Musings from Brian J. Noggle
Thursday, January 31, 2008
 
Bring Your Own Handgun, Please
Police seek help in shooting of elderly woman

Doughnuts and coffee will be provided, though.

- posted by Brian J. @ 4:58 PM   2 comments
 
I Don't Think So
Rightroots has a lot of balls.

They're like the McCain callers who hit me sometime in 2005, it seems, demanding my support or I'd get a Clinton presidency.

Now, this Rightroots band has started the F7 program, seeking pledges that Republicans will send money to whoever is the candidate on February 7, 2008. Or else I get Clinton or Obama.

Setting aside the fact that there won't actually be a candidate until the convention this summer, but I don't care about any of the remaining candidate for the candidacy.

This is the best our remaining candidates can offer the bulk of conservatives. That they're not Clinton or Obama. To me, either one is as bad--or worse--on domestic policies and slightly better on foreign policies in that I don't think they'll gut the military. That's what has me "sold" on one of these Republicans in the White House in 2008. That's hardly a ringing endorsement or a call to action for me.

I won't sit out the election, but I'm not going to jump on the Not Clinton or Not Obama bandwagon with any sort of fervor.

In 2000, I sent money and I volunteered for the candidate for president; in 2004, I sent money. But I have quite enough reservations about the remaining candidates. I am sure enough not going to waste my money or time in support of a candidate or a party with which I no longer agree.

The Rightroots and the Republicans better learn that its previous constituency was not composed of fall-in-line simpletons.

Here's my pledge: Not on damn dollar or hour. Again.


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:29 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: Ranting Again by Dennis Miller (1998)
Wow, is this book really 10 years old? Man, I read the original book, The Rants only....12 years ago, I guess. Funny how those years condense in memory. I'm reading another book whose predecessor I read in my old house, probably 3 years ago, and that doesn't seem so far back.

Regardless, let's get to the book in hand. It collects Dennis Miller's monologues from his old HBO show which he got right after he left Saturday Night Live. All those years ago. They're seasoned with his allusions, which you get enough of to think yourself smart when you get them. He takes on the normal topical topics, like kids these days (which are now kids those days and adults now), politics, government, and relationships. The titles are broad and the topic matter, too, is broad, and somehow, it saddens me and comforts me that the rants could hold up today, a decade later. Particularly if you just change the name "Clinton" to "Clinton." We haven't come very far in this decade, but we haven't gotten much worse.

Additionally, it's odd to note that Dennis Miller, before 2001, sounds more like an intelligent Bill Maher politically than he does now. He says, I think, that he changed in 2001. I would say so.

Good, interesting reading worth a look.

Books mentioned in this review:

 

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:34 AM   0 comments
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
 
A Tax That Doesn't Sunset? You Don't Say!
Stadium tax might live on after 2014:
    The amount of sales-tax revenue distributed in 2007 to the Miller Park stadium district increased by only 1.8% over the previous year, raising new concerns the five-county tax will not be retired as hoped in 2014.
Which raises the distinct possibility that the stadium will be empty because the Milwaukee Brewers become the San Antonio Migrants or the stadium will be replaced to keep the Brewers in town before the sales tax is retired.

But you're telling me that taxes with expiration dates are more likely to stick around than tax cuts with expiration dates? This is a stunning turn of events, indeed!




- posted by Brian J. @ 7:38 PM   0 comments
 
So We Meat Again
The Meatriarchy returns.

The next time I update my sidebar, he'll be back on it. Also, I'll remove the dead man, the dead candidate, and the dead paper link.


- posted by Brian J. @ 4:23 PM   1 comments
 
Juxtaposition from the Kama Sutra
Birds of a feather, er, flock together:

Together at last
Click for full size



- posted by Brian J. @ 4:19 PM   0 comments
 
That Must Have Kept The Mediums Busy
Iraq conflict has killed a million Iraqis: survey

After all, dead men fill in no scanatron forms with number two pencils.


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:46 PM   0 comments
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
 
Heather Likes Bridges
Here are 18 Stunning Bridges From Around The World.

(Link seen on Dynamist Blog.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:08 PM   0 comments
Monday, January 28, 2008
 
Book Report: April Evil by John D. MacDonald (1955, ?)
As you might know, gentle reader, I am a great John D. MacDonald fan, and someday I hope to own all of these paperback originals. This one, written in the middle 1950s, deals with a bucolic Florida town near Tampa that has an old doctor who grew rich from land sales but kept the money, in cash, in his fortress like home. Word gets out, and some out of town hitters come looking for it at the same time as distant shirt-tail relations show up to sponge a bit and the niece-by-marriage hatches a plot to have the man committed.

The book switches points of view and really develops the individual characters in it. It seems slowly, almost, but it's not; the book runs only 191 pages and really ramps up to a good climax as the individual storylines come to a focal point. MacDonald does this well in his paperback originals, some of which I've already reviewed in this space (use the search bar, I'm too lazy to do it for you).

This book is a good one in the set, and I'm eager for the next. Which will probably be in a couple of weeks.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:13 PM   0 comments
 
If It Weren't For Bad Taste, I'd Have No Taste At All
A joke on Deb's site that I shared easily with my mother and uneasily with my wife.

It doesn't have talking dogs, but it's funny never the less.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:04 PM   2 comments
Sunday, January 27, 2008
 
Sunday Night Apple Reminiscing
As a public service, I present to you the Apple II Video Display Worksheet for Graphics (GR) Mode:

Apple II Video Display Worksheet for Graphics (GR) Mode
Click for full size


That should help make your design work go a little smoothly. Press your face against the screen. Can't you just smell the mimeograph ink?

Additionally, I post for your amusement, the beginning of the source code for a game entitled Spies. No non-disclosure agreement required!
Spies, page 1
Click for full size


It's not that we had to write the code by hand and put it through an optical scanner, you damn kids, it's that we in middle school only got access to a computer during seventh hour but spent much of the other six handwriting the code because it was so exciting.

And just so you know, the schools had the Apples, but my first computer was a Commodore, so that's where I turned off the path of geekanati and into the real world.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:28 PM   4 comments
 
Want To Get Away?
Southwest Airlines commercial becomes reality in Milwaukee:
    After the opening, Weiland nearly lost the entire audience during the usual meet-and-greet interlude when he stuck his foot in his mouth and addressed the crowd "Chi . . . CA . . . go . . . " He was met with a barrage of boos.
Yeah, if you're playing a crowd in Milwaukee, you probably cannot go more wrong.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:17 AM   0 comments
Saturday, January 26, 2008
 
Cosmic Factors Occur
Rising food prices? How could that happen? Those darn cosmic forces aligning against us:
    The underlying reasons for the skyrocketing prices are complicated, with roots in places as far away as Australia and as close as a newly planted acre of corn. Rising fuel prices are a main cause, but other factors, particularly a new government mandate for more corn-derived ethanol, are playing a role, too.

    "It takes a lot of bad things happening at the same time, for the prices to go where they have," said Pat Westhoff, co-director of the Food and Agricultural Research Policy Institute at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
We've got government mandates saying food should be burned as fuel and government prohibitions restricting nuclear power, new drilling, new pipelines, and new refining capacity. But mandates are made in the passive voice, and these things just happen.


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:19 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: Dogbert's Top Secret Management Handbook by Scott Adams (1996)
Like The Dilbert Principle, this book is not a mere collection of Dilbert cartoons, although it includes a number. Instead, it's a text derivative of the world inhabited by Dilbert, Dogbert, Catbert, Ratbert, Alice, Tina, Wally, Pointy-Haired Boss, Asok, and so on. This book takes the schtick of being a handbook for managers from Dogbert, the evil genius. Within, you find that it explicitly tells the executives reading how to behave as a Dilbert executive should.

Sadly, although the book is 12 years old, the behavior seems timeless. Fortunately, that means the humor is fresh, and you can laugh cynically. Or you can take it to heart and thrive as an executive.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:18 PM   0 comments
 
Buy It Now
March's History Magazine is at your local bookstore now, chock full of it's normal goodness and an article by me. It looks like this:

History Magazine with my article inside


I didn't make the cover, but it's on page 47. Trust me.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:44 PM   0 comments
Thursday, January 24, 2008
 
Be On The Lookout For Albino With Dreadlocks
When I lived in Jefferson County, I always assumed that the suspects in a gas station holdup were rednecks in flannel and pickup trucks. However, this description makes me wonder:
    One man is described as heavy set and between 5'6" and 5'9" tall wearing a dark hooded jacket with black baggie pants and a sock cap. The other has a lighter complexion with dread locks or a pony tail wearing a light gray hooded jacket.
The inclusion of a lighter complexion makes me wonder if, perhaps, the high-minded St. Louis Post-Dispatch has left out a vital part of the description: the race of the perpetrators.

Because if they were white rednecks, that would mean that the lighter complexion refers to an albino or a mere pink neck.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:23 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: Lost in Yonkers by Neil Simon (1992)
This play details two Jewish brothers' brief stay with their grandmother and aunt in Yonkers during World War II. The grandmother is of old German dictatorial stock, the aunt is daft, the father (who leaves the boys with his mother while he earns some money to repay a debt to a loan shark) is weak, and the uncle is a bag man for the mob who's on the run. The boys, needless to say, aren't thrilled and aren't sure how to survive in this environment.

Not one of the Simon plays that I've found that speaks to me; I guess if I would have been Jewish in New York in World War II, it would have been more meaningful to me. It's not a bad read, but I don't know that the play is as driving and forward moving as a play ought to be.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:12 PM   0 comments
 
Hail, Caesar!
The race for Matt Blunt's successor as Republican candidate for Missouri takes an interesting turn as another government member amasses an army and leads it to Jefferson City:
    "I'm in," Kinder said Thursday. Asked if there was any scenario in which he would not run, Kinder replied: "No. Crossed the Rubicon."
What, he's not actually saying he's started a civil war and an armed conflict to turn the Missouri Republic to the Missouri Empire? Those whacky politicians and their misunderstood metaphors!

(Full disclosure: I once was approached, sort of, to be a candidate to work on Kinder's blog. Which is why my name crops up from time to time on his team's blogroll. Obviously, I didn't take it, which would have precluded me from snark like this.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:24 PM   0 comments
 
Great Moments In Journalist Fact Checking
Forget whether the account conforms to the facts; this story isn't even internally consistent:
    The mother, Amy Fujarte, was in the house alone at the time of the fire, Svetanics said, and was taken to an area hospital and treated for smoke inhalation.
But:
    Nickie Bequette, who lives across the street in the 9700 block of South Broadway, said she was enjoying a morning cup of coffee when she looked out a window and saw smoke pouring from the house and the mother escape out a side door with two children.
Which was it? Obviously, it wasn't worth the reporter's shoe leather.


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:06 PM   0 comments
 
Charter Highlights Dangers of Hosted Applications, Web-Based Data Storage
Oops doesn't cover it.
    Charter Communications is offering apologies —and $50 credits — to customers who lost e-mails when 14,000 accounts were cleared out by mistake.

    Charter was doing routine maintenance Monday, clearing out old, unused accounts from the system, when the 14,000 active accounts were accidentally cleared as well, according to Anita Lamont, a spokeswoman for the Town and Country-based company. About 1,000 of those accounts were in Missouri and about 300 were in Illinois, she said.

    The accounts should still be open to customers, but everything in them was deleted — and is gone for good.
Also, Charter tips a bit of its internal process regarding backups for client data. The part it reveals is the text "Why bother?" The font in which they wrote that particular piece of internal documentation remains secret, covered by an NDA no doubt.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:51 PM   1 comments
 
A Stunning Turn of Events
In a stunning turn of events, developers who promised willingly gullible government officials the moon to get public dollars for development get the money and start managing expectations, i.e., backtracking on the promises they made:
    For the first time, both development partners in the $387 million Ballpark Village are saying it's unlikely that a significant portion of the project will be completed in time for the All-Star Game in July 2009.

    Several months ago, one of the developers, the St. Louis Cardinals, acknowledged the possibility of delays on the downtown project. Now Chase Martin, director of development for the other co-developer, Baltimore-based Cordish Co., also is lowering expectations.
Who could have seen this coming?

Memo to the willingly gullible elected and unelected public officials: when a developer promises the moon, expect to see his backside.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:17 PM   0 comments
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
 
Book Report: Kill Him Twice by Richard S. Prather (1965, 1968)
I have read at least one other Shell Scott novel, since I own it, and might have read more than that courtesy of my local library when I was in high school. So although I'm not a particular fan of Prather, I've enjoyed his participation in a genre I enjoy.

The book is less earnest in its pulp and doesn't really swerve into the campy, but the main character doesn't take himself or his adventures too seriously. In this book, Shell Scott investigates the murder of a vice president of a Hollywood dish magazine and discovers, as the bodies of mobsters and starlets begin to fall all around him, a blackmail scheme behind it. He does some shooting, some fighting, some near-loving of said starlets, and uses a ruse in the ending to unravel the plot.

A quick read, good enough, and I'll take more of these as they present themselves in the garage sales or book fair circuit. If you're so inclined, there's a link to this book below and you can put some dough in the coffers of Noggle, Inc. No, really, I mean dough; Amazon doesn't pay pitiful referrers like me in real money.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:56 PM   0 comments
 
A Male Journalist Would Have Put It Differently
Headline from AP on a story written by a woman:

Charlie Sheen, ex-wife in family court

A man might have titled it something more appropriate, like Denise Richards, Fool Who Preferred Prostitutes to Denise Richards in Family Court.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:06 PM   0 comments
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
 
St. Louis Post-Dispatch Endorses Criminal Retribution on Law Enforcement Officials
Lawbreaking St. Louis Post-Dispatch "investigators" name a member of the state execution staff. Why? Well, they rely on his misdemeanor criminal past--which does not render him ineligible to perform his duty according to state law--to justify it, but it's really a way to limit capital punishment in the state, something that hasn't yet been done legislatively or through the normal end-run means, the courts.

Instead, the Post-Dispatch searches its corporate heart and determines that it is compelled, compelled to put this fellow at risk. It's against state laws to name these individuals for their safety, so the family, friends, or criminal associates of a condemned and executed party don't get revenge on the executioners.

But the St. Louis Post-Dispatch doesn't mind one or two executioners dying if it can A.) sell newspapers, B.) win valuable journalism prizes, or C.) impede the lawful performance of capital punishment through any means necessary.

It remains to be seen if Attorney General Jay Nixon, a candidate for governor and the preordained endorsed candidate of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, will seek putative measures against the paper so that it might enjoy the consequences of its civil disobedience or whether its benefactor will come to its rescue, much like its inspiration Henry David Thoreau, received when he flouted the law to make a point and got out of jail through a deus ex maquina.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:36 PM   0 comments
 
Ask Me About My Conspiracy Theory
So we have this team representing New York and this team representing Massachussetts in one of the biggest contests of the year.

You don't say.

Funny how "the officials" helped scuttle the hopes of the team from the Midwest that the whole country could have rallied around, ainna?


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:02 PM   0 comments
Monday, January 21, 2008
 
Democrats Want Handout
To stimulate the economy, Democrats in Washington want to provide another "rebate" to those who didn't pay taxes to return:
    Nearly 40 percent of Americans owed no federal income tax last year, though even low-income workers paid taxes for Social Security and Medicare. While Bush has refused to disclose specifics of his $145 billion plan, administration officials and Republican lawmakers favor a proposal that would offer rebates of up to $800 for individuals and $1,600 for families - but only if they paid that much in taxes last year.

    ....


    Administration officials and Republican lawmakers say it only makes sense to give tax rebates to people who actually paid taxes. But Democrats are gearing up to fight that approach, arguing that a stimulus plan should put money in the hands of low-income people, both as a matter of fairness and because people who are struggling to make ends meet are most likely to spend any government payments quickly. For the purpose of jump-starting the economy, economists want people to spend extra money as quickly as possible.
A tax cut would be fair, but a facile and arbitrary distribution plan, that gets voters from those who receive free money from the rest of us courtesy of the Washingtonian tax centrifuge.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:15 PM   2 comments
 
Book Report: The Best of Slate: A 10th Anniversary Anthology edited by David Plotz (2006)
As you know, gentle reader, I prefer a book in my hand to all the wordsmithery of Internety. Maybe I'm invoking the wrong allusion for my point. Regardless, it explains why I buy books that collect writings that are freely available on the Internet. Like this volume, which collects a number of things from Slate's first ten years (1996-2006). In a sad sort of way, my going through this book identified how I've turned away from reading mainstream general interest magazines in Slate's 10 year history and why.

This book collects a couple pieces per year (the best, one would assume) and prefaces with a little about the magazine's history at the time. However, a little after 2000, the "best" of Slate veers into Bush and Republicans sux! territory. Here's the subject of the pieces:

1996

  • Why flight attendants talk like they do.
  • Trying to overcome one's aversions to certain foods.

1997

  • Sleeping in the same bed as kids is okay.
  • A man muses while watching couples pass.
  • Liberal versus conservatives (gardening philosophy, not political).
  • Che's popularity is because he died young.

1998

  • Working in the ER when it's a full moon on Friday the 13th.
  • A conversation exchange of posts thing.
  • The Farrelly Brothers' popularity.
  • A baby sitting co-op as an economics lesson.

1999

  • The tele-tubby gay thing.
  • Jerry Falwell's definition of the Anti-Christ describes the author.
  • The Supreme Court handles a stripper case.

2000

  • Presidential candidates tend to be blue-blooded Ivy Leaguers.
  • The stolen election told as a Grinch poem.
  • A couple's interaction in a bar.

2001

  • Author tries Paxil for a month.
  • Bill O'Reilly is a poseur.
  • On defending bestiality (not actually defending bestiality).

2002

  • On shy urinators.
  • Soccer fans as nationalists.
  • Evolution of the Pledge of Allegiance.
  • Lewis and Clark celebrated inappropriately.
  • A former Marine at the WTC rubble finds survivors.
  • Spitting like a wine pro.
  • The 50/50 political split in America.

2003

  • Post exchange on miscarriage.
  • Goose stepping in parades.
  • A man awakens from being knocked out.
  • Low-rise pants.
  • Author acts as a street performer.
  • Hating Bush but loving his tax cuts.

2004

  • The Martha Stewart trial.
  • Rich men buying newspapers.
  • The end of the universe.
  • Bush is stupid on purpose.
  • Discovering a genetic deficiency in oneself that leads to breast cancer.
  • Michael Moore is a bad documentarian.
  • What did Bush know before we invaded 9/11?
  • I am a racist.
  • I love being in India.
  • Bush is a bad parent; Gore, Kerry, the Clintons are good parents.
  • In praise of misers.

2005

  • Reattaching severed body parts.
  • Rappers compared to bloggers.
  • In praise of Congress's action on Terry Schiavo.
  • Pitying Prince Charles.
  • Proust and the madeleine cookie.
  • Impact of men watching their women give birth.
  • A Katrina evacuee gets help from the private sector.
I have bolded the pieces that explicitly knock Bush by name. The tone of the pieces begins to shift around 2000, too, to include snarky asides and tut-tutting of some conservative/libertarian principles. Suddenly, the periodical is no longer writing about interesting things that I don't know about so much as writing about politics and attacking me and things I believe in.

You know, there was a day when I had subscriptions to Harper's and the Atlantic Monthly. We even had our years with Newsweek and Time. I didn't pay much attention to Slate, but I went to Salon every day and I even foolishly invested in it.

But come 2000, all of a sudden the magazines all shifted. In the news magazines, they belittled Bush every magazine. In the monthlies, they spent less time on general interest essays and more time trying to outdo each other in implicating Bush in a wide variety of churlish behaviours. Mostly churlish on the part of the magazine authors. As you might remember, I wrote a piece when I let my Harper's subscription lapse after a decade.

Now I'm off of news weeklies, news monthlies, and general interest monthlies, and home/family magazines are coming next, now that they've shifted tone from saving energy saves money to go green to serve Gaia and preserve the environment for the future, where your descendents can live in substinence conditions to serve Gaia.

But, back to this book.

The essays that were what mainstream magazines did best--take one outside his or her daily existence into something, even just a different voice, outside the reader's experience--were enjoyable. The snarky pieces about celebrities (O'Reilly) and successful business people (who then buy publications) were tolerable--but that's not a compliment; I tolerated them, literally. However, the snarky pieces on the Bush administration were inexecrable. It took me three times to make it through best-selling author (that is, best selling quoter and inflater of Bush's misstatements) Jacob Weisberg's bit about how Bush chooses to be stupid and has an oedipal complex. I read the piece about the Republicans being bad parents and couldn't believe that the author of that piece was serious.

But seriousness and its attendant earnestness explains why I don't read Slate unless a blogger links to a specific piece (usually by Hitchens or Kaus), don't take general interest magazines, and don't even visit Salon any more (but cannot sell my stock since its sale price is less than the commission price for selling it).

Hard otherwise to capture personal historical reading trends as this book has done accidentally. So I guess it's worth it for this long post I got out of it. And some of it is good, but when it's bad, it's horrid, to make another semi-appropriate allusion.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:09 PM   1 comments
 
One, However, Keeps Making Jokes
2 serious after StL man crashes stolen car


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:00 PM   1 comments
Friday, January 18, 2008
 
Book Report: Star Trek: The Return by William Shatner (1996)
Well, it surely comes as no surprise that I've been on a Star Trek kick lately. I've read a number of books in the last couple of months (see this, this, this, and this). Last week, on Tuesday through Friday nights, I watched Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Star Trek: Generations, Star Trek: First Contact, and Star Trek: Insurrection. 80% of current Star Trek cinema (yeah, these videocassettes).

So what do you think I picked up after finishing Heat? This paperback, which I purchased in August.

Now, this is the first "modern" Star Trek book I've read. The others noted above come from the early 1980s, and they run about 200 pages give or take. This paperback, published among 27 that year, runs 370 pages and comes with all the jump cuts, red herrings, and multiple points of view you'd find in a more recent piece of genre fiction. I won't say that those characteristics make more modern novels better than the old school genre fiction, but they do make for richer reading.

This book centers on a plot by the Romulans to work with the Borg to defeat the Federation. Romulans, using Borg technology, reanimate Kirk after having found his grave on Veridian III (where he died in Star Trek: Generations. They brainwash him and send him to kill Picard, who's on a mission to do something to the Borg and, well, it's complicated. In a decent way. The best way would tie up loose ends and answer fundamental questions the books ask, but then again, I suppose that would prevent me from buying one of the 30 Star Trek novels that came out the next year to learn the truth, only to discover that the next ghostwriter for Shatner didn't bother to read the preceding book to answer the questions.

Still, a pretty decent bit of fiction, set comfortably in a defined universe where I understand the markers. Similar to the John Norman series I delve into from time to time, although not as richly presented.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:48 PM   0 comments
 
Not That You Asked
    I Am A: True Neutral Human Sorcerer (4th Level)

    Ability Scores:
    Strength-14
    Dexterity-13
    Constitution-15
    Intelligence-16
    Wisdom-11
    Charisma-10

    Alignment:
    True Neutral A true neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. He doesn't feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most true neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better than evil after all, he would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. Still, he's not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way. Some true neutral characters, on the other hand, commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. They see good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run. True neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you act naturally, without prejudice or compulsion. However, true neutral can be a dangerous alignment because it represents apathy, indifference, and a lack of conviction.

    Race:
    Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

    Class:
    Sorcerers are arcane spellcasters who manipulate magic energy with imagination and talent rather than studious discipline. They have no books, no mentors, no theories just raw power that they direct at will. Sorcerers know fewer spells than wizards do and acquire them more slowly, but they can cast individual spells more often and have no need to prepare their incantations ahead of time. Also unlike wizards, sorcerers cannot specialize in a school of magic. Since sorcerers gain their powers without undergoing the years of rigorous study that wizards go through, they have more time to learn fighting skills and are proficient with simple weapons. Charisma is very important for sorcerers; the higher their value in this ability, the higher the spell level they can cast.

    Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

(Link seen on Dustbury.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:26 PM   0 comments
Thursday, January 17, 2008
 
Nickeled and Dimed by Corporate America
Sorry if I draw your mind to Barbara Ehrenreich; have a little toke or two to clear your thoughts. It's what she would do.

Now, let's reflect for a moment on how big service-based corporations suck the small change out of you every month for "fees" they made up to add to your bill.

My mother recently switched to digital cable because she mistakenly thought that analog cable (instead of analog broadcast) would be out the window next year. When she spoke with a sales person about getting a couple of aw-cute channels like Hallmark, the sales person told her it was included in the basic tier of digital service.

The technician shows up several hours late (and back times his service log to show that he was on time), and my mother, now digitally cabled, discovers she does not have the channels she was promised. A call to the consumer inquiries line indicates that they're not really basic tier. But just because my mother took an extra effort, the company gave her what she was promised in the first place.

This anecdote led your humble narrator into a rather complete Leo Getz style They, erm, screw you with the customer service rant that touched on these fees.

Techdirt led me to this story that indicates that average consumers (according to a survey) spend almost $1000 a year paying little fees (regulatory cost recovery fees, number portability fees, and so on) that companies add on to their advertised prices.

If you're making $40,000 a year, that's 2.5% of your income, brah.

It irks the heck out of me that as the content and the Army of Davids thing makes the content cheaper and whatnot, that the people who control the infrastructure continue to combine and coalesce into large corporations that can levy these absurd and unethical surcharges leaving their customers, often contractually-bound customers, bound to pay the price since they have no alternative.

Now, don't get me wrong, I think that the corporations often have a legitimate beef with the increased costs of regulatory compliance and the added costs of government layering on a couple more taxes. But we consumers give them too much latitude to slather us with additional costs when the last quarter came in a little light on Wall Street, too.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:16 PM   1 comments
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
 
Not a Pledge Rams Fans Wanted To Hear
Best Buy makes a pledge that Rams fans might not like:

Best Buy threatens St. Louis football fans


We pledge to make even the away games seem like home games.

Best Buy threatens to make even the away games blacked out because they didn't sell out.

Of course, St. Louis would probably be better off with three hours of Cops instead of watching Marc Bulger doing his impression of a side of beef in a Rocky movie. There might be children watching.


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:13 PM   1 comments
Monday, January 14, 2008
 
Putting My Money Where My Blog Is
As you can tell by my sidebar, gentle reader, I support Fred Thompson's bid for the presidency and probably will far after he's either elected or withdrawn--I don't update the sidebar much these days.

However, today I sent a check to the campaign for the first time, putting my money where my blog is.

It's the first money I've sent since 2000, when I backed a candidate who was not nominated. I haven't sent much to the Republican Party or its committees in recent years, no matter how much of a gold-card member they would like me to be. But I've sent money to Fred, and if/when I can scrape up any more extraneous cash, I will send more.

You can, too, using the sidebar or going to the Contribute page which has a credit card form and a poor PDF for mailing checks.

It's more than this cross-dressing Klingon, apparently.

But let it be known my support has its threshold: I won't work the phone banks for Fred or any campaign.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:08 PM   1 comments
 
Book Report: The Fred Factor by Steve Gill (2007)
You know, I don't think I've ever picked up a book about or by a candidate while the campaign was going on (although I did read Ross Perot's book some years after United We Stand was forgotten as a book and as a political force). Still, as part of the Christmas present for my two conservative uncles (mentioned here), I got them this book in addition to an anti-Clinton screed I knew would go over well (I forget which one I got them; there were so many from which to choose!).

I bought a copy of this book for myself so that I'd be familiar with it as well. I mean, you can tell by my sidebar that I support his run and all, so it's preaching to the choir, really.

The book breaks down into three sections, really:
  1. Fred Thompson's biography.
  2. Horserace handicapping ca last summer.
  3. A collection of Fred Thompson's writing.
Additionally, there's a bit thinking about whom Fred Thompson could select as a running mate. Both of the handicapping sections are weak, especially as time has rendered the possibilities impossible (that is, things didn't fall the way the author presents as a best case scenario). However, the biography and the political essays by Thompson himself are nice, but are available on the Internet.

Ergo, the book's best as a gift for someone whom you want to convince that Fred's the man and to whom you want to give something more than a collection of URLs.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:14 PM   0 comments
Sunday, January 13, 2008
 
Status Update
I'm here; I'm just trying to think of something clever to say.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:37 PM   0 comments
Thursday, January 10, 2008
 
The Inflation of Evil
A bunch of kids throw a bag of feces (story). A juvenile prank and gross, but how does it fit on the moral scale? Well, according to the woman hit with the, erm, shrapnel:
    They saw me standing at the entrance, and they did it anyway," she said. "It was very evil."
Not merely evil, but very evil. I wouldn't put it much past naughty myself, but I have perspective.

The teens have been charged (story), and the woman, a school teacher, shows her perspective and forgiveness:
    "I'm glad they charged them," Geusz said. "I wish they could find more charges."
And:
    Geusz said the two oldest boys later came to her classroom at Fort Zumwalt North High School to apologize. She said she asked them to leave because she did not believe what the boys were telling her.
And:
    Now, Geusz said, she hopes the courts will impose a punishment that sends a message, perhaps requiring the boys to pay for her clothes and do community service. "I'd love to see them in jail," she said. "I'd love to see that because what they did is just horrendous."
I guess she's showing perspective by not calling for their outright execution.

Meanwhile, inventive Federal prosecutors are no doubt finding ways of turning this into either a hate crime, a sex crime, or a fraud crime so that these kids can pay a greater penalty and really screw their lives up for a prank gone wrong.


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:45 PM   0 comments
 
Junk Data Now A Felony
Federal prosecutors have saved the day as they look to gin up charges for the woman whose online foolishness caused a girl's suicide. Well-played, you inventive devils in the executive branch!
    Federal officials in Los Angeles are investigating whether it was fraud for someone to use a false identity on an Internet social network in a taunting blamed for the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier.

    Missouri and federal prosecutors in St. Louis previously examined the circumstances but passed on trying to build a criminal case, saying no law seemed to apply.
As a software tester, I make up names and submit them through forms all the time. Good to know that the federal government can now prosecute me for fraud.


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:35 PM   0 comments
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
 
Hillary's Villiage Takes A Child. At Gunpoint.
A nighttime no-knock raid because a parent didn't take a child to the hospital after bumping its head? Hey, we don't have SWAT teams for nothing:
    The Garfield County All Hazards Response Team broke down Tom Shiflett's door Friday night and, following a court order, took his son for medical treatment.

    The doctor's recommendation: Take Tylenol and apply ice to the bruises. The boy was back home a few hours later.

    Authorities said they had reason to believe Shiflett mistreated his 11-year-old son, Jon, by failing to provide him proper medical care for a head injury. But Shiflett says his privacy and his rights were invaded, and that he has the right and the skill to treat his son himself. Shiflett, 62, said he served as a medic in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive.
Read the whole thing, and weep. Find how an anonymous neighbor can tip police and caseworkers onto you, and how the report of a hematoma (that is, a bruise can be grounds for a court order and no-knock raid if you're a praying sort of family.

(Link seen on Books, Bikes, and Boomsticks.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:28 AM   0 comments
 
Laws Do Not Apply To Government, Again
Judge: Wage law doesn't apply to local gov't:
    Circuit Judge Richard Callahan ruled that the new law cannot be applied to local governments because the new pay scale applies to an "individual, partnership, association, corporation, business, business trust, legal representative, or any organized group of persons." Callahan decided that doesn't include local governments.
I guess not; the government is neither the legal representative of the people nor organized.

That must make them a motley band of infighting self-anointed rulers of the plebes. I have to agree.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:08 AM   0 comments
Monday, January 07, 2008
 
Born With A Lead Spoon In My Mouth
Are you a child of privilege? Apparently, it's all the latest rage for college professors to gin up something to prove that everyone of the appropriate need for guilt feel guilty about their privileges. Over at Dustbury, he's run his own numbers, and that prompted me to run mine:
    Bold each of the statements that applies:

    Father went to college
    Father finished college
    Mother went to college
    Mother finished college
    Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor (An uncle, apparently, got a PhD or something and now teaches at a small college or maybe private high school. Good enough.)
    Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
    Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
    Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
    Were read children's books by a parent
    Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
    Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
    The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively (If they're dressed like me and talk like me, how else could they be?)
    Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
    Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
    Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
    Went to a private high school
    Went to summer camp
    Had a private tutor before you turned 18
    Family vacations involved staying at hotels (We had a family vacation. Once.)
    Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
    Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
    There was original art in your house when you were a child
    Had a phone in your room before you turned 18
    You and your family lived in a single family house
    Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home I assume this includes "had a mortgage on".)
    You had your own room as a child
    Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
    Had your own TV in your room in High School
    Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
    Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16 (After the divorce and moving 400 miles from my father, he flew us up for one summer. And back, to my mother's relief.)
    Went on a cruise with your family
    Went on more than one cruise with your family
    Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
    You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family
I guess you wouldn't call us privileged. As for the number of books, I don't know what it was; I didn't start accumulating books until college, paperbacks mostly.

As for the television in the bedroom in high school, that's a big 10-no. However, when we were in the trailer in middle school, we had one in the room my brother and I shared. The 6x8 room we shared.

And as for heating bills, that wasn't brought up; however, when I was at college, a very hoity Marquette University, when my sociology 001 professor asked what Milwaukee welfare benefits were, I guessed wrongly about $250 a month. I got that figure from my youth, when my mother worried that a $250 television repair paid for by a gift from more affluent relatives might trigger an investigation for welfare fraud.

So keep that in mind, gentle reader, whenever you miscategorize me as a child of a suburban or upper middle class upbringing: the fact that I dress nicely for work and that I can quote a lot of classical literature belies my true place as white trash turned into art.


- posted by Brian J. @ 4:45 PM   0 comments
 
Chemical Warfare in San Francisco
Apparently someone is planting acid bombs in San Francisco:
    A 10-year-old girl was sprayed with hydrochloric acid Sunday after her brother kicked a bottle that had been left on the street in front of a Redwood City church and it ruptured, according to the Redwood City Fire Department.

    It is the fourth time in about a month in which chemical-filled bottles have been found in San Mateo County, Battalion Chief Steve Cavallero said.
The last one was planted outside a Lutheran Church.

Funny how little you can find about that on the Internet.


- posted by Brian J. @ 4:25 PM   2 comments
Sunday, January 06, 2008
 
2007: The Year's Reading in Review
To brag, here's the complete list of books I read in the 2007 goal year:
  • Home Improvement:52 Weekend Projects by Dan Ramsay
  • Nature Girl by Carl Hiaasen
  • Dr. Kookie, You're Right by Mike Royko
  • Grifters & Swindlers Cynthia Manson (ed)
  • Stanyan Street and Other Sorrows by Rod McKuen
  • Kiss by Ed McBain
  • Robert Frost by Lawrance Thompson
  • Tarnsman of Gor by John Norman
  • Dirty Work by Stuart Woods
  • Mortal Prey by John Sandford
  • High Profile by Robert B. Parker
  • Fields of Wonder by Rod McKuen
  • The Mensa Genius Quiz Book by Marvin Grosswirth, Dr. Abbie Salny, and the members of Mensa
  • Too Far by Mike Lupica
  • Great Tales of Mystery & Suspense Compiled by Bill Pronzini, Barry N. Malzberg, & Martin H. Greenberg
  • Lucky You by Carl Hiaasen
  • Great True Stories of Crime, Mystery, and Detection by Reader's Digest
  • Come to Me in Silence by Rod McKuen
  • Stormy Weather by Carl Hiaasen
  • Ringworld's Children by Larry Niven
  • Ernest Hemingway by Philip Young
  • Winter Prey by John Sandford
  • Broken Prey by John Sandford
  • Forever Odd by Dean Koontz
  • The Prize Winner's Handbook by Jeffrey Feinmann
  • The Case of the Cautious Coquette by Erle Stanley Gardner
  • The King's Henchman by Edna St. Vincent Millay
  • Hidden Prey by John Sandford
  • Fat Ollie's Book by Ed McBain
  • Santorini by Alistair MacLean
  • Terminator Dreams by Aason Allston
  • Night Prey by John Sandford
  • The Instant Enemy by Ross MacDonald
  • Nocturne by Ed McBain
  • The Murder Book by Jonathan Kellerman
  • Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet
  • Oath of Fealty by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
  • Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy
  • Another Part of the City by Ed McBain
  • The Retaliators by Donald Hamilton
  • SeinLanguage by Jerry Seinfeld
  • Biloxi Blues by Neil Simon
  • Nick at Nite's Classic TV Companion edited by Tom Hill
  • Tuesday Night Football by Alex Karras and Douglas Graham
  • Chapter Two by Neil Simon
  • Certain Prey by John Sandford
  • Outlaw of Gor by John Norman
  • Heart of Darkness and the Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad
  • The Watchman by Robert Crais
  • The Use and Abuse of Books by Leon Battista Alberti
  • From The Corner Of His Eye by Dean Koontz
  • Dirty Linen by Tom Stoppard
  • Harvest Poems 1910-1960 by Carl Sandburg
  • Suspension Bridge by Rod McKuen
  • Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
  • Spare Change by Robert B. Parker
  • Lake Superior Journal Jim Marshall's View from the Bridge by Jim Marshall
  • Candyland by Evan Hunter/Ed McBain
  • Armageddon 2419 AD by Philip Francis Nowlan
  • Sonnets of Eve by Flora May Johnson Pearce
  • Kill City: The Enforcer #3 by Andrew Sugar
  • Listen to the Warm by Rod McKuen
  • All I Need to Know I Learned From My Cat by Suzy Becker
  • 101 Uses for a Dead Cat by Simon Bond
  • Sleeping Beauty by Ross MacDonald
  • The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
  • Tangled Vines Lyn Lifshin (ed)
  • Sweet and Sour by Andrew A. Rooney
  • He Was a Midwestern Boy on His Own by Bob Greene
  • Poems of Flowers Gail Harvey (Ed)
  • The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
  • The Parisian Affair by Nick Carter
  • Ghosts by Ed McBain
  • Puppet on a Chain by Alistair MacLean
  • Deadly Welcome by John D. MacDonald
  • Ariel by Sylvia Plath
  • All Summer Long by Bob Greene
  • Poems of Friendship Gail Harvey (Ed)
  • Be Happy! April Danner (selected by)
  • The Adventures of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
  • Dear Americans: Letters from the Desk of Ronald Reagan Ralph E. Weber & Ralph A. Weber (ed)
  • Detroit by Dale Fisher
  • Versus by Ogden Nash
  • Sight Unseen by Donald Margulies
  • My Poems from the Heart by Pam Puleo
  • Broadway Bound by Neil Simon
  • Panic in Philly by Don Pendleton
  • 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
  • Seawitch by Alistair MacLean
  • The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy
  • How to Research The History of Your Webster Groves Home by Ann Morris
  • Webster Park 1892-1992 by Wilda H. Swift and Cynthia S. Easterling
  • Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
  • Eight Black Horses by Ed McBain
  • State's Evidence by Stephen Greenleaf
  • North Webster: A Photograpic History of a Black Community by Ann Morris and Henrietta Ambrose
  • Case of the Fiery Fingers by Erle Stanley Gardner
  • Raiders of Gor by John Norman
  • Treasures of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism by
  • Lori by Robert Bloch
  • Unfair and Unbalanced: The Lunatic Magniloquence of Henry E. Panky by Patrick M. Carlisle
  • Vienna Days by Kim du Toit
  • Hoaxes! by Gordon Stein and Marie J. MacNee
  • Like I Was Sayin' by Mike Royko
  • Farnham's Freehold by Robert Heinlein
  • Webster Groves by Clarissa Start
  • Now and Then by Robert B. Parker
  • The Black Hole by Alan Dean Foster
  • One of Us is Wrong by Samuel Holt
  • My Enemy, My Ally by Diane Duane
  • In Retrospect I by Kathy Condon (ed.)
  • Tales from the Coral Court by Shellee Graham
  • New York at Night by Bill Harris
  • The Handyman by Penelope Mortimer
  • Downtown by Ed McBain
  • Momisms by Cathy Hamilton
  • The Enforcer by Andrew Sugar
  • The Book of Lists The 90s Edition by David Wallechinsky and Amy Wallace
  • Spill the Jackpot by A.A. Fair
  • It's Pat: My Life Exposed by Julia Sweeney and Christine Zander
  • Dave Barry's Gift Guide to End All Gift Guides by Dave Barry
  • Then We Came To The End by Joshua Ferris
  • Mind Prey by John Sandford
  • Star Trek: The Motion Picture by Gene Roddenberry
  • The Best Cartoons from the Saturday Evening Post
You can find the reviews using that little search box at the top. I am far too lazy to do 125 Google searches to make it easy on you.

Overall, quite the eclectic mix. A lot of John Sandford and Ed McBain, some John Norman, and a mix of genre fiction, literary classics, poetry, and some non-fiction thrown in.

Bow before my reading prowess and my ability to sit in a recliner for whole evenings instead of doing something productive with my life.


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:22 PM   0 comments
 
Memo from the Laundry Room
If someone gives you red towels for Christmas, that person is not your friend.

I've washed this set twice using the color-lock vinegar method, and they still bleed red. Also, the manufacturer has used a special dye-as-binder method so that the actual washings are taking out as much of the linen as the dye.

So when we put these special towels out when our "friend" comes by next year, she'll think we need more new towels. Red. And the circle will be unbroken.


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:10 PM   0 comments
 
Good Book Hunting: November 21, 2007 (The Late Edition)
Gentle reader, I have been holding something back from you. It's the results of our November 21 trip to yard sales and what books I bought there. I haven't been buying much in December except for a couple trips to the bookstore or Amazon.com (The Fred File, And Then We Came To The End, Honeymoon with my Brother, and Mark Bowden's Road Work). But in November, our last real excursion of last year, I bought the following:

November 21 book hunting results
Click for full size

We have:
  • An architecture handbook so I can be just like Howard once I get the orange hair dye to take.

  • A book of lists (not the official The Book of Lists) about the best things.

  • A smart-sounding book about Naturalism. I forget what sort.

  • A biography of Tolstoy's wife.

  • Some flat book I forget and am too lazy to look for.

  • A promotional copy of the last Billy Joel live CD.

  • A record containing some gothic and renaissance music.

Heather's stack is to the right.

That lone book in the middle was a mistake; sometime in the transfer of passing back and forth the stack of books and the boy, we picked up the book upon which we had put the stack and there it is. Now it's mine by default.

The end of yard sale season (which is November, oddly enough, here in Missouri) means we won't really go nuts buying books for a couple weeks yet until the sporadic book fairs begin again. Which gives me time to get in some reading, as you'll note below.


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:01 PM   2 comments
 
Book Report: Star Trek III The Search for Spock by Vonda N. McIntyre (1984)
Book Report: Star Trek III The Search for Spock by Vonda N. McIntyre (1984) As I insinuated in the book review for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, this book takes the script of the movie and what I know if it and goes a little beyond it. Okay, a lot beyond it. And she's the author who gave Mr. Sulu his name, which according to Wikipedia became canon not when she used it in her book, but when it was inserted into the script of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

So, do you remember the movie? Not much either you, huh? Funny how these movies are really so short in actual episodes/incidents/scenes when you come right down to it. This particular movie was the one between Khan and the whales, so it gets short shrift. Also, it reads more like a fattened television script (and the fattening isn't always flattering) than a novel in its own right. And, if you remember, this is the first movie that started the tradition of blowing up the Enterprise. Maybe it meant something in this movie (shock, if nothing else), by the time the Next Generation bunch were blowing them up like they were wooden Hollywood sets and not expensive pieces of government procurement, it was rote and boring.

So the book's worth the time if you're a Star Trek fan (or a Vonda N. McIntyre fan, I suppose).

If not, watch the movie.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:00 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: Heat by Ed McBain (1981)
Man, this book is old; Kling is still a new detective and married to the model who might have started cheating on him, The City is a pre-Giuliani cesspool, and the copyright date says 1981. Well, that's about all you can say about it to know how old the book is. Its contents and story have aged well, but it's worth remembering that this series is only middle aged here at about 30 years old.

The main plot: on the hottest week of the year, the boys from the 87th find an apparent suicide in a apartment where the air conditioner has been shut off. This causes them to delve a little deeper, and they discover that several things in the apartment have been wiped of prints--including the thermometer and the bottle of pills the victim used in the suicide. So suicide it probably ain't. In side plots, a recent ex-con decides Kling deserves to die for sending him up and Kling's investigation of the alleged infidelity of his wife.

The book's only 180 pages long, so it reads like a script for a television series in spots, but really, isn't that what we expect of these middle-of-the-series books?
Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:57 PM   0 comments
Friday, January 04, 2008
 
Book Report: The Best Cartoons from the Saturday Evening Post edited by Steven Cornelius Pettinga (1998)
This thin volume, my free gift for subscribing or resubscribing, doesn't count for much on the intellectual scale, but you know, gentle reader, that I don't always go for the heavy stuff. As a matter of fact, I avoid it a lot of the time. So maybe some cartoons fit right in.

They're amusing. I don't think I've even chuckled at a one panel cartoon in decades, but I give some of them a wry internal smile, including some within this collection. Some almost venture to Far Side territory, something you wouldn't expect from a staid publication.

Worth a look, I guess, if you subscribe or find it at the book sales.
Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:26 PM   0 comments
 
That's Not What I See
In the book Busy Penguins, the authors have a photo that they have captioned incorrectly:

Penguin martial arts


The authors of the book are apparently unfamiliar with the penguin martial art spheniscinatasu. Instead of putting a wing around the other penguin to comfort his compatriot, the penguin on the right is in the process of employing the dreaded aptenodytesu forsterika death strike, a move that crushes the opponent's arteries to the head and leads to death within agonizing seconds.

Penguins caring, indeed.


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:10 AM   0 comments
 
The Sheep, Apparently, Are Outsourcing
Man rammed by bull dies of injuries

Can't the rams do the ramming, or are the bulls offering to do it less expensively? Or are St. Louis Post-Dispatch writers just that clueless to their own absurd turns of phrase?


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:45 AM   0 comments
 
Abrogation of Freedom Comes Easy to Some
You know why I don't tend to read the letters to the editor in the local papers? Because many of them read like this thoughtless screed, summed up with the pithy:
    Your freedom to choose ends when it impinges on my right to a clean planet.
Oh, revel, revel, gentle reader, in that principle. Your basic freedom ends where it impinges upon my freedom to an arbitrary, aesthetically determined freedom.

And don't think that your freedoms would not continue being abrogated until such time as everyone achieves the same level of misery.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:02 AM   0 comments
Thursday, January 03, 2008
 
Space Invaders
Some people have too much time on their hands. I remember, because when I had that time, I was skipping college classes, too.


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:18 PM   1 comments
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
 
When Darwin Awards and Department of Righteous Shootings Collide
Practical joke leads to cop's shooting:
    Police believe a practical joke led to the shooting Tuesday of a 23-year-old Ste. Genevieve police officer.

    The rookie deputy allegedly faked a break-in around 9:45 p.m. at his brother-in-law’s home in Festus, said Festus Police Chief Tim Lewis. The brother-in-law thought an intruder was about to enter his house and reacted by shooting him.

    A short time later, Festus police noticed a car speeding along Veterans Boulevard and realized the vehicle was racing to Jefferson Memorial Hospital. Once there, they recognized the shooter as an on-call minister for the police department.
Jeez.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:17 PM   0 comments
 
That's Just Crass
Mass disaster survivor's guide to lawyerin' up The Missouri Bar has a handy guide to keep on hand in case of nuclear detonation, river-shifting earthquake, tsunami, devastating hurricane, or apartment complex fire so that you can be sure to protect your legal rights and pay legal fees with whatever survives the looting, roving gangs, and roaming vigilantes or protection-confiscating police.

There's no point in merely surviving if you cannot sue someone, I guess.

Compare and contrast with this wisdom (link seen on Dustbury; these bits correctly inject perspective into the concept of "mass disaster," but one suspects that the light versions of mass disasters are the ones the Missouri Attorneys' special interest group / lobbying organization is most willing to help the victim through.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:54 PM   1 comments
 
Meet Your New Project Manager, Clippy
Remember Clippy? Remember how you could turn him off? Well, get ready for Microsoft's Clippy the Project Manager:
    A unique monitoring system and method is provided that involves monitoring user activity in order to facilitate managing and optimizing the utilization of various system resources. In particular, the system can monitor user activity, detect when users need assistance with their specific activities, and identify at least one other user that can assist them. Assistance can be in the form of answering questions, providing guidance to the user as the user completes the activity, or completing the activity such as in the case of taking on an assigned activity. In addition, the system can aggregate activity data across users and/or devices. As a result, problems with activity templates or activities themselves can be more readily identified, user performance can be readily compared, and users can communicate and exchange information regarding similar activity experiences. Furthermore, synchronicity and time-sensitive scheduling of activities between users can be facilitated and improved overall.
Swell.


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:58 PM   0 comments
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
 
Book Report: Friday by Robert A. Heinlein (1979)
This book is a bit unlike most genre fiction, where you have an obvious sort of plot problem that, once it's overcome, the book is done. Instead, we have a character (Friday), an elite "courier" who happens to be an Artificial Person looking for an identity in a world of humans who don't view AP or the lesser petri dish Living Artifacts as human, and we have her situation: in a post-breakup world run by batteries and without internal combustion engines, intrigue amid the nation-states, and a wave of assassinations. When Friday is rejected by an open family and is cut off from her corporate benefactors, she has to rely on her wits and her augmented reflexes to survive and find her way home.

The book is a later Heinlein; I have only the barest memory of reading anything but Stranger in a Strange Land in high school (the other stuff came in middle school) and Farnham's Freehold last year. This book is more like the former, with its reliance on free-and-breezy sexuality, than the latter, a more straight ahead science fiction story. I mean, the Heinlein moral code is there in both, but not so vigorous in the earlier work. I'm not going to spend a lot of time pooh-poohing it because I'm not a prude, but I am a family guy. So I prefer the old school Heinlein.

The book doesn't answer many questions the reader will have about what's happened between now and the time the book takes place to break up the US, for one thing, and eliminate internal combustion engines. Nor does it really draw to a close the questions it brings up nor conclude the macro-background big deals and big events in which the story is set; instead, we have Friday removing herself from the situation as a resolution.

Perhaps consistent, perhaps on message, but ultimately it weakens the book.

On the plus side, this book is fairly common at book fairs, so you can get yours cheaply if you don't want the ease and convenience of enriching me by clicking the link below.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:34 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan by Vonda N. McIntyre (1982)
All right, I think this author took slightly more liberty with this novelization than "Gene Roddenberry" did with the first one; a lot of the scenes that I don't remember from the movie are a little disparate (but nobody got implants that disappear). Given what I've seen of the novelization of The Search for Spock, though, this one is relatively bang-on the novelization.

To recap: While the Enterprise is on a training mission, it investigates a scientific lab outpost that sends a garbled message to Kirk. Meanwhile, an enemy from Kirk's past has put events in motion to steal that lab's discovery and to kill Kirk in revenge.

These books clock in under 200 pages, even with the additional emoting scenes and scientific mumbo-jumbo added. If you're into Star Trek, you will probably get a kick out of them.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:06 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: Star Trek: The Motion Picture by Gene Roddenberry (1979)
As you might know, gentle reader, I picked up a number of Star Trek movie novelizations last autumn along with a copy of My Enemy, My Ally. I also later bought VHS copies of all of the movies but The Voyage Home. So I'll be able to do a comparison of the films to the novels as well, once I get around to watching the movies.

The book follows the movie, mostly, with some variations (as I recall). For example, I don't remember an implant that gives Kirk direct access to the Starfleet emergency channel. But it's in the book and, as I know of the Star Trek universe, nowhere else. However, my reading in the canon is a little light, but that's changing.

The book also looks at some of the behind-the-scenes politicking that made Kirk an admiral and some of the history of the Enterprise era, but it looks as though this, too, never made official canon. I have to wonder if they really paid attention to the books when building the movies and other series. Actually, I don't have to wonder; I can infer by what Ms. Duane said when she commented on her book.

A quick enough read, and it was fun enough. If it doesn't line completely up, I won't notice in most places and won't mind too much when it does. Which is why Paramount can do it so sloppily.

Oh, yeah, the plot: A big probe comes to earth to destroy it. No, not because of the whales, because it's Voyager coming to meet its creator and disinfect the planet of the irrational carbon units. Then, a hot bald chick acts as its emissary and the dad from 7th Heaven unites with the hot bald chick and the machine. Credits roll.

Sure, it's thin, but audiences waited through the whole 1970s, almost, to get that, and they were ecstatic. Once the geeks were happy again, the fog of the 1970s lifted, the moribund economy rebounded, and we're still seeing the effects of that national optimism today. Reagan revolution? No, the Roddenberry Revolution.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:44 PM   0 comments
 
Put In My Place
Man, there's nothing better than a smuggle who visits this site through a Web search and leaves a condescending comment on a post that's several years old.

Like this one.

I mean, brother, it must be hard trying to express your biting, insightful wit on a backwater blog in a post that hardly anyone read in 2005, much less 2008.

But I publish them, oh yes, I do. Because I'm not a hater.


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:06 PM   0 comments
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."