Joe at Glorious Trash has posted Executioner Series Style Guide.
I’ve downloaded it; it’s 38 pages. Perhaps it will inspire me to get back to fiction writing regularly.
Curio
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Month: October 2021
Springfield Public Schools Continues To Crown Itself In Glory
A local lawmaker has made an official request for Springfield Public Schools to search three years worth of email and other documents for any reference to critical race theory and 21 other “trigger” words or phrases.
State Rep. Craig Fishel filed the far-reaching Sunshine Law request in early September. The district responded to provide the cost for searching, copying and redacting an untold number of public records.
The district requested a deposit of at least $170,000 to start searching different servers. The final cost, including any copying and redaction, was expected to be higher, although the exact amount was unknown.
Fishel, a Republican from Springfield, alleged the district used “worst case scenarios to inflate the cost of fulfilling the request,” according to a press release sent Sept. 28 by the Missouri House.
Remember, gentle reader, SPS was just sued by employees over equity training and revised its public comment policy at its school board meetings.
Nothing to see here, move along.
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And Here We Are
In the review for A Bend In The Road, a book of poetry put together by a nursing home operating company featuring poems by its residents, I said:
Man, I remember nursing homes in the 1980s. Two of my sainted mother’s aunts ended up in a couple of different facilities, and the facilities were as cold and efficient as hospitals but with less care. It depressed me to go visit those old ladies–I was young then, and impatient. Times have changed now, though; one local senior living facility has been running ads showing a tatted up, goateed and mohawked pierced grandpa with big headphones on taking a selfie. One expects the new facilities are more fun, but then again, the ones that advertise in 417 are probably the nicer ones anyway; one would probably find my relations in more traditional centers.
I went through several copies of 417 we had on hand to try to find the ad in question to share it with you, but I could not find the full page ad nor remember the name of the place to look for the ad online.
But I got the new issue of the local slick this weekend, and Turners Rock has reduced it to a quarter page, which trims it a bit, but you can see whom they expect to live in their senior living facilities:
I guess he doesn’t have a mohawk after all. And we can’t see piercings, but they’re definitely implied.
You know, I’m not far off of eligibility for senior living facilities, but I can’t see myself downsizing that much. I have too many books yet to read and too many records to fit into a small apartment, and I am used to playing my music as loud as I want. But fifty-something is not turning out to be adulthood and elderliness that I remember from when I was young. I cannot tell whether that’s because my perception has changed as I have aged or whether being older has changed. Probably both, and both to a large degree. But, truly, truly, I say to you, most of the metalheads I know these days need Advil after a concert, not so much for hangovers but for body aches.
In a related note, they’re building a lot of senior living around Springfield, giant complexes with hundreds of units. Theoretically, many of those seniors will be moving out of their homes and putting them on the market. And builders keep building lots and lots of new single family homes. Who is going to live there? The population has been holding steady. We haven’t been cranking out babies to warrant this much growth (we only did one for me and one for you but not one for the bishop). Are the powers that be planning for a population boom from somewhere else (abroad or aliens?), or are they merely pursuing a build-build-build strategy not unlike China’s which will lead to an eventual bubble bursting?
I dunno, but I’m not taking out any home equity loans based on valuation that says Nogglestead has almost doubled in worth since we’ve been here.
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Good Thing I Stocked Up
Oregon Muse at the Ace of Spades HQ Book Thread says used book prices are about to go through the roof:
Slow Books
Well, here’s something else we can thank Joe Biden and the pack of ignorant fools he has surrounded himself with: New books will be hard to come by for the rest of the year, due to their ill-conceived economic policies that completely messed with the supply chain. First toilet paper, then, lumber, and now books:
Publishers are warning sellers and consumers that supply chain issues have forced a major slowdown in book production and threaten a shortage of certain titles for the rest of the year. Supply chain problems have touched almost every aspect of book production, storage, and delivery, mostly as a result of Covid-related bottlenecks. Printer capacity issues plagued the publishing industry last year, too, though 2021 is expected to be worse.
Naturally, those of you who prefer printed books will be, as they way, hardest hit….
Not me, brother. I have thousands of books to choose from here at Nogglestead, more than I can read in a lifetime.
I’m just waiting for the federal government’s forthcoming Cash for Thunkers program, where you must trade in used books for cash, or maybe just copies of the latest “educational” material, and the black market of books leads to real price increases. And organized crime. Where you can go to Bidnetto’s Lending Library, but if you fail to return a book, let’s just say that it won’t be the Library Policeman that comes for you.
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Brian J.’s Recycler Tour Stops In Tibet
From October 2, 2021:
Brian J. Noggle got to lama-land, and there wasn’t a one man band at all. Just a bunch of bald guys in robes meditating. WTH?
C’mon, man, I don’t have to footnote that for you, do I? Aw, hell:
*
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Movie Report: Bachelor Party (1984)
I picked this film up recently at a garage sale or thrift store as I accumulate films on media because they’re about to disappear–I see that this film is not available on Amazon Prime in my location, perhaps because I’m in the buckle of the Bible belt.
The film comes from the era when Tom Hanks made silly comedies and Hollywood was trying to make Adrian Zmed a star. Hanks plays a guy who’s about to get married to a nice girl from a rich family (played by Tawny Kitaen, this character is sweet and it’s from before Kitaen became a full Vixen around the Whitesnake video era, as I recollect, but I was young then). Hanks is a bit of a slacker, a school bus driver for a Catholic school who is also a metal sculptor, but he doesn’t measure up to her parent’s standards–they prefer Cole, played by Robert Prescott (who would later play Kent in Real Genius, which I watched this spring). When he announces the engagement to his friends, they decide to throw Rick a bachelor party with hookers and booze. Rick promises his fiance that he will behave, but hijinks ensue as the women at the bridal shower go to a strip club and then dress like hookers to crash the bachelor party, but they end up mistaken for real prostitutes.
So the story has a lot of room for raunch, and there’s some nudity. Drug usage is not a big part of it, but they do bring in a donkey for sex at one point–although the relationship isn’t actually consummated.
Strangely enough, though, I found it less offensive than more modern comedies like Ted because the main characters demonstrate some mature care for one another, and Rick makes a promise and stays true to it in its fashion. and Or maybe I’m just partial to 80s movies. Rick doesn’t get the full he-grows-up-and-does-great-things redemption at the end–this isn’t a Michael J. Fox movie–but one wishes him well.
The film also has Michael Dudikoff in it, fairly fresh from his turn in the brief sitcom Star in the House, when he was playing silly, high-pitched comic characters before American Ninja turned him into a B-movie action star.
Overall, amusing in spots and certainly a cultural artifact of a more innocent time, where even the raunch was more innocent.
But, did someone say “Tawny Kitaen”?
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