Musings from Brian J. Noggle

I’ve started a new blog called Missouri Insight to cover Missouri people, places, books, politics, and government.

Go check it out if you’re so inclined.

Tonight’s referrer list:

Here’s the photo they’re looking for:

Originally posted Sunday, October 12, 2003.

Yesterday, Instapundit linked to someone doing a takedown of someone tut-tutting Heinlein.

I read it and scanned the comments and something leapt out at me:

triticale says:
6/26/2005 at 8:45 pm

I happen to be reading “Tramp Royal” at the moment; Heinlein’s memoirs of a trip around the world by cargo liner which he and Ticky (as he consistantly calls his wife) took in 1954. His travels unquestionably made him more worldly. Even today I doubt the average reader of “Outside” magazine has made it to Tristan de Cunha or the black market currency exchange of Djakarta.

One interesting quote – when discussing the effect of cultural differences on their dealings with a customs inspector (Ticky pulled a dumb stunt later echoed by Podkayne’s brother), he speaks of being a “stranger in a strange land” which would be a pretty good title for a science fiction story.

The name leapt out at me: Triticale gave me the Commodore 128 I currently have and a box of miscellaneous computer stuff that he cleaned out of his garage five years ago. I didn’t meet him in person, as he was in the Milwaukee area and I was not, but I got the stuff through an intermediary (my brother, briefly a blogger himself in 2005).

Triticale’s name leapt out at me because he passed away four years ago.

Instapundit’s been doing these archive posts of his lately, but this one didn’t mention it was going to the archives. Instead, it just sort of sucked me back.

How long have we been here, gentlemen?

Advice to Trog: If you really want to make Danica Patrick, log into your Go Daddy account.

Here, on the home page, she’s slightly amused with you:

Then, after you log in, she smiles more broadly, as though you’d done something clever:

Take note, Trog.

For McGehee, who apparently has nothing better to do than to research children’s toys on Wikipedia and got this related commercial jingle stuck in my head:

(Spotted in Dustbury’s comments vis-à-vis this meme.)

I don’t care who you are or where you’re from, but if you’re from Wisconsin, you idolize Vince Lombardi, or you’re a heretic.

Followed closely by:

He coached the Green Bay Packers, the small-market blue collar National Football League (fútbol norteamericano, not soccer, you international readers) and led them to something like 14 annual championships in 8 years. He was that good.

Both from my other review of Run To Daylight, entitled "Management Lessons from Vince Lombardi".

Hey, shoot me your APO or FPO address and get a free copy of my novel John Donnelly’s Gold.

stlbrianjathotmaildotcom.

New at Found Bookmarks: Recovery at Texas City! Article Reprint.

I’ve been kicking around the idea of starting a blog dedicated to the objects I find in books as bookmarks used by the previous owners, where I can muse on what the objects might mean. Some of them will be very curious, as they’ve laid dormant in books for decades.

I’ve started it, sort of. The first post is Kansas City Royals Ticket Stub. It is not as quaint as some of the other things I’ve found, but it’s a start.

If I’m not on the first page for Google results for Firefly Hands of Dillon-Blue Christmas?

I mean, I get a lot of hits for this Dillon-Blue Christmas ad, and I get a lot of hits for this Hands of Blue post.

Is it too much to ask that Skynet Google recognize my efforts?

No, this is all about the Wilsons.

Wilsons, of course, refers to the $100,000 bill, which briefly depicted Woodrow Wilson.

“Vonnegut-sniffing dogs.” Read about it at 24th State.

I thought I’d coined a phrase yesterday, “the fêted swamp of Washington, D.C.“, but it turns out I found (via Google) that others before me had turned that particular intersection-of-Lovecraft-and-French phrase before.

Over at Legal Insurrection, Prof. Jacobson posts a bumper sticker spotted at my local Walmart.

It’s strange to find I’m not the only one in Greene County who reads his blog.

Then: “Play ‘Free Bird’!”
Now: “Play Angry Birds!”

A correspondent of Jerry Pournelle and Instapundit have read Larry Niven’s Ringworld books and have noticed the resemblance of the president to the Hindmost.

Independently riffing off of the Krauthammer column. Remember, I called him the Hindmost in February, before the Krauthammer column.

I am clever. LOOK AT ME!

Nothing new here so far today, but I did post some of my usual anti-taxing district boilerplate at 24th State.

So if you need some Noggle, there you go.

Also, you are freed from your duty to absquatulate with my radio on Monday. Thank you, that is all.

Behold, I have begun video blog posts for QA Hates You.

That was more fun putting together than another blog post about how our government, abetted by a random collection of 50.005% of voter turnout on winter and spring ballot dates, are continuing to crush individual citizens.

April 5 does mark the fifth anniversary of Musings from Brian J. Noggle.

Thanks for reading.

I don’t know why Andrew Hicks’s name popped into my mind tonight. But there it was.

Back in the late 1997s, I encountered his “A Year in the Life of a Nerd” series of posts where he talked about being a teenager in a western St. Louis suburb and then going to Mizzou. As fast as a 14,400 BPS modem and an AOL account would let me, I ran through the whole set to that point.

So once his name popped into my head, I did an Internet search, and lo! The Andrew Hicks World Wide Web Extravaganza, those years in the life of a nerd, have been republished as a blog, by a fan no less. Frankly, I don’t think any of you would do the same for me.

Meanwhile, now over 30, Andrew Hicks is a daddy blogger in Springfield…. Illinois.

Actually, it’s a Christmas redirect.  Here’s a link to a short story entitled “Die Hard MDCXCII: Die Really, Really, REALLY Hard” that I originally posted 6 years ago, which is approximately 49 in Internet years.

The story is from 1990 and represents some obvious wish fulfillment. But the guys at the grocery store where I worked and that is depicted therein thought it was a hoot. Hopefully, you’ll be slightly amused in places, too.