Author: Brian J. Noggle

Further Adventures in Pseudo Bachelorhood II

Brian J. Noggle

DVD #1: Angel and the Badman starring John Wayne.

Okay, so there’s a guy with a checkered background and a hot Quaker babe. Why is it that all of these movies I watch when Heather’s away remind me of her? Except she’s not a Quaker, she’s more an Unreal Tournamenter. But that’s beside the point.

Also, what’s with the GFW final scene of the pic, where the marshal says that only the man who carries a gun needs one? The headlines are full of people who could have used guns but didn’t have them. Damn the person who wrote this flick, I hope the HUAC got him blacklisted.

Well, I exaggerate. But that’s prone to happen at 0:14 am.

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Other Things I Remember

Brian J. Noggle

Here are some things that I can actually remember, and it makes me feel old:

  • Party lines.
    No, not dollar per minute means to talk to people in your area, free means to be unable to use the phone because your neighbor won’t get off the phone. I kid you not, certain parts of Jefferson County, Missouri, had them until 1987. On the other hand, since my neighbors were probably listening in on my phone calls for the latest intelligence about my household (and were always available to offer their unwanted commentary on it–kinda like blogs), I learned to speak in code on the phone which helped me when I became a technical writer–and wrote in technospeak to confuse the person who was catching an unwanted glimpse of how the software worked through my documentation!

  • Television tube testers in drug stores.
    Back in the early 1980s, they still had these. I remember seeing them when my mother would send me to the store with a buck and a note for the clerk to sell the nice ten year old boy a pack of cigarettes. Undoubtedly, only the government’s belated intervention that made such errands punishable by the drug store’s death have kept me from smoking even though my mother persists in shortening her lifespan.

    But kids today won’t remember a time when the man of the house would pull out a screwdriver when the television went on the fritz (things never go on the fritz nowadays, either; they gon in the trash) and would hunt for a suspect tube. When he found one, he could take it to the 7-11 to check to see if it was working or not and could buy another tube to fix his own television. Kinda like we geeks persist in doing with our computers. But our children won’t be able to operate on the miniaturized bucky-ball spinning computers of tomorrow. So enjoy the pre-retro chic that we have now, I guess.

  • Snow on televisions.
    Speaking of televisions, you remember what snow looked like? Remember how you would adjust the antenna to fix it? Remember the first television you could put on an interior wall of your home because the antenna was strong enough? The television was 19″, and it seemed huge.

  • Television dinners with aluminum foil trays.
    Not that I eat many television dinners these days, but I know they’re designed for microwaves now because more people probably have microwaves than ovens. You could take the trays, rinsed out of course, to the recycling facility with your aluminum cans.

  • Yugos.
    Cheap little cars from an Eastern Bloc country. A country that no longer exists, in a bloc that no longer exists. Kinda like a communist Gremlin or Pinto, but at least the American punchline cars had longevity.

  • PCjr
    Okay, I don’t remember much since my rich uncle got one and wouldn’t let me touch it, but it was a home computer, and it had a color screen.

  • Rotary phones.
    When I was in college in 1990, I needed a touchtone phone to handle the interactive voice response for class registration. I had to buy the first touchtone phone in my father’s house and I had to pay a monthly surcharge on the phone bill for the privilege. Come to think of it, I am probably still paying for it somewhere.

  • Ghetto blasters.
    Remember dudes with Afros walking through the projects with large radios on their shoulders? You damn kid, never realizing that the iPod was not the first personal musical device. Although, come to think of it, the iPod is personal, whereas the ghettoblaster was not.

Well, it’s not the Beloit College Mindset List for Incoming Freshmen, but it’s enough to make me want to swizzle the Geritol given to me as a joke–I think–for my last *0 birthday.

Perhaps I shall swizzle more beer instead.

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Book Review: On the Run by John D. MacDonald (1963)

Brian J. Noggle

When I was in Milwaukee in October, I visited Downtown Books and bought a number of John D. MacDonald paperbacks, including this one, immediately after I read Judge Me Not. Well, okay, it was the next morning, but I plunked down $1.95 each for five of them.

On the Run runs long at 144 pages, but the title page indicates it was based on a story published in Cosmopolitan. A lot of the filler material includes long passages of declarations of love between the protagonists and a lot of early 1960s I’m OK, You’re OKism. Also, orgasms for women are good, and women who want them are not too much for a man to handle, they’re just right.

The premise, or at least the tease on the back cover, is that a man on the run from the mob is startled to find a beautiful woman who claims to represent his unremembered rich grandfather who wants to find his estranged grandchildren before he dies. The Man On The Run (MOTR) thinks it’s a scam, but he soon falls for the Cosmobabble of the liberated woman, who happens to be the rich grandfather’s nurse.

The book represents the worst pacing I have ever seen in a John D. MacDonald book, and I really hope he chalked this one up as an experimentation in style and a departure because he wanted to grow as an artist. However, at its slight weight, it’s interesting enough to follow to its conclusion, one of the darkest I have ever seen in a John D. MacDonald book–although the dark ending matches the beginning of The Green Ripper.

Well, sorry, MacDonald fans for blowing it for you.

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Is That An Order?

Brian J. Noggle

My wife said to me last night, “Honey?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Never mind,” she commanded.

Which puts me in quite the logical bind. The next time she tells me to do something and I don’t do it, she’ll be angry, but I am only following orders. Of course, if I do the next thing she tells me, I am also not minding.

Just to be safe, I think I shall sit in the recliner and pretend I didn’t hear.

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Everyone Needs a Hobby

Brian J. Noggle

In this story, entitled “Rogue pilot ruffles feathers on migration“, we discover that some people do their part to improve the world by flying planes to lead migrating cranes south for the winter.

And sometimes those crazy calhouns get upset:

As a pilot, crane impersonator and chief executive officer of Operation Migration – the whooping crane migration organization – Duff’s emotional well-being relies upon making sure his cranes are happy and healthy.

So when a rogue ultralight pilot recently sneaked up behind his craft and cranes – as the whoopers were migrating south over Illinois’ Lee and DeKalb counties – Duff’s mood darkened.

“For the most part, the ultralight community has been very respectful” about the crane project, he said. If they see Duff and his flying family coming, they get out of the way and land.

But this time, an unidentified pilot decided to come in for a closer look.

“I’d seen them ahead of me – maybe about a mile or so in front,” he said. There were two crafts, he said. And they moved off to the side.

Not long after that, he noticed that his birds were falling out of formation and trying to fly ahead of him.

At first, this didn’t ruffle him too much.

The cranes see Duff and his plane as their parent. And, like any kid, they’ll occasionally challenge their sire’s authority. When young cranes do this during migration, they fly ahead.

But this time, Duff said, the birds looked more frightened than sassy. That’s when he realized something was wrong.

He was being tailed.

Man, there’s so much snark to be had that I only have time to offer a sample:

  • In its white papers, Operation Migration probably describes itself as the leading migration organization which delivers value in a rapid-flight market or something. The migration organization.
  • In addition to oppressing women, killing dissidents, and funding terror, most Middle East societies probably don’t personally lead migratory birds to their winter (or wet season) habitats. Time to liberate some seedcrackers.
  • Dude’s wife, if he’s married, has probably resigned herself to marriage with an adulterer, whether that’s the case or not. Come on, “Honey, I’m going to fly the birds to Texas this week”? She’s probably even mad at him for not lying better.
  • The fellow, in addition to being the leading defender of cranes, is also the leading proponent of an annual season on ultralights.

Bah, that’s enough for now.

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Blasting Bush? Blasting Us

Brian J. Noggle

Drudge proclaims that UK PAPERS TRASH BUSH and displays the cover of the Daily Mirror, which features a headline How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB? (See it here.)

My friends, that’s not a blast at Bush. That’s a blast to those of us who voted for Bush, and indirectly a blast all of America.

Whether Americans who agree with the sentiment know it or not.

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Michael Moore, Depressed? Are You Kidding?

Brian J. Noggle

I’ve seen speculation on blogs this morning and heard it on the radio that Michael Moore must be depressed this morning. If you think so, you’re crazy.

Michael Moore has achieved greater infamy and fiscal success in the last four years of his ranting and raving (mostly raving) about George W. Bush. A John Kerry presidency would have proved limiting for Michael Moore’s “talents.” Fortunately, Michael Moore can continue now with the “work” that has proven so lucrative for him.

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Will Darren Sharper Testify?

Brian J. Noggle

If the maelstrom of lawsuits comes, will Green Bay Packer safety Darren Sharper testify, as an expert for the defense, upon the theft of an election that was a guaranteed Kerry victory based on the unrelated and certainly non-causual occurrence regarding the Redskins’ wins and losses preceding a presidential election?

If so, the Republicans should call Manny Ramirez to testify that 2004 is an outlier, wherein historical streaks come to an end.

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An Attack on Free Speech

Brian J. Noggle

I don’t know which is worse, the headline “Dutch filmmaker accused of ridiculing Islam slain“, with its passive voice implication that maybe he had it coming to him since he was, after all, accused of ridiculing Islam, or the first paragraph:

A controversial Dutch filmmaker accused by Muslims of ridiculing their religion was stabbed and shot dead in Amsterdam on Tuesday, shocking the Netherlands where the killing was denounced as an attack on free speech.

Pardon my Midwestern simplicity here, but I think that a more basic right was violated somewhere along the line. But to some people, the metaphor’s more important than the concrete, and the abstract more important than the specific, and you cannot suffer along with the oppressed dead guy if it’s just murder–but if it’s suppression of free speech, it’s just like Bush’s America!

(Link seen on Instapundit.)

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The Funniest Thing on the St. Louis County Ballot

Brian J. Noggle

Preposition A: Shall the St. Louis County Charter be amended so that any County assistance of value, whether direct or indirect, to development of a professional sports facility, requires prior to any assistance being given that the County Auditor first prepare a fiscal note and that the governing body proposing to take action to provide financial assistance hold a public hearing and that the financial assistance be approved by a majority of the qualified voters of the County voting thereon?

Jeez, in the last ten years, they’ve built or funded a new hockey/basketball arena, a football stadium, and a baseball stadium. This will pretty much eliminate a new professional dog racing track or perhaps an Olympic venue.

On the other hand, if this passes, it will be funny to see how the politicos in power deal with the trigger in the St. Louis Rams’ current lease that they can leave if the Edward Jones Dome falls out of the top ten facilities in the nation. Undoubtedly, the County and the city will find money to refurbish professional sports arenas without a pesky hearing.

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Michael Moore of Video Gaming

Brian J. Noggle

Spare us the enlightened citizens’ re-education through First Person Shooters. From the Entertainment Weekly profile of the forthcoming Halo 2:

Clearly, there are political and religious dimensions to Halo 2 that were absent from the first game. (“You could look at [the story] as a damning condemnation of the Bush administration’s adventure in the Middle East,” admits Staten.) Such provocative themes were bound to come under the scrutiny of Microsoft’s legal team. Even as the game was getting its final polish, lawyers forced Staten to change the name of an alien antagonist, arguing that it carried Muslim overtones. Staten objected. Nonetheless, some of the voice actors (who include Michelle Rodriguez, Ron Perlman, and Miguel Ferrer) were called back to rerecord dialogue only weeks before the final version was delivered.

My knee jerk reaction is to condemn it out of hand, but hey, he’s a storyteller, and he can tell the story he wants. We in the West allow people to express themselves and seek to better our own consciousnesses by understanding other cultures, even those completely at odds with our way of life.

Hey, that’s well and good. Just so we don’t forget that our culture affords tolerance and certain parts of ours does not, and our culture, though imperfect, is better than the peak of Islamicism and we defend it.

(Link seen on The Bleat, which is a daily column from some obscure Minnesotan newspaperman.)

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Your One Stop Paranoia Shop

Brian J. Noggle

Okay, so read this bit in Ann Althouse’s Dick Cheney’s Hawaiian visit:

5) Another very pretty girl whom I could only conclude was a Secret Service groupie. She came in and as I gave her a lei she held up her Bush Cheney sign and asked where she could get autographs from Secret Service guys. I pointed them out to her but told her I didn’t know if she’d have any luck. I saw her after the event and she had managed to get several!

So here’s the question from your shidoshi of paranoia:

    What can someone forge with a Secret Service agent’s signature?

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