Month: July 2003

Coastal Marketing Types Can’t Be Wrong!

Brian J. Noggle

Looky here, according to iWon, network executives have realized that current television speaks mostly to the cosmopolitanly-inbred coastal types, that there are people with televisions in the hinterlands of America, and that The America Channel will attract Joe Working Man.

They say:

A new cable channel aimed at showing real American life between the East and West coasts is planned for launch next year, its top executive said.

“We think that Middle America has fantastic stories to tell, and we’re going to go out there and get them,” said Doron Gorshein, chairman and chief executive officer of The America Channel.

The channel, to be formally announced Monday, is aimed at filling a void created by television’s tendency to focus on life in New York and Los Angeles, Gorshein said.

I wouldn’t be so cynical if the channel were based in Chicago, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Des Moines, Lincoln, Wichita, or any of the other cities, yes, cities in the middle of America. However, this story’s dateline is Los Angeles, so I can only assume it’s going to be twenty-four hours, seven days a week of what cosmopolitanly-inbred coastal types think life is like in the rest of the country.

Sorry, bud, you have no road cred.

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Someone Start a James Lileks Beer Fund, Stat!

Brian J. Noggle

In today’s The Bleat, James Lileks admits:

I’ve lost a few pounds this summer, mostly because I cut out beer, and a few hours of grunting and strewing couldn’t hurt. [Emphasis mine.]

Lileks is too proud to admit it, but he might have cut out beer because Mrs. Lileks has lost her job, and good beer, such as Guinness Draught, costs almost an hour’s worth of “living wage” per six pack. Although a “Work Ten Minutes, Get A Beer” salary program sounds good to me, come to think of it.

Quick, someone set up a beer fund to help keep Mr. Lileks in the choicest of beers, and hurry, before he becomes emaciated.

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Heather’s Innocence Exposed

Brian J. Noggle

So my beautiful wife Heather picked up a copy of The Healthy Planet: Your Source for Environmental, Health [sic] & Natural Living News as we were leaving her weekend hangout The Touring Cyclist. After a couple of minutes perusing its contents, my sweet light, unversed in the grim ways of politics and whack jobs, exclaims that the writers and editors of this publication are quite to the left of political center!

Isn’t she cute?

Of course, she then challenged me why I stereotyped people who eat healthy and care about the animals as left wing whack jobs and people who eat meat and potatoes, sometimes at all three meals, as right wing whack jobs. I didn’t really have a logical answer; most of my stereotyping relies on ancedotal evidence and statistical inference.

Aren’t I cute?

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Erica Jong, Grown Up At Last?

Brian J. Noggle

Professor Reynolds links to this story by Erica Jong wherein Ms. Jong dispenses some advice for married people and their sex lives. Unlike her books, this article seems to present the idea of preserving a marriage.

I guess I shouldn’t be so quick to generalize. I’ve only read How to Save Your Own Life (the sequel to Fear of Flying), and since I was not a neurotic, repressed adultress-waiting-to-happen, I didn’t feel empowered by it.

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Real or Memorex?

Brian J. Noggle

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, conspirator Randy Barnett has an interesting musing on young tribute bands. He wonders, who really reflects the true nature of the songs: tribute bands who are the same age as the band they cover when that band was popular, or the Band, which by now contains replacement members and old men?

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Forget Freddy Versus Jason

Brian J. Noggle

If you want to get me into a movie theater to see a match between two tough guys, let’s see:


Michael Ironside (V: The Final Battle, Total Recall, Starship Troopers)
Vs.
Tommy Lee Jones (Under Siege, The Fugitive, Men in Black)


It would be a tough call to determine who would survive or win such a head-to-head , but don’t forget Tommy Lee Jones did radio ads for Albert Gore in 2000, whereas Michael Ironside once starred in a movie with Arnold Schwarzengovernor. Advantage: Ironside!

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Independence Day Round-Up

Brian J. Noggle

Good morning, and happy Independence Day to you all. I won’t say Happy Fourth of July because it’s not the date stamp that’s important today, it’s that it’s the day upon which our forefathers declared independence from a monarchy.

Some other bloggers have written some well thought-out tributes to the nation, so I’ll link to them in lieu of writing my own.

  • Kim du Toit tells how the new European constitution differs from the United States’, and how that’s bad. Sure, the Consitution came several years later than the Declaration, but these two documents have worked hand in hand to ensure the United States endures.

    (Off topic rhetorical question: Were the years between the Revolutionary War and the Constitution a quagmire?)

  • Kim du Toit also talks about coming to America as an immigrant. He chose to come here. Me, I was born here by sheer dumb luck.
  • Kim du Toit points to this year-old column by Eugene Volokh (of the Volokh Conspiracy) on National Review Online. Like du Toit, Volokh is an immigrant; his parents brought him to the United States when he was a young man. Volokh talks about his parents’ courage in coming to a new land, unknown to a family from the USSR, but that their leap of faith paid off as
    we Americans could have guessed it would.

  • Jared Myers has a set of posts that include the President’s message to the nation this morning and the Democrat Party’s patholetic (pathologically pathetic) response. Start at the linked entry and read ’em all.
  • Emperor Misha (another naturalized citizen) has asked, Explain just WHY you feel that this nation is the freest nation in the world and just what it is that makes it so. Many of the loyal readers of the Anti-Idotarian Rottweiler have.

So breeze through these while you’re having your morning coffee, but don’t spend your whole day on it; instead, I insistyou celebrate the day, the country, and your families and friends.

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Attention, Generation X Worktime Slackers

Brian J. Noggle

Hey, for those of you struggling through the last day at work (Thursday) before the long holiday (Independence Day) weekend, don’t forget to squander some time at ClassicGaming.com.

Personally, I am reading up on the Metroid database so I can communicate effectively with my esteemed spouse who has been communing with Samus Aran on her Super Nintendo recently.

By “reading up,” boss, I want to clarify I meant “reading up last night, not during core work hours.”

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Ask a Stupid Question

Brian J. Noggle

Business 2.0 (who has helpfully decided sometime today to put much of its content behind a subscription, thanks, guys) has a brief (briefer now with everything but the lead hidden away, thanks, guys) piece on trick interview questions.

The article, and the lead (which you can yet see) describes them as “sadistic” and “puzzling” attempts to see how the interviewee fares with “sadistic” and “tricky” and potentially “unanswerable” questions, because obviously that’s the nature of the corporate environment.

As a service to my readers, I have put together this handy list of answers you can use in case the sadistic HR nutbar whips this out (the technical interview guys would never entertain such a fad, right?):

Question: Why are manhole covers round?

    Because the manholes are round.

Question: Why are Coke cans tapered?

    Before you answer this, challenge the interviewer to prove they are, in fact, tapered.

    Bonus alternate answer: To use the mystical powers of the pyramid to preserve the soda’s tooth-dissolving power.

Question: How would you weigh the world’s fattest man without using a scale?

    You cannot. The definition of weigh implies putting on a scale to determine the impact of gravity on an object.

    Bonus alternate answer: “I wouldn’t.”

Question: How many tennis balls are in the air in New Zealand right now?

    New Zealand is 15.5 hours ahead of the United States. Odds are, none right now unless they’ve started middle-of-the-night tennis leagues.

    Bonus alternate answer: 1,472 American tennis balls (2,447.62 New Zealand tennis balls). Answer right away, and let the interviewer prove differently.

These answers will prove to your interviewer that you’re decisive when it comes to selecting a plausible lie, which is only reinforcing the impression he or she has gotten from your resume and the interview this far.

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We Gave Up On Cable Too Early

Brian J. Noggle

I dropped off our digital cable box on Monday (and then dropped off, reluctantly, the remote Monday afternoon) after my beautiful wife and I determined the cost of “content” piped to a television most likely turned off exceeded our complete monthly electricity bill. We decided we could do without television and digital commercialless music. We might have thought too soon.

We made that rash decision before Rascall Flatts decided they would put nudity in their next video and before Country Music Television (CMT) decided they would play it.

If only I had known you could see naked people on cable television! Having the ability to see the human form–well, okay, the female form– on cable television any time I want is worth $1100 a year!

(Thanks to Fark for the pointer.)

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More Moderation! Same Low Price!

Brian J. Noggle


As soon as Kraft announced its plans to help fight obesity by cutting its portion sizes, I immediately knew the fat it was trying to cut was on its bottom line.

I’m not alone; as soon as I got to work and started streaming Weber and Dolan, Jay Weber lit into it. Other sources throughout the day, including blogs and radio personalities, quickly identified the move as designed to improve fiscal fitness more than physical fitness. Altruism? Not from Altria.

Instead of truly promoting the Aristotlean diet, moderation in all things–well, except in moderation, Kraft merely wants to spin and soak its for-profit maneuver in the “you attitude” that business writing professors everywhere encourage undergrads. Now, it’s in a bind. Because everyone has seen through the gesture, Kraft might just have to lower prices for smaller portions (but the same size box!), or face a consumer revolt, unless we as consumers forg—

Hey, look! A shiny object!

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Where’s the Problem?

Brian J. Noggle

I think Democrat House Representative Jerry Kleczka, of Milwaukee, was trying to lash out against those tax-cutting Republicans in Congress when he kleczkavetched to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

“There’s a conscious decision here to just destroy the revenue base of this country,” said Kleczka, a Milwaukee Democrat. “They’re starving the Treasury.”

Starving the Treasury? Not spending money that the government does not have? Is this a problem or good governance?

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