Musings from Brian J. Noggle
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
 
Disco Redeemed
The only thing nearly as cool as Ript doing "Suspicious Minds", we have a metal tribute to the Bee Gees:



(Link seen on The Sniper. Finally, that blog is good for sumpthin.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:07 PM   0 comments
 
Leaping Women Now A Sex Crime
Story's lead:
    A Lebanon man has been arrested for sexually assaulting his neighbor after bounding her in a filthy camping trailer on Monday.
What's next? Making hurdling a woman a sexual assault?

(Memo to the Post-Dispatch Journalists with English as a Second Language program: bound is the past tense of bind.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:41 AM   0 comments
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
 
Slightly Adulterated
You know the song "Love Machine" by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles?



It just doesn't sound right to me without sighing hens.



My old school R&B credibility takes another hit, simply because I saw the commercial before I heard the song on its own.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:47 AM   0 comments
Monday, August 04, 2008
 
Rain Without Rainmakers
Instapundit links to a story about falling oil prices:
    Oil prices plunged to a three-month low Monday, briefly tumbling below $120 a barrel in another huge sell-off after Tropical Storm Edouard seemed less likely to disrupt oil and natural gas output in the Gulf of Mexico.
Brothers and sisters, this is why Congress must act now! It's not important what action they take, whether it's foolish rule against oil speculators or more sensible plans to allow off-shore drilling or oil exploration on public lands.

What is important is that our ruling political class realize that unless it acts, citizens might get the impression that market forces alone can cause declining gas prices, and that sometimes the rain falls without the dances of the rainmakers on the floors of the House and Senate.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:23 PM   9 comments
 
Converts Are Always The Most Zealous
Right now, my beautiful wife is watching the live news conference where Packers coach Mike McCarthy talks about bringing back Brett Favre.

UPDATE: I mean to say she sat and watched ESPN news for a half hour waiting for the press conference.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:17 PM   0 comments
Saturday, August 02, 2008
 
Good Book Hunting: Return to the Book of the Month Club
I've been so down about not finding much at garage sales lately that I fell prey to the Six for the Price Of One Book of the Month Club offer. I got these:

Book of the Month Club selections
Click for full size

They include:
  • The fourth Dean Koontz Odd Thomas book, Odd Hours. I haven't read Brother Odd yet, but I'll find that at a book fair soon. The new copy was only twenty cents plus $4.00 shipping and handling. Note that it's in shrink wrap with a note. The note says, "We're sorry, there's a typo on the last page. It should say, 'Stormy was there to greet me. "Don't feel bad, Oddie," she said, "You did the best you could and that's all anyone could ask."' We hope this doesn't impede your enjoyment of the book. As if revealing the ending on the front cover would do such a thing.

  • Bonk, a book about sex.

  • Phantom Prey, a new Lucas Davenport novel by John Sandford and something I'll read right away to wash out the taste of No Witnesses.

  • Resolution, Robert B. Parker's sequel to Appaloosa. Notice I'm not buying Robert B. Parker novels at full price the minute they come out these days?

  • A Carl Hiaasen nonfiction book about golf.

  • Duma Key, a new Stephen King novel.

Wait, you only count five instead of six? Well, I don't remember what I ordered as the sixth book, but it certainly wasn't the nutritional science outrage book they shipped. Fortunately, though, one of Heather's reading interests is that sort of thing, so she wanted it. Keeps me from having to throw a pissy fit over getting shipped a random overstock book.

But, geez, the printing quality on these books has really diminished over the years. The paper is almost newsprint, word. I'm glad I didn't get any chick lit because my tears would make the ink run. It's hard to see me sticking with the club after my obligated One At Full Price escape clause.

Still, they're relatively recent novels, a year before I could get them on the book fair tables for a buck. To make it worthwhile, I have to read them all within the next year I guess.


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:37 PM   2 comments
 
Book Report: No Witnesses by Ridley Pearson (1994)
Ugh. Ultimately, I sort of dreaded reading a Pearson book because he lives part time in the next suburb over, so he's the author I'm most likely to run into at the local coffeeshop or used bookstore and the one who could most easily show up on my front doorstep to taunt me that he's a published and successful author and my blog isn't even as well read as his book reviews.

Because, brother, this book sucked.

It sort of serves me right, I suppose, that I swore off classics because they take so long and then I start a 470 page mass market paperback that I have to endure over the course of two weeks or so. You know what? Maybe I'll go back to the classics. Sometimes, they're good enough that I enjoy them even if they're slow reading.

This piece is the third, I guess, in a police detective series featuring a detective and a police psychologist. Perhaps its presence in the series explains a bit how the characters are sort of thin--I suppose they get that way in even the middle of McBain's books or John Sandford's books. But the descriptions are paragraph-long (or more) adjective dumps, and we get bunches of them even for minor characters. Then, they're moved through a series of convoluted, contrived, and melodramatic chapter scenes where individual characters, mostly the female police detective, face artificial peril. Then we get to a semi-climax whose very setup relies on poor police procedure that imperils innocent children based on a prosecutor's (wait, second prosecutor: first was eliminated in a contrived subplot) desire for better charges.

It was so bad that the night before I finished, I went into my wife's office after reading it and banged my head into her wall just so I could sum up why I stuck with the book: the punchline "Because it feels so good when I stop."

Maybe this is an outlier on the bottom end of Pearson's books. I think I've got at least one more in English here somewhere to read (in addition to the one I have in a Scandinavian language that I cannot read), so perhaps eventually I'll give him another shot. I won't buy any more, though. I have enough else to read.

Special memo to Mr. Pearson when he Googles himself: Hey, no offense, and congratulations on making a living doing what I'd rather. I cannot even get agents to review the complete manuscript of my last novel.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:36 PM   0 comments
 
It Would Shock You If You Didn't Expect It
Terry Teachout on Raymond Chandler's speaking voice:
    Only one recording of Raymond Chandler's speaking voice survives, a BBC interview conducted with Chandler in 1958 by none other than Ian Fleming. You can listen to it by going here. If you do so, you'll be staggered to learn that the creator of Philip Marlowe sounds...well, wimpy.
Not if you've read any of his letters or his biography. Fellow was a total anglophile prone to wearing gloves and not shaking hands because he thought it was barbaric. That he sounds more Capote than Hemingway is not surprising at all.


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:25 PM   0 comments
 
She's Tired Of It Now
My wife is tired of my all-purpose punchline/rejoinder If President Obama lets us..

If she's tired of it now, just think how she will feel once it's our (and everyone else's) lifestyle.

Meanwhile, I guess I'll have to switch to If it makes Reid money in an obscure land deal or If its good for the Pelosi canneries.


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:15 PM   1 comments
 
Great Moments in Police Professionalism
Wellston police scuffle; guns drawn:
    A brawl between the newly chosen city police chief and his ousted predecessor resulted in guns being drawn on Friday and the mayor requiring medical attention for trying to intercede, police said.

    The new police chief was named about four days ago, said Pine Lawn Police Chief Rickey Collins, whose department is investigating at the request of the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney's office.

    The two men began pushing and shoving each other about 3 p.m in a meeting room inside Wellston's City Hall. Collins said he did not know what they argued about, though he said the former police chief recently had been demoted to assistant chief.

    Guns were pulled during the scuffle, but no shots were fired, Collins said.
Respect for law and order takes another hit.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:27 AM   0 comments
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."