To be able to say "Noggle," you first must be able to say "Nah."
I am pretty sure these violate the Geneva Convention: Russia’s terrifying ‘hairy woman with drooping breasts’ feared to tickle men to death
Purportedly only folklore. But that’s what Putin wants you to think.
Buy My Books!
In 2000, or a little before, someone thought, “Hey, what if we remade Rush Hour, but instead of Chris Tucker playing Chris Tucker, we have Owen Wilson playing Owen Wilson (as seen recently in You, Me, and Dupree and Starsky and Hutch? And we set it in the old West?” The result was Shanghai Noon, wherein Jackie Chan plays Jackie Chan (named Chon Wang, because why not go for the easy joke?), a fish out of water. I haven’t seen that film, so I can’t tell you too much about it other than that.
It was a success, resulting in this sequel, wherein Jackie Chan’s father, keeper of the Imperial Seal (not the animal), is killed and the seal is stolen. Chan’s sister, played by Fann Wong, has sent a puzzle box to Jackie Chan along with a letter that his father had died. So Jackie Chan has to go to New York, to collect Owen Wilson who is grifting as he has poorly invested their proceeds from the previous film. Then, they’re off to London, where somehow Jackie Chan knows the stolen seal has gone. They find that Jackie Chan’s sister, played by Fann Wong, has gone ahead and tried to kill the man who stole the seal. While trying to bring the thief to justice, they uncover a plot to place a low-ranking royal on the throne while simultaneously placing the leader of the Boxer Rebellion on the Chinese throne.
We get a lot of anachronistic improbabilities, of course–I mean, c’mon, man, someone goes into Whitechapel at night in 1887, you know we’re going to see Jack the Ripper–which is not so bad if you’re familiar with the time enough to know they’re playing. But to kids these days, will they know? Probably not. But this is an old movie to them anyway. And I am an old man.
I might have mentioned Fann Wong played Jackie Chan’s sister. I mentioned it twice. Let’s talk more about her.
Buy My Books!
GOP split on alternative to Greitens in Missouri Senate race
Report: Trump won’t rule out Greitens Senate endorsement
C’mon, man. Although it’s been years since I was active in the party, I’ve seen reports that the former governor (was he the governor? it was so brief, and so long ago) is polling way, way down, maybe even lower than the St. Louis attorney who faced off with protrioters in his gated community whilst holding a gun.
Back in the day, the media piled on Greitens, especially when a Sorosecutor brought shaky charges against him (dropped after he resigned), and watchdog after watchdog filed spurious ethics complaints against him.
Now, the media wants us to believe he’s the Trump man? That the other qualified candidates are but alternatives to him?
One suspects the media wants this flawed candidate to win the primary so he can lose the general (a la Claire McCaskill’s pumping Todd Akin (which she later admitted in a piece for Politico magazine)).
I have my ranking of candidates for the primary, and Greitens is not listed. Even if Trump does eventually endorse him.
Buy My Books!
Today, Kim du Toit posted a news roundup which included a link to a Breitbart story German Cardinal Celebrates Mass Marking ‘20 Years of Queer Worship’:
German Cardinal Reinhard Marx celebrated a Mass Sunday to commemorate “20 years of queer worship and pastoral care” in Munich, Germany.
“I desire an inclusive Church, a Church that includes all who want to walk the way of Jesus,” said Cardinal Marx, the archbishop of Munich and an adviser to Pope Francis.
According to the archdiocesan website, the cardinal was preaching to a “queer congregation.”
In his homily, Marx insisted that Jesus himself was opposed to “those who exclude” but rather “would like to invite everyone with the primacy of love!”
“The kingdom of God is to discover that God is love — in all its dimensions,” said Marx, which includes “the sexual dimension.”
One cannot take it too lightly because it’s on Breitbart, as the New Oxford Review‘s editor thinks a schism might be brewing on the continent:
World, be warned: The Germans are on the march again.
This time they’re boldly tramping down the Synodal Path, and they’re being led by their nation’s Catholic bishops. And many in the Church are worried that their final destination will be schism.
Two years ago, the German Church launched a reform program, prompted by revelations of decades of rampant clerical sexual abuse and episcopal cover-up. At first it sounded like good and even necessary work. But over time, the focus of the reform movement, otherwise known as the “Synodal Path,” shifted, eventually homing in on a list of “binding” reforms that, if approved by the bishops’ conference, would contradict longstanding Catholic teaching on issues such as same-sex relationships, ecumenism, lay roles in the Mass, clerical celibacy, and women’s ordination. The recent release of the “Fundamental Text,” the document guiding the German Church’s deliberations, raised many an ecclesiastical eyebrow. At one point, it states that the Catholic Church appears “regressive…especially in the field of gender justice, in the evaluation of queer sexual orientations, and in dealing with failure and new beginnings.” Elsewhere, it states that “there is no one truth of the religious, moral, and political world, and no one form of thought can lay claim to ultimate authority.”
Such worldly “wisdom” masquerading as Catholic theology is why many observers are speculating that the German Church’s march down the Synodal Path could lead to its severing from the Church of Rome.
The whole article requires registration/subscription to New Oxford Review, but clearly Pieter Vree takes the situation in Germany very seriously.
You know, I am half-Catholic, and I like some of its doctrine over Protestant equivalents, but the Church itself is more worldly than heavenly these days, and probably has been since its inception.
Buy My Books!
Springfield Police Dept. reminds you to take advantage of “Safe Exchange Zone”:
Police remind you to think twice when meeting up to buy an item from someone you meet online.
Springfield Police Department investigators reports recent robberies when people meet up to buy off of Facebook Marketplace or other outlets. Police set up parking spots at the police station designated for internet purchases. The area is well-lit with security camera footage.
Investigators say on March 9, a victim met two unknown people in Springfield after connecting on Facebook to buy a Playstation. They met at a Walmart. Investigators say during the exchange the driver pulled a gun on the victim.
* * * * The safe exchange zone parking spots are available 24/7.
But just last week, the headline was Springfield PD lobby and phone hours change due to staffing shortage:
Starting Monday, March 14th, the hours that the phones are answered, and the lobby is open at the Springfield Police Department on East Chestnut Expressway are being reduced. Previously, the lobby was open from 7 a.m. until 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and then from 7 a.m. until 1 p.m. on Saturdays. Phone lines were open from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. every day of the week. Now, the lobby and phones will be closed over the weekend, and phones will only be answered until 5 p.m. during the week. This does *not* impact 911 calls.
It sounds like the cuts might only impact one police station, but the other has lobby hours that are not 24/7.
One wonders if the “Save Exchange Zone” only offers cameras and the possible presence of a police officer passing by.
You know, like a Walmart parking lot.
More of the messaging that you’re safe because there are cameras. If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know I believe that is magically fallacious.
Buy My Books!
Several funny things posted on this day in history.
March 15, 2014:
Trivia fact: In the song “Norwegian Pie”, Don McLean drives his Ford to the fjord.
March 15, 2012:
Brian J. Noggle points out that, in the Marvel Universe, they would only be the Teenage Ninja Turtles since their powers came from alteration, not birth.
March 15, 2011:
Brian J. Noggle expects that, with all the inflation, the Mötley Crüe song will have to be covered as “Girls, Girls, Girls, Girls”.
Buy My Books!
As I mentioned, I’m going to plow through the James Blish adaptations of Star Trek short storizations this year since I apparently have them all (and two of some of the later ones). (See also Star Trek and Star Trek 2 and, just to make this post forward compatible, the search for Star Trek book reports that mention James Blish which includes some of the books I’ve previously reported on and some books I compare to James Blish).
This book collects many iconic episodes, including:
You know, I have remembered many of the episodes in the first three books in the set, and I wondered a bit if the stories were in series order, but clearly not–we have yet to see “The Menagerie”, for example. Given the way the budget for the program was cut in the second and third seasons of the series described in Star Trek Memories, I wondered if the first books in the series would front-load with the best and most iconic storylines, and whether the stories would become less familiar as time went on.
Well, the introduction of Star Trek 4, already in progress, explains that 1., the series has already ended when Blish is writing the books, and 2.), Blish is kind of responding to fans’ recommendations of what stories to include. So the early books are not necessarily the television episodes in order by season, but rather popularity. Which will be the same result; since the series runs 11 volumes, they probably get all of the episodes in.
At any rate, I’m kind of interested to see if my familiarity with the stories diminishes as the series goes on, but my familiarity with the stories comes not only from watching the shows in syndication, but also in reading these books when I was younger and re-reading 5-10 in 2005.
More interesting for me than for you, gentle reader, but bear with me.
Buy My Books!
So my boy’s, formerly my boys’, school announced that they would have the traditional parents/kids basketball game this year. Which is odd; this is the sixth year at least one of our boys has played basketball, well, off and on for quarantines and small class sizes, and this is the first year we’ve heard of the game. But I was kind of excited to participate with my son, who is off to high school next year, so it seems like our participation in school things kind of feels like a workplace after you’ve given notice—a bit distant, with the knowledge that everything will go on without you, and people might not miss you that much. Continue reading “On the Big Game”
Buy My Books!
I know, I know, I know; a couple weeks ago, I posted that like others, I haven’t read the Harry Potter novels because they’re for kids. But here I go again, reading a nineteenth century children’s book (like Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates or the Little House books or Me and My Little Brain) and thinking that makes me better than those who draw lightning bolts on their heads, wear robes, and cosplay.
Well….
If you don’t know the plot because you grew up after this book was popular for children, that being in the latter part of the 20th century and beyond, the book deals with a five-year-old orphaned girl whose aunt took care of her for a while after her mother died, but the aunt has a job offer that does not allow for childcare. So the aunt takes the girl to her grandfather’s shack high up on an Alp and leaves her there. The grandfather is a bit of a hermit and a bit of a curmudgeon, but he warms to the girl and reintegrates into the Swiss village a bit. During an interlude, Heidi’s aunt gets her a job as a companion for a rich invalid girl, and Heidi enlivens the household–although she upsets the ways of the household help already in place. When she becomes depressed from being away from her mountain, the rich household sends her home, and in turns they come to visit her and enjoy the fresh mountain air. When Klara, the “invalid” girl, gets a couple months of rich goat milk and mountain air, she is strengthened to the point where she can walk.
So, basically, it’s Punky Brewster in 19th Century Switzerland–although Punky Brewster is better described as a 20th century Heidi in an American city with a dog instead of goats.
Like Hans Brinker, it has a lot of quaint details, and it made me want to visit Switzerland more than Hans Brinker made me want to visit the Netherlands. Is it the Netherlands or simply Netherlands? I guess we will find out when the Russians invade and suddenly the media corrects our long-standing misconceptions.
I bought this book with a number of others in the series–Hans Brinker, Black Beauty, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Alice in Wonderland among them. I think I bought them before children, and I never did read them to my boys when they were young enough to listen to their father at all, much less for hours. So I’ll read them now–and never mind that they’re young adult books. They’re classic literature, you see. Don’t you?
Buy My Books!
Peloton to trial new subscription model
The verb you’re looking for is try.
Maybe the headline writer is just heeding Yoda’s advice.
Buy My Books!
As my mother-in-law downsizes, she has contacted Habitat for Humanity to come and pick up some furniture and things. They’re scheduled to pick them up this morning, but it’s Snowmageddon, again, so who knows.
However, my oldest son and I moved all the items to donate to the garage yesterday, and I kept rapping, “That’s a habitat! That’s a habitat!”
So I told the young man about the season premiere of Sesame Street when he was a kid, the one where Big Bird thinks about moving from Sesame Street.
I also explained that the season premiere of Sesame Street was kind of a big deal; the boys watched it every day for several years, maybe six total from boy 1 to boy 2, and that meant a lot of repeats. So at least I was excited for new content.
In sadder Sesame Street news, Luis passed away. You might remember, gentle reader, that I posted him singing the firefly song in 2018. You know, I have recently asserted that things from one’s youth make an indelible impression in one’s memory; however, I have a lot of things from my children’s youth that I remember as well. Perhaps those days were just more interesting than now.
Buy My Books!
As I mentioned, my mother-in-law is downsizing. As a result, Nogglestead will receive an infusion of quality furniture. I’ve often said, perhaps only aloud and not on this blog, that the only good furniture we get, we receive as a gift, or lately, an inheritance. Which is mostly true, although we did buy an expensive laminate bedroom set a couple years after we moved in, replacing the bureaus we’d had as children, inheritances from my aunt Dale, and a headboard I’d bought at an estate sale for $20.
Continue reading “On the Forthcoming New Old Furniture at Nogglestead”
Buy My Books!
The headline is a little misleading (Courteney Cox admits she doesn’t remember being on ‘Friends’) as what she says is a little different:
Courteney Cox made a shocking revelation when she admitted that she doesn’t remember much of her time filming “Friends.”
Cox, 57, recently sat down with “Today’s” Willie Geist for an extended “Sunday Sitdown” interview when the actress shared that she realized there were a lot of gaps in her memory when she appeared on “Friends: The Reunion” in May 2021.
“I should’ve watched all 10 seasons because when I did the reunion and was asked questions, I was like, ‘I don’t remember being there,’” she laughed. “Yeah. I don’t remember filming so many episodes.”
C’mon, man, that’s how memory kind of works when you get older. I have the first line of a poem about it–I remember my life like a history book–because I, too, remember facts about my earlier life, but vivid recollections are few and far between.
Which is a shame; I sometimes lament the loss of the flavor of things. The scent of type cleaner. The smell of the corridor leading to The Paint Dealer, a magazine where I was briefly a hyphenated-editor of some sort. I can’t even see the corridor in my mind, although I know it was up a flight of stairs and toward the back of the building. I know the facts, but I cannot reproduce the experience in my mind.
So this is not shocking that Courteney Cox does not remember every single day of her job twenty-some years ago.
Buy My Books!
Over at John Kass News, guest poster Pat Hickey writes Must Reads for Young People in a Stupidly Woke World:
The current secondary school English canon is dumbed down. It seems to me that everything of value went to hell when we politely considered the opinion of dim bulbs who interrogate with “Well, who’s to say?” People who know something, Karen.
The Who’s to Sayers have screwed up religion, politics, and sports. Keep reading, gentle folks, because at the end of my jeremiad I post a list of essential works of literature.
So of course I took his list as a challenge/quiz.
Here’s his list, with the ones I’ve read in bold (and with a link to the book report if one exists on this blog). I have underlined the books that I have on the shelves here but have not yet read.
Well, I guess that is 12 out of 34 with some asterisks. I always think I’m doing well when I’m styling the ones I’ve read, but when it comes time to sum up, I am disappointed. Fortunately, I am still young, so I have a chance to improve this score before I get old. Especially as I won’t have any Rowling offerings cluttering up my reading.
You know, I went through the university right at the last gasp of the Great Books/Canon movement in the 1980s, so I got exposed to a lot of real literature before the big shift thereafter to rap lyrics and brain droppings poetry. Although I still read both classic literature and brain droppings poetry today.
Buy My Books!
From this date in 2011:
Brian J. Noggle wishes he had a fish tank because nothing starts a conversation like 120mm of tuna delivered from 4,400 yards.
Hey, former frequent commenter John Farrier liked it.
Buy My Books!
Last week, I posted about confusing Misa and Maysa (not to mention Misia).
This week, Misa1 posts:
I need your help. I have decided it’s time to shake things up and change my name. Now as much as I’m a change maker, I wanted to change my name quite simply because many of you find it challenging to find me on Spotify, itunes, Youtube and across other social media channels.
Brian J.: Major influence on emerging artists, or merely a coincidence?
Yeah, coincidence. But interesting confluence nevertheless.
Buy My Books!
On Thursday, I asserted:
Funny thing; although the university sends me glossy magazines on occasion, they don’t try to hit me up for money any more.
On Saturday, this arrived:
Maybe they actually hit me up all the time for money, but I pay so little attention I don’t notice.
The volunteers have stopped calling, though. I think. Maybe they just don’t have my number at Nogglestead.
Buy My Books!
Yesterday, I posted about not confusing Misa with Maysa.
Today, KCSM, the Bay Area’s Jazz Station, spins a tune by Misia.
All I know is that when I again get a music budget, it will be gone in a very loose Soundex search.
Buy My Books!
Springfield auto shop reports ‘rampant’ rise in thefts and vandalism
That’s our current preferred garage, exactly five miles away. I know this because sometimes I drop a vehicle off and walk home.
Sometimes, I’ve been known to swap cars, where I drive up, pick one of our cars up and leave the other for service the next day. Perhaps I’ll reconsider that strategy. It will be easier as we will soon have three vehicles and three drivers in the house briefly.
But, man, Springfield’s crime continues to increase.
Buy My Books!
My mother-in-law recently decided to downsize from her home of 35 years and move into a senior apartment not far from Nogglestead. This led me to reminisce and perhaps wallow a bit on grandmother’s house as a concept, or at least enough to produce an essayish blog post about it.
Continue reading “On Grandmother’s House”
Buy My Books!