Musings from Brian J. Noggle
Monday, April 30, 2007
The View of the Vox Populi on the Op-Ed Pages
Apparently, some guy in Arkansas wrote a letter that got printed in the local paper:
-
You may have noticed that March of this year was particularly hot. As a matter of fact, I understand that it was the hottest March since the beginning of the last century....
This should come as no surprise to any reasonable person. As you know, Daylight Saving time started almost a month early this year. You would think that members of Congress would ave considered the warming effect that an extra hour of daylight would have on our climate. Or did they?
Perhaps this is another plot by a liberal Congress to make us believe that global warming is a real threat. Perhaps the next time there should be serious tudies before Congress passes laws with such far-reaching effects.
CONNIE M. MESKIMEN
Hot Springs
- How could someone be this dumb, and how could a letters-page editor then be dumb enough on top of that to publish it? The hoax warning bells are sounding.
I have to wonder why smaller local newspapers include these little tirades in their pages. After all, printing the paper is expensive and they are supposed to keep the gates to ensure quality or something. Instead, we're treated to idiocy (and the occasional satire masked as idiocy, as this letter was).
Something in me whispers that papers publish this sort of thing because it reflects what the acolytes of the Fourth Estate Church believe of the unwashed masses who read instead of writing the paper. Because they can crack up about the simpletons who believe what they print when standing over the coffeepot in the kitchenette of the paper. Because journalists are different from and better than the common man whose voice they've made heard.
- posted by Brian J. @ 6:37 PM 0 comments
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- posted by Brian J. @ 9:02 AM 3 comments
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Book Report: Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet (1983)
I bought this book at the Kirkwood Book Fair this year; I think all of these book club edition plays come from the same fellow's library, but different ones are available each year. I wonder what's up with that.
This play, originally from the early 1980s, was made into a movie in 1992, and I wonder how David Mamet could have stretched this into a 100 minute film; it took me less than that to read it. Perhaps the profanity took longer in the performances than in reading.
The story deals with a high pressure real estate group who sells lots in Florida. Some sales people are rising, some are falling, and a new office manager puts pressure on them to sell. One night, one of the men breaks into the office to steal the all-important leads that identify prospects; working in concert with another salesperson, the new burglar will take the leads and sell them to another office for a job there. Hokay. Not exactly Shakespeare here. A quick read, and it will give me something to compare the movie against if I ever see the movie.
- posted by Brian J. @ 3:09 PM 0 comments
As A Famous QA Virtuoso, I Expect The Same At My Funeral
Cellist Rostropovich Buried to Applause:
- Mstislav Rostropovich, the celebrated cellist and champion of human rights, was buried Sunday to the applause of hundreds of mourners, an echo of the ovations he received during his life.
- posted by Brian J. @ 2:49 PM 0 comments
Layering and Order Marches On
Great moments in charge-layering, where prosecutors can add extra crimes for the same action:
- A criminal in New York is charged with hate crimes because some of his victims were over 60 years old. That's right, boys and girls, if you're going to commit crimes, make sure you select a diverse set of victims, because if they're of the same protected class, you must hate them.
- Some former American Idol contestant is arrested, and she's hit with an extra charge of introduction of contraband into a correctional facility. Because she was carrying some coke and the authorities uncovered it while searching her before they actually put her in jail.
- posted by Brian J. @ 2:22 PM 0 comments
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Good Book Hunting: March 27, 2007
This weekend, the Friends of the Webster Groves Library are holding their annual book fair. This year, it's in donated shop space near Crestwood Plaza. Last year, we hit the fair at the Masonic Temple on bag day, so we had better luck this year. By "better luck," I mean, "had less temptation to buy." The crowded space impeded browsing--we couldn't get a stroller in, so we had to take turns, and the tables were cluttered, other patrons got in the way, and boxes full of books languished under the tables. So it wasn't easy going, and when it's not easy, I get going.
Still, I managed to find a number of books:
Amid my 12 new books, I got:
- Several first edition Ed McBains, including Lightning and Lullaby to replace book club editions.
- An 1882 illustrated collection of Tennyson's works (the big book on the bottom) for only $12!. That's like a dime a year.
- An autographed collection of Sonnets of Eve written by a local author. Sonnets. Signed. Why not?
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:22 AM 0 comments
Book Report: The Murder Book by Jonathan Kellerman (2002)
I say lots of glowing things about Ed McBain and how his books are immortal, how he uses series business lightly to keep things moving along but never at the expense of pacing or plot, or how his passages are lyrical. His 87th Precinct series stands as an example of how to do things right. This book, on the other hand, shows what happens when you do everything wrong.
This book is part of the Alex Delaware series. I've never read any of the others, so I'm lost and don't give a weevil's willie about the two and a half chapters of series business that starts the book as Alex breaks up, almost, with his long time girlfriend. In the middle of chapter 3, the "action" begins when someone mails a book of crime scene photos to Delaware and he shares them with his police detective compatriot, who recognizes one photo among many as a case he never solved before a sudden transfer pulled him off of it. That's the motivation, the driving factor. To solve a 20 year old cold case, with no threats of immediate repeats or contemporary peril.
Meanwhile, Kellerman writes like the Michael Douglas character in Wonder Boys; there's no detail too miniscule to leave out, no scene worth cutting. When the main characters go to New Mexico to interview someone, we get pages covering the drive from the airport, including getting lost and asking for directions; when the main characters need food, we get paragraphs about what they eat; when one character has nothing better to do, he washes his car, and we get a long paragraph about his car. In lieu of investigation, we get lots of time with the characters talking out what might have happened.
What happened? Ultimately, a bunch of rich kids killed a stoned girl, and their parents covered it up; 20 years later, the rich kids are now rich adults, and they're still covering up. The psychologist of the detective's dead partner sent the book, and he kept Delaware and the detective pointed in the right direction. Except when the Chief of Police was pointing them in the right direction or trying to obstruct them. Finally, we get an absurd climax 360 pages into the novel and some denouement with nothing really gained. Someone, not the protagonists of the novel, kill the bad guys, and they read about the deaths.
Geez, once I started finding flaws with the book, I didn't want to put it down because I wanted to see how bad it could be. Changing POV from first (Delaware) to third (the detective) for apparently no reason? Got it! Actually, it might have been to provide insight into the characters, but I didn't care enough about either of them to want to know more. And hey, who the heck was logging into their computer and downloading Google in 2002. Downloading Google. Lord, love a duck.
Yes, that bad.
Do not buy this book or read it. I will go as far as to not read another Alex Delaware novel. I'm so down on it, if a good series with riveting characters and good pacing came out written by Ed McBain's son Joe Hunt but the series featured Chris Connecticut, I'd stay away just because all characters named after states have been tainted.
But hey, if you don't want to take my word for it, here's the link to buy it on Amazon.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:11 AM 0 comments
Friday, April 27, 2007
AP Uncovers The Facts
A closed society that enslaves women deserves an AP investigation. If it can smear the American military.
- Japan's abhorrent practice of enslaving women to provide sex for its troops in World War II has a little-known sequel: After its surrender -- with tacit approval from the U.S. occupation authorities -- Japan set up a similar "comfort women" system for American GIs.
An Associated Press review of historical documents and records -- some never before translated into English -- shows American authorities permitted the official brothel system to operate despite internal reports that women were being coerced into prostitution. The Americans also had full knowledge by then of Japan's atrocious treatment of women in countries across Asia that it conquered during the war.
Tens of thousands of women were employed to provide cheap sex to U.S. troops until the spring of 1946, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur shut the brothels down.
The documents show the brothels were rushed into operation as American forces poured into Japan beginning in August 1945.
"Sadly, we police had to set up sexual comfort stations for the occupation troops," recounts the official history of the Ibaraki Prefectural Police Department, whose jurisdiction is just northeast of Tokyo. "The strategy was, through the special work of experienced women, to create a breakwater to protect regular women and girls."
The orders from the Ministry of the Interior came on August 18, 1945, one day before a Japanese delegation flew to the Philippines to negotiate the terms of their country's surrender and occupation.
AMERICAN MILITARY ENSLAVES FOREIGN WOMEN IN OCCUPIED COUNTRIES FOR SEX!
Twits.
- posted by Brian J. @ 11:53 AM 0 comments
Quick, Give Him Another Medal
George Tenet doesn't go quietly into deserved obscurity:
- A former U.S. spy chief accused President Bush's administration of ruining his reputation by misusing a "slam dunk" comment he made during a White House meeting ahead of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Former CIA Director George Tenet told CBS Television's "60 Minutes" that the administration leaked his comment as opposition to the war grew when no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq.
"You don't do this. You don't throw somebody overboard just because it's a deflection. Is that honorable? It's not honorable to me," Tenet said in an interview to be broadcast Sunday.
Tenet said his comment did not refer to whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but related to what information could be used to make a public case for the war.
The "slam-dunk" comment first surfaced in journalist Bob Woodward's 2004 book, "Plan of Attack," which portrayed Tenet as assuring Bush that finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq would be a virtual certainty.
"We can put a better case together for a public case. That's what I meant," Tenet told "60 Minutes." [Emphasis added.]
- posted by Brian J. @ 11:47 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
I Don't Think That Economic Indicator Means What I Think It Means
Kudos to the AP reporter Madlen Read who spun this story according to her own pecadillos: Dow crosses 13,000 for first time ever:
- The Dow Jones industrial average shot past 13,000 for the first time Wednesday as stronger-than-expected earnings reports streamed in, suggesting to investors that corporate America is successfully weathering the cooling economy. [Emphasis added.]
- posted by Brian J. @ 2:26 PM 0 comments
Machine Guns Not Illegal For The More Equal Citizens
In a move certain to bolster respect for law and order amongst the civilian population, we discover that police are apparently allowed to personally own fully automatic weapons:
- Federal prosecutors dropped the criminal case against the last of three Illinois State Police officers accused of federal machine-gun law violations — and signaled Tuesday that charges against a fourth man may soon be addressed.
Assistant U.S. Attorney James Crowe dismissed a charge of illegal possession of a machine gun against Special Agent John Yard of Collinsville.
Someone let me know if I'm misreading this.
- posted by Brian J. @ 2:02 PM 0 comments
Fun With Borrowed Slang
I recently renewed my license plates, and to do so, one must have the vehicle's emissions tested at a centralized facility contracted exclusively by the government (you can guess how I feel about centralization and exclusive franchises granted by the government, gentle reader). As the woman put the official sticker onto my windshield, she gave me the certificate I needed to take to the License Office to renew my plates. "Take this to the DMV," she said.
As I stood in line at the License Office, I heard that guy, the one who talks loudly on his cell phone while in a queue, say that he was in line at the DMV. He also called it, on a separate call, the License Bureau.
Now I won't split too many hairs about the fact that the License Fee Office is a franchised to a private company and is not an official bureau at all.
However, I will point out that it's not the DMV, Department of Motor Vehicles. It's an offshoot of the Department of Revenue and only exists to take money. Missouri does have a Department of Transportation, but it deals with highways, not cars.
These people call it the DMV because that's what they call it on television. Somewhere else's bureaucracy again becomes the national buzzword.
- posted by Brian J. @ 11:34 AM 2 comments
Small Setforward For Property Owners In Missouri
A Missouri appellate court has ruled that blight isn't a magic word:
- An appellate court ruled this morning that Centene Plaza Redevelopment Corp. should be barred from using condemnation to acquire properties in the heart of Clayton for its $210-million twin towers, office and retail complex.
In an unsigned opinion, Judges Clifford H. Ahrens, Mary K. Hoff and Nannette Baker of the Missouri Court of Appeals stopped short of pulling the economic plug on the project and overruling a lower court decision authorizing condemnation.
Instead, the appeals judges sent the matter to the Missouri Supreme Court "because of the general interest and importance of the issues in this case."
The appellate court concluded, however, that a study by a planning firm, PGAV, suggesting the area was blighted was insufficient evidence for city aldermen to make the blighting determination. [Emphasis Added]
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:51 AM 1 comments
More Evidence that MfBJN Paranoia Is Prophecy
Officials: Pet Food Poison May Have Been Intentional:
- For the first time, investigators are saying the chemical that has sickened and killed pets in the United States may have been intentionally added to pet food ingredients by Chinese producers.
Food and Drug Administration investigators say the Chinese companies may have spiked products with the chemical melamine so that they would appear, in tests, to have more value as protein products.
(Link seen on Rocket Jones.)
UPDATE: So I'm not the only one: The pet food investigation turns to human food.
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:42 AM 0 comments
Visual Paradox
A job posting on craigslist, viewed in Firefox so the favicon displays, yielded this paradox:
These things do not go together.
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:40 AM 0 comments
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Motto
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Monzas, too.
(Thank goodness for the Internet, where I can footnote my puns.)
- posted by Brian J. @ 3:21 PM 0 comments
That's The Difference A Couple Million Dollars Buys
Art foundation defends properties: Is this Fox Point mansion a multimillion-dollar house or a museum? Some neighbors want it on the tax rolls.
- When is a museum a museum and not just a tax dodge? That's the question raised by residents who want two Fox Point mansions worth at least $3 million restored to the tax rolls.
The neighbors are calling on the Village Board to re-examine a nearly 20-year-old agreement with the Chipstone Foundation that declared its property overlooking Lake Michigan a museum, granting it tax-exempt status.
Not many have set foot inside the Georgian-style mansion.
But with millions of dollars available for defense, the local government must observe some decorum.
- posted by Brian J. @ 1:43 PM 0 comments
Monday, April 23, 2007
Old MacDonald: The Lost Lyric
Old MacDonald had a farm,
E-I-E-I-O.
And on his farm, he had a thresher,
E-I-E-I-O.
With an "Ahhhh! My arm!" here
and an "Ahhh! My legs!" there,
Here an "Ahhhh!", there an "Ahhhhh!",
everywhere an "Ahhhhhh!" "Ahhhhh!"
Old MacDonald had a farm,
E-I-E-I-O.
- posted by Brian J. @ 1:06 PM 2 comments
Out of Our Bedrooms, Into Our Bathrooms
Great thinker Sheryl Crow proposes:
- "Although my ideas are in the earliest stages of development, they are, in my mind, worth investigating.
"I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting."
- posted by Brian J. @ 12:09 PM 2 comments
Someone Handled Their Loss to Detroit Badly
First, McLennan does some slashing, then Calgary loses. Then, the rampage: Flames rip through south St. Louis home.
There is too much violence in hockey.
- posted by Brian J. @ 11:03 AM 0 comments
Jamie McLennan: Goalie Goon
NHL Suspends Flames Goalie 5 Games:
- The NHL came down hard Sunday on Calgary, suspending goalie Jamie McLennan for five games and fining coach Jim Playfair $25,000 and the team $100,000 for actions late in Game 5 of the Flames' first-round series against the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday.
McLennan was given a match penalty for slashing Detroit's Johan Franzen in the midsection at 17:01 of the third period, one of four penalties the Flames were assessed for aggressive and illegal use of the stick (slashing or cross-checking) in the closing minutes of the Red Wings' 5-1 victory.
- Upon further review, former Blues goaltender Jamie "Noodles" McLennan has a nasty temper after all.
During his 18-second stint in Saturday's Flames-Red Wings game — in relief of Calgary starter Mikka Kiprusoff — Jamie went crazy. Twice McLennan hacked Detroit forward John Franzen in the legs, a la Ron Hextall or Billy Smith.
Then he really flipped out, chopping Franzen in the midsection, leaving him doubled over on the ice. UFR never saw this side of Noodles when he was here.
In my book, if Jamie McLennan whacks you, you deserved a whacking. Also, not you have been whacked by someone who goes by Jamie. That's harder to live with.
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:51 AM 0 comments
Book Report: Nocturne by Ed McBain (1997)
I am currently reading Ed McBain novels in heavy rotation (see also Fat Ollie's Book and Kiss). I guess that's only three so far this year, so I'm not making much of a dent in the oeuvre that spans fifty years.
This book from the late 1990s deals with an old woman killed in her apartment in an apparent burglary. The old woman, a formerly world-reknowned pianist, leaves $100,000 cash for her granddaughter, a lounge singer who has taken up with two Italian tough guys. Amidst this main plot, three high school seniors from a well-to-do prep school kill a hooker, her pimp, and a smalltime drug dealer. Fat Ollie Weeks handles this subplot.
Because the cops use the same informant in this book as in Fat Ollie's Book, one can easily spot recycled material in the description of the informant. But I find the continued consistently good writing in the novels even though they span 50 years almost incredible. With each book, McBain varies the formula somewhat, alters his narrative slightly, but the characters and the crimes remain fresh and interesting. Some writers hit a certain level of success and just phone it in, but McBain never seemed to reach that level.
Which is why I can read these books over and over again.
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:55 AM 0 comments
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Book Report: The Instant Enemy by Ross MacDonald (1968)
At one of the book fairs last year, I bought a number of Ross MacDonald books because, although I have read many of them twice, I don't have many of them on my shelves.
As one might expect if one has read Geherin, MacDonald represents a transitional author in the hard-boiled detective school. He still has his hard knock chops in Lew Archer and the Chandleresque plots, but they have a touch more touchy-feely exploration of intrafamily conflict. This book is no exception as it begins with a disturbed young man kidnapping a wealthy oilman with the help of one of his underling's innocent daughters and then delves into several decades-old murders amid a family tree that intertwines like a oak and poison sumac. I don't even know if those two things intertwine frequently, but the book compells one to try his hand at simile.
This book and others that I'm revisiting on occasion remind me of why I wanted to be a writer, or at least what made me think I could get away with it. Somewhere, though, my voice varied from these pieces, but it's good to come home once in a while.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:13 PM 0 comments
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Good Book Hunting: April 20, 2007
The Kirkwood Friends of the Library holds its annual book fair this weekend, and last year, it proved to be the biggest event for us. Sure, the Greater St. Louis Book Fair occurs on the same weekend, but I'm not fond of the big one. It's held in a parking garage in West County Mall, it's ill-lit, it's crowded, it has just too many books to contemplate, and the parking is awful. So I prefer the Kirkwood one.
The Kirkwood book fair is held again this year in empty retail space on the bottom floor of one of those mixed use developments of which municipalities are so fond; the fact that this is the second year running that the expensive retail space has not been pouring the prophesied sales tax revenue into Kirkwood's coffers will not discourage other municipalities from doing the ousting families to provide cavernous locations available for charity events.
The book fair itself offers a good number of books, just about at the edge of my limit; if a book fair has too many books, I know I won't get to see them all, so I will go much faster and will browse more quickly. I started in the old/rare books section, but the selection favored children's books and Civil War treatises. By the time I got through Fiction section, I had set two stacks of books at the counter to wait for me. Heather finished up earlier than I did and entertained the counterspeople while I quickly worked the nonfiction section. Because frankly there's just not many travel books I need.
Here's the damage:
That's 37 books; 22 for me, 15 for Heather.
A couple things I picked up:
- First British printing of Tom Clancy's Clear and Present Danger.
- A Danish rendition of Ridley Pearson's The Seizing of Yankee Green Mall.
- A number of plays, including Sight Unseen, one of the best plays I've ever seen.
- A hardback without a dustjacket called 24 Girls in 7 Days. I liked the title and actually read the first couple of pages.
- Another Harry Turtledove book because a former co-worker raves about him; Ruled Britannia was okay enough to warrant another buck or two to try substantiate the praise.
This book fair runs today and tomorrow still at the empty retail space on South Kirkwood Road if you're interested; it's close to the Greater St. Louis Book Fair if you want to make a day of it.
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:32 AM 1 comments
Friday, April 20, 2007
It's Called a Bag of Holding
How else do you bring a mace to school when you want to show a teacher some clerical attitude adjusting?
- "It's heavy, and it's metal, and it's sharp," Detective Sgt. Darlene Breitenstein said of the weapon. The girl, who is being held at the Lake County (Ind.) Juvenile Justice Center on battery charges, told police she brought the weapon to school because she was "tired of getting picked on." "I took the weapon to the detention center for the judge to see," Breitenstein said. Charmella Greer of the Gary Community School Corp. said the school system plans to take disciplinary action against the freshman. She said she did not know how the girl managed to smuggle the large weapon past school metal detectors.
(Link seen on Ace of Spades HQ.)
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:13 PM 0 comments
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Certainty in a Headline
Finally, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch drops all mincing words and qualifiers and boldly asserts something without a doubt:
'Doomsday vault' near North Pole will keep species safe from war, disaster
A highly speculative science fiction story that has so far only received some funding gets the solid verb tense. But deal with something that happened, and the Post-Dispatch will append ",(common noun) say" to the end.
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:47 AM 0 comments
Book Report: Night Prey by John Sandford (1994)
This book follows Winter Prey, so it's obvious that I'm getting these books all out of order. Davenport's in love with Winter, and they've moved in together. Meanwhile, an invisible man--that's what the book flap calls him--is picking up women in art galleries and bookstores and is killing them.
It's a fairly standard plot, well handled. However, the twist is reminiscent of Broken Prey, and frankly, I am probably reading these Davenport novels too quickly to remain absolutely glowing about each. But I like them and will hit the others on my shelf sometime in the near future.
- posted by Brian J. @ 1:16 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Deja Snark
I heard this story on the radio today, and I was going to make fun of it: Illinois mother sues utility over son's fall from electric tower.
But I already did.
- posted by Brian J. @ 11:05 AM 1 comments
Trainjacking
Not quite, but in California, the bad guys stopped a train and pulled its engineer off for a beating:
- The engineer of an Amtrak Capitol Corridor train was seriously injured Monday night in West Sacramento after a group of people forced the train to stop, dragged the engineer from the train and assaulted him with rocks and bottles, according to Capitol Corridor officials.
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:51 AM 0 comments
Someone's Taking Note
As the recent pet food recall expands again, do you think anyone is noting how a tainted raw food material can spread death throughout North America after being processed locally?
I mean, if this were a Tom Clancy novel, first, the foreign power would kill all the bees to limit continental agriculture and force food producers to buy from abroad, and then the foreign power would poison a root agricultural product that would be distributed to a number of plants for processing into a number of different food products. Because the raw ingredient would be made into a number of different things, investigators would have trouble identifying a single cause when people started dying. When thousands were dead, civil order would break down and the main portion of the novel would commence.
Which is why I wanted to be a writer. To channel my paranoia into profitable pursuits.
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:27 AM 0 comments
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Book Report: Terminator 3: Terminator Dreams by Aaron Allston (2003)
I bought this book at a book fair because I was binging. Probably the Carondolet YMCA last time. I mean, it's an ex-library book, a movie tie-in, and I paid a buck for it. But you know what? It wasn't bad.
The book relies on the narrative set in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Instead of the past trying to change the future through action, which is the core of the movies, this book involves John Connor ca 2039 finding that one of the people on his team was a software developer programming on the Terminator project and that this software developer can communicate with his past self through his dreams. The developer, though, cannot remember anything beyond Judgement Day.
A good quick read, although I'd be interested to see how the series would turn if it didn't rely so much on the cross-time thing, if it weren't so important to have something happening in the present day. Apparently this author has another book based on Terminator 3 out, so that might be worth reading if it comes to my attention at one of the various book fairs coming up.
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:34 PM 0 comments
After the RPGs, RPGs
Ziggurat Con - The World's First War Zone Game Convention?:
- When President Bush ordered troops to Iraq, he probably never imagined that he would be ultimately be responsible for what very well could be the very first D&D convention/game day ever held in a war zone. Ziggurat Con, being held June 9 from 1200 to 2100 hours at Camp Adder/Tallil Airbase, is open to all allied military personnel and civilian contractors in Iraq.
No Twilight: 2000, though; we don't need arguments arising about game rules versus actual experience with the weapons listed.
(Link seen on Ace of Spades HQ. More here.)
- posted by Brian J. @ 2:39 PM 1 comments
It's Just Like Appropriating A Car
You know the classic movie scene where the cop runs out, flashes his badge, and tells a driver that he has to appropriate the automobile to pursue a subject? Apparently, using World Series tickets taken from scalpers:
- Eight city police officers were wrong to use World Series tickets seized from scalpers, but they did nothing illegal, Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce said Monday in revealing there will be no charges.
She acknowledged public outrage but said she could not find any way to construe their actions as a violation of Missouri statutes given the available evidence.
Meanwhile, respect for law and order just took another drubbing.
- posted by Brian J. @ 12:32 PM 0 comments
Sunday, April 15, 2007
More Imus Fallout
Offensively named Don Ho fired from life.
UPDATE! MfBJN: Less classy than Rocket Jones!
- posted by Brian J. @ 1:43 PM 0 comments
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Fred Thompson Reminder
Everyone else is linking to them, so I'd hate for you, gentle reader who doesn't read political blogs, to miss these pieces of text regarding the next President of the United States:
- An interview from The Weekly Standard.
- Thompson's piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled Case Closed: Tax cuts mean growth.
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:06 PM 0 comments
Reminder: You're Old
Remember the Marathon candy bar, and its Western-themed commercials on Saturday mornings?
Yeah, the candy bar hasn't been made in 25 years. That one.
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:04 PM 0 comments
Book Report: Santorini by Alistair MacLean (1987)
Wow, who knew? I found my initial Alistair MacLean books back in the old Community Library, a volunteer and donation operation that operated out of a strip mall in High Ridge until it got its own tax levy and became the Northwest Jefferson County Library or whatever. It was more homey and plucky before it became a government-funded bureaucracy, something shared between those of us who enjoyed books before it became a burden to the taxpayers who didn't. In the intervening years, my appreciation for Alistair MacLean has waned somewhat, too.
MacLean's books about World War II and the early cold war period are enjoyable because they're slightly exotic in tone and style as they are intricate in plot. MacLean, of course, was British, so his heroes are often British with their stiff upper lips mimicked in his slightly stuffy and distant prose. But more contemporary works (The Golden Gate and Floodgate come to mind) don't work for me because they're contemporary--in those decades I can somewhat remember.
This book deals with an American bomber carrying nukes that crashes into the Mediterranean. A British frigate investigates and finds a Greek shipping maganate who might have caused the sabotuage of the bomber so he could recover the nukes. The British naval officers on the frigate must outwit the mastermind and handle the armed and dangerous nuclear weapons at the same time.
250 pages, roughly, so it's a quick read. Paragraph-based dialog makes it easy to skim, and the action does move along quickly, but the characters are pretty superficial and the book lacks the twists that characterize the best of MacLean's plot-driven work.
But I bought it for a quarter, so it's worth my time and money at that.
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:03 PM 0 comments
Poser
Maybe I should have dropped by the NRA convention while it was in town:
|
Plinker You are 51% of a gun nut! |
| You're probably either a seasonal hunter or someone with a decent head knowledge of guns. Start shooting for groups, and you could really be a force to be reckoned with! |
|
My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender:
|
| Link: The Gun Nut Test written by slayer1am on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test |
(Link seen on Exultate Justi.)
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:14 PM 1 comments
Friday, April 13, 2007
Senseless Shooting in Illinois
Cahokia fire kills mother, 3 children
I am trying to figure out the use of passive/active voice in St. Louis Post-Dispatch headlines. I think the rules are something like this:
- If it's an intentional act of causing harm performed by a perpetrator of a crime, it calls for passive voice: Man Is Killed In Robbery.
- If it's an act of nature that can show no mens rea, use a transitive verb that implies intention in the active voice: Cahokia Fire Kills Mother, 3 Children.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:38 AM 0 comments
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Book Report: Fat Ollie's Book by Ed McBain (2002)
This book, written only a couple of books before Fiddlers, focuses on a lesser character from the 87th Precinct novels: Fat Ollie Weeks. This is appropriate, that is a lesser character, as he works in the 88th Precinct, but he's been known to participate in the boys' criminal investigations from time to time, ah, yes. When a councilman is shot before a campaign event, Ollie is the first man up, but he involves Carella and Co. because the vic lived in the 87th. During the course of his initial crime scene inspection, Weeks discovers that his car has been broken into, and someone has made off with the case containing the book he's very proud to have written.
The book lightly interweaves three plots: the investigation into the councilman's death, Weeks's investigation into the theft of his book, and the crook who stole his book's interpretation of the book, entitled Report to the Commissioner. McBain even includes the text of the 36 page "book" written by Weeks, poorly, throughout the book. Remarkable that he (McBain) could write something bad enough to represent the amateur detective/First Grade's work. I mean, I remember when I wrote that poorly, but I'm not sure I could do it now one cue (although perhaps I do it perpetually, which is why I lean away from fiction these days, thank you very much.
Also, as the book focuses on a bigoted character used mostly as comic relief throughout the other books, it gives McBain a chance to do some extra characterization to make Weeks's character sympathetic.
I liked it. I bought it for a buck at a book fair. It's worth more than that, but I'm cheap.
- posted by Brian J. @ 11:14 PM 0 comments
Internet Rumor Du Noir
Joe Hill? He's not Stephen King's son.
He's one of Stephen King's good clones.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:40 PM 0 comments
Widow Sues To Make Airline Travel More Tedious
We all know about the long lines that await when we go to the airport to catch a flight, but a recent widow is suing to make sure airlines check your IDs as you leave the plane, too:
- After the plane landed at Chicago O'Hare International Airport on April 13, 2005, passengers and flight crew disembarked and the jet was taken to another gate for cleaning. Workers then discovered the bathroom was locked from the inside and found Matsuo's body -- about two hours after the jet landed.
"How could you lose a passenger?" Watts, who did not fly with her husband that day, told The Indianapolis Star. "If I was somewhere on that plane, I would hope someone would notice."
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:24 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
I Do Not Think That Word Means What You Think It Means
U.S. Military Says Iran Helping Iraq:
- A U.S. military spokesman said Iran is training Iraqis to make deadly roadside bombs. EFPs or explosively formed penetrators, hurl a molten, fist-sized copper slug capable of piercing armored vehicles.
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:44 AM 0 comments
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Cosmic Impact of America's Refusal to Abide by Kyoto Accords
Sunspots reaching 1,000-year high:
- A new analysis shows that the Sun is more active now than it has been at anytime in the previous 1,000 years.
- posted by Brian J. @ 1:13 PM 1 comments
Monday, April 09, 2007
Book Report: Hidden Prey by John Sandford (2004)
This book precedes the last book I read (Broken Prey), so I put them in the wrong order when I lined them up on my bookshelf. As I've mentioned before, the events in Lucas Davenport's life are background material, and the plots of the books are the important things within the novels.
This one differs from the rest, which differ from each other pleasingly. Davenport looks into the murder of a Russian sailor who formerly worked for the KGB. Was it a Russian mafia thing? A spy thing? Or could it be a hidden sleeper cell within the northern reaches of Minnesota?
Two things detracted from the book:
- A Russian security operative, Nadya, who is sent to oversee the investigation. No problem. Overreliance upon her saying, "What is this (insert American idiom)?" That can be a problem when overused. As a matter of fact, it was a problem.
- 2 typographical errors: an extra space before a comma and the misspelling of Del's name as Dell. Come on, guys, you gotta try harder.
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:44 PM 0 comments
Sunday, April 08, 2007
With Warnings Like These
Mmm, a lollipop:
click for full size
Looks good, doesn't it? Not if you have certain food allergies:
click for full size
That warning says: Allergy information: Made in a facility that processes milk, eggs, soy products and wheat.
The allergy information is on the label where it's twisted around the stem; if you're like most people, that lollipop is in your mouth before you even look at that portion of the label, if you look at that portion of the label at all.
And if you suffer from a severe allergy to any of those food groups, your throat is probably already closing off.
But, hey, you can't sue.
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:46 AM 1 comments
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Void Where Jim Talent Has Legislated
Here's a handy coupon:
Save money on 2 boxes? You can't buy two boxes of the good stuff any more in these here United States thanks to former Senator Jim Talent.
- posted by Brian J. @ 3:28 PM 0 comments
Book Report: Fiddlers by Ed McBain (2005)
This book represents one of Ed McBain's last books, and it was published posthumously; the About the Author bit on the back flap is in the past tense, which startles me. Cotton Hawes gives his age as 34 in this book, too, which bothered me a little, too. For most of my life, he's been older than I am, and suddenly I'm older than many of the detectives in the 87th Precinct. That's the meta about this book. Also, let it be known that Ed McBain did not support the war in Iraq. I don't have a vivid impression of whether his contemporaneous books from the Vietnam era were as down on it, or even his Korean War-era books were as down on it, but it's noticeable in these last books (see also Hark!). Now, onto the story.
Someone is shooting seemingly-unrelated late middle-aged people very quickly, and the 87th Precinct has to find the perp before he can do another vic. Meanwhile, Kling's broken up with the black doctor following Hark!, Cotton Hawes finds himself falling for an older woman, and Carella's daughter (now 14 after 30 years) is hanging out with a bad seed. That's all it takes to craft a good, readable book. Like Perry Mason, McBain's books age well, so this will be a fine read decades from now.
I was a little disappointed with how long it took the police to figure out what was going on, but I guess McBain had a minimum length to meet.
- posted by Brian J. @ 12:10 PM 0 comments
Missed Their Panic-Induction Target
Silly UN people and their media mouthpieces, tinkling the dinner bell of doom with prognostications like this: Global warming: hotter summers, more flooding:
- The St. Louis region should brace for more frequent and intense heat waves, an increased risk of flooding from big rivers and a surge in air pollution by 2050, some of the authors of a report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said at a news conference Friday.
Global warming: More blackouts, higher electricity bills
That would tear up the people addicted to 70 degree interiors maintained at a government-limited few pennies per kilowatt hour and make them demand that their government do something to limit other people's lifestyles to protect their own.- posted by Brian J. @ 9:10 AM 1 comments
Friday, April 06, 2007
Once In A Lifetime, The Faithful Should Go
Mary Bufe writes some travel tips for married couples, but it's clear she doesn't understand the power of the one true chosen one:
- A: Imagine this couple's life 20-something years later when they are driving back from spring break with a van full of kids. Suddenly the husband suggests a "slight detour" to visit the hometown of another important figure in American history.
Q: And that would be?
A: Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre.
But I won't rule out a trip to Kiln, Mississippi.
- posted by Brian J. @ 2:27 PM 0 comments
Good Sports
This is just good sportsmanship:
- Five people were hurt last night when a car struck the rear of an ambulance, pushing it on its nose and onto the front of an apartment building in Kirkwood.
The incident happened shortly after 11 p.m. on Manchester Road near Dickson Street when a Chevrolet Camaro struck the eastbound Abbott ambulance from the rear, said Larry Stone, an Abbott vice president.
Another Abbott ambulance took the Camaro's occupants -- a man and a woman -- to St. Anthony's Medical Center, said Stone, adding that police told him the woman had been driving.
- posted by Brian J. @ 1:16 PM 0 comments
Wooing With Insect-Based Love Poetry
John Donne, "The Flea":
- MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two;
And this, alas! is more than we would do.
O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.
(More John Donne here.)
- posted by Brian J. @ 1:09 PM 0 comments
The Downside of Digital Photography
Instead of having to look through two or three rolls' worth--maybe 100 pictures total--of someone's ill-focused, underlit, and same-three-people-smiling-in-different-places photographs from vacations, now we have hundreds.
You think George Eastman wasn't thinking ahead?
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:37 AM 0 comments
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Response Mandatory; Opt Out, Not So Much
Students at Mehlville schools received negative campaign materials relating to a fire protection district election recently. The firemen's union were running a campaign for a write-in candidate and hired a mailing company to send the missives, and the mailing company got the addresses from the school district and sent the campaign materials, marked "You're Invited," to the students instead of the parents.
A Mehlville School District spokesman obliquely blames the parents:
- Patrick Wallace, a spokesman for the Mehlville School District, said that per federal public records law, the district provided data with names and addresses of students to the union. He said the district did not include information on students whose parents signed a "media exclusion form" at the beginning of the school year.
- posted by Brian J. @ 12:52 PM 0 comments
Book Report: The King's Henchman by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1927)
This is a three act play retelling an Arthurian legend (particularly the Lancelot and Guinevere thing). Published in 1927, this piece is now 80 years old, but it reads older than that. Set in the 10th century in England, the characters all speak Middle Englishesque, which is not historically accurate (Middle English started in the next century, and it certainly wasn't spoken in 1927 on the east coast of America). As it's not a direct retelling of the legend of Lancelot, the suspense kept me moving even through the stilted prose.
I read most of my Millay in early college, and my structured poetry of the time reflects her influence. Casting love poetry and whatnot into Middle English turns of phrase and relying upon iconic imagery of the period. I later moved a bit beyond it, but I still appreciate it enough that I enjoy Millay more than McKuen.
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:14 AM 0 comments
Book Report: The Case of the Cautious Coquette by Erle Stanley Gardner (1949)
This book contains not only the titular Perry Mason novel, but two other novellas featuring the sleuth. Theses stories are almost sixty years old, but Perry Mason stories are almost timeless. As a matter of fact, I used them as an example in the the March/April issue of The Writer's Journal:
- Are you writing a story with a short shelf life, or an allegory on human nature for all time? Regardless of what you intend to write, the details you include might inadvertently determine whether you're an Erle Stanley Gardner; whose Perry Mason novels remain accessible and relevant decades after he wrote them, or a Justin Thyme, whose works connect with this year's audience but will seem as dated as a Baltimore Orioles world championship in ten years....
- "What does he invent?"
"Oh, lots of little gadgets. He's made money out of some them."
"What sorts of gadgets?"
"Well, right now he's working on something in connection with infra-red rays. Before that, he worked out a device that opens and closes doors and does things like that."
"What do you mean?"
"It works with invisible light, what I think they call black light. A beam runs across the room and as soon as some object corsses that beam it closes a circuit and does things--oh, for instance, like making electrical contacts so that the minute you walk into the house the elextric stove clicks on and starts cooking, the radio turns on, and lights come on, and ... I don't know, Mr. Mason, I think it's just a gadget. So many of his things are scientifically fine, but impractical when you want to work on them."
The stories are more whodunit than the most whodunit of the Lucas Davenport novels (recently reviewed here and here), but sometimes the plots have to be a bit contrived to get there. Within the brevity of these stories, it's good.
A quick rundown of plots:
- "The Case of the Cautious Coquette": A simple hit and run tort case turns dangerous when two people "come clean" as the hit and run driver, and a woman named as a witness has her first husband inconveniently die of a gunshot wound in her garage.
- "The Crimson Kiss": A friend from Della's hometown is going to be married, but is implicated in a murder of another Lothario.
- "The Crimson Swallow": A wealthy client comes to Mason to hire him to protect his new wife from whatever made her flee. A jewelry theft muddies the waters, as does the death of a potential blackmailer.
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:05 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Singing The Skip
Sometimes, when I’m singing along with my favorite songs on the radio in front of friends—good friends, mind you, the sort who don’t mind that I miss one note out of every three or two—I will further embarrass myself by not only missing the interval, or octave, but by missing a line or a lyric. Sometimes, a bridge or solo is shortened and the renewed vocalization catches me by surprise. After the song is over, I try to justify that portion of my pathological performance by saying that I am “singing the skip.”
Back in my formative middle 1980s, the cassette single was a novelty even as the era of the 45 record was fading. My mother owned a large number from her youth some twenty years previously, so my brother and I had plenty of oldies to load onto the console stereo in the living room. We cut our teeth on those, and when I went onto college, my endearment with the cheapening media form grew.
I found a music store in Milwaukee that offered juke box packs of records, a ten platter grab bag, for $1.99. I bought as many as I could, uncovering a large number of singles of dubious merit, but some I recognized. I also bought singles of contemporary or past hits for $2.49 each, and a number of used LPs to play on my shelf turntable.
There shall come a time when we’ll have to explain the oddities of records to children and young folk. You see, it was a disc like a compact disc, but it had these long grooves on each side. A needle rode in these grooves and the minute variation in the groove depth provided the sound. However, sometimes the records became scratched or damaged, and the needle would jump the edge of the groove. This skipping would advance the song a couple seconds, sort of like touching fast forward for a nanosecond.
Some of the inexpensive or used records I bought were imperfect, and even with the penny taped to the record needle, the songs sometimes skipped. Due to the nature of the imperfections, the songs skipped consistently; that is, the same line morphed into the second following line every time I played a particular song. So as I sang along in the darkness of my apartment, I began to skip, too.
The years of conditioning has paid off; I could sing to those songs and correctly account for the errata. Unfortunately, that special talent only works when I listen and sing along to the records I owned as a teenager and twentyager. When I’m confronted with the songs on the radio, on cassette, on CD, or in any of the current digital flavors of the month, I find myself a couple measures ahead at least once in the song.
So that’s my excuse, gentle reader and tolerant listener, for those odd moments where I run ahead of whatever I’m listening to and interpreting through my own rendition. It’s not a sign of my senility, but it is a sign of how we did things back in the old days when we flipped the discs or stacked them to play single-sides of albums in succession. We had to walk 2 mi—record store in the—we liked it!
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:22 PM 0 comments
In Other Campaign 2008 News
Gore's plan: Run harder, do better
Oops, sorry. Wrong Gore.
- posted by Brian J. @ 11:04 AM 0 comments
Bicyclists = Hooligans
Sure, at the same time as they loudly protest that motorists don't treat them with equal respect even though they're pedalling vehicles as entitled to the road as actual internally combusted or hybrid cars and trucks, they're blowing through traffic control devices at their convenience. I could have told you that bicyclism breeds hooliganism, as became obvious in the cradle of loving-your-neighbor known as San Francisco when a mob of the two-wheeling thugs attacked a minivan containing a mother and two children:
-
Confusion, however, quickly turned to terror, she said, when the swarming cyclists began wildly circling around and then running into the sides of her Toyota van.
Filled with panic, Ferrando said, she started inching forward until coming to a stop at Post and Gough streets, where she was surrounded by bikers on all sides.
A biker in front blocked her as another biker began pounding on the windshield. Another was pounding on her window. Another pounded the other side.
"It seemed like they were using their bikes as weapons," Ferrando said. One of the bikers then threw his bike -- shattering the rear window and terrifying the young girls inside.
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:54 AM 0 comments
Monday, April 02, 2007
The Real Jerky Boys
Corporate dischord, family infighting, and courtroom drama. Another nighttime soap? I wish. It's my favorite dried meat manufacturer:
- When Jack Link started his beef jerky business in the 1980s, it was his plan that his boys, then in their teens, would someday take over the company.
Unfortunately, that dream has turned into a nightmare that is being played out in Washburn County Circuit Court, in a lawsuit that pits Jack Link and son Troy against his elder son, Jay. The Links are battling over the ownership of Links Snacks Inc. in Minong, now one of the largest producers of beef jerky in the United States.
It's a dispute that has ripped the family apart, with accusations of greed, jealousy, harassment of company officers, bullying of employees and a long list of bad business behavior.
But my luck isn't that good.
- posted by Brian J. @ 11:05 PM 0 comments
I Do Not Think That Word Means What You Think It Means
From the mouths of assistant university police chiefs:
- A man and a woman were shot to death in the University of Washington's architecture building Monday morning in what may have been a murder-suicide, university police said.
Officers responded to reports of gunfire found the two in an office on the fourth floor of Gould Hall, Assistant University Police Chief Ray Wittmier said. He said a weapon was also found in the room.
"It's quite possible that the suspect is one of the deceased," Wittmier said. [Emphasis added.]
- posted by Brian J. @ 1:37 PM 0 comments
It Wasn't Supposed To Be A Punchline
Michelle Malkin is right, this is funny, unintentionally:
- KIMBERLY SHRUM grips a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver and aims at a target 25 yards away.
Bang.
A hot shell casing hits the floor, joining hundreds of others littering the concrete at Jackson Arms Indoor Shooting Range in South San Francisco.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:20 AM 0 comments
Sunday, April 01, 2007
The Noggle Library: Update
In September 2003, I posted pictures of the Noggle library. As some time has elapsed since then and we have found a replacement for Honormoor that allows us to house more books without displacing any cats, let me boast upon the bookshelves we have now.
A long view of the hardbacks I have read. Good readers will spot books recently reviewed (Forever Odd by Dean Koontz and Come To Me In Silence by Rod McKuen). Yes, I have read those books, and they are a large portion of my 1200+ strong library of read volumes.
Note that the first set of shelves are doublestacked with a miscellany of fiction and nonfiction, unsorted and shelved by maximizing the number I can fit onto the shelves.
These shelves contain the recent fiction I've read and also represent the only segregation I have going on in my library. The top shelf on the left contains my Ayn Rand books, including early printings of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead (as well as the copy of The Fountainhead I bought when I reread the book in 2005). On the second shelf of that bookshelf, I have all my poetry, from Edna St. Vincent Millay and Wordsworth to my mid-1990s chapbooks from local authors.
The left bookshelf contains my Robert B. Parker collection (first 3 shelves), my books about being a writer (4th shelf), and home improvement (bottom shelf).
These three shelves contain the volumes I have not read yet. Most shelves are doublestacked. You can see in the center bookcase how my collection of Classics Club books has grown (compared to the picture from 2003); I still haven't read a single volume from the set. I don't know how many books I have in here, but I hope it's enough to tip my personal library to 2000. Jeez, I suck.
Here's a shelf of computer books that I haven't read, for the most part, but they will be handy reference guides when Windows 95 comes back into fashion. These shelves also contain some writing reference guides and some music reference guides.
To the left, we have many of my paperbacks, some of which I've owned for 20 years now and many of which are older than that. I don't know that I ever went through a stage where I bought a lot of new paperbacks, although I have picked them up from time to time. Now that they're ten bucks each, forget it.
This concludes my section of the tour.
Some of Heather's books.
Another bookshelf whose contents belong to Heather.
The bulk of Heather's hardbacks. I don't know her system or how she keeps track of what she's read. I rely on my wrote system of "On the read shelves, I read; on the to-read shelves, I must read," which has bitten me in the past. Maybe she just remembers.
In our dining room, we have Heather's cookbooks, textbooks, and volumes of poetry. As you can see, the shelves are no longer full, as Heather is on a spartanization binge. What happened to the woman I married?
An interesting note, the bottom shelf of the bookshelf to the right contains my Time-Life Old West series that I inherited from my aunt. This bookshelf is the only one in the house that contains books that belong to both Heather and I. I'm very obstinate in not conmingling our books.
Heather has also removed quite a few of her music books from the piano.
The guest room contains some of Heather's paperbacks and sewing books. The sewing machine is also in the guest room. We keep hoping the guests will make themselves useful, but no. They just come and sponge off of us during the holidays (I am talking to you, Butler!).
Finally, we have the boy's collection. With this many amassed in only nine months, it's obvious who will eventually have the biggest library amongst us.
How many bookshelves is that? I've lost count.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:39 PM 0 comments
Book Report: The Prize Winner's Handbook by Jeffrey Feinman (1980)
As some of you know, I consider myself something of a Sweepstakes Bodhisattva. I've seen this book in different places since its inception, and when I saw it again on the table at one of last week's book fairs, I knew I had to have it, if only to compare my knowledge to its.
This book was written in 1980 by the head of one of the independent judging organizations. He doesn't hide it, but he does want to offer some insight into the fundamental honesty of the process as well as offering tips on how that sweepstakes contestants can take advantage of that process to have a slightly better shot at winning.
The book takes on sweepstakes, contests, lotteries, and bingo, with about half the book (it seemed) going to lotteries and bingo. There aren't many ways to shade winning the latter, so there's a bunch of history to pad the book out from pamphlet size.
Essentially, the tips are enter often and follow the rules. But if you're interested in contests and sweepstakes, it's worth a quick glance. It weighs in at 128 paperback pages, and I read the book in about an hour or so.
- posted by Brian J. @ 4:32 PM 0 comments
Feds Get Their Man
A reader (and by reader, I mean someone who found this site while googling
Lou Sengheiser) sends along a helpful link to his federal indictment press release.As you know, I've previously been sympathetic to Sengheiser (here and here). I'll still stand on innocent until proven guilty, but it's not looking good for him.
Least I can do, since his brother seemed like a nice guy and gave us a good rate on our wedding reception hall. The Shania Twain CD thing notwithstanding.
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:27 AM 0 comments
Book Report: Forever Odd by Dean Koontz (2005)
My wife bought this book for Christmas last year (that is, Christmas 2005) because I'd liked Odd Thomas. As with the preceding book, the narrative voice of Thomas is exceedingly conversational, but this book at this time struck me as too much so. Odd Thomas, who sees silent dead people, gets a visit from the recently dead father of a friend. Someone has killed the father and has taken the son. Although early signs point to the first husband of the boy's mother (and his birth father), it looks as though the boy is actually bait for the one person who can find him... Odd Thomas.
The book was a quick enough read and pretty engaging; however, some of the narrative voice seems like fluff, and I have to wonder whether this and its 2006 counterpart Brother Odd are merely one story stretched over two books; the ending of the book sure seems like a setup. That's poor form.
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:57 AM 4 comments
Book Report: Broken Prey by John Sandford (2005)
After reading Winter Prey, I flashed forward 12 years in Lucas Davenport's future. He's married to the woman he met in Winter Prey, and their children and she are in London, leaving Davenport a psuedobachelor. Instead of watching movies all night, he has to deal with a serial killer who appears to mock the MOs of three serial killers institionalized in a single Minnesota hospital. Early indicators point to a recently-released inmate, but that wouldn't have made a 300 page novel, would it?
I figured out whodunit pretty early, but I rode along with Davenport and his team as they went down one blind alley after another. But it's the journey, not the destination, for the most part. I've got a couple more prey books on the shelves, and I should get through them and get my complete list together since Prey books are plentiful at book fairs.
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:26 AM 0 comments
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."
"I will."
Heather L. Igert,
angelweave.mu.nu
"Genuis."
Neil Steinberg,
Chicago Sun-Times
"Some wanker."
Kim du Toit,
on the Noggle Library.
"Brian J. Noggle apparently forgot that the proper design for a tin foil beanie calls for the shiny side out."
Robb Allen,
Sharp as a Marble.
"I'm weeping openly right now. Thanks for hurting my feelings, pinhead."
Bob Rybarcyzk,
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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