which is much less amusing than where my mind went.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:59 PM   0 comments
Sunday, July 30, 2006
 
Commissars Admit Failure of 5 Year Plan, Create 7 Year Plan
Two stories out of O'Fallon, Missouri, today allude to the failures of top-down community planning and optimistically endorse more top-down community planning.

First, we have the story of how small businesses beamed down into New Urbantopias sometimes fail:
    Some businesses are doing well. The customers are flocking to the Listons' neighborhood-style tavern, patterned after the one they used to run in St. Louis' Dogtown area.

    Nearby residents drop in Curbside Cleaners with not only piles of dry-cleaning but also newsy updates about their families and kids for co-owner Donna Stuart. And at the Churchill Coffee Express inside the local branch of the St. Charles City-County Library, owner Robert Tock says he has a loyal group of sippers lining up at his door at 6:30 a.m.

    But for other merchants who rely on foot and car traffic and a bit of impulse buying, it's been a rocky few years.

    Late last year, the Boardwalk suffered a major blow when Dave and Kathy Grabis closed their corner grocery market, to the dismay of many loyal customers who considered the couple the mom and dad of the fledgling neighborhood.

    "Dave leaving was definitely a downfall for this area," said resident Gisell Sterner, as she dropped off clothes at the dry cleaners.

    It was the second failed retail endeavor along the one-block strip, following the closure of a Roly Poly lunch shop.

    Two other small-town mainstays - the ice cream parlor and the pizza shop - both hit hard times early on, and their original owners sold the business to new entrepreneurs who both have watched the car and foot traffic to their shops dwindle in the aftermath of the grocery's failure.

    In January, things didn't get easier when WingHaven's free trolley stopped service because of a lack of ridership.
Never fear, though; the central planners are still at it:
    Business owners and residents are now optimistic about negotiations under way between an area convenience store owner and WingHaven's developer - McEagle Properties - to open a market in the same location as the former grocery.
Because the New Urbanists believe the corner market will trump super Schnucks, Dierbergs, and food-slinging Wal-Marts. Because they say so, they continue to push for it. Because if they will it, the citizens will shop there.

In other news, O'Fallon is going to apply for state money to revitalize its downtown:
    If all goes as well, it could be O'Fallon's dream come true.

    The City Council gave staff the OK to apply for Missouri's DREAM initiative program.

    Known as the Downtown Revitalization Economic Assistance for Missouri, the DREAM initiative is a new program created through a partnership between the Missouri's department of economic development, development finance board and the housing development commission.

    The goal of the program is to offer technical and financial assistance for communities to more efficiently and effectively start the downtown revitalization process.

    Additionally, the program is supported by professionals who are dedicated to help cities rebuild central business districts and shortens the redevelopment timeline, according to DREAM officials.

    "What it does it combine existing incentive packages and brings it all under one umbrella," said Jim Curran, O'Fallon's director of economic development. "More cities are taking a look at the program that may not have qualified in the past due to medium income or population."
Leaving aside that the revitalized downtown will probably cause more of the New Urbantopia businesses in WingHaven to collapse, we're struck again with an instance of the government or other planners trying to induce demand for a service by providing supply of the service. In the case of both the development and the downtown, there's no one there who needs a small urban grocery or whatever, but the planners want their kitsch, so they'll spend their own money or our tax dollars to resuscitate faux urban areas.

The original downtowns sprung up where people crowded together to live for commerce, trade, and security. Since we have better, cheaper mechanisms for travel to and from work and commerce, we don't need the congested areas any more. Those downtowns and their businesses and their housing emerged because people needed it and demanded it. Not because someone decided that the land needed x density of population and y numbers of businesses within walking distance.

And trying to impose such won't make it so. But it will waste a lot of money in the process.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:14 PM   0 comments
Saturday, July 29, 2006
 
Hot Jewish Chicks With Guns
Rachel Papo, photographer, captures the young Israeli women conscripts.

Sort of indicting to our American culture that, during a period where our young are at college trying to figure out where the party's at, the Israeli youth are training to protect their existence and their way of life from a hostile world who would destroy it.

(Link seen on Overtaken By Events.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:33 PM   0 comments
 
Also, It Will Build An Army of Supervillians
Radioactive scorpion venom may help treat brain cancer:
    The search for cancer cures can at times produce some curious treatments, but the latest study just might stun you.

    Neurosurgeons at St. Louis University are among the doctors injecting radioactive scorpion toxin directly into the brains of patients with a deadly brain cancer.
When you think about this and the use of botox for cosmetic purposes, we might be now living in the golden age of intaking deadly substances for medical benefit.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:06 PM   0 comments
 
The Cat's In The Cradle
Well, no. Ajax isn't too knowledgeable about baby furniture.

The cat's in the cra--er, crib



- posted by Brian J. @ 10:21 AM   1 comments
Friday, July 28, 2006
 
The Short Memory of Marketers
McDonalds Hugo-sized drink reminded me a lot of Hurricane Hugo, but what's the problem? In a couple years, it won't even be on the list of the top most damaging US Hurricanes, and it was almost 20 years ago. Before many of its target audience were born.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:37 PM   0 comments
 
It Pays To Diversify
Record sales and improved margins boost MEMC:
    MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. said record sales and improved margins boosted profit in the second quarter. Although profit per share doubled to 36 cents a share for MEMC, that was short of analysts' predictions that it would earn 42 cents a share.
Silicon and vinyl. They just go together.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:56 PM   0 comments
Thursday, July 27, 2006
 
Open Source Humor
If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitschin'.

I thought of that punchline, but for the life of me, I cannot think of a setup that justifies it. I ask you, members of the open source community, to do my work for me and provide it.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:12 PM   0 comments
 
Live In An Ugly House In Ellisville, Go To Jail
Remember, citizen, your property rights are conferred upon you by your government. As this story illustrates, your government can arrest you and run you out of town at its displeasure at your standards of maintenance:
    An inspection found the homeowner in violation of five housing laws. The roof was too worn; the driveway was cracked and shifted; the trim, siding, doors and windows had exposed surfaces from a lack of paint; there was open storage alongside the house and in the backyard; and the posts that once held up a fence needed to come down.

    Despite the letter, the violations remained. Court dates came and went. Hordesky didn't show. In March, the municipal judge issued warrants for his arrest. Ellisville police officers searched for him at his house. No one answered the door, but the back entrance was unlocked. They later went inside and snapped pictures.

    The house was deemed a health hazard, and the electricity and gas were turned off. A condemnation notice was stapled to the front door. The city brought in St. Louis County's Problem Properties Unit, which routinely handles similar cases. Jeff Young and Rehagen, the two inspectors who work the southern half of the county, have a caseload of roughly 135 properties. They encounter hoarders often, but seldom in upscale neighborhoods.

    The day of his arrest, Hordesky posted a $500 bond. After discussions with the Problem Properties Unit, Hordesky eventually agreed to sell the house. He recently provided the city prosecutor with a sales contract, and the closing date is in mid-August.
Please, don't offer defenses of the community here, for we cannot have a discussion. A priori we differ enough that I won't want to hear exactly what arbitrary standard you feel justifies this government taking.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:08 PM   0 comments
 
Joseph Kittinger, Jr., Award Winner
It's been a while, but we here at MfBJN confer upon Canadian (!) Tom Tilley the Joseph Kittinger, Jr., Award for Demonstrable Manliness for this incident:
    A man stabbed a black bear to death with a 15-cm hunting knife, saying he knew he would otherwise become "lunch" after it attacked him and his dog on a canoeing portage in northern Ontario.

    Tom Tilley, a 55-year-old from Waterloo, Ont., said his American Staffordshire dog Sam growled a warning, then rushed to his defence as the bear came at them on a trail north of Wawa on Friday.

    As Sam battled with the nearly 90-kilogram bear, Tilley jumped on its back and stabbed it with his knife.
Gall as big as church bells.

(Link seen on The Other Side of Kim.)

Previous Kittinger Award winners:

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:57 PM   0 comments
 
Government Punishes Those Who Buy Parks
Wentzville considers sales tax hike for parks

Dammit, buying a park is expensive enough without an additional government tax on the purchase price. When buying parks is taxed, only the government will buy parks.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:54 PM   0 comments
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
 
Book Report: I Ought To Be In Pictures by Neil Simon (1981)
Like The Mystery of Edwin Drood, I bought this book for $2.00 at the St. Charles Book Fair in that orgy of hardback buying that's populated the top of my sole to-read shelves with overflow of unrelated tomes. Since I'm in the midst of a long nonfiction hardback to be reported later, I picked this book up for a quick bit of levity in between.

As some of you know (all of you who aren't dammkidz), Neil Simon was a prolific playwright circa the later middle decades of the twentieth century. Many of his plays were even made into movies. Oddly enough, I have a sort of cultural touchstone with this particular piece from that era; my brother, as a boy, received upon him the schtick that he was a button collector, and he had a I Ought To Be In Pictures button, no doubt reminiscent of the time where this play travelled to the Melody Top or the Riverside Theatre in Milwaukee. But I bought the book because I wanted more drama in my life, not some envy of my brother's button collection. I think I stole inherited it, anyway, when either he needed some money in high school or when he abdicated many of his worldly possessions when joining the Marines.

The play is a simple two act with three characters: a nineteen year old New York girl who arrives at the door of her father's California bungalow sixteen years after he abandoned her; the almost-failure screenwriter father; and his movie business girlfriend with some substance. The action takes place in the bungalow and deals with the daughter who wants to be in pictures... or maybe just wants to reconcile with the father she never knew.

It's a short play, and a simple conceit. I liked it enough, but perhaps if I spent too much time on it, I would think it too facile or not complex enough to speak truth to power. Perhaps Simon ain't Shakespeare. But in 1602, Shakespeare wasn't Shakespeare, either.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:59 PM   0 comments
 
True, That
Shooting fish in a barrel can prove quite challenging, if you're using 155mm field artillery.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:12 PM   0 comments
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
 
Ask Dr. Creepy
Dr. CreepyDear Doctor Creepy,
Today at work, I told an inappropriate joke that, while inappropriate, was also subject to misinterpretation. Someone mentioned using a false name of "Bob," and I rejoindered with, "Because everyone likes a floater." One woman in our group gasped appropriately at the tastelessness, but I later thought that she might have gotten the joke wrong. A floater, as you know, can refer to a bloated corpse fished from a body of water; however, in the common vernacular, it can also refer to a piece of excrement which does not go down the drain with a single flush.

My question is, how can I let these people know that while inappropriate and crude, I am above the common proletarian scatalogical humor?

Signed, Stepped In It

Dear Stepped In It,

As you know, it's perfectly acceptable to make ghastly comments and inappropriate remarks about death to show that you're either a trenchcoat wearing purveyor of the same or hiding your stark terror at mortality behind a flippant front. However, when it comes to creeping people out with your humor, it's more important to let the recipients of your wit wonder about your motives or how you could make that joke than to have them think you're a nice guy.

So let the miscommunication stand. Your apparent cluelessness and lack of decorum serves well enough to creep people out whether its ghoulish humor about decaying flesh or poop. Although the former is preferable, the latter will do, so to speak.

Sincerely,
Dr. Creepy


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:39 PM   1 comments
Monday, July 24, 2006
 
The Haze Spectator
July 24 Downtown

A rich, velvety mouthfeel combines with the flavors of oak, earth, smoke, mangoes, and just the sweetest touch of tannery. A rich, summery haze that represents the genre well but ultimately doesn't rise above the genre enough to be memorable on its own or to transcend its peers.

82


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:50 AM   0 comments
Sunday, July 23, 2006
 
Mistakes Common To New Parents
Bassinet, bayonet, come on, I cannot be the only one to have made the mistake. But it's worked out well for the post-fetus, actually, since I gave him a bayonet. Now, when he wants to eat, we get him food. Or else.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:08 PM   0 comments
Saturday, July 22, 2006
 
St. Louis City Makes Do Without FEMA
When searching for a scapegoat or man-made entity to shake its impotent fist at after the recent storms, the city of St. Louis settles on Ameren UE:
    City officials expressed frustration today that Ameren Corp. has kept them in the dark while more than half of the city remains without power.

    Mayor Francis Slay -- whose own home has lost power -- said the utility has been "playing it very close to the vest" about when power would be restored to St. Louis.

    "They have been very, very vague," Slay said in a briefing to aldermen at City Hall. "They don"t really promise anything specifically -- I think intentionally so."
Dear politicians:

When dealing with actual concrete things, such as incompletely troubleshot interruptions of service, undiagnosed downed lines, and incomplete timetables of unknown repairs on undiscovered problems, people in the real world don't make rash promises that they probably cannot meet. Although this is commonplace in your industry, how about you just shut your yap, sweat with your constituents, and never consider about how your efforts to hamstring public utilities might actually have helped lead to the situation you're in now?

Nah, nevermind. Use this as a pretext to puff your three-pieced chest up and to further meddle with all the incompetent power of preening government.


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:13 PM   2 comments
 
Almost a Blog
Robert B. Parker's "blog" on Amazon.com.

One post with 61 comments from readers. I cannot fault him for not keeping up with it; blogs are facile mechanisms for writers who aren't doing five pages a day, no more, no less, for profit.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:36 PM   0 comments
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
 
Parenting Advice
When improvising a lullaby for your newborn, it is perfectly acceptable to rhyme baby with astrolabe. The kid will not call you on it.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:59 PM   0 comments
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
 
Apparently, Our Deadly Heat Waves Are Lacking
How can we feel national pride in our deadly heat waves?
    At least six deaths have been blamed on the heat, and the weather was suspected in at least three others.
Compare to the more nuanced, reasonable, and thoroughly progressive, socialist-minded continent, as demonstrated by France:
    The death toll in France from August's [2003] blistering heat wave has reached nearly 15,000, according to a government-commissioned report released Thursday, surpassing a prior tally by more than 3,000.

    Scientists at INSERM, the National Institute of Health and Medical Research, deduced the toll by determining that France had experienced 14,802 more deaths than expected for the month of August.
Hopefully, government intervention, regulation, and meddling can solve the crisis we're having in the lack of actual deaths in our deadly heat wave.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:01 PM   0 comments
 
You Keep Using That Word I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means
The words: the "market." The you: The Brookings Institution:
    Low-income residents of 13 cities across the nation pay extra for many everyday services, sometimes thousands of dollars more over a whole year, a study to be released today shows.

    By taking out higher-interest mortgages, shopping at rent-to-own furniture stores, using check-cashing businesses instead of banks and buying groceries at convenience stores, the nation's working poor households pay much more than moderate- and high-income households for life's essentials, says the Brookings Institution study, which analyzed services in San Francisco, Oakland and 11 other cities.

    The report -- "From Poverty, Opportunity: Putting the Market to Work for Lower-Income Families" -- calls on government officials to create laws to curb services that gouge low-income consumers, and it proposes reproducing fledgling programs the authors found across the country.
No word on whether how the Brookings Institution wants businesses to recoup their losses on the higher default rates of those in poverty. Perhaps the government should just create laws to curb poverty, risk, and rain on days you wanted to go for a bike ride since it's that easy.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:54 PM   0 comments
 
Satanism Rears Its Ugly Head In Columbia, Missouri
Oh, sorry, I guess it's not really Satanism, just a prosecutor using a law targeting Satanism creatively to punish someone who abused her child:
    Boone County Circuit Judge Gary Oxenhandler sentenced Erma McKinney on Monday to 21 years for assault, 10 years for child abuse, eight years for child endangerment, and seven years for child endangerment in a ritual or ceremony. McKinney will serve the first three sentences concurrently and the last one consecutively.

    McKinney was convicted in May. The ritual or ceremony charge was brought because McKinney told police she punished her son with a hot shower more than once.
I demand my legislators do something! and make sure that assault with an active shower head is an additional felony, because 30 years just ain't enough.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:49 PM   0 comments
Monday, July 17, 2006
 
Book Report: The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Rupert Holmes (1986)
You know, the St. Louis Reperatory Theatre put on this play this play last year, and I didn't have the inkling to go. I mean, face it, I hear Steven Woolf on the radio hawking the shows, and his forced enthusiasm kills any I might feel about a play. I mean, this one is a musical, and everybody knows how I feel about musicals (hint). So I didn't go, and reading the book, I'm sorry I didn't.

I picked this book club edition for a couple bucks at one of the book fairs I attended this summer. I think it was St. Charles, but come on, St. Charles, St. Louis, Kirkwood, Belleville, Webster Groves....they're all beginning to blend together. I'm not reading the books fast enough to keep their origins fresh.

Aside from that, let's dwell on the fact that this is a book club edition. Now, I've done my turns with the Book of the Month Club and the Quality Paperback Club (and the Writers' Digest Book Club) beginning in the 1990s, but they didn't offer contemporary plays. Is there a Broadway Book Club out there, or is this disappearance representative of the death of middlebrow culture? I mean, not to put too fine of a point on it, where has drama-loving middlebrow culture gone? In the olden days, plays and theatre were cheap and popular entertainment, with stars accountable to their audiences both in their performance and their lifestyles. Now, our popular entertainment is phoned in from somewhere else, delivered via unresponsive screening technologies by stars who don't know their ultimate audiences, but feel contempt for them. What happened? Oh, yeah, theatre tickets stopped selling for a penny and snotty little English and Drama majors started getting uppity, using the rarification of their academic experience to distance themselves from the dirty, unthinking (or wrong thinking) plebes. Probably more of the former than the latter.

This particular work breaks down the fourth wall in a rather interesting fashion. It does the normal play-within-the-play thing as well; the story revolves around the last, unfinished work of Charles Dickens as presented by a turn-of-the-century British troupe. Ergo, all actors are playing actors playing characters in the play. Throughout, the Edwin Drood action stops as the drama personnel of the British troupe make asides, discuss their parts, and so on. Ultimately, the British troupe asks the audience to help finish off the play, as Dickens died before revealing the Solution of Edwin Drood.

So the play, this play, the Mystery of Edwin Drood, offers a novel and amusing presentation of several conventions and must be very interesting to see in performance, except now I know all possible endings. It's like watching Clue: The Movie over and over again even when the mystery is gone. Come to think of it, I do that, too, so I guess I'd go see a production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood if I got the chance.

As far as the St. Louis Reperatory Theatre goes, I guess I'll make my way over there, too, and give Steven Woolf the benefit of the doubt. Especially since we've moved to Old Trees, Missouri, and now we're so close to it that I sometimes bang my shin into Loretto-Hilton Center when trying to find the bathroom in the dark.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:06 PM   0 comments
Sunday, July 16, 2006
 
Beating Instapundit Like An Oil Drum
Who's the number one Google hit for "anti robot bigotry"?

MfBJN, of course.

The number 2 hit? Some obscure academic's Web site.

I bet I beat him for Samus Aran naked, too.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:41 PM   1 comments
 
Is That Some Kind of Metaphor?
As jets soar, so does temperature:
    The National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory for the Milwaukee area today, cautioning residents - who sweated through highs in the mid-90s on Saturday - to prepare for even higher temperatures and humidity.

    The advisory, the first of its kind this year, is expected to be in effect until Monday morning.

    Darrin Hansing, a meteorologist with the weather service in Sullivan, advised residents to stay indoors and drink plenty of fluids.

    "Heat exhaustion and heatstroke are very possible in these types of situations if people don't take the proper precautions," he said.

    Little relief is in sight until the end of the week.

    The weather service predicts a hot and humid day today, with highs in the upper 90s. Residents can expect 90-degree days until Thursday afternoon, said Peter Speicher, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Sullivan.

    "There's a front coming in from the northwest," he said.

    Milwaukee hit a high of 94 on Saturday.

    Temperatures in Fond du Lac climbed to 95 and reached a high of 91 in Lone Rock. It was 97 in Sheboygan and 93 in Madison, Kenosha and Racine.
No, wait, somewhere around paragraph 24, after all the normal admonishments to turn on your air conditioners, you freaking northerners, and don't put the pets in the sweat lodge, we get the tie to the weekend air show:
    The Milwaukee Fire Department also set up three sprinkler tents around the Veterans Park area for the TCF Bank Air Expo on Saturday, Lt. Tim Halbur said.
We then get a couple short paragraphs about the air show and how people coped with the French-killing temperatures at the air show. I guess that's where the Journal-Sentinel sent its photographers to cover the heat wave, or maybe it couldn't afford to take pictures of and write stories about both the heat wave and the air show, so the paper did its part in conserving energy by combining the two stories in a surprising and haphazard way.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:17 PM   0 comments
 
Living in a Hidden Fee Economy
Drives me as mad as anything, that companies tack on service charges and other means of bleeding you after hooking you in with a low price or rate. Economists are making their theories, and Christopher Shea reviews.

Bottom line, it helps the savvy consumer by soaking most idiots.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:04 PM   2 comments
Saturday, July 15, 2006
 
1980s Television Reprise
You know, M*A*S*H isn't as funny now, realizing that 50 years after the war and 25 years after the television show we'd still deal with the unspoken geopolitical implications behind the hijinks.


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:38 PM   0 comments
 
I Want Their Therapy
Apparently, the producers of Channel4.com have blotted the movie Dirty Dancing from their minds; otherwise, how could they call Eric Carmen a one-hit wonder for his song "All By Myself"?

Oh, they're British.

As if that's some excuse they didn't spend much of the late 1980s suffering through "Make Me Lose Control" on the radio.

My psychiatrist appreciates the difference and is glad I was not born in Leeds.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:11 PM   0 comments
 
Suddenly, A San Francisco City Supervisor Is Inspired To Mandate Pet Sitter Licenses
Inspiration here: Don't gobble up slick tricks -- get Fido a pro: It takes more than fake certifications to make a pet sitter:
    So how can you find this trustworthy soul? It makes sense to start with a referral from someone you know and respect, like a friend or veterinarian, preferably someone who has actually used this sitter's services.

    You can also look in the phone book under "Pet Sitting Services" or check with an organization such as the Humane Society, or a local shelter or rescue group. I found a wonderful sitter for my greyhound, Elvis, through the referral program of Golden State Greyhound Adoption. My sole concern has been that sometimes I suspect he prefers her to me.
No doubt the government-solves-everything crowd and the organized pet sitters with organizations and whatnot know that their preferred solution is a license.

Author of the piece identifies some handy due dilligence for selecting a pet sitter in a free marketplace, but caveat emptor can always be solved when you knock out that damn laissez-faire. Both are foreign words anyway, too good for us Americans.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:35 AM   0 comments
 
The Secret Of My Success, Revealed!
Why did a hottie take up with a down-on-his-English-degree printing press operator like me?

Because chicks dig sardonic humor and classical allusions, apparently.

Remember, Googlers, when you're trying to figure out how to attract hot women, the answer is read more Shakespeare.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:24 AM   3 comments
 
Book Report: And Then She Was Gone by Susan McBride (1999)
I picked this book up at the Kirkwood Book Fair because I recognized the local author's name from the Big Sleep Books, and this book was a First Edition/First Printing. For a dollar. You cannot do wrong, can you?

Well, it's a child snatch book, and although it's not Nightmare in Manhattan, I didn't care for it that much. I'm just not big on that particular plot thing. Perhaps I just don't have the same nightmares as most parents, but I don't have an automatic investment in child snatch books, even if there's the scandalous confrontation of child molestation! It hearkens me back to my single visit to a starting writers' group in my former suburb, where it was me, a couple of "poets," and a number of old ladies all writing books on child molestation. It creeped me out, I kid you not.

The book is a serviceable genre piece, though, and worth a buck if you can find it. It did, however, alert me to Mayhaven Publishing and its annual novel competition. Boy, novel competitions are starting to look good to me as far as publishing my last novel are concerned.

Books mentioned in this review:

 

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:08 AM   0 comments
Thursday, July 13, 2006
 
Wherein Brian Scores Two of Twelve
That is, the number of Maxim magazine's 12 Worst Comedians of All Time whose books I have read in the last year (Sinbad and Judy Tenuta).

Of course, now if I see the others' books at book fairs and I remember, I'll probably pick them up so I can complete the set.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:16 PM   0 comments
 
Democrats Turn America Around - To The Past
Althouse likes it, but come on. The new Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ad has the title America Needs a New Direction, but its premise is that it's about turning America around, and the only speaker in the ad is Bill Clinton.

Somehow, Bill Clinton does not represent a new direction, merely a reprise of a time when the world was rosier for Democrats, and they briefly controlled the presidency and the Congress. Before the country began its true change in a new direction (which sort of diverged, but turned parallel, sadly).


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:11 PM   0 comments
 
Going All Samson
Bush jawbones Hezbollah on Mideast peace issue

Unless he slew them with the jawbone of an ass, I don't see how this verb fits into the characterization of presidential behavior.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:08 PM   0 comments
 
Blogging Kismet
On Sunday, I reviewed Stanley Bing's novel Lloyd: What Happened. Today, I got several Google hits for the book title.

It's because CNN is running a piece on him in support of his new nonfiction book 100 Bull---- Jobs ... And How to Get Them.

None of those cheapskates used the Amazon link to buy the novel, though. However will I top my quarterly record of $.08 without the help from some hapless Internet searchers?


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:03 PM   0 comments
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
 
"Level" Means The Finger of Government Is On Your Scale
Somehow, I'm not sure whether the government should be in the business of determining whether cows are happy enough:
    Fears that big operations will muscle out family farms have produced a backlash, including a boycott by the Organic Consumers Association against the country's biggest organic milk brand, Horizon Organic.

    Organic farmers and consumer groups hope the Agriculture Department will level the field. The agency is considering whether to mandate that milk bearing the "USDA Organic" seal come from cows that have significant access to pasture, a move smaller producers say would give them the protection they need.
The whole marketing story used to be that organic junk was better for the consumer, healthier and all that. One would think that corporate economies of scale applied to organics, yielding more healthy consumers, would be a good thing. But not if corporations are involved; then the marketing story switches to more green, cow happiness (which corporations cannot/do not provide):
    Chris Hoffman drank Horizon milk until she learned about the dispute and switched brands. The resident of Sherburne, N.Y., said she'd thought she was buying milk from "family farms with happy cows." To her, feedlot milk does not follow the spirit of organic farming. "I just think it's patently dishonest. And it just really ticked me off," she said.
The spirit of organic farming, apparently, is protectionism, anti-marketism and anti-consumerism, and creation of artificial price floors to support people who thought that working in a niche market with a pricing minimum would pay off and later discovered, to their own financial (greed!) horror, that when their niche became mainstream, it proved to be less lucrative.

It's not about the cows, it's about the cash cows.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:59 AM   0 comments
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
 
Will City of St. Louis Run Mallinckrodt Out Of Town?
Rail manufacturers, tar producers, and chicken plucking futures have just gone up! Explosion injures two Mallinckrodt workers:
    Two employees of Mallinckrodt Inc. suffered minor injuries this morning in a flash fire that occurred while one of them was mixing chemicals.

    St. Louis Fire Department Capt. Steve Simpson said the explosion occurred when dust was ignited, possibly from static electricity. It happened at Building 235 at the Mallinckrodt complex at 3700 N. Broadway at about 10:20 a.m.
Those of us who watched the Praxair accident aftermath (my coverage here, here, and here) have to wonder if Mallinckrodt will suffer the same banishment for the industrial accident, or if there are other criteria which a company meet to draw the ire of the government of the city of St. Louis, such as:
  • Dramatic pyrotechnics the whole neighborhood can see.
  • Live coverage on CNN.
  • Continuous drum-beating by the local daily paper.
  • ?
Either way, if the city doesn't punish the company, it will demonstrate once again the fickle nature of our governments and prove that businesses and citizens exist, live, and do business at the leisure of the regal ruling class.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:25 PM   0 comments
 
CORRUPTION!!!!!
Missouri Democratic Party to pay $20,000 campaign finance fine:
    The Federal Election Commission has imposed a $20,000 fine on the Missouri Democratic Party for violating federal campaign finance laws during the 2002 election.

    The fine -- part of a negotiated settlement -- comes less than a year after the party paid a separate $110,000 fine to resolve similar allegations from the 2000 election.
Of course, it reflects more on the labyrinth of campaign finance violations that make it an incredibly violation-fraught journey to try to run for political office in this country than actual corruption. Too bad for the Missouri Democrats.

Oddly, Fired Up! Missouri doesn't mention this story.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:13 PM   0 comments
Monday, July 10, 2006
 
So What Kind Of Nickname Does He Get?
Packers sign sixth-round pick Jolly:
    The Green Bay Packers signed sixth-round pick Johnny Jolly on Friday.

    The 6-foot-3, 317-pound defensive tackle earned All-Big 12 honors in his junior and senior years at Texas A&M.
If it were hockey, they'd call him "Joller" or something.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:37 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: Stars and Stripes Triumphant by Harry Harrison (2003)
This book represents the third book in the Stars and Stripes trilogy, but I didn't know that when I threw it in my box at the St. Charles Book Fair. All I knew is what the front cover told me (A Novel of Alternate History, Harry Harrison, and the title), and that was enough for me. I've done a Turtledove in the recent past (Ruled Britannia, reviewed here) and another Harrison novel earlier this year (The Stainless Steel Rat for President, reviewed here), so of course I picked this one up, even though it's an ex-library copy and I would later realize it cost $2.00

The premise of the series: At the onset of the Civil War, Great Britain seizes a Confederate diplomat and unites the Union and the Confederacy into a war against Britain. Apparently the books deal with the initial conflict, subsequent conflict, and finally (this book) an invasion of Britain itself. It's a quick read and stood well enough apart from the others in the series that I was not lost in it.

Unlike Turtledove, this book is pretty straight-ahead action without a lot of reflection or repetitious, almost extraneous character development. On the other hand, it does skip a bit on actual drama and conflict, since the technology and the battle-hardened nature of the American side and its brilliant strategy pretty much ensures that events unfold as planned without significant hinderance from the British.

That simple, almost logical progression not only plays to my jingoist American sensibilities, but also acts as fast forward buttons on the reading.

So I liked the book and wouldn't mind reading the others in the series, but let's face it: I'll try not to pay $2.00 for ex-library editons in the future. Unless the book fair bug strikes again.

Books mentioned in this review:

   

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:31 PM   2 comments
Sunday, July 09, 2006
 
Book Report: Big Trouble by Dave Barry (1999)
This is Dave Barry's first novel and the source for the 2002 film, so of course I bought it when it was available from the St. Charles County Book Fair for $2.00. I've been meaning to see the movie, too, but now I can compare it to the book, unfavorably no doubt.

As Dave Barry works with Carl Hiaasen (Book reports: Strip Tease, Skinny Dip, and Basket Case), one could expect that the absurdist crime caper bacterium would contaminate the works of the normally serious Mr. Barry. And so it has. The book is full of oddball characters, strange coincidences, and other contrivances that make the work funny. It's not serious fiction, so it's good camp and high fun. Or vice versa.

I need to start pitching my books to agents as in the style of Carl Hiaasen and Dave Barry. I'll just have to be more careful to spell their names and book titles correctly. If you've clicked through those Hiaasen reviews, gentle reader, you'll note I've misspelled both in various places.

Books mentioned in this review:

     


What, you think I mention other books just to get the links on the front page of my blog? I am shocked, shocked at the accusation! But it's a new quarter, and I'm hoping to break my new record for quarterly referral kickbacks of $.08.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:34 PM   0 comments
 
Because It's A Literary List, That's Why
Kim du Toit presents a list of his favorite short stories. While not a true "best of" list, compulsion to convince you, gentle reader, that I have read some things has lead me to reproduce this list with the items I have read highlighted with bold font: Short stories are harder to recollect than novels if you've merely read them in passing, as part of a survey course, or as part of a collection or anthology.

I'd also like to point out that I have a collection of Guy de Maupassant on my to-read shelves, so at some time, this personally annotated list will be more impressive.

Of all those I've read, I'd have to say that the "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is probably my favorite, and I've sort of got the idea for a story that has it in a twist of sorts. Sort of a combination of that and O. Henry's A Retrieved Retribution.

But that's neither here nor there.

So how well would you hold a conversation with Mr. du Toit on his favorite stories?


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:26 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: Lloyd What Happened by Stanley Bing (1998)
I used to read Stanley Bing's column in Fortune magazine in 1996-1997, back when I was making $15,000 to $20,000 a year but was thinking big. It's also before Fortune magazine and everyone in the Time stable started unscrupulously sending out magazine subscription forms disguised as invoices or shipping Sports Illustrated calendars, payment due, to anyone who entered their contests. So while my appreciation for all things Time-Warner fell to the disdain level, my fondness for Stanley Bing did not.

So when I saw this ex-library hardback at the St. Charles Book Fair, I said what the heck, and I picked it up for two dollars. It's a satirical, slightly humorous look at life in the higher echelons of a multinational conglomorate. Lloyd, an executive vice president or some such, is a man with a title but no department who becomes the special envoy between the corporation and its parent as it begins to trim headcount in preparation for an acquisition. In addition to prose, the application includes relevant slide show presentations and graphs to illustrate Lloyd's lifestyle relative to what it was when he began his career and how it was when he began the year captured in the book. In between business deals, navigating the literally and figuratively murderous world of scheming underlings and scheming overlords, Lloyd must deal with the temptations of a fiery vice president who's available to a man of his obvious charisma.

Still, all temptations of the flesh and the power aside, the main character is a bit of a cipher; other characters explain how he fills a room, but that doesn't come off of the page nor out of the mind of the character. Perhaps that's intentional from Bing, a kind of representation of how even the most charismatic can fill out their interior lives with doubts. As I'm not particularly charismatic, you could easily convince me this is the interior life of more affable people, and I'll let Bing get away with it. Because in spite of his self-doubts and cloddish behavior, Lloyd gets a redemption of sorts, unlike Brandon Sladder (from The Columnist by Jeffrey Frank, reviewed here). So the good will in the overall story of the book and its non-American Beauty ending, coupled with the palatable satire, carried me along through the book.

It was an entertaining book, but it might have run a couple or fifty pages too long. Sometime in the turn beyond the 200 page mark, I started wondering where it was going, and then it wrapped up somewhat abruptly, but perhaps that's appropriate given the semi-absurdity of its ending. It's an enjoyable book, and I recommend it as not only humorous story, which it is, but also as an inspiration for some people ascending the corporate ladders. Sure, it's satire, but it's also human in that it shows that people in power, in the apex of their fields, still suffer from the existential angst when they wonder if that's all there is. I can appreciate that, and it's comforting.

Books mentioned in this review:

 

- posted by Brian J. @ 12:53 PM   0 comments
Saturday, July 08, 2006
 
Book Report: In Someone's Shadow by Rod McKuen (1969, 1970)
I finally broke down and bought this book from the Bridgeton Trails branch of the St. Louis County Library for a quarter. If you peruse the poetry sections of used books stores, garage sales, or many new book stores, you find an awful lot of this McKuen guy's work. I've pooh-poohed them because 1. They're popular and prevalent, and 2. That funky old-timey script and design probably indicates that they're old, from like the 60s or something and probably chock full of San Franscisco park goodness.

Well, sorta.

The book started out exceedingly well, with a poem dedicated to Jerry Kramer, the former right guard for the Green Bay Packers (Instant Replay: The Green Bay Diary of Jerry Kramer reviewed). I mean, a poem dedicated to a Green Bay Packer. You don't get much better than that.

That poem, which deals with the aging and retirement of a great, and the other pieces within the book are eminently accessible, as their language is facile and freeversic. So I could follow each poem, enjoy some of them, and spot a turn of phrase or two that was clever. And by the next day, I'd remember little. Very light poetry, with little of lasting sustenance. I can't imagine trying to memorize one of these to perform at an open mike night, unlike "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", "Love, Though For This You Riddle Me With Darts", or "The World Is Too Much With Us".

Still, sometime in the 1960s, apparently McKuen was a popular poetry dynamo, with millions of books of poetry in print and albums of spoken/sung poetry, hit records for other people, and other things that landed him an IMDB entry. The most financially successful poet of all time, and he's all but forgotten thirty years later. Unlike, say, Robert Frost.

Like his fellow popular celebrity singer/poet Leonard Cohen (Selected Poems 1956-1968 review), perhaps McKuen did more harm than good to poetry by making it so accessible, so real, and so ultimately like spun cotton candy that required no digestion other than putting it on one's tongue. I mean, they're not bad poets, but if they're held up to the popular mind as the ultimate in poetry, well, the public mind has digested it and has turned elsewhere for sustenance.

So it's not a bad book, and I won't dodge 25 cent offerings of other McKuen books in the future, but I don't rate him among the giants of the field, past or present.

On a side note, this book is the first one read to my son. Remember, 25% of your purchases through the Amazon links below will be dedicated to my boy's future therapy.

Books mentioned in this review:

   

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:16 PM   0 comments
 
The Show
Forget this minor league blogging stuff; Damn Interesting is looking to bolster its roster.

I am going to take my cuts before the scouts, believe you me. Or believe me you. However those tricky direct object/indirect object relationships work out, which is typically badly and end with much breaking of dishes.


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:44 PM   0 comments
 
Appellations for the Post-Fetus
Early contributions to the identity crisis of the Noggling:
  1. Professor Higganbotham
  2. Dr. DeGassio
  3. Jimmy Ray
  4. Jimbo McGibblets
  5. Instapoopdit
  6. Mr. Fussbudget
  7. Fussbucket
  8. Waylon
Sorry for the light posting, but I'm doing maintenance.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:37 PM   0 comments
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
 
You Don't Say
Story: Legal bills drain money from public coffers: $100 million paid to attorneys in past 5 years:
    Lawyer bills ate up close to $100 million in local tax dollars over the past five years in the five-county metro area, and legal spending by municipalities is on the rise, a Journal Sentinel analysis shows.
Of course, the Journal-Sentinel wants to point the finger at greedy lawyers who suck up all that public money. Personally, since the Journal-Sentinel tends to like spending public money and suing your way to justice or retribution, I find it disingenuous that the paper makes an issue of the combination. But it does.

You want to know what really burns up the people's money when it comes to legal expenses? Governments suing governments, whether municipalities suing each other, local governments suing regional governments, state governments suing the federal government, or peer agencies suing each other. Such as: Nah, that's not wasting the people's money on legal fees. Not if there's a chance for a higher office for the right-thinking sort of person involved.


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:19 PM   0 comments
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
 
Compton Heights Takes Extreme Anti-Emu Measures
To emus from overrunning the neighborhood at up to 35 miles per hour, the neighborhood of Compton Heights has taken extreme measures:
    This kid's pet was not the typical dog or cat, but the world's longest lizard, a rare - and, to some people, beautiful - animal called the crocodile monitor. It looks like a tiny dinosaur with teeth like razors and a bullwhip for a tail. It is very aggressive. It dines on birds and medium-sized rats.

    Now it is missing.

    The crocodile monitor escaped from its cage and is assumed still to be roaming the streets of St. Louis' Compton Heights neighborhood, fending for itself and potentially scaring people.
The introduction of a predator to take care of the largely bulletproof flightless birds will likely save the police department money on ordnance it would spend on dangerous emus, which can act aggressive and elusive to anyone they meet. Carbondale police are watching with interest to see how the Compton Heights program works on controlling the emu population, as well as small yippy dog population, before unleashing exotic predators, anaconda or perhaps dingos, in the small university town.


- posted by Brian J. @ 4:24 PM   1 comments
Monday, July 03, 2006
 
Anti-Property Rights Legislators, or the IRA
It's getting hard to tell them apart, with philosophies like this:
    The surgeon general's recent report on the hazards of secondhand smoke could spawn the next big summer sequel: Smoking Ban II.

    Last year a controversial attempt to ban smoking in all public buildings died a slow, public death in the St. Louis County Council.

    But the failed ban's author, Council Chairman Kurt Odenwald, R-Shrewsbury, says the new report has led him to consider another run at the issue.

    "After this report, I don't think anyone can say this is not a health issue anymore," Odenwald said. "The dangers of secondhand smoke are real. They are not hogwash, and I think we need to address them."
When it comes to keeping a check on the government's regulation of individual property rights, our elected leaders and the unelected agitators for legislation usurping personal dominion over personal property seem to espouse the philosophy: Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You have to be lucky always.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:58 PM   0 comments
 
Two Words: Falun Gong
L.A. yoga guru accused of running illegal studio:
    Los Angeles prosecutors charged "hot yoga" guru Bikram Choudhury with operating a yoga studio without a permit and other violations that could land the controversial instructor in jail.

    Choudhury, his landlord American Sunroof Corp. and company president Christian Prechter were each charged on Thursday with 10 criminal counts including operating without a certificate, overcrowding the yoga studio and not maintaining emergency exits. Each faces a maximum sentence of six months in jail for each count, and/or a $1,000 fine.
As his attorney would tell you, that's a weak set of twigs to bind together into something with which to beat this instructor.

But, ladies and gentlemen, our activist, "Doing Something!" legislatures have given prosecutors with agenda the ability to legally beat upon the "criminals" using a bunch of lilliputian laws that could bind any one of us.

Sure, this prosecutor isn't actually beating nor killing this fellow, but it's just close enough for the Chinese to say that they're dealing with their oddball religions/exercise programs the same way.

And just close enough that our own consciences will pull up short when it comes to sanctioning the Chinese. After all, we're no different.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:05 AM   0 comments
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."