Musings from Brian J. Noggle
Friday, October 31, 2008
 
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles End Foreshadowed
The last episode of season one of The Sarah Connor Chronicles has foreshadowed how the series will end. Come 2011 (the new Judgment Day) or sometime before, it will end with a twist. Want to know what it is?

I'll speculate in a comment if anyone cares.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:08 PM   2 comments
 
Comparisons
So, how come everyone compares Obama's television extravaganza to Ross Perot, but nobody compares him to Lyndon LaRouche?

Short term memory on part of the pundits?


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:45 AM   0 comments
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
 
A Realization 13 Years In The Making
Wait a minute.... wallpaper on your desktop? That just doesn't make any sense, metaphorically speaking.

UPDATE: I have just tried, and failed, to explain this joke to Roberta.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:13 PM   0 comments
Monday, October 27, 2008
 
John Kass: Not a Statist
John Kass might just be offering a nice eulogy for America courtesy of the Boomers:
    On those nights when they were young, they smoked pot in the streets and listened to Dylan in the car and dreamed of the risks they'd take.

    But now, as Baby Boomers grow old, they welcome those police surveillance cameras on the light poles outside their homes, thinking the cameras make them safe. And they rush toward the warm embrace of big government and promised security.
I don't know why Kass isn't a blogosphere favorite. He's the best columnist in Chicago.


- posted by Brian J. @ 4:26 PM   1 comments
Sunday, October 26, 2008
 
Good Book Hunting: October 11, 2008 and October 18, 2008
On October 11, we went to St. Martin of Tour's book fair in South County. I'd seen the signs, but they were not listed on BookSaleFinder.com, so we expected a small sale. Will we have enough money in hand with only $30? Probably.

Oh, but no.

It had more books than we anticipated, and soon more people than we would like for a two-year-old to run around mostly free. So I held onto the five books I'd picked up and watched the toddler, who discovered a stage at the end of the hall and loved to be upon it. As I watched to make sure he would not also discover stage-diving, Mrs. Noggle found a set of Sesame Street books. 25 in total. Which meant that my $30 was spent mostly on children's books:

The children win the October 11 book fair race
Click for full size


I managed to get:
  • The Circuit-Riding Combat Chaplain, a self-published book about being a chaplain in the Korean War.

  • Peter the Great, a biography.

  • Culture Warrior, a preening tome, no doubt, by Bill O'Reilly.

  • The Hundred Year Dash by George Burns.

  • The Death of Ethics in America, a book whose title indicates it was written during the process. A book written now would probably be Ethics Are Dead in America.
I spent the rest of the day expressing disappointment that I only got five books and that I only got to look over like four tables, but here's a tip: remember the lower lip when pouting, otherwise you'll just look sullen.

On October 18, we didn't go to a book fair, but we found a listing on Craigslist for a book garage sale, so we loaded up and went there. I got more books:

A mother and daughter consolidated their household and shuffled some their library into our home. Sure, this alt text makes little sense, but you're not even reading it, are you?
Click for full size


This haul includes:
  • The Handbook of Folklore.

  • The TV Theme Song Trivia Book. I flipped it open, and the first thing I saw were the first words of the voiceover for the original Battlestar Galactica theme. It's a quiz book, and I'm sure I'll do okay on the 1970s and 1980s and probably "I'll Be There For You" from Friends.

  • The Human Brain by Isaac Asimov.

  • Grassroots Tyranny.

  • Quality without Tears. Frankly, it doesn't sound like as much fun as Quality with Tears, Sobs, and Lamentations of Developers. But I'm open to new ideas I'll discard.

  • Uppity Women in Medieval Times. An idea book.

  • The Crime Encyclopedia. Also an idea book.

  • Montezuma. No doubt a laudatory biography about that wretched monarch.

  • Imressionism, a right purty book about my favorite art style.
I know, it's not a lot, but it should represent a quarter's worth of reading spread among many years and bookshelves.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:44 AM   0 comments
 
Cognitive Dissonance: It Gets Some Voters Through The Day
Bookworm recounts a conversation with a liberal friend, who has a mantra when confronted with the liberal leaders' plans as stated in the liberal leader's own words:
    No, he's not.

    No, they're not.

    That's just not true.
It's sort of like this DJ friend I have, also a liberal coincidentally, who doesn't know a lot about the lyrical content of the songs he plays. He only knows to play something up tempo and something slow for the people to dance. So he's caught by surprise when the bride writes on his little information sheet, "Don't play 'Soldier Boy'" and he asks the groom, "Is that don't play 'Soldier Boy' or should I play it?" and the groom says, "Play it," and then the bride rushes off and the bride and groom withhold payment. You know, those words mean things.

I wonder how many voters of either stripe don't actually listen to the words, but like the hip beats that the parties spin. I'd like to think that the subrational party does it more, but I imagine there are the subrational in our party, too.

But when a Congressman says he's going to take 401(k) money for the slush fund, you'd better believe he means it. If a leader of a country threatens radioactive fire upon a democratic nation that happens to be mostly Jewish in population, you'd better hear more than the tone of the voice.

(Plus, free taunt: For someone who calls the blog "Bookworm Room", I have to say, "You have some books? How cute!" Which reminds me, I need to get an update to the Noggle Library to account for the 3 or more new bookshelves.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:31 AM   0 comments
 
Book Report: First Immortal by James L. Halperin (1998)
Well, this book is an interesting piece, very throught-provoking. In it, Ben Smith, a WWII veteran and Japanese prison camp survivor, opts for cryonic (aka cyrogenic) preservation. The first third of the book describes his life until suspension, his philosophical discussions with his peers in the medical field, his friends, and his family. The middle part describes the immediate after-effects, including the lawsuit among his heirs to split up his trust and to unfreeze him to kill him, essentially, to get the money in his trust, and then the direction of society. The third part deals with his revival and nano-repair to the age of 25 and his dealings with his extended and eternally young family, including an infant cloned from his dead wife who will grow to be his wife again.

The book is strongest in the beginning, where the reader can focus on the main character. After that, it gets a little epic and sagaish for pure enjoyment. As it's not actually cut into chapters, one cannot find a "one more chapter" stopping point and it's hard to chunk into digestible bits. Additionally, it starts in 1998 and projects history from the top of the dot-com era, full of optimism of eternal growth and whatnot. So when it intercuts news summaries from a year to ground you--which it does with every scene, since sometimes we're skipping ahead decades, it starts out with corporate news, such as June 15, 2042: Scientists at Eastman Kodak, Compaq's stock rises, Sun Microsystems this, or 2084, Chrysler introduces. These are already punchlines, as are the invention of "backlinks" by Netscape in something like 2006. Seems to me the trackback made it before then.

Once we get into the future, we're into LiberalTechnoTopia, where no one lies because everyone has a lie detector implant, where contraceptive implants are mandatory at birth (the United States was the last holdout-yay us!), and where the good Democrats want to offer free cryonics as a human right, but the Republicans want to have a two-strikes and you're dead law (which they get, and it cleans up society nicely, but that's mentioned as an aside). Every new development is handled by society in just the perfect way--no human would use it for evil, because humans are inherently good!

So the book, which could have been a very interesting philosophical tome questioning the nature of humanity, the meaning of identity, and a host of other things, ultimately turns into a blended composite of L. Neil Smith's The Probability Broach (the Demotopia) with The Metaphysics of Star Trek with a heaping topping from cryonics brochures. The author, a coin dealer of some repute, definitely wants to popularize cryonics. As a matter of fact, he's willing to let you download this book for free to get the word out.

I think I'll hold out, since Congress will seize the assets of anyone in suspension come 2010.

Books mentioned in this review:

   

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:27 AM   0 comments
Friday, October 24, 2008
 
It Has A Ring To It
Obama/Biden '08: Because Unionized Federal Doctors sounds like a good idea!

- posted by Brian J. @ 3:41 PM   2 comments
 
I Don't Just Want To Cancel; I Want To Besmirch, Too
So I've mentioned that I've fallen back into the BOMC, buying a handful of the books so I could get some relatively recent titles for less than full price. Well, now. It required the commitment of buying one more book over the course of a year at regular club prices, and I ordered Robert Crais's Chasing Darkness. Then I marked the next mailing "Cancel" because I'd completed my obligation, right?

Wrong!

The next mailing came yesterday and said I was still obliged to buy a book. So I called to see what was up, if maybe my payment for the Crais book hadn't cleared. Oh, but no. The fellow politely explained that the book I bought was on a "promotion" price, not regular club price, so it did not count. I asked if this was all noted in the mailed catalog materials, and he said it was.

So I looked.

Oh, yeah, here's where it says only books over $13.98 count:

The BOMC fine print
Click for full size


It is right there. But the catalog could be a little more explicit, no? I mean, they call it "Member's Edition" price regardless of whether it's "Promotion" (doesn't count) or regular (does count).

Here, let me illustrate some of the pages to identify for you what counts and doesn't count. Since Book-of-the-Month Club does its bed to obfuscate it.

The new Spenser is out, and old ones are available, but do not count:

1 out of 3 ain't bad
Click for full size


The new David Balducci is out, but again, if you want the old ones, they don't count unless you spend $14 on them:
Balducci for suckers
Click for full size


Poor Anne Perry; none of her books fulfill the members' obligations:

Perry doesn't fulfill BOMC obligations
Click for full size


And those books printed on the inside of the envelope? Good luck.

In case you're bored enough to actually look at what's inside the envelope
Click for full size


Of course, outside the BOMC News flier, your odds are probably worse.

Meanwhile, today I got the chastising letter that I'm trying to slip out of my agreed to obligations:

You, sir, are a Welsher
Click for full size


Don't worry. I will fulfill my obligation now that I understand it. Also, note that I will never, ever play this game again. Increased deception-lite, cheaper books (newsprint pages, almost), and the double-gotcha "Dual Selections"--you can just continue faltering. Your business model has always been based on taking advantage of your customers, but I hate to see how much further you'll go before collapsing under your own negative brand management.


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:00 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: Invisible Prey by John Sandford (2007)
This book tops the scales at 388 pages, and, frankly, it made me miss the days of one hundred and fifty page pulp books. Because let's face it, this book has more akin to those crime thrillers than to more sweeping classical literature that covers more of the human condition and clocks in at a hundred more pages or less.

It's a disappointing entry in the Prey series. The main plot revolves around an old woman who gets killed and robbed of a few expensive antiques that won't be missed. It's a pair of antique dealers doing this, you see, carefully across different states and whatnot. But it unravels when a young black man recognizes that some pieces are missing. I didn't hesitate to tell you who did it because Sandford tips it pretty early, too, and then you see, via the narrative equivalent of split screen, what the bad guys do while the good guys try to figure it out. Sometimes it works, but given the other evidence, it cumulatively just looks sloppy.

To pad it out, Sandford spends a lot of time on a subplot, a Republican politician who is accused of sleeping with an underage girl. This subplot doesn't deal with solving the crime, but how, politically, to deal with it. The Prey books have always had an element of this, but the book really throws this in and then combines the two plots as the antiques dealers use this as a red herring to throw Davenport off. When that doesn't work, many pages later, the subplot doesn't get mentioned again.

In the review of Phantom Prey, I wondered if sometimes Sandford didn't know what he was talking about. Another couple bits within this book often sound tinny, as though Sandford didn't really get into the context of the subcultures he's writing about. For example, the young black man (I mean, high school student) goes to a hip hop club's under 18 night on the night of the murder. He's there with a couple of friends. A hip hop club, you understand. He takes mass transit down, but:
    At ten o'clock, the mother of one of the kids picked up the boys in her station wagon and hauled them all back to St. Paul.
    "What kind of car?" Lucas asked.
    "A Cadillac SUV--I don't know exactly what they're called," Lash said. "It was a couple years old."
Maybe I'm splitting hairs here, but the Cadillac SUV is the obscure Escalade which, as far as I know, a couple of people in the hip hop industry drive. Sure, Sandford intimates that it's a station wagon, which could mean the vehicle he has in mind is the Cadillac SRX, but the narrator shouldn't crop that up, and I really think the boy would relate to the Cadillac SUV as either the Escalade or not. Not "I don't know exactly what they're called."

Sadly, I think the series is drooping. Sandford might be phoning these in, and talking for hours while doing so.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:18 AM   0 comments
Thursday, October 23, 2008
 
Here's What They Mean
Obama Vote Often Ad


You know, maybe it's just me, but the pop art propoganda iconography of the Obama campaign isn't making me rest any easier. Couldn't they have at least masked the Soviet heroism look and feel just a little bit?


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:05 PM   0 comments
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
 
Whither the Political Blogging, Noggle?
I know, some of you readers might be disappointed that I'm not daily dishing out snark about the election or mocking the mockery of a candidate thrown up by the Democrats for the position. However, let's just say I'm feeling a little sanguine about the prospects for the future. So sanguine, I'm italicizing it even though it's not a foreign word.

How sanguine? This describes my mood:



Listen to the words, children. Do not be confused by the pretty Starman like story. Remember Robert Hays for his excellent work in Airplane!.

If you want me, I'll be in the back yard, burying copies of the Federalist Papers, Milton Friedman books, printed copies of Ace's and Porch Girl's blogs, and Sean Hannity's Deliver Us From Evil, the last unwrapped and acting as fertilizer for my upcoming Wealth Spread Garden.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:45 PM   0 comments
 
Nonjudgmental
50 at Normandy High face HIV risk:
    The HIV threat at Normandy High School has widened to include up to 50 students, health officials said Tuesday.

    Health officials last week said "some" students may have been exposed to the virus that causes AIDS but recently refined their estimate to 50.
The local news has been running this story pretty hard, with dramatic meetings between school administrators and whatnot. Of course, just using the words "exposed to" spices it up. One might think a cafeteria worked didn't wash her hands before returning to work or a lab experiment went awry. Um, still, no.

    The most likely scenario for HIV exposure among teenagers would be sexual relations, but health experts say sharing contaminated needles for steroids, tattoos or drugs could also be the source.
The story's only commenter gets to the meat in the sandwich:
    I would like to know how those children were exposed to the HIV virus. It would benefit all the schools, and for that matter, any gathering of people in one place, to know how this happened. Of course, if it was something like a gang bang, then I am not worried because my community does not practice those sort of behaviors.
Indeed, by not elucidating on the mechanism of exposure, the media is really trying to gin up the panic without reminding the public that these young men and women acted in a way to expose themselves.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:03 AM   2 comments
Monday, October 20, 2008
 
Book Report: The Silencers by Donald Hamilton (1962)
This book is another in the Matt Helm series, the fourth (I think).

In it, Helm travels to Mexico, gets some secret information, and then walks into a trap on purpose to get to an agent known as The Cowboy who might be sabotaging a nuclear test. When he gets caught, as planned, Helm turns the tables on his captors and on the woman who has double-crossed him--as planned--even as they've fallen in love.

It's not very complicated, but it's a 60s paperback adventure. You get a handful of scenes, a female love interest of potentially duplicitious motivation, and then you get a sudden climax with a big explosion. A hundred and fifty pages, and you're done. Man, I love these paperbacks.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:48 AM   0 comments
Friday, October 17, 2008
 
Welcome To The 21st Century, Noggle
I received my first text on my cell phone today, a message from my uncle.

"From a 64 year old man," my wife said. "How does that make you feel?"

"Better than you'd feel if it was a 21 year old woman," I thought, but didn't say, mostly because I fear her displeasure.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:19 PM   1 comments
Thursday, October 16, 2008
 
Sign of the End Times
You know, that bumper sticker I made insinuating that Obama was a communist is one thing; another thing entirely are the line of official Barack Obama signs and whatnot with the freaking Soviet star on them:

Obama, the Soviet Star

What, you're going to tell me that's supposed to imply the Red Star Yeast logo because Obama is going to raise us all or the Macy's logo because Obama wants to turn the government into the citizens' department store, where they can get anything they want as long as it's red.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:24 AM   2 comments
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
 
Memo to All Democrats
Obama is leading in the polls, 150% to 28%. You know what? You don't even have to show up and vote.

Stay home on November 4th and watch the second season of Heroes on DVD.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:54 PM   4 comments
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
 
Book Report: Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity by John Stossel (2005)
This book takes on a number of media-promulgated myths and explains why most of them are false. As a reasonable, libertarian sort of fellow myself, I already knew most of them. The last chapter of myths covers parenting, and it's the weakest one. Stossel is a consumer reporter, not necessarily a parenting reporter, so the book ends on a weak note.

Another book that goes along with what I believe, generally, so it didn't challenge me much. Explaining common sense to someone with some common sense ain't riveting reading. Sadly, like most political books, only people who agree with it will buy it/acquire it.

Speaking of which, since I just bought a hardback copy, I have a trade paperback to get rid of. Call it if you want it.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:05 AM   0 comments
 
Would They Call Regular Fraud "Fundraising Efforts"?
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Washington "editor" weighs in on ACORN's fraud problems by calling them something else: GOP attacking ACORN's voter registration efforts:
    Trailing badly in new-voter registration, Republicans are waging an aggressive campaign in Missouri and around the country against a group that claims to have added 1.3 million people to voter rolls since last year.
Let's play a new game: whenever the Post-Dispatch identifies something as fraud, let's see how they would spin it if it involved/indicted the Democratic Party.

Like this: GOP attacks Nevadan's fundraising efforts

Or this: Republicans assail investor efforts.

I guess I am just naive; I didn't think that Republicans were upset with voter registration efforts. I thought they were upset that ACORN people were systemically and nationally caught making things up out of whole cloth:



I guess that explains why I didn't go into journalism; I don't want to "help" people see the "truth" through my creative writing and pretending it was something other than a fictional narrative.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:32 AM   2 comments
Monday, October 13, 2008
 
Book Report: A Friend Forever edited by Susan Polis Schutz (1980, 1982)
This is a simple collection of "poems" and quotes about friendship from famous people taken from magazines. Think of Reader's Digest's Quoted Quotables section, but with 70s pop art.

Again, it's good to read some bad poetry to remind you what good poetry is like. And some of this is not very good.

The strangest thing, though, is that the copy I have is from the third printing. And the book cost 4.95. In 1982. And I guess someone was buying them.

And, on the other hand, the editor and author of many of the poems within founded the company that published this book and created BlueMountain.com, which they sold to Excite for $780 million. So she's got that going for her. Me? I've published a couple of chapbooks and have a couple cool blogs.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:02 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: Do As I Say (Not As I Do) by Peter Schweizer (2005)
So I picked this book up for a quick mad-on for those who would rule us (those in the other party, I mean). It takes on the likes of Michael Moore, Nancy Pelosi, Noam Chomsky, and so on and details how their personal lives don't match their public rhetoric. You know, I found most of these people odious to begin with, and I get enough of this sort of material from the blogs daily, so the book didn't do much for me. The best I can say is that now I'm conflicted about buying Ravenswood wines because Pelosi owns a stake in them.

I guess this book works best for readers who don't traverse the blog circuit regularly and instead buy books from advertisements in National Review or the conservative book club.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:47 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: The Man With The Golden Gun by Ian Fleming (1965)
This is the second book I've read recently that was set soon after the Cuban revolution, and Fleming didn't think it would last (to the contrary, Brett Haliday thought it might be a good idea.) These things strike me.

This book deals with a post-brainwashing, post-trying-to-assassinate-M Bond unbrainwashed and assigned to kill a Caribbean hitter who used a goldern Colt .45 revolver and custom gold-loaded bullets. Bond goes down there, infilitrates, and gets his man.

I can't remember how the Roger Moore Bond film of the same name worked, but I would guess it differed greatly from the book. It's a pretty good read, an artifact of the times and of the medium (pseudo-pulp spy fiction, the good stuff before the epic, moral-grey-area stuff came on).

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:44 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: Elephants Can Remember by Agatha Christie (1972)
This book, like the other book I've read most recently from Agatha Christie (By The Pricking Of My Thumbs) comes from Agatha Christie's later works (remember, gentle reader, she started in 1920; this book is from 52 years later and is the penultimate book she wrote). Maybe I'm crazy, but I like the earlier works better, back before the main characters got old.

This book features Hercule Poirot and Mrs. Oliver trying to suss out the story behind a murder/suicide fifteen years earlier. A rarely-seen goddaughter of Mrs. Oliver is set to marry, but the groom's mother worries about the goddaughter's parents' deaths. The protagonists puzzle it out based on reminisces and rumors from people only tangentally involved with the story. As a matter of fact, a main part of the story turns on the goddaughter not knowing her own family or forgetting things that happened at age 14.

So it's not a very satisfying book in Mrs. Christie's canon, but reading the book, I'm reminded that she had her own book club as late as the 1980s; one could join the club and get a different Agatha Christie book every month for several years if one was inclined. Wow. I remember Stephen King had one, too, and he's the only author of our generation that I can recall having such. These days, nobody reads enough to rope them into something like that. And I notice the BOMC offers to send out two books automatically each month unless you send back the card. Just so they can soak the negligent double until they cancel, I guess.
Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:39 PM   0 comments
 
Memo to Missouri Democrats
If you voted for a dead man for Senate and knowingly sent a woman to the United States Congress based on her qualification that she was the governor's widow, you may now shut the hell up about a sitting governor being unqualified to be vice president.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:47 AM   2 comments
Thursday, October 09, 2008
 
Wherein Brian J. Whimpers
Check out the library of Internet millionaire Jay Walker.

Then feel disappointment that the journalist focused more on the decorations than the actual books.

But, dang, I want one like it.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:26 PM   0 comments
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
 
When Famous Chickens Go Bad
We let our toddler watch football on Sunday, and during the commercials, he's subject to many, many, er, disconcerting images. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles ads run in heavy rotation, featuring explosions and belligerent robots firing weapons of all sorts. Each new gory horror movie that opens runs its ads to catch the young (but not that young) male football viewer, so there's always someone screaming and being dragged away by ghouls, demons, ghosts (not Gus) and whatnot. Additionally, he gets to see plenty of ads featuring Barack Obama's plan for America, things which frighten me to no end.

We try to distract him with books, toys, or questions during the particularly malevolent commercials. When he's seen them, though, he has remained unfazed because he's too young, probably, to understand what the images depict. One commercial, however, caused him to burst into tears. This horror:

Man, I love that commercial because anything with an enraged Famous Chicken in it is hilarity encapsulated in 30 seconds. But the boy? Freaked out.

One thing he can imagine, poor guy, is stuffed animals coming to life and threatening violence.

By the way, if you cannot get enough of The Famous Chicken, here's his official Web site.

Just don't browse it with my son around.


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:49 PM   0 comments
Monday, October 06, 2008
 
Book Report: Resolution by Robert B. Parker (2008)
Well, it's a Parker Western. I picked it up because Appaloosa's movie version opened this weekend.

The moral bankruptness of the Parker universe progresses. In it, Cole, the marshal from Appaloosa, has left Appaloosa after his lover runs off with another man. Off-page, Cole hunts down the man and kills him simply for taking up with Cole's interest. Then, when he joins Hitch in Resolution, the town of the title, Cole takes up with a married woman. Does he deserve to die for it? Apparently not, for some reason that might include he's a gunman or the woman's husband has beaten her (but she still loves him and returns to him at the end after the empowerment-through-adultery trope that Parker repeats lately).

Forget it. I'm not even wasting money on Book Club Editions of the new Parker books. I'll pick them up at book fairs. Maybe.

Oh, for the plot of the book: Everett Hitch signs on as a lookout man at a saloon, and eventually Cole shows up and they navigate through a dispute amongst the homesteaders and their employer. The book meanders through a large number (70+) chapters-as-scenes with semi-unrelated fuguish subplots. Finally, when the word count is reached, Cole faces down the bad guys in a quick shootout. The bad man and his plot to build subdivisions (!) in the old West are thwarted.

Seriously. The man is running homesteaders off to build subdivisions.

On the plus side, unlike Ed McBain, Bush's name isn't invoked in his historical or contemporary works, not that I'll know anymore until the election is way over. I've also avoided Parker's new line of Young Adult novels, but part of me has a morbid curiosity to see how he injects adultery-as-affirmation thing into them.

And I now pose this question for debate, although none of you will debate it with me because you're all wiser than I am and have avoided the collected works of Parker, but here it is: Which was more detrimental to Parker's writing: whatever adultery occurred in the middle 1980s to make it the single biggest recurring theme in all of his subsequent work, or Parker's work for the Spenser for Hire television show that subsequently turned all of his novels into chapters scenes with simple stage management but mostly dialog along with the reliance on recurring guest stars and formulaic endings?

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:29 PM   0 comments
 
Some Remarks on Headlines

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:28 AM   1 comments
 
Book Report: Chasing Darkness by Robert Crais (2008)
My beautiful wife read this book before I did, relying on a library copy to keep her up to date with the comings and goings of Cole and Pike. Me, I bought the book to complete my enrollment with the Book of the Month Club. She expressed some disappointment with it which, ultimately, I think was unwarranted.

In it, Cole and Pike go back to an earlier case of Cole's: a fellow that Cole cleared of a murder charge dies from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound with a photo album of dead people in it. The photographs are taken moments after the deaths of the individuals, and the book includes the murder victim from the previous case. Cole is sure that the dead man didn't kill the woman from his case, so he looks into the man's death and finds a special police task force that might be protecting a political figure.

The book uses a couple of things common to Robert B. Parker's writing: the tough narrator and the tougher sidekick and the return to previous stories. However, Crais's writing still includes prose between the dialog, so Crais executes better than Parker anytime after, say, 1990.

The ending features a twist and a simple resolution that one could see a mile away, post-twist that is. Crais also incorporates some foreshadowing that's obvious as foreshadowing, but the meaning of the foreshadowing only becomes clear with the twist.

A good book overall and one that keeps me interested in the series, which makes it one of two contemporary series I appreciate (Sandford's Lucas Davenport being the other).

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:12 AM   0 comments
Saturday, October 04, 2008
 
Good Book Hunting: October 4, 2008
Oops, I did it again.

We're driving down Elm onto an errand and a couple of garage sales, and my beautiful wife sees the sign at the church up ahead: Book Fair. "It's dollar bag day," I said.

"Do you want to stop?" she asked.

I stopped.

An hour or so later, I ask if they have a box price since I don't want to put the books in bags to price them. $3 a box, we agree on even though my beautiful wife was quite ready to negotiate up.

Here they are:

Lots of books from Annunciation
Click for full size


Including:
  • The Unknown Patton, a biography of that guy Kelsey Grammer plays.

  • Crazies to the Left of Me, Wimps to the Right by Bernard Goldberg. Polemics were cheap. I bought many.

  • Betrayal by Linda Chavez. As I said.

  • Shadow War, about George W. Bush and the war on terror.

  • Square Foot Gardening. Heather picked this up for me, hoping I'll get more than 20 cherry tomatoes, 6 raspberries, and 3 green beans out of our garden next year.

  • The President, The Pope, and the Prime Minister, a book about Reagan, Thatcher, and John Paul II and their roles in defeating communism 1.0.

  • Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity, a John Stossel Snopes-like debunking of common tropes upon which policy is based. I'm currently reading it in the paperback, but I've upgraded my permanent copy.

  • Hollywood Nation, about how liberals are bad.

  • The Lessons of History by Will and his wife Durant. Hey, I have the story of philosophy, why not get the whole collection.

  • The Year of Decision 1846, a history book about that important year.

  • The Big Ripoff, a book about how crony capitalism will be the death of our economy. Timely, no?

  • Persecution by Limbaugh the Lesser.

  • 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America by Bernard Goldberg. My collection of his work is complete and mostly unread.

  • The Best Years 1945-1950, a history book about why those were the best years, apparently.

  • Build It Better Yourself, a book about building things. Good for a President Obama economy.

  • A five volume history of England. I hope it's only five; I got volumes I-V.

  • A Friend Forever, a collection of poems edited by Susan Polis Schultz.

  • The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy. Must be one of his flash fictions since it's 135 pages. Looking into it, I discover it's a pre-dialogued former university textbook.

  • Dynamic Freedoms: Our Freedom Documents, which collects the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and other selected bits.

  • Spain, a concise history of a great nation. Part of a series.

  • Fix It Yourself Small Appliances and Fix It Yourself Major Appliances, just in case the Democratic quartfecta manages to keep the lights on and the rest of the world does not veto our electricity usage.

  • Architecture: Style, Structure, and Design, an architecture textbook.

  • Near Eastern Mythology, a book about mythology in the near east. I think that's like Ohio and West Virginia.

  • 28 of the hardbound library editions of American Heritage from the late 1960s and early 1970s. Good for ideas, I hope, and burning for heat if the rest of the world doesn't want me to heat my house above 60 degrees in the winter.

  • Almanac of American Letters. I forget what it is.

  • The First Immortal, a science fiction novel.

  • Built from Scratch; given the Home Depot logo on it, you'd think it was about building things. No, it's about the building of the Home Depot company.

  • JOB: A Comedy of Justice by Robert Heinlein.

  • The Legend that was Earth by James P. Hogan. Science fiction.

  • The Gunfighter: Man or Myth?, a musing no doubt that tells us that nobody owned guns on the frontier.

  • Grumbles from the Grave by Robert Heinlein, co-authored by Heinlein's estate.

  • Disraeli, a biography of the English PM.

  • Nine Tomorrows, tales by Asimov.

  • Jude the Obscure, a mostly handome edition of Hardy's work. Except for the water damage.

  • You Can't Get There From Here by Ogden Nash. Because I was running low.

  • Tales of Edgar Allan Poe; I already own this book/edition, but this one looks better than the one I remembered here.

  • Danger! Explosive Tales of the Great Outdoors. The first book I picked up.

  • The Civil War. By the time we get to the end of an Obama presidency, perhaps it will be called the "First Civil War."

  • Misery by Stephen King. Didn't own this one yet, and this is not a book club edition. Most of what you find at book fairs is.

  • Shots Fired In Anger, a book about a couple island battles in the Pacific in WWII.

  • The Case for Extinction, a contrarian work that takes on the conservation movement. You can tell it's dated because it talks about conservation.

  • Man and his symbols by Carl Jung. I have so much Jung I haven't read. Certainly that means something.

  • AD&D Second Edition Player's Guide to the Dragonlance Campaign. Brother, if you see a D&D sourcebook at a Catholic church's book fair, take it, for that one is blessed.

  • How to Photograph Cats, Dogs, and Other Animals in case I decide to try harder with the digital camera.

  • Consumer Guide Mustang, a book about the pony car.

  • The Mighty 'MOX, a history book about KMOX radio.

  • The Home and Workshop Guide to Sharpening. This will come in handy in about 2010, after President Obama takes the guns away.

  • Modern Handloading, which will come in handy if a Democrat-controlled Congress only passes microstamping....Ah, forget it, even I'm getting tired of the election-goes-bad humor. If only I'd have bought fewer books, I could have made it through the list.

  • Kohlhoff on Guns by Kohlhoff.

  • The Next 50 Years in Space. Written 40 years ago. Let's see how much we have to make up in the next decade to do this guy proud. Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll only expect a couple space stations and trips to the moon by 2018.

  • Four Fugitive Slave Narratives.

  • Wizard by Ozzie Smith. For when I miss baseball, I guess.

  • Fatherhood by Bill Cosby. When I discover I already own it, it will make a good gift to that one guy I know who named his daughter after a Chicago Bears running back.

  • Tales from the Left Coast, another book about bad liberals.

  • Good Intentions by Ogden Nash. Sure, I already own it, but this one is blue.

  • Madame Bovary. Didn't have it previously. I don't think. Heck, I cannot see what I do own in here these days. Maybe I own a first edition in the original French. You know, I used to hate those used book stores with disarrayed piles of books blocking everything. Sadly, I'm patterning my office after that.

  • The World's Progress, a book about man's progress. It's an old book, obviously. If it had been written in the latter half of the 20th century, it would have told of the failures of the world.

  • Communism and the New Left, a 1970 U.S. News and World Report book. Let's see what they predicted for the 21st century based on it, hey?

  • Do As I Say, a book about celebrity liberals who don't walk the walk.

  • Scott's Quentin Dunward, Pope's The Rape of the Lock, and Milton's Comus, Lycidas, Etc., 100-year-old pocket editions of these classics. I think I own the same edition of the Pope book, but not in as good of condition.
The wife notes that she lost in the competition. Honey, it's not competition, it's compulsion.

The boys got a couple of books, too, and obviously, the one with vertical ambulatory capacity cannot wait.

So that's, what, 94 books for me? A year's worth of reading. Fifteen bucks. Good deal, except this means I need a $70,000 library addition on my house for the collection.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:22 PM   1 comments
Friday, October 03, 2008
 
Palin Debate Rally After Action Report
Last night, Gimlet, Froggie-Girl, Jack Straw, and a civilian attended the Palin debate watching party and rally at SLU's arena:

Hottest ticket it town


I drove down to the local state senator candidate's office, dragging two reluctant children including one who found a golf ball and decided to show his pitching arm in the office while I filled out personal information on attendees. No one collected the tickets at all.

Unlike the cool kids like Gateway Pundit, we didn't get to sit in the lower bowl or work the rope line. We sat upper deck amongst the plebes.

The Palin crowd
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There are the floor level people gathering before the debate.

The Palin MC
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Here, an MC whose name I didn't catch tries to rally the troops. Me, I remained unrallied, at least to the point of the chanting.

Palin debates on-screen
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We watched the debate on the big screens.
Biden debates
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Biden on the big screen. To be honest, I applauded at some things that Biden said. Unfortunately for Biden, it was when he said things like John McCain clubs baby seals, at which point I clapped loudly because I hate the little carbon emitters myself. On several of the points Biden made and I applauded, a lot of people in my section applauded as well. Others thought I was a Biden plant.

Country and western while we wait
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While we waited for Palin to arrive after the debate, a country and western singer entertained us with "God Bless the USA" and a couple of woman anthems. I set the odds at 3:7 that she'd sing "Gunpowder and Lead" by Miranda Lambert; I lost, but we did get a bit of "Independence Day" by Martina McBride, a different song about killing your man.

Some people say Obama cannot draw a mass crowd without a free concert. I have to admit the same holds true for Palin. I just came to see this singer. Whoever she was. I'm her biggest fan.

Palin arrives
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The Straight Talk Express pulls right into the arena. It looks to be burning oil. Jack Straw asks, "Do you think they pulled it right into the arena?" Oh, yeah. Secret Service preferred it that way.

Palin at the podium
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There she is. She spoke for a couple minutes, using a bit of the same things she said at the debate.

Palin on the rope line
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There she is, working the rope line. Might be shaking Gateway Pundit's hand there or something. Wait, hang on.

Palin on the rope line, highlighted
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That's her.

Final thoughts: Palin did really, really well. It's the largest rally that I've attended, and frankly, it weirds me out to see that many Republicans having fun in one place. Also, the whole political rally was very close to a hockey game atmosphere, although they weren't serving beer. They couldn't have served enough beer to keep up with the Joe Biden drinking game. Also, I have a serious case of camera envy. Jack Straw's camera took pictures such that you can actually see the people in them.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:56 AM   2 comments
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
 
Senate To Vote On Higher Health Care Costs
A rising bailout bill raises all boats:
    The Senate substitute now runs over 450 pages. And tucked away in the tax provisions is a landmark health care provision demanding that insurance companies provide coverage for mental health treatment—such as hospitalization—on parity with physical illnesses.

    Really a bill onto itself, the mental health parity measure has been a bipartisan priority for top lawmakers in both chambers but has stalled because of disagreements again over how to pay for its estimated $3.8 billion five-year cost. In the current climate, that seems to be no longer a stumbling block, and if the Treasury plan becomes law, it will also.
I'm just spitballing here, but won't imposing new services on insurance companies sort of make the insurance companies raise rates to cover them?

Leading to a din about the higher costs of health care, leading to more shrieks for government to do something, such as national health care plan?

Geez Louise, it's almost like that was "our" legislators' goal or something.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:20 PM   0 comments
 
If Vladimir Putin Says You're Controlling The Economy Wrong, Keep Doing It That Way
Vladimir Putin lashes US for economic failures:
    The Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin lashed out at the United States today for what he said was its inability to deal with the financial crisis affecting the global economy.

    In remarks unlikely to go down well in Washington, Mr Putin was especially critical of Congress's rejection of a $700 billion bank bailout – a rejection that hit Russian financial markets particularly hard.

    "Everything that is happening in the economic and financial sphere has started in the United States. This is a real crisis that all of us are facing," the former president told a government meeting in Moscow.

    "And what is really sad is that we see an inability to take appropriate decisions. This is no longer irresponsibility on the part of some individuals, but irresponsibility of the whole system, which as you know had pretensions to (global) leadership."
Sadly, Putin cannot vote for Obama this year.

Ha, just kidding! Thanks to the tireless efforts of ACORN, Mr. Putin will vote for Obama six times in Columbus, Ohio, alone.

(Link seen on The Other Side of Kim.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:33 PM   0 comments
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."