Book Report: Spare Change by Robert B. Parker (2007)
Robert B. Parker phones in another Sunny Randall novel. I can't say it any better, especially after this:

Quirk, Belson, my father, and I all looked slowly around the still-sealed-off park. Nobody said anything. Nothing presented itself. After a long moment, Quirk squatted on his haunches and studied the gun.

"Smith and Wesson," he said, "revolver..." He bent over to look at the barrel opening. "Thirty-eight."

He leaned forward onto his hands and straightened his legs and did a kind of pushup so he could smell the gun.

"Been fired recently."

He eased out of the pushup and got his feet under him and resumed his squat.

"But not in this flower patch," he said, "unless he bothered to clean up the brass."

"I'd look over there," Belson said, and nodded at the swan boat dock.

Quirk continued to sit on his haunches, looking at the flower bed.

"Stay with this, Frank," Quirk said. "I'll get some crime-scene techs over here, but I want you to be the only one touches the gun, okay?"

Belson nodded.

"You bag it, label it, take it to the lab, stay with it, wait for it."

"Okay, Marty," Belson said.

"Nobody but you and the lab guy touches it."

"Okay, Marty."

"I'll get some divers to look in the water for the shell casing," Quirk said.

Friends, that's a very basic misrepresentation of the difference between a revolver and a semi-automatic pistol. I would expect by now Dr. Parker know the difference. That this very basic mistake makes it into print doesn't bode well.

"It's good," my beautiful wife said after she read the book first because I was mired in Anna Karenina. "It's focus is on the crime and not Sunny Randall's life."

Oh, but no. We have the extraneous chapters on Sunny meeting with Dr. Silverman, her therapist; chapters on Sunny reconciling with her ex-husband; chapters on Sunny interacting with her dysfunctional adult family and recognizing the dynamic about how it revolves around her father; and chapters on a sideplot about what a mess her friend Julie is.

Oh, and the crime. A serial killer returns after 20 years. Sunny knows immediately who it is and then has to prove it. The case turns on a discovery that, when thought about after the end of the book, is quite poorly handled as a means of moving the plot along, and we get the same sort of ending as in Shrink Rap: Sunny puts herself in danger with one of the father figures in the background ready to save her, but she saves herself in a redemption of you-go-girl violence.

Sadly, I'm reading the Sunny Randall series (and probably the Jessie Stone series) out of habit now. I look slightly more forward to the Spenser books and the Westerns, but.

But.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:08 AM   0 comments

 
Book Report: Lake Shore Journal: Jim Marshall's View from the Bridge by James R. Marshall (1999)
I bought this book as part of the "Everything you can fit into the bag is $1" sale at Christ the King church earlier this year. Since I only found five things I wanted, size of the bag be condemned, I paid $.20 for it. It's signed by the author and inscribed, and it came with a flyer from a Lake Superior nursery (the plant kind) as a bookmark, so it's quite a deal, especially since I liked the book.

The book collects a number of Jim Marshall's columns from the Lake Superior Journal in the 1990s. The columns touch on the history of the lake and area quite a bit with a number of stories about friends and running his boat, the Skipper Sam II, on that inland sea. The book offered me a number of ideas for essays and whatnot about the region and a strong urge to visit. I mean, I'm from Wisconsin and all, but I'm from southern Wisconsin.

The book also reminded me that we don't have white birch trees in Missouri. Might not have red squirrels, either. I swear, there are red squirrels in the northern part of Wisconsin and the Upper Penninsula of Michigan. Those previously forgotten and almost fantastic memories of my youth.

So pick it up if you're interested in the region or if you just want to do a little exploring from your chair. I liked the book so much, I'm considering subscribing to Lake Superior Magazine, although Jim Marshall died last year, so I won't enjoy more of his stories. It looks like there are another six or seven years of the column online, though.

What an excellent ambassador for the region. This book, too.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:45 AM   0 comments

 
That's Not What I Call A Slam Dunk
As some of you St. Louis hockey fans might know, the St. Louis Blues "traded" for exclusive rights to negotiate with Keith Tkachuk:

The Blues made a trade with the Atlanta Thrashers that gives them exclusive negotiating rights with Tkachuk, an unrestricted free agent, until the free-agency period begins Sunday. If the two sides do not come to an agreement, Tkachuk will hit the open market.

Tkachuk might have many reasons for wanting to return to St. Louis, including the fact that his family lives here and they're in their formative years. Maybe he'd even take a pay cut.

This morning, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch runs a story fed to it by sources that the Blues have made a contract offer:

The Blues have offered veteran center Keith Tkachuk a two-year contract worth $3.5 million per season, a source has told the Post-Dispatch.

Sports columnists Jeff Gordon and Bernie Miklasz step up to the plate with columns praising Tkachuk.

Friends, I'd hardly say this is a slam dunk. Releasing the story and turning up the huzzahs as a negotiating tactic indicate Tkachuk isn't jumping at the deal.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:22 AM   0 comments

 
Book Report: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (1877, 1992)
Well, in my book report for From the Corner of His Eye, I said:

I could have almost read Anna Karenina by the time I was done with this book.

As you might know, gentle reader, I have a special term that I use when reading long books to refer to that instant where you realize that you could have read a whole other book by now. That is the Anna Karenina moment. I coined the term after the first time I tried to read Anna Karenina, back in the late middle 1990s (1996? 1997?). I was working in a print shop at the time, operating a Didde-Glaser 175 two color offset web printing press. Every day, I had a 30 minute lunch break, and I brought in a book to read over those lunch breaks. I once brought in Anna Karenina and made it to about page 287 (still bookmarked, a decade later). There, I had my first Anna Karenina moment, and I put the book aside for shorter books.

Well, after making that crack about the Koontz book, I decided to pick up the Tolstoy again to see how it compared. Well, it was certainly longer than the Koontz, and it took me three weeks of almost nightly reading to complete it. But it was still time better spent than From the Corner of His Eye. Where Koontz drops in a chapter for nothing more than melodramatic foreshadowing, Tolstoy adds a theme. So it's better than the Koontz book, not that anyone had any doubt.

And in case you're wondering, pages 287-600 are a string of Anna Karenina moments, but I have more patience and discipline now.

For those of you who haven't read it or its attendant summary documents, the story revolves around several threads in the Russian aristocracy circa 1870. Mr. Oblonsky has a dalliance with the help, and his wife Dolly is put off by it and wonders what she'll do. Anna Karenina, Mr. Oblonsky's sister, talks to her. Meanwhile, Mr. Oblonsky's friend Levin, a country gentleman, has come to ask Dolly's sister Kitty to marry him. She, though, is flirting with Vronsky, who's a flirt and has no intent to marry her. But when he meets Anna Karenina, he's smitten and leads her into an adulterous relationship that will last hundreds of pages.

The book follows two main story arcs: the illicit love of Anna and Vronsky and Levin's search for happiness and faith. The subthemes, of course, deal with the relationships of the aristocrats to each other and to the peasants and their children. There's something for everyone, someone to whom everyone can relate, and plenty of heft in case you need the hardback for self-defense.

An interesting bit about the translation: It was translated by an English person who often threw in British coinage to make the denominations more relevant to the English reader. So when you're talking whole bills, you hear about roubles, but when it switches to kopecks, suddenly you're talking about shillings or farthings. Which is really weird to an American reader. Or even an English reader some years from now when they're using Euros or Rials in Britain.

It's a book that provokes some thought because it's classical literature, and it makes me want to write a paper on it. Does Levin really become a Christian? How would I match these heroes up to The Fountainhead characters? That sort of thing.

But, although I own War and Peace, I'm not diving right into it. I have a pile of books to read, and knocking down to a 17 per year pace won't clear my to-read shelves.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:49 PM   0 comments

 
That's An Awfully Expensive Field Trip
Francis Howell budget has $9 million hike


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:47 AM   0 comments

 
A Good Deal, But The Shipping from Sudan Is Expensive
An eBay auction for a lot of 10 Female Christian Artists.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:57 AM   0 comments

 
Central Planner For Rent: Cheap
Here's a fellow who thinks suburban development is over and that the American public doesn't know it yet:

I get lots of letters from people in various corners of the nation who are hysterically disturbed by the continuing spectacle of suburban development. But instead of joining in their hand-wringing, I reply by stating my serene conviction that we are at the end of the cycle -- and by that I mean the grand meta-cycle of the suburban project as a whole. It's over. Whatever you see out there now is pretty much what we're going to be stuck with. The remaining things under construction are the last twitchings of a dying organism.

The remainder of his screed and, from what I can tell from a quick glance, his blog go on about the unwashed masses and their desire for space, and he attributes all that growth, all misguided (by someone other than a smart fellow like him or his correspondents) public policy, and foreign policy to OIIIIIIL.

American expansion, of which suburban expansion is the latest and most myopically pooh-poohed by those who look down upon single family homes, starts before even Manifest Destiny. People who came to America came here to escape crowding or busybodies telling them how to live their lives. Most of America still doesn't like those things. Those who do are welcome to the decaying urban cores and the artificial mixed use developments in the suburbs.

Instead of recentralization into urban cores, I expect we'll find alternate means of transportation to and from our strip malls with their excessive retail space (more retail space = more choice for consumers, but some people don't think average people need choices; those elites think the average person needs diktats). With the Internet and technology serving to decentralize workplaces (and even provide decentralized shopping), I think the trend toward stretching out and thinning population density will continue.

But don't tell those elites who want to live in crime-ridden, mismanaged urban centers that. They need their pipe dreams.


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:14 AM   1 comments

 
Would You, As A Friend, Tell Me?
Am I bruchleidend?



I saw this ad inside the back cover of the Milwaukee America Kalendar 1924 I bought this weekend, and it asked a question we all must ask ourselves daily: Bruchleidend?

Because if I am, I definitely need to send off to a far away city to get a set of four suction cups I can wear around my waist to help with my bruchleidend condition.

Heather informs me that I cannot suffer bruchleidend, as those are obviously a woman's hips in it. Google's translator tells me that bruchleidend means "break-suffering," which I sometimes have been known to feel (if bruchleidend means "Dreading the last minutes before you have to punch back in after scarfing a submarine sandwich and a quart of orange juice in 7 minutes").

Given the language barrier in addition to the archaic nature of the advertisement, I cannot be clear whether this was an actual, outdated, treatment for something, snake oil of some sort, or some mechanism to part German immigrants from their American dollars. As a matter of fact, given that it appeared in the back of a magazine and has a tarty line drawing, perhaps I've blown my PG-13 rating on my blog by including it.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:30 AM   1 comments

 
Hmmm.
So Greenville, Illinois, home of FCI Greenville:



Has a realty company named:



Does anyone else find that a bit peculiar?
- posted by Brian J. @ 4:07 PM   0 comments

 
My Kind of Legislator
Democratic Party attacks on Fred Thompson identify a feature:

Working to influence news coverage, the DNC also recently began circulating a "research document" with the headline, "MAJOR LEGISLATIVE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF SEN. FRED DALTON THOMPSON (1994-2002)." Then the page is blank until the line, "Paid for by the Democratic National Committee."

That sounds about right. If only we had more legislators with fewer "major legislative accomplishments."


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:55 PM   1 comments

 
Apple Growers Fear "China," A Euphemism For Loss Of Federal Money
Apple growers fear China: Lower wages make it difficult for U.S. to compete:

Farmers have been growing apples here since before the Civil War, and as times have changed, they have changed with them, planting smaller trees to speed up harvests and growing popular new varieties to satisfy changing tastes.

But the growers who have made this mountainous region the core of apple-growing in Pennsylvania worry that they face a new challenge that may be too big to overcome and could change their way of life.

Like farmers in the bigger apple-producing states, they are becoming increasingly anxious about the prospect of China flooding the U.S. market with their fresh apples - an event many believe is inevitable, even if it could be years away.

They saw what happened in the 1990s when Chinese apple juice concentrate made it into the United States. Prices got so low, some U.S. juice companies were forced out of the U.S. market. Growers could no longer afford to grow apples just for making juice.

Meanwhile, someday, China might outpace the United States in apple production. Assuming, of course, apple buyers don't fear that Chinese apples, like Chinese wheat gluten and toothpast, will actually kill you.

No, let's identify what the apple growers fear today:

With the Farm Bill up for renewal this year for the first time since 2002, apple growers are pressing for an unprecedented amount of federal funding to develop technologies to make harvesting less costly, and aid to develop overseas markets.

They fear not getting their fair share of that amount withheld from your paycheck, citizen. Even if you prefer pears, the apple growers of America still want your business.

UPDATE: Jay Tea isn't afraid of Chinese apples.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:21 AM   0 comments

 
Good Book Hunting: June 23, 2007
How far will we drive for a book fair? Well, friends and readers, that answer now stands at 65 miles one way, as Saturday we travelled to Greenville, Illinois, home of FCI Greenville and a small contingent of housing on the Illinois prairie. Heather found a book fair listing on BookSaleFinder.com, the only nearby book fair for any number of weeks, so we packed up the baby for his first long car trip and went. Heather printed out a set of directions from MapQuest and failed to actually retain names of the location of the book fair or the name of the group hosting the book fair. Still, I won't knock her navigational abilities nor the wisdom of working from MapQuest directions too much since we did actually get there alive.

We got there about 30 minutes after the starting time, and no one was in the gymnasium of the church. Apparently, the ad said the fair would include 40,000 books, and perhaps it did; however, nothing really tempted me, and for the first time, Heather bought more books than I did:



Among my choice purchases:

• Milwaukee America Kalendar 1924, a 1924 almanac/calendar in German printed by George Brunder. It contains a number of tables, days with lines where you can write in whatever you need to remember for that day, and advertisements. It was printed in Milwaukee, so even though I cannot read it, I had to have it.
  
  
• Beggars in Spain, a novel by Nancy Kress. She writes a column on fiction for Writer's Digest (or did when I took the magazine), so I want to see what she writes.
  
  
• How to Play Blues Harmonica, a videocassette. I already have the hat and several harmonicas.
  
  
• Solved!, a collection of true crime pieces by mystery authors.
  
  
• Dave Barry's Guide to End All Gift Guides.
  
  

And a couple other things. Books and cassettes were only 65 cents, and I couldn't find much to tempt me. Heather, on the other hand, raided the religious books section and carried off a number of Dr. James Dobson titles. Hmm, one of those is Love Must Be Tough: New Hope for Marriage in Crisis. I wonder if we're going to have a talk soon.

Probably about my commentary on her navigational abilities.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:01 PM   0 comments

 
Nancy Pelosi Fails QA
Well, not Nancy Pelosi herself, but her Web site has gotten the wrong sort of attention on the blogs recently (here and here and so on). It's a simple Macromedia Flash presentation embedded within a Web site, but it has a number of problems that a trained eye would have caught.

First and foremost, whomever created the presentation used stock imagery in the most sloppy manner; they chose, to represent a story on American military medical care, a stock image of someone with a uniform featuring an epaulet talking to a doctor. Unfortunately, that epaulet said "CANADA":



Her political opponents (of which I am one, don't get me left) were quick to seize upon this as something more than a failure (or lack) of quality assurance, but they're just looking for something to make noise about anyway. Still, someone who reviewed this with any degree of exactitude would read all text and identify any extraneous logos within stock photography. And someone would have read "Canada" and said, "Uh, no....."

This particular failure has been remedied, as the slide that offended the bloggers no longer appears. However, the site still fails QA in the following manners.

At the change of each slide, the text from the first slide ("Green the Capitol") displays during the transition. Now, unless you're actually trying subliminal advertising, perhaps you don't want this to occur. Perhaps you want a smooth fade of the words and the fade in of the new slide. Still, unrelated text shouldn't appear:



Next, the embedding of the Flash object is faulty. It gives the user too much control over the behavior of the object, including the ability to zoom so that the images appear pixellated or the text displays outsized. Since the Flash object has a certain set size, only a portion is visible, like this:



Finally, as you should know if you build Web sites for a living (or pretend to), Macromedia Flash Player is a plugin whose presence should not be taken for granted on the user's Web browser. Any time you provide animation or other documents through plugins, you should provide a handy mechanism so that those users without the plugin can get them if needed. Does Nancy Pelosi? No:



Instead of a static graphic or a link to Macromedia Flash Player, we get empty space. That Other America that I'm always hearing about, the one without Flash, gets left behind.

I am tempted to go into metaphors about legislators whose Web sites aren't checked before they're put up and the implications for legislation, but I'll save that for another blog post and will point out that a couple of hours' worth of time of a trained Quality Assurance professional would have ferreted these issues out before releasing it to the public, sparing embarrassment and also sparing someone the "emergency" of fixing it.

But, hey, if you don't want to spend that money or budget on quality assurance, you roll the dice. Sometimes they don't come up snake eyes, but when they do, you'll pay for it.


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:31 PM   0 comments

 
Users, Consumers Find Web Technologies To Be Mere Tools
In a stunning turn of events, the components of the Web 2.0 phenomenon are seen by users as mere tools, and those users have very little loyalty to particular tools:

Study results show that social networkers have little loyalty for any specific social networking site. Almost half of all social networkers use more than one site and one in six uses three or more.

Interactive marketing agencies better keep this in mind that spending client budget on building/hooking up all sorts of "community" (read: users build the content for the client for free) will have wasted that budget when another company comes up with a slightly cooler set of technologies to do the same thing. You must differentiate the brand using existing Web 1.0 techniques and build that community with good promotions and content instead of hoping "users" will do your job for you.

James Joyner (past client of my company Jeracor, just so's you know) sums it up thusly:

Not only is this unsurprising but the premise behind the question reflects a deep misunderstanding of the Web 2.0 concept. Social media aren't about loyalty to sites but rather a means of self-expression and growing and communicating with one's network.

That will remain true with fickle consumers, so if you're building a consumer-facing Web site, don't forget the fresh content when adding expensive technologies to the bill of sale.


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:05 PM   0 comments

 
One Fewer Check or Balance
A legislator tells an unelected member of the executive branch to change the law:

"It is outrageous that companies can get away with revealing what prescription medications New Yorkers have taken and not even notify the customer," Schumer said. The senator is calling on the federal Health and Human Services secretary, Michael Leavitt, to immediately change the law to require pharmacies to notify patients before selling or transferring their records and allowing patients to opt out.

No, senator, you as the legislator should change the law. As a member of the executive branch, Leavitt should implement it as written.

That was the whole point.

But if you cede responsibility, you can cede the blame. So long as you keep the fat paycheck and the "prestige" (single digit approval rating), I guess.

(Link seen on Dustbury.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:00 PM   0 comments

 
Unfortunately, He Killed On Double Count Thursday
Either the reporting's incorrect, or there's some serious end-runs around double jeopardy in play here:

Vaughn was charged with eight counts of first-degree murder in the killings of Kimberly Vaughn, 34, and their three children — Abigayle, 12, Cassandra, 11, and Blake, 8.

Four victims, eight charges of first-degree murder? How does that happen?


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:36 PM   0 comments

 
Book Report: Suspension Bridge by Rod McKuen (1984)
Spare the Rod and spoil the child, that's my new motto. I continue reading Rod McKuen poetry at my son (at because he's often only in the room when I'm reading poetry to him these days; he's at an interim age where he's too engaged in moving around and his own projects to sit quietly on one's lap for reception of book knowledge or storytelling). I do so even though I'm really unimpressed with most of McKuen's work past the middle 1960s, and my positive impression of the remainder of his work only moves him from bad poet to mediocre poet in my estimation, but I'm not Allan Bloom, so you don't have to take my word for it. There's so many Rod McKuen books floating out there you can probably pick one up for a quarter somewhere. I wouldn't be surprised if you could find them for free in a mass landfill buried with old Atari E.T. cartridges.

This book refers back to Stanyan Street and Other Sorrows with the additional reflection of fourteen years' elapsing. The poet has endured a number of relationships moving on in that time, so all the poetry is extra-sepiaed. A particularly devilling tic in the book is its name-dropping; a large number of the poems are dedicated to someone and many more use names as shorthand for the passage of time. Frankly, it doesn't work for me because I don't know who he's talking about.

Unfortunately, McKuen suffers additionally from my recent reading of Carl Sandburg. McKuen comes out better when I've just bitten off a chunk of Emily Dickinson than when I read someone who's enjoyable and deep.

One more down, several more to go. I also have this weird sense I am going to try to get a complete set of McKuen's works just because I can. That, friends, is the drive of a diseased book collector.

Books mentioned in this review:

   
- posted by Brian J. @ 12:19 PM   0 comments

 
Found Poetry
The sad, lonely life of an unrequited lover recounted using the date due flap of an obscure academic tome as the metaphor:




- posted by Brian J. @ 7:16 PM   3 comments

 
A Clarification and Defense of Masculinity
When my wife came home from a recent evening event, she saw that I was watching Alex & Emma on DVD. "You're watching a chick flick!" she said.

"I am not," I defended, "It's an author flick."

Allow me to justify my behavior.

Although I concede that it has all the earmarks of chick flick feminine wish fulfillment:

• No-nonsense working woman
  
  
• With a lot of opinions, with which she is forcefully forthcoming
  
  
• And "quirks" identify her as high-maintenance and probably controlling when they exist in a woman in real life
  
  
• Meets a flawed but cute man
  
  
• Whose initial impression and silly bachelor ways she overlooks
  
  
• And they fall in love.

Friends, I agree, those are the earmarks of a chick flick. However, this particular movie plays upon those conventions and, although they sucker women into thinking the movie is directed at them, it's not. It's every author's fantasy fulfilled:

• An author living in a comfortable loft downtown (Boston, not St. Louis)
  
  
• Tricks an innocent stenographer to his lair
  
  
• Where he dictates a potboiler novel,
  
  
• A follow-up to a wildly successful debut novel,
  
  
• Pausing only to nail a woman who looks like Kate Hudson
  
  
• And when he completes the draft in 30 days
  
  
• The publisher loves it without a single jot of revision required
  
  
• And immediately pays the author a six-figure advance.
  
  
• Meanwhile, the author tells the stenographer he "loves" her
  
  
• And she buys it
  
  
• So he will get to nail her again.

You tell me who gets gratified more from this movie.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:09 PM   0 comments

 
Ho Hum: Art, Curator Expect to Make Squares Uncomfortable Again
Another art exhibit exalts itself in making the hoi polloi uncomfortable. Just like the last untold number of "art" exhibits:

A risqué, homoerotic art exhibit will open this weekend on a stretch of street in St. Louis best known as a haven for antique-seekers.

Gallery owner Philip Hitchcock expects the "Body/Building" display to unnerve a few people, but he hopes to accomplish more by challenging the status quo.

"If people are uncomfortable with those images, and they ask themselves, 'Why? What chord does that strike in me?' If they go that far, then as an artist and a curator, I have done my job," Hitchcock said.

I doubt I'd be uncomfortable with those images; instead, the whole concept strikes a chord of "Why bother?" in me.

I prefer art to be evocative and uplifting. That sort of thing takes insight into the human condition and talent. Shocking me only requires the artistic equivalent of a Taser. And guess which sort of thing I buy.


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:11 PM   0 comments

 
The More The Merrier
On the other hand, the netroots activism of the Democratic party might be better for the Republicans than expected. I mean, look at the potential Nader ponders run, calls Clinton 'coward':

Ralph Nader says he is seriously considering running for president in 2008 because he foresees another Tweedledum-Tweedledee election that offers little real choice to voters.

Coupled with this news, it's looking like a great race:

• Any Republican
• Any Democrat
• Michael Bloomberg
• Ralph Nader

Come on, you don't think Michael Bloomberg is going to steal from the Republican votes, do you?

The only way this could be better would be if Markos Moulitas himself ran, too.

The Republicans could almost elect Mark Foley in that field.

(More on Instapundit and Outside the Beltway.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:17 AM   0 comments

 
Litigious Culture Imperils Doctors
The litigious nature of our society is again imperiling our access to health care and doctors: Mo. doctors to sue over midwife law:

Legislation allowing midwives to deliver babies at home in Missouri will probably be challenged in court by doctors' groups.

The measure was approved by lawmakers last month as part of larger health insurance bill signed June 1 by Gov. Matt Blunt. Most of the bill won't take effect until January, but the section on midwifery becomes effective in August.

Opposition to the midwifery provision is led by the Missouri State Medical Association. The organization's lobbyist, Tom Holloway, said the group expected to file suit to block the provision next week in Cole County Circuit Court.

Oh, sorry, my fault; this is actually a bill about doctors suing to prevent access to other health care providers because the doctors know that they should be the only ones legally eligible to receive tax money for delivering babies.

Doctors suing to keep health costs up so that they can continue to receive their rates for delivery and hospital stays or whatnot.

I'm not going to argue about whether it's better to have a child in the hospital surrounded by expensive scientific instruments unneeded in most deliveries or at home, chanting in a Gaia circle with a midwife. You know, that's where freedom comes in. People can choose the stupid or the merely less ideal.

But not if this collective of Missouri doctors has its way.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:42 AM   0 comments

 
Republican Party Improves Slightly
NYC mayor leaves GOP amid White House speculation:

After some six years as a Republican, the 65-year-old former CEO announced Tuesday that he has left the Republican Party and become unaffiliated in what many believe could be a step toward entering the 2008 race for president.

Face it, Bloomberg belongs to the Bloomberg party and puts on or takes off party designation like baseball hats. He only became a Republican so he could ride Rudy's coattails into the New York Mayor's office.

Frankly, that the Republican Party would have him in spite of his political views was an early indicator of its ease of sacrificing principles just to have one more official with an (R) behind its name.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:47 AM   0 comments

 
Headline Offers Cheap Psychological Evaluation
Paranoia grows over Google's power

Reuters headline writers were unavailable to surmise how people concerned about the reach of Google's data depth and related data mining actually went crazy, but Reuters headline writers did not have the time to work up a complete mental profiles. They had only time to diagnose that those people suffer from a delusional disorder or perhaps schizophrenia.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:26 PM   0 comments

 
Post-Dispatch Finds A Land Developer To Dislike
The front page of the Sunday St. Louis Post-Dispatch and an Flash-enhanced online rendition finally take a land developer to task.

Well, no, not "finally," since this land developer is only guilty of urging lawmakers to pass a tax incentive package that he'll take advantage of.

The Post-Dispatch wets itself in joy whenever a developer throws citizens out of their suburban homes using eminent domain or when a developer strong arms the city into co-signing a loan from which the developer can (and often does) walk away. To say nothing of tax incentives, which the Post-Dispatch thinks is a good idea to lure any private retail, condominium, or sports endeavor to the city.

I don't know why the paper decides to unload on this developer who acquired all the properties legitimately, although not obviously. Because he's one man who's white buying land in poverty-stricken areas? Because he live in St. Charles and hasn't made the proper show of buying a downtown loft?

Who knows? All I know is that it makes all other Post-Dispatch pieces that laud crony capitalism absurd and hypocritical.


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:41 PM   0 comments

 
Caption Contest
Normally, I don't do this sort of thing because the paucity of responses is bad for my ego, but here's a photo begging for a quip:



Here's my best shot:

Dude, we know where your treasure's buried.

Think you can do better? Leave it in the comments. Remember, if there are no comments, I will win by default! You don't want that on your conscience, do you?


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:45 AM   4 comments

 
Found Lost Mysteries
Sawyer spends Father's Day grilling (for his daughter Clementine by Cassidy? For his son by Kate?)? Also, who is the mystery woman with the salad bowl, and how is she related to Sawyer?

Man, it's going to be a long year.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:53 AM   0 comments

 
All Right, All Right, I'll Post It
That's the sound of me finally giving into myself. I saw this video on Ace of Spades and have watched it over and over:



It's a nice tribute to Bob Ross of The Joy of Painting. I recollect catching Bob in his early years (ca. 1986-1988) and watching him on the local PBS station, broadcast over the air if you damn kids can believe it. I was twisting the knob, which was how we changed stations between the three to seven stations we could get with antennae, and I found his show early in my late middle school to early high school period, watching the grainy television from the top bunk in a bedroom in a mobile home sized to fit only a television, a bunk bed, and a dresser.

I liked how easy he made painting landscapes look, and I watched it a couple weeks running. He tempted me to try some painting on my own, using stray watercolor paint set gift packs and the only canvases I had handy--the glazed tops of doughnut boxes my mother brought as our special Sunday treats from the local U-Gas. The doughnuts were the treat, not the boxes, you dang literalists. Man, I can picture one of my self-portraits in my head even now, wherein a rudely-depicted blond young man reclines under a tree. Fortunately, that picture reclines in a landfill somewhere now. Even if I could post it, I probably wouldn't; let's leave it at that.

The year after I graduated, I was shipping/receiving clerk for an art supply store, and the shop carried a small set of the Bob Ross line of products. I remembered him fondly and probably caught an episode or two of his show for the then-kitsch value. He died while I was working there, a stunning blow that no doubt the sales staff, local students in art programs, brought to the back room with a combination of sadness and smugness. Based on the quality of my art work, I didn't have youthful superiority to spare, so I was only sad.

The aforelinked video touches me with nostalgia and a hint of that sadness, but also pleasantly amuses me with the music and with the sense that maybe, yes, Bob Ross would have felt that way about the message his laid-back style conveyed.
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:31 PM   2 comments

 
Book Report: Harvest Poems 1910-1960 by Carl Sandburg (1960)
I read this collection of poems at my son. I say "at" instead of "to" because he's getting mobile and is no longer a captive audience. Still, I pick the book up and read it at him as he plays so he can hear my voice.

Wow, I've read McKuen, Cohen, Dickinson, and L'Engle in the last couple of years. I've also worked on a small survey of John Donne (yet to be completed). In doing so, I've really missed out on good poetry with rhythm. These poems by Sandburg direct your cadence and really are fun to read. The turns of phrases make me pause and remember them so I can say them aloud and sound smart. As a matter of fact, I've used several lines from Sandburg as IM statuses, so that indicates how clever and insightful I think they are.

As its title suggests, this book collects poems from over 50 years, but most of them come from before the depression, when the poet lamenting war was still referring to World War I. Sandburg's themes include a sort of homily to the common man in the Midwest, a distaste for war, and a belief in God. The charged themes are handled lightly enough that they're observations and not proselytization. So they're palatable where we differ.

As I said, this is a collection taken from several books, so it's a step up from the poems from an author you'd find in an anthology (Yes, "Grass" is in here as is "Fog"). So if you've liked Sandburg from the anthologies, check this book out and see if you like the rest. Me, I liked this work so much that I'm going to look for the complete collections from which these poems were selected, and I'm also almost inspired to actually write more poetry.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:36 PM   0 comments

 
That's Not A Bug
Centene ruling may have 'chilling effect':

"Getting eminent domain for a project is already tough and this decision is going to make it tougher," said Jay Case, principal of Chicago-based Orchard Development, which is rehabilitating several historic buildings in St. Louis. He also is developing Trianon, a high-rise residential development in Clayton. None of his projects required eminent domain.

"The decision will have a chilling effect on any community government thinking about invoking eminent domain," Case said.

Rule of law and the right to private property do so stand in the way of unbridled greed.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:46 AM   1 comments

 
Bloodthirsty Blog Don Takes Another Life
I was shocked today to read that Mr. Wizard had died (via Instapundit).

How many more generation X celebrity icons must fall to this madman before we resist?

(Aw, but who can resist an Instalanche? Not me!)


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:20 AM   0 comments

 
One Thing, Unfigured Out
I read an article from Bizjournals.com about varied job backgrounds because, brothers and sisters, I was not just born the pestilence onto software that I am. So this article tries to tell me how to use that: A diverse background isn’t necessarily a problem, but two things struck me.

One, this quote:

Remember from the movie "City Slickers," old Curley holding up his gloved hand and saying, "One thing -- and you've got to figure out what that thing is."

Um, no, both IMDB and I remember it like this:

Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is?
[holds up one finger]
Curly: This.
Mitch: Your finger?
Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don't mean shit.
Mitch: But, what is the "one thing?"
Curly: [smiles] That's what *you* have to find out.

Secondly, dude, your mailto link is messed up and is carrying through the headline and the first paragraph:



Well, I guess I have found my one true thing, the story to tell my future interviews and clients.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:12 PM   0 comments

 
Sometimes Blight Means, You Know, Blight
Missouri courts block expansive definition of blight, disgruntling land-rustling developers and their greedy municipal sidekicks:

The Missouri Supreme Court narrowed the bounds of eminent domain Tuesday in rejecting the Centene Plaza plan for downtown Clayton and raising the bar for taking private property.

The upscale city failed to prove that property in the 7700 block of Forsyth Boulevard was blighted, the judges ruled in a 6-1 decision favoring landowners who fought condemnation.

City officials began the process to take the land in late 2005 as a site for a $210 million office-retail complex whose future is now in question.

Under the ruling, developers who seek to use condemnation to take land from other private owners will have to give proof that the property is not only old or of obsolete design but that it impacts health and safety as well.

This is very good news for property owners. Now they cannot be thrown out for owning uncool buildings or not producing the maximum level of revenue possible (at least, not until another court determines that impacts health and safety means "doesn't provide sales tax revenue that funds local EMT services."

And for the kids in the Mystery Machine, this is also good news, since it will force developers to once again rely on the trick of convincing land owners that the property is haunted, and hey, that made for great cartoons.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:56 PM   0 comments

 
One Stop Shopping
As Jack Travis said in Lethal Weapon 3:

The police department's got it all: guns, ammo, drugs, cash... it's a one-stop shopping center. If you've got the balls and the brains, there's not a fucking thing anyone can do about it!

So it goes:

Explosives capable of causing "extensive damage" have been stolen from a St. Charles County firing range used by the sheriff's office and the FBI, federal officials said Tuesday.

Officials are still trying to determine how much dynamite, C-4 and other explosives were taken and exactly who was responsible.

And special kudos to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for its discretion:

The explosives, including C-4, dynamite and safety fuse, were being stored at the St. Charles County training center and firearms range at 1835 South Highway 94, Schmitz said. The range is located in a rural area.

They were stored properly in the federally approved storage magazine, which resembles a large construction Dumpster, Schmitz said.

Awesome. Now everyone knows exactly where to find bomb making equipment in the future and exactly what sort of storage mechanism to look for.

In the novel or screenplay I build from this, the crooks/terrorists/bad guys will just use a construction truck that hauls away large construction dumpsters to pick it up.

Maybe I'll even make the bad guys disgruntled land developers. They'd have access to that sort of thing and a strong urge to blight an area.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:50 PM   0 comments

 
Just Watching It For The Commercials
I've found myself watching YouTube renditions of various and sundry commercials and "viral" advertisements lately. Once a series grabs me, I like to watch a pile of them, which makes them amusing if not effective. Brand awareness and affinity? You bet.

First, thanks to a post on StLRecruiting.com, I started watching the "Making Things Right with Pete and Red series" for Haggar:

These represent an extended version of some television commercials. You can find the HaggarFilms list on YouTube here and on the Haggar site here. And, if you search around on YouTube, you can find others and the 30 second cuts that appeared on television. Makes me want to go out and buy pants.

Secondly, when Carl's sued Jack in the Box for its Angus commercials, I went right out to review the advertisements in question. Here's one:



Using YouTube's related suggestions and search mechanism, I found a number of other of the commercials I liked. I watched some that I'd seen on television. Particularly "The Intern," which I watched again during the creation of this post. Carl's probably made a mistake bigger than hiring Norm MacDonald to voice its star.

So then I went to find an old Bud commercial with the beavers because every now and then I think the tagline Naughty little beavers and want to use it in professional conversation but I cannot without it sounding, well, worthy of a call to HR. But I'll embed it here because the more it becomes known, the less chance I'll have to think of euphemisms for "fired for sexual harrassment" to use in job interviews for "Why did you leave your last job?"



Or the "Willy! It's go time." commercial:



Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't drink Budweiser if I was drowning (which, ultimately, makes no sense). However, I like the commercials.

What's my point? Oh, yeah, if you're all slavering to get into Web 2.0 advertising--that is, to save money on actually distributing/running your adverts, you probably ought to spend money on the production of them and make them amusing and funny enough to warrant further watching. Sure, it's cheap, but so's a blog, and if this blog serves any lesson for you it's that you can have a steady Web presence, but just because you put it out there doesn't mean you're doing your clients any favors or garnering any attention. And here's the only YouTube commercial I have ever bookmarked: Folger's Happy Morning:



The last coffee I bought was Folger's, partly because I was trimming expenditures from the $20 a pound stuff but partly, perhaps, because I enjoyed an amusing video that I could watch over and over again for the same set of amusement.


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:06 PM   0 comments

 
Must Be An Al Qaeda Cell
Bogus storm reports probed: FBI joins search for fake warning source:

The FBI has joined the effort to find whoever has been sending false reports of severe weather to the National Weather Service.

The service began getting the reports in mid-April through an online form on its Web site. The areas affected by the reports have included Milwaukee, La Crosse, Chicago, and Lincoln, Ill., said Tom Schwein, chief of the National Weather Service's systems and facilities division for the central region in Kansas City, Mo.

"We've been detecting a regular pattern of a person who has been submitting false severe weather reports that are constructed in a way that seem very realistic," Schwein said. "Whoever this person is seems to have knowledge of severe weather reports. When they send in reports, they seem very plausible."

It's fortunate that the FBI has nothing to worry about more than pranks.

Schwein likened the reports to calling in a false bomb threat or pulling a fire alarm when there is no fire.

Oh, puhlease.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:27 AM   0 comments

 
Sopranos Ending Comment
Tony flying back and forth across the Pacific, whacked out on OxyContin, hoping to get back to the island? I mean, that sucked.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:18 AM   0 comments

 
Guns Don't Kill People; Shootings Kill People
Wis. shooting kills 6, wounds toddler


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:26 AM   0 comments

 
Maybe She Should Have Shot Her Husband Dead
Let your child drink at home: 27 months in jail:

Elisa Kelly did not want her teenage son, Ryan, or his friends to endanger their lives by drinking and driving. So she decided to let him have a 16th birthday party at home, where she would supply the beer, confiscate all the car keys and supervise a nightlong sleep-over.

Today she begins a 27-month jail sentence imposed by courts in Virginia – where drinking is banned for people under the age of 21 – for "contributing to the delinquency of minors".

That's reduced from the original sentence of 8 years in jail.

On the less serious end of crime, we have shoot your husband dead, 210 days in jail:

Knoxville native Mary Winkler will go to jail in connection with the killing of her minister husband.

A judge sentenced Winkler to three years of split confinement in connection with the shotgun slaying of her husband in March of 2006.

Of that, she's been ordered to serve 210 days in jail.

But she apparently prays for her ex-husband's family every day that they can find peace. That's swell of her.

Respect for law and order continues to erode as society contemplates how serving liquor to teenagers is considered a far more serious offense than shooting someone in cold blood.

(Links seen on a big victory, Dr. Helen.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:56 AM   0 comments

 
That's An Expensive Twinkie
A blow-in from Capper's offers something less than a deal:



The headline implies that the issues are $14.95 each, which is $179.40 for a year's subscription.

Somewhere, a proofreader or QA professional might have indicated that the headline was unclear, but this was overruled by someone in a hurry to get the proofs off to the printer. No one would get that impression and mock the magazine/its brand for the headline.

Oh, how wrong you are. Mock. Mock.


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:52 PM   0 comments

 
Good Book Hunting: June 9, 2007
As promised, my beautiful wife and I attended the St. Charles Book Fair this year for the third year in a row. Last year, my beautiful wife was also my very pregnant wife, so this marked the first time we ventured to the convention center was a trio instead of a duet.

The book fair is apparently becoming more popular, as it was more crowded this time out. A large number of people stopped to socialize with each other in front of the tables of books, too. Popularity and population make book fairs annoying. I mean, what's with the people who review these tables from left to right. Don't you realize it's easier to read the spines if you move from left to right? I jumped large sections of tables when encountering the meandering throng of people after something in particular instead of avaricious book hoarders like me. I mean, when you want something for sure, go to eBay or something. Don't spend hours lingering over the mystery table hoping you'll find a first edition of A is for Alibi. You probably won't.

The selection was good, though. Perhaps slightly too good. The volunteers continued to put out books as space opened on the tables. As you know, this discourages the seriousish collector in me, as I will automatically assume I've missed stuff and accellerate my browsing when I see that no matter how dilligently I review all titles, I will have missed something by the dint of its addition after I passed. Brutha, that's too much like professional software quality assurance, my day-to-day existence, for me.

Still, I found a pile of middle McBain era books (Heat, Tricks, Bread, Mischief) and an Evan Hunter crime novel (Criminal Conversation). I picked up two John D. MacDonalds (More Good Old Stuff, a second collection of short stories in hardback and The Lonely Silver Rain, a late Travis McGee novel I bought because it was a 3rd printing and although I suspected I have a 1st printing, at $2 a hardback, it cannot hurt to be sure). I picked up some unknown bit (State's Evidence because it had a cool cover and I already had picked up a box I needed to fill), the sequel to The Total Woman, a couple of Neil Simon's plays (but I didn't buy the one by Tom Stoppard that I saw), a couple of mysteries by old school mystery writers Ellery Queen and Rex Stout, a nonfiction book by Mike Lupica, a book of predictions for the next 20 years written in 1980, a book on how to fix audio and visual equipment, a Where Are They Now book written in the late 1960s which could better be cast as Who Remembers These People in the 21st Century (James Lileks for one and perhaps me in a couple months), and a book entitled Overlooked Treasures about collectibles that few people collect.

You can see I was somewhat discriminating in mysteries, but once the box started filling up, my threshold for purchase dropped as it usually does. I limited myself to one box, fortunately. The book fair offers dollies, and if one of the volunteers had seen me schlepping 40 pounds of books and offered me another box and a dolly, well, let's just say the stacks below would have been taller.

Here's the result, $67 dollars later:



That's 27 books for me, 10 for Mrs. Noggle, and a collection of 10 cent audiocassettes that will provide our iTunes with a massive influx of 80s music (and, judging by the presence of an Eric Carmen tape, plenty of flashbacks for me).

So this weekend I bought half as many books as I read this year. Which means that I'm somewhere like 60 books in deficit now.


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:51 PM   0 comments

 
Personal Chart History
My beautiful wife got me a set of musical reference books from a garage sale or book fair. The titles include The All Music Book of Hit Singles which compiles the top 20 singles by month from 1954 through 1993 and provides the results in monthly charts for the United States and the United Kingdom on opposite pages so you can compare the two. Each page has three such charts and 3-4 bullet points of trivia for the quarter. I thought I could go through these charts as my nightstand book, a book I read in very small snippets in the 10-15 minutes preceding sleep on the occasional nights where I am in bed and the lights are on for those minutes. Ultimately, it wasn't a good choice, because I found myself opting for sleep rather than reviewing historical charts (I only made it to 1959). So as I took the book from the nightstand and removed the bookmark, I flipped it open to the late 1980s, a time period where I was more directly related to the music on the charts.

The book fell open to July 1988, and suddenly I was there:



I don't mean I was suddenly at the page, because although I was suddenly on that page, that's not worth commentary. No, friends, suddenly I was in July 1988.

It's late at night. We only got to stay up until 9pm (well, we had to be in our rooms at 9pm, but the de jure 9pm evolved to de facto 10pm or thereabouts) on school nights (in high school, no less). In July, 1988, we've moved from the mobile home in Murphy to the single family home down the old gravel road (Ruth Drive, or Route 5 alternately but less so at that time). The house was far into a valley from the nearest two lane state highway (MM, which runs from House Springs through Otto and onto Antonia); if we were so inclined, we could walk about 30 minutes to that T intersection where Heads Creek Road met MM, but rarely did, since it was another 40 minutes to Otto or an hour or more to House Springs on the two lane, no shoulder highway. At the time we moved in, the valley offered spotty television reception from St. Louis and did not have cable television. Or private telephone lines. At the end of Ronald Reagan's presidency, we still had to pick up the phone receiver and make sure none of our neighbors was using the line before placing a call. Party lines, they called them.

But I didn't have to worry about that late at night. Or much during the day, either; we weren't the most popular children.

Our mother took great pride in moving us way into nowhere where she could afford $40,000 worth of house on over an acre of land, most of which was flat. We had trees, we had a lawn that it took 3 hours to mow with push mowers (not reel mowers, thankfully), and we had a shady spot with poisonous snakes. We even had one or two kids who didn't want to beat the snot out of us on sight. The house itself was a ranch with an attached two car garage and a full unfinished basement. Three of the bedrooms were bedrooms, and a fourth room that could advertise as a bedroom (with basement access) served as our computer room. A grey computer desk held our Commodore 128 (yes, that desk). I spent many nights that summer seated on the wooden folding chair in front of that grey/beige keyboard, typing programs in from Ahoy!, Compute's Gazette, Run, and Commodore Power Play into memory and saving them onto old floppies.

While I typed those old programs in, a shelf audio system with cassette deck, turntable, and tuner played the songs from that chart. It would have been Y 98; 103.3 KHTR had already changed to oldies a couple years before. Y 98 hasn't altered its format that much and still uses the KYKY designation, so it's probably due to change to smooth jazz any time now.

I can almost close my eyes and remember the bookshelves to my left, the battered metal office desk to my right holding an ancient Remington electric typewriter and a 1960s styled electronic word processor that could save your documents to cassette and could print them on rolls of paper. Even then, once in a while, a feeling of future nostalgia would wash over me and I would press the sounds of the trees outside the window and the stillness of the house into my memory for someday. Somedays like today.

My brother was just turning toward the harder rock, so he would have favored "Pour Some Sugar On Me". "Make Me Lose Control" and "The Flame" both acutely remind me of that particular era and, indeed, the particular selfshot of me at the computer, trying to proofread typos or to enjoy the always disappointing simple little games that resulted. Late at night, me and that Commodore 128 after everyone had gone to bed. Until the cable company pulled its lines and private phone lines behind it, I wouldn't even have Bulletin Board Systems again. Just me, that radio, and the Miami Sound Machine or the soul of "Terence Trent D'Arby", whom I mocked then and continue to mock now. Some years later, I would have disposable income and would own a number of those songs on cassette or 45, but then I only had the radio and the endless time of youth in the summertime, nights to spend typing from magazines and dreaming of a future whose days and nights matched those, but better.

And here I am.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:57 PM   0 comments

 
Congressional Hearings To Follow
Milk price to take jump:

It costs more to drive to the store these days - and once you get there, you can expect to pay more for milk.

Driven up by high transportation costs, an increase in feed prices and even a drought in Australia, the price of milk is likely to rise by up to 40 cents a gallon over the next few months, dairy market forecasters say. Cheese prices could go up by 60 cents a pound.

If the increases occur, a gallon of whole milk would cost an average of $3.78 nationwide, based on the U.S. Department of Agriculture's monthly survey of milk prices in 30 metro areas.

Sure, the milk industry says it's rising costs, but is it really....

• Record profits in the milk industry?
• Collusion with the soft drink industry to sell more soda to children and their parents?
• Government meddling to make children more unhealthy so unelected and "merit"-based government employees can further erode parental authority ?

Because once we go off the rails of believing people who actually know and study the industry, we open ourselves to the infinite possibilities our uninformed minds can confect. That, my friends, is the essence of freedom.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:57 AM   0 comments

 
That's My House
That's how we used to call it, back in the housing projects in my youth. We'd say, "That's my car" or "That's my house" when we saw something particularly snappy.

Like this house, whose description in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel says:

Secret passages: One, from the media room to the master bedroom

How it works: A section of a built-in bookcase is a door set on vertical piano hinges, which keep it upright as it rolls open on casters. The media room sees a bookcase, and the bedroom sees a door.

The next section is "Why?" but I think anyone in Generation X or later comes with an implied because it's cool.

Image here.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:52 AM   0 comments

 
Unnecessary Program Must Continue, Program's Budget Recipients Say
Few Francis Howell high schoolers test positive for drugs:

A year of mandatory random drug testing in the Francis Howell School District produced few positive tests, according to district leaders who say they want to continue the program next school year.

A little more than 2 percent of mandatory random tests of Francis Howell District high school students were positive for drugs, administrators said Thursday.

Jim Joyce, the district's director of communications, said 16 of the 660 random drug tests came back positive, finding marijuana, amphetamines or cocaine.

For those of us keeping track at home, that's a program that was projected to cost $60,000 per year. Or $3750 for each positive result.

But obviously, the program must continue because parents are clamoring for it:

The district originally had planned a voluntary testing program for middle school students, too. Joyce said the district decided to focus on perfecting the high school program after only a small percentage of parents signed their children up for the program.

No, this is about getting budget and getting power over students. Regardless of its actual results, it must continue, for the state knows better than you peasant parents.

Coming soon, a Rapid Response Counseling Team equipped with surplus military gear and no-knock warrants to make you understand drugs are bad!


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:38 AM   0 comments

 
Can't Get Enough Book Reports?
Well, if you can't get enough book reports from this blog, you could always go to Tiny Little Reading Room, which is Tiny Little Librarian's book review blog.


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:56 AM   0 comments

 
History Made, Old School Hockey Fans Weep
For the first time in history, a hockey team named after a Disney children's movie has won the Stanley Cup.

Hoping for a comparable result, Art Davis has changed his team's name to the Oakland Little Mermaids.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:00 AM   0 comments

 
Book Report: Dirty Linen by Tom Stoppard (1976)
Perhaps this was a funnier play in 1976 in London. Maybe it was written specifically to get Luan Peters into lingerie onstage. But it's about dalliances of Members of Parliament that are threatening to diminish the public's respect for them and a select committee designed to deal with it. Except all the members of the committee have dallied with the clerk who's supposed to take notes for them.

There's an interlude that's called a second play (New-Found-Land) designed to shout out to a London theatre luminary at the time.

Overall, to British and sort of dated. Which is why I wouldn't expect to see it as is onstage any time soon. But no doubt someone in America would be able to adapt the theme and ride Stoppard's name for a production of it.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:53 PM   0 comments

 
Book Report: From the Corner of His Eye by Dean Koontz (2000)
I cannot believe I read the whole thing.

This book clocks in at almost 600 pages, overwritten the whole time as though Dean Koontz single handedly has to support a struggling simile factory in southern Georgia. He layers his similes like an onion; even when you peel away all the layers of the metaphor, it's still an onion. To Stephen King's Shakespeare, Dean Koontz is not even Ben Jonson; he's that other guy they don't even offer survey courses for.

Let's see here, there's a plot: a guy murders his wife for no reason (no, it's because he's a psychopath trying to broaden himself by killing the woman he loves); he becomes obsessed with the name Bartholemew. Also, he raped this one underage girl, who has a baby girl. A woman who's pregnant has an auto accident on the way to the hospital that kills her husband; his last request is that she name the boy Bartholemew. The underage girl dies giving birth, so an aunt raises the girl. The children are prodigies who can also go other places. The boy goes blind. A cop chasing the psychopath gets left for dead by said psychopath instigates psychological warfare against the psycho. And the psycho kills people.

Meanwhile, Koontz dedicates many pages to similes, many paragraphs to minor characters with only roles as extras, and we navigate through several plot lines ultimately related but whose relationships are not too compelling. Then, after 500 pages, we get a three page sudden climax, and then we can roll over and go to sleep for the 40 page denouement that is supposed to tell the rest of the story about the kids and their powers. But come on. I could have almost read Anna Karenina by the time I was done with this book.

I liked Odd Thomas well enough, tolerated Mr. Murder passingly, and just read Forever Odd. However, this book really has me dreading reading any of the other Koontz volumes on my shelves, and that's not a good kind of dread for a horror/thriller writer. It spills over to the unread John Saul books who are painted by being too close to the Koontz books.

Don't bother with this book. Let me be a lesson to you.

Books mentioned in this review:

     
- posted by Brian J. @ 2:42 PM   5 comments

 
Also, Your Dogs Must Now Be Trained To Sniff Explosives
Everything you own, citizen, is at the government's leisure and at its disposal. Or some government officials think:

American cell phones can already check e-mail, surf the Internet and store music, but they could have a new set of features in coming years: the Department of Homeland Security wants them to sense biological, chemical and radioactive material.

Putting hazardous material sensors in commercial cell phones has been discussed in scientific circles for years, according to researchers in the field. More recently, the idea gained support among government agencies, and DHS said publicly in May that it wants businesses to start coming up with proposals.

No doubt the wireless carriers are all behind this proposal because they'll have an excuse to make everyone upgrade to new, more expensive phones and to charge all customers new monthly fees to support the mandatory program.

Not to worry:

Like the built-in GPS function many cell phones now offer, customers would have the option of turning the sensors off, McGinnis said.

Got that, citizen? For marketing e-mail, you have to expressly opt-in, but for intrusive government surveillance programs, you have to expressly opt-out, with that opt-out no doubt going to a database of people who suspiciously opted out.

I have no problem if this becomes a netcentric program like SETI At Home, but the government and its cronies in corporations don't play like that. Because the government knows what's best for you!


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:26 PM   0 comments

 
Don't Forget To Cut the State-Funded Violins Announcing Each Program Cut
The San Francisco Chronicle laments the death of a wasteful tax-funded project:

For just 10 cents a day per child, California public school kids are getting to eat fresh apples, oranges and strawberries along with their Pop-Tarts and doughnuts at school breakfast.

At least, that's been true for the last two years under the pilot Fresh Start program, designed to steer kids away from obesity and diabetes and toward healthy foods.

But Fresh Start is in jeopardy just as preliminary reports are showing its initial success. In an effort to cover a $366 million funding gap in the education part of the state budget, the Legislature recently cut the $11.1 million that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed to keep Fresh Start going in the next school year and make it permanent.

The cut incensed child nutrition specialists and advocates.

California has accidentally done the fiscally responsible thing and eliminated a goofball project that steps outside the bounds of the government's responsibilities. Notably, those who received the largesse are upset.


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:21 PM   0 comments

 
Put An Ad On Craigslist, Someone Will Apply
Police Seek Naked Peeping Tom
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:49 PM   0 comments

 
Passing On Left Parking Lane Apparently Okay
With complicated rules expressed on road signs lacking punctuation like this one:



Deconstruct and do what you want.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:20 AM   0 comments

 
Free E-mail Marketing Campaign QA


Dude, your variable name is showing up in the subject line.

If your replica watches are of the same quality as your QA, I'll pass. Besides, I have a real watch, I don't need a bracelet with numbers and hands painted on, thanks.


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:34 PM   0 comments

 
Things I Can Do That My Father Cannot
Blogs are getting a lot of pixel inches out of an essay entitled I Can't Do One-Quarter of the Things My Father Can, which plays into an Instapundit narrative about the loss of traditional male skills. In my defense, I'd like to point out that I know how to do a number of things that my father can't do. These include:

• Order a Starbucks drink just the way I want it.
  Face it, it's only a triple venti cap, but I not only know the sizes of the cups, but I know the order in which the barristas call it. My generation knows how to express its drink preferences in ways the Greatest Generation or Baby Boomers can only dream of, which is probably why they mostly still drink coffee.
  
  
• Hook up any game console to any television or entertainment center.
  What, you don't have the cables? Brother, I have all sorts of cables and transformers so I can still hook that old Nintendo Entertainment System to your Yamaha receiver.
  
  
• Operate video game controllers.
  Let's face it, when confronted with keys marked with triangles, squares, and Xs, my father would totally be lost.
  
  
• Time shift my television viewing.
  I'm no longer bound to watching Lost on Wednesday nights, which means I can watch something else, probably something I had to record because I was watching a recorded episode of Lost.
  
  
• Insightfully quote culturally meaningful films.
  Because a proper quip from Office Space or catchphrase from Napoleon Dynamite identifies the user as intelligent and witty enough to use canned touchstones instead of uttering original thoughts or keeping my mouth shut and sounding smarter.
  
  
• Blithely ignore the implications of my dependence.
  Mommy State and Daddy Professionals are only a phone call away if I'm not afraid of ceding my rights to free thought and using all of my revolving credit on lifestyle maintenance.

So there you go. Maybe I do lack some basic skills required at the root level for survival, but I have mad skillz to mindlessly enjoy the fruits of an increasingly fragile modern civilization.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:14 AM   0 comments

 
Fighting Words Threshold Lowered
China says U.S. warning on toothpaste irresponsible:

China has branded a U.S. warning against using its toothpaste as irresponsible, saying low levels of diethylene glycol (DEG) were not harmful.

"So far we have not received any report of death resulting from using the toothpaste. The U.S. handling (of this case) is neither scientific nor responsible," China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in a statement posted on its Web site over the weekend.

This from a government who thinks bumping an electronics surveillance plane is responsible piloting.

In some quantum universe, this is one of the beginning shots in a war between China and the United States. When its exports collapse because the Chinese Administration of Quality Supervision (motto: Good Enough For Government Work Is Good Enough For Everything) doesn't actually stop the country from exporting poisonous substances as consumables and customers die, China's economy collapses. To save face amongst its preening ruling elite, the country makes its desperate gamble for Taiwan and thar she blows.

Part of my gift as a writer and a paranoia shidoshi is the joy of extrapolating the worst possible scenario from a bad press release.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:40 AM   0 comments

 
Fun With No Parking Signs (II)
If you're driving around looking for something, it's good to have a marker to know where to turn:



Since this sign is in Old Trees, the historic suburb in which I live, it's possible that we're looking at an historic no parking zone that tourists might want to visit.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:45 AM   0 comments

 
Fun With No Parking Signs (I)
Here's a little personality test for you:



If you look at that and think, "Wow, couldn't they have said that with a single no parking any time sign?", you obviously are one of those people who see the world in black and white, in parking and no parking. You cannot wrap your mind around the shades of grey, the layers of nuance between No Parking Any Time and No Parking Here To Corner.

But then again, not everyone can go to college and get a ::sniff:: humanities degree.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:14 AM   0 comments

 
Coming Next Weekend
If you want a preview of next weekend's Good Book Hunting segment, John Sonderegger identifies the primary target.
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:00 PM   0 comments

 
MfBJN's Water Conserving Tips
Instapundit linked to a list of Top 10 Great Ways to Save Water. This list was useless to me for the most part because it was geared to water wastrels in the first place. Criminey, here's the list:

• Apply no more than 1 in. of water per week to your lawn in two applications.
  For Pete's sake, if I water the lawn, I will have to mow the lawn. If Mother Nature wants me to have a pristine lawn, it will rain nicely to support it, and Mother Nature will make sure that the poison ivy that invades the yet-unnamed Noggle homestead in Old Trees needs the disappearing honeybees for pollination.
  
  
• Use a sprinkler timer to avoid over watering.
  I have never owned a sprinkler in my life.
  
  
• Use drip irrigation hoses in flower beds, covered by a thick layer of mulch.
  Great Caesar's ghost! How does one get a thick layer of mulch to adhere to drip irrigation hoses in the first place?
  
  
• Replace deteriorated flapper valves in toilets.
  I could do this because I actually have toilets, but I also have a poorly-constructed drain system in my house that could use an extra goosing from some additional clean water flow from time to time. Also, I'm lazy and don't want to get into it.
  
  
• Use a solar cover on the swimming pool when it's not in use.
  A swimming pool? Lords of London, I don't have a swimming pool. Who does in these days where you're liable not only for drowning, but for the cases of West Nile disease that could have been borne by mosquitos bred in your pool?
  
  
• Repair dripping faucets.
  Always a good plan, but my relatively new faucets don't drip.
  
  
• When possible, relocate indoor potted plants outside on a deck if a gentle rain is expected.
  A deck? Brother, I moved to a neighborhood that has traffic and have put a front porch swing on my home to ensure I wouldn't become one of those deck-dwelling creatures segregated to their own family units in the suburban zoo, so I don't have a deck, thank you very much, and I am not going to construct one because Gaia whispered it in your ear. Also, a number of semi-feral cats have taken residence here, and they look at indoor plants as a salad bar whose contents should be retched upon the rug. So we don't have indoor plants, either. If we want to talk to flora, we engage the poison ivy in witty banter.
  
  
• Cover vegetable gardens with a layer of straw mulch to reduce soil evaporation.
  A good idea. I'll keep this in mind when President Bush encourages victory gardens. Until then, I'll get my fresh produce the normal way: putting on a bunny costume and raiding the neighbor's yard.
  
  
• Replace shower heads with low-flow types.
  That's easy advice for office-job types, but some people need the flow to get real grime off of themselves. Not that I'm speaking for myself here, but I'm too lazy to do that myself and too cheap to hire a plumber.
  
  
• Conserve water while car washing.
  I don't have a car, thankyouverymuch, I have a truck. Also, I don't wash it, for crying out loud; the dirt is an extra buffer between me and that BMW whose driver is arguing on a cell phone with a soon-to-be ex-husband.

Holy cannoli, that's a lot of advice for the hoity-toity types with swimming pools and landscaping and/or water features on their grounds.

You want to conserve water? Here's the MfBJN list for you, short form:

• Drink more beer.
  Sure, you'll flush the toilet more, but you're adding water to the local system. Yeah, far away someone wasted water brewing it, but that's not your fault. You're only trying to rectify the mistake.
  
  
• Stop bathing.
  Personal hygiene uses a lot of water. Stop shaving and brushing, too.
  
  
• Club a baby seal.
  Do you know how much those things drink? Also, the pelt makes a nice mulch for your vegetable garden or flower bed, preventing premature evaporation.
  
  
• Creative car maintenance.
  To quote the ever wise Jed Eckhart: "Well, when you grow up... then you'll know these things, Danny. Now get up here and piss in the radiator."

Now that's advice the rest of us can effectively ignore.
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:19 PM   0 comments

 
But I Am Not Fully Adjusted To The Life-Altering Segway Human Transporter Yet
Reader's Digest hyperbolically identifies 25 Products That Will Change Your Life.

The list includes:

• The Oregon Scientific Wireless BBQ Thermometer, a thing you can stick into your meat while it's on the barbecue that has a wireless pager you can wear on your belt that will let you know when the food is done.
• The Anycom HCC-210 Bluetooth Car Kit, a quick and easy speakerphone kit for cars.
• Tech-Ezz Wackerchaps, some sort of overshoes for lawnmowing chores.
• The InnoDesk Thermo-Cut Tape Gun, a packing tape dispenser with some cutting edge cutting edge.

And twenty-one more such things which will alter the very fabric of our existence and cause city planners to redesign their New Urbanist projects.

Unfortunately, they've only changed my life by removing the couple minutes I spent skimming the article. At least I got a blog post out of it.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:04 PM   0 comments

 
Overheard In Old Trees Coffee Shop, Saturday Morning
This morning, while out taking the morning constitutional with my boy, we stopped at an Old Trees coffeeshop for a pastry and caffeinated beverage. In the sofas by the window, four of the eight Republicans in Old Trees had gathered, even though we know we should avoid grouping in one place because we're easier targets.

Because let's face it, Old Trees is not a Republican enclave. The upper six figure and lower seven figure houses often sprout INSTEAD OF WAR, INVEST IN PEOPLE and NOT IN OUR NAME signs more frequently than dandelions in the lawns and many cars still bear Kerry/Edwards bumper stickers or the resulting sour grapes quotes like "So Many Republicans / So Few Jail Cells." But the group was out in force, speaking loudly and excitedly. A partial transcript follows:

Fred Thompson. Fred Thompson. Fred Thompson. Fred Thompson. Rudy Guiliani or Fred Thompson. Front runner in 30 days. Fred Thompson. Ronald Reagan. Fred Thompson.

As I predicted. A candidate Republicans can embrace without asterisks.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:40 AM   2 comments

 
Someone Would Hit It
This post is getting a lot of hits for Jessica Cutler today, apparently because she just filed for bankruptcy.

Which helps traffic since I'm not posting anything much this week.


- posted by Brian J. @ 4:44 PM   0 comments