To be able to say "Noggle," you first must be able to say "Nah."
As my former officemate and my wife can attest, I like my gum (loud).
Brother Lileks intones:
Gum has CARBS, you know. And carbs are from SATAN.
So now you know, but I have already corrupted you, too. Only eighteen more people, and I fulfill my contract. Twenty-eight more people and I earn my first incentive bonus.
Buy My Books!
So as I passed into Milwaukee, I spent some time musing upon my favorite suburbs there. I passed through Wauwautosa, an inner ring suburb and my favorite suburb of Milwaukee. Its homes are older, brick construction and are well-maintained. The flukish shape of Milwaukee, stretched oddly from the downtown to the Northwest in a sort of trapezoid, means that Wauwautosa is closer to downtown than the part of Milwaukee in which I spent more than a scattered third of my life. Its proximity to the city and its inclusion within the web of mass transit in Milwaukee County means that Wauwautosa is more reminiscent of a neighborhood than an individual municipality, but Tosans have a municipal government of their own, I think. Maybe they just think they do.
I compare it to the suburbs in the St. Louis area that I like. If you’re judging from criteria that include security/personal safety, brick construction/history/cohesiveness, and proximity to art, in St. Louis you can pick two of three sometimes, and maybe one in others. For example, Casinoport has, well, relative safety. Closer suburbs in St. Louis County like Webster Groves or Kirkwood have almost all three, but hey, I live to romanticize Milwaukee, so they’re no Wauwautosa, ainna?
By the way, if you’re insisting I round out the list, I prefer West Milwaukee and West Allis. Sorry, Owen, but those outer communities like Menomonie Falls, Brookfield, Franklin, and anywhere the Milwaukee County Transit System cannot take me in forty minutes of bus riding with one transfer don’t make the list.
Buy My Books!
As you might have noticed, gentle readers, I have not posted in a while. I spent a luxurious weekend in my favorite travel destination, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I celebrated my birthday by helping yet another friend move. It’s not that I have a lot of friends in Wisconsin, it’s that they move around frequently.
It wasn’t all hard work; I got to spend a couple nights at the beautiful Hyatt Regency, enjoying the skyline from the 17th floor because I specifically requested a low floor. I felt somewhat cosmopolitan in my hotel room, with my laptop, writing blog entries and whatnot. The Hyatt offers wireless Internet access in all of its rooms now, a plastic placard let me know. Swell. So how come you’re getting this dump now, instead of as it happened on Friday and Saturday?
Because my laptop is an IBM ThinkPad. You know how new ThinkPads have numbers after them? My laptop does not; it’s an original ThinkPad. Its carbon-dating establishes its origin circa 1993. It runs Windows 3.11, but it has almost 20 Mb free on the hard drive of the original 40.
I fail as a TruGeek(tm) because I don’t need the latest in equipment. After I reset the date and time (or not) to workaround a dead CMOS, I can type text into my laptop’s Wordpad using a microscopic keyboard. That’s why I bring the laptop around, in case I get inspired to start on yet another unfinished but promising novel concept. It’s a typewriter in which I can cut and paste, and from which I can import the result into a real word processor on my main PC through the world’s last 3.5″ floppy disk. Plus, it can play one or two really slick games I downloaded from BBSes while I was in college.
I don’t need a tablet PC or a new AMD 2000+ laptop with 20″ screen. I paid an extra $40 in 1997 for a used notebook with a color monitor, for crying out loud. I don’t have a Personal Data Assistant, and I don’t even use the free magazine giveaway electronic addressbook to organize the dozen phone numbers of my friends or the two dozen names on my Christmas card list. iPods? I can whistle off-key for free, you damn kids!
So, did you miss me? Is that why you’re reloading?
Buy My Books!
I saw a teaser for this woman on Effed Company, wherein it said:
Dudes, I married a hot chick because she had a cat named John Galt.
And she’s not even read, to the best of my knowledge, the The Early Ayn Rand.
Wait a minute. This woman is indicating that she read, in 31 days max:
Never mind, Objectivist bachelor straight friends and readers. She’s either prone to exaggeration, an outright liar, or a layabout who does nothing but read all day. You don’t need that.
Buy My Books!
From the Financial Times story describing the coming yawn search engine conflict:
Yahoo on Wednesday raised the stakes in the internet search wars as it abandoned Google in favour of using an in-house search engine on its own web sites.
With Microsoft waiting in the wings to launch a rival technology of its own, the move sets up a three-way struggle that will challenge Google’s recent dominance of internet searching.
The coming battle reflects the emergence of search as the internet’s “killer application” since the rise of Google. With more people using a search engine as the starting point whenever they go online, whether to find information or products to buy, control of search has become central to the ambitions of all three companies.
Spare me. When was the last time you used the search feature in Windows? Come on, you know how to do it. Select Start > Search…. or press the Windows key and F. What, don’t use it much, if at all? Searching the Internet is a supplemental technology at best. I don’t know of many people who have Google as their starting point, nor any search engine. Personally, I don’t use a toolbar for searches and I ignore whenever Internet Explorer wants to search for me.
As people become more mature and Internet-aware, search engines will fall by the wayside. When I’m on the Internet, I tend to know where I want to go, and if I use a search engine, I use it to find content, not its paid advertisers.
Sorry, Uncas Ray, John, and Vinod.
(Link seen on Outside the Beltway.)
Buy My Books!
Even if you’re not a small time collector like me, you might be interested in reading this lengthy state of the industry piece about what the history and future held and hold for the arcade machine operators.
I’ve dreamed of opening an old-style arcade. Of course, I’ll have to become rich first to have money to lose on it as a hobby.
(Link seen on /.)
Buy My Books!
In a post on Electric Venom, Jim of Snooze Button Dreams comes out of the closet:
And no, this is not an “I have a friend with a problem” thing, it really was my cousin. I’m in QA – I don’t have to deal with people outside of the company.
Shout it loudly, shout it proudly:
Note: This is not a dig at everyone else in IT; it’s okay to be a developer, too. There’s nothing of which to be ashamed. Some of my best friends are developers. Or were, anyway, until they read this note.
Buy My Books!
Buy My Books!
In today’s Washington Post, deep thinker John Handey Doug Henning Don Henley uncaps his fountain pen to decry the state of the music industry today.
To recap his wisdom:
Actually, I am not really sure what his wisdom is, much like he surely doesn’t understand how capitalism works. What the audience wants, someone will sell them, and the music industry is evolving beyond the traditional channels.
Others weigh in:
Buy My Books!
I realize it’s probably the journalist adding drama to (that is, creating whole) an anecdote, but the lead from this SFGate story doesn’t portray the bastions of public safety in too good of a light:
Washington — Sitting at his home in Virginia Beach, Va., Joe Yuhasz almost reached for his wallet when an e-mail message popped into his inbox and told him America Online needed to verify his credit card information.
The site linked to the e-mail looked identical to AOL’s billing center, until Yuhasz noticed the domain name was a fake — a scam commonly known as phishing.
Almost reached for his wallet? Cheese, Louise, even my dear aunt knows better than that.
Maybe it’s part of a far-ranging ploy to lull the cyberbadguys into a false sense of superiority.
Buy My Books!
The Sophorist links to a person who links to a story about Missouri state government offering taxpayers the opportunities to add money to their taxes for common programs:
If passed, this fund would allow ordinary citizens and every special interest in the state to contribute additional tax dollars to their favorite cause, program, or policy. It would afford the average hard working taxpayers the luxury of avoiding to pay higher taxes in these difficult times, but permit all those people and interests who believe state government should be bigger and should allocate more resources to contribute generously.
On the whole, I think it’s a good idea, but I would hate to think of how much “Give Us Money” advertising the programs would spend the extra money on.
Were the programs to receive enough funding through the opt-in tax payment plan, I suspect that the state government would start reallocating that percentage of the program’s original funding to other, newer, and more profligate programs.
Buy My Books!
Today’s poster child for poor use of government funds: St. Clair County, Illinois, spends $500,000 to promote the only airline flying into MidAmerica Airport. An airport built with public funds an hour outside of St. Louis that had no airlines coming in when it was built. And now that Great Plains is broke, despite $500,000 of tax-paid promotion, MidAmerica Airport again sits idle, except for the tax-paid employees wandering around with nothing to do.
Which brings me to what might be the most blatantly bad waste of tax money. Advertising of any sort, for any reason. Particularly to promote private enterprises.
Whether it’s half a million to Fleishmann-Hillard to line the pockets of the influence industry in St. Louis or it’s a half percent tax here in Casinoport on hotel rooms to promote tourism–the government has no business redistributing wealth from its citizens to already affluent sectors. The government might claim it’s out to make the community better, but it means by community its tax base, and wasting tax money on advertising is only one more symptom of an organic government that exists to consume and grow, not to serve its citizens.
Buy My Books!
This Chicago Tribune story (registration required) discusses the Ohio highway sniper and the journalists hazards a guess why the wires aren’t picking up her story and why she’s not been making the rounds of cable news outlets:
The shootings remind a lot of people of 2002’s sniper attacks in the suburbs around Washington, D.C., which left 10 people dead before two men were arrested and charged with the killings.
The Ohio sniper case has garnered what appears to be less publicity, perhaps because only one person has died.
Perhaps. But some of us (which means “Brian J. Noggle”) in the middle of the country with a chip on the shoulder (not a cow chip, heinzenjohnkers) suspect it’s not garnering much media attention because it’s the middle of the country. Were someone to squeeze off a few rounds over the course of a year on the Beltway, that person would get a lot of attention, even if he or she were not shooting to kill.
Because the important people would be in danger. Not mere citizens. The super-citizens who work for the influence industry or the government.
Buy My Books!
James Lileks, in his column in the Star Tribune, muses on a modern art exhibit:
Headline in last week’s paper: “Walker’s attendance falls by 30%; Official blames 9/11 for decline in tourism.”
I have a theory, and I’ll admit it might be controversial: It’s possible that no one wanted to see the exhibits.”
and offers his grand unified theory:
Well, you say, you just don’t like modern art. Not true. I hate modern art. No, that’s not right, either. I may be a philistine, but I am a learned one. I have a complex and nuanced response to modern art, be it the rigors of De Stijl, the furious assertions of Abstract Expressionism, the romantic angularity of Lionel Feininger, the anguished gashes of Clifford Still, the whimsical recontextualizations of Lichtenstein and other Pop Art painters; I understand the challenges that Action Painting made to the outmoded bourgeoise notions nurtured in the dusty attics of the beaux-arts mind-set, and I appreciate the connection between surrealism and post World War I disenchantment with rationality, why Dali was a bit of a poser, why Klee makes us nervous, why Bacon horrifies, and Beckmann can best be understood in the climate of Weimar. All this I know. And my opinion is simple: Eh. If it’s not ugly, it’s banal. If it’s not banal, it’s pretentious. If it’s not either, it’s pointless. Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it’s great. (Like Feininger.) But in general:
Eh.
If you’re not cyber-stalking Lileks’ writings and reading the Back Fence (his column in the Star Tribune and his weekly Newhouse News syndicated column, you’re pathetic. I mean, you’re missing out on quality writing. I didn’t say pathetic.
Buy My Books!
Missouri Governor B. Holden announces a student loan forgiveness program for those who study life sciences and work in Missouri.
Why do I dare mock such a proposal? I mean, other than mockery is my first language?
This is a growth industry in our state, and it is an area that attracts the high wage jobs that we need in Missouri,” Holden said.
Because the johnking schnuck is going to forgive student loans for people who graduate college and then get high paying jobs in the state of Missouri. Because B. Holden thinks that eligible employees bring jobs to a state. Here’s a free clue, B. Holden: cheap labor brings jobs to a state, not a bunch of kids with college degrees and expectations of high pay. I guess that’s where you step in to offer other taxpayer-funded corporate welfare “incentives” to companies who would employ the graduates for whom taxpayers paid.
Instead of kids who can walk out of college into high-paying jobs, guvnor, how about some tax relief for the following:
Those poor souls out there who went to college to better themselves but refuse to submit to cubicle, or laboratory, existence deserve more sympathy than fraggles who went to school and walked out of school into any job over twenty thousand dollars a year.
None of them, of course, deserve my fortuitously-earned tax dollars, though, but that sympathy’s better than your tax cut for the future rich you’re disguising as a program for the children.
Buy My Books!
Here’s an organization worth investigating: The Dollywood (yes, Dolly Parton) Foundation’s Imagination Library.
From the “About Us” page:
This program is one of the most important ways I know to improve the educational opportunities for children in your community.
When I was growing up in the hills of East Tennessee, I knew my dreams would come true. I know there are children in your community with their own dreams. They dream of becoming a doctor or an inventor or a minister. Who knows, maybe there is a little girl whose dream is to be a writer and singer.
The seeds of these dreams are often found in books and the seeds you help plant in your community can grow across the world.
I hope you’ll agree to become a champion of the Imagination Library in your community. You will be amazed at the impact this simple gift can have on the lives of children and their families. We have seen it work in our own backyard and I’m certain it can do the same in your community, too.
Here’s what the organization does:
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is all about inspiration and imagination. It was developed in 1995 by Dolly for her hometown of Sevier County, Tennessee. Dolly wanted every preschool child to have their own library of books. The effort received numerous awards and extraordinary media attention which generated interest from across the country. After much thought, Dolly decided to offer her Imagination Library for replication in any community that would support it.
Each month, from the day the child is born until his/her 5th birthday, a carefully selected book arrives at the mailbox. Kids across the country have shared the excitement of running to the mailbox to retrieve their book. More often than not, the child wants the book read to them now – not later, not tonight and not tomorrow. Right now!
As an attempted author, I can think of no better goal than to increase future readers. For the children!
Buy My Books!
The Meatriarchy Guy, who’s Canadian (not that there’s anything wrong with that), has some ideas about how to improve hockey:
1 Eliminate the two line pass offside. This really is the only change you have to make.
2 On a penalty kill the short-handed team can no longer ice the puck.
3 A player has to serve the full two minute penalty even if his team is scored upon.
4 Move the nets back to their original location (they are talking about doing this)
5 Impose a weight tax on teams so that they pay extra if they draft big dumb slow players – the Leafs gave up a perfectly good defensemen Jason Smith and tried to turn oversized Chris McAllister into an NHL player. The only thing he had going for him was size – a trait that NHL GM’s are over enamored with and in the end he failed miserably. Bring in a weight tax.
Some good ideas, but let’s not forget the prospect of enlarging the ice surface.
Fast skaters and skill players can go around the hookers, and hockey team owners get to hold up their cities for even newer arenas. Win-win! Unless you’re a Canadian city and the Americans are about to get serious about the dollar’s exchange rate again, bit who cares about the Canadians, eh? What do they know about NHL hockey?
Buy My Books!
Does anyone know anyone who enjoyed the Super Bowl halftime show? I need to know, because Bob Rybarcyzk is looking for one single person who liked the show:
You find me a soul on this earth who will publicly admit to liking any part of that halftime show, and I will run through West County Mall wearing a tutu and asking passers-by to please call me Nancy.
Anything to get “Nancy” and her tutu off the streets of Casinoport, Missouri. “She” will catch cold in this harsh, pseudo-winter weather we’re having.
Buy My Books!
Based on this post at A Small Victory, wherein commenter JW says:
I think the memes are ways for unknown bloggers to get their name [sic] out.
I am an unknown blogger; I need to get my name out. I need a meme!
JW also says:
and I am inspired! I need a meme to get my name out. What about a competition? Call it the
competition, wherein everyone submits a meme repeated throughout the blogosphere, and people or the judges select the best and….
Sounds like a lot of work, though. Never mind, I don’t need to get my name out if it takes effort. You guys can use it, though, as you like. Just credit JW me when you do.
Buy My Books!
To arms, bloggers! We have a new Sun Times columnists to pillory!
Forget Neil Steinberg, who got into trouble for equating the POW/MIA flag with the Vietnam War (he apologized). Richard Roper earns today’s call to arms when he calls Brett Favre white trash.
This cannot stand!
Buy My Books!