To be able to say "Noggle," you first must be able to say "Nah."
OregonMuse, the poster of the hoity-toity Ace of Spades HQ book thread on Sunday mornings, has passed away.
You know, we longtime bloggers are getting to that age, are we not?
I am going to miss his book threads and his morning rants.
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Hidden in plain sight at Ace of Spades HQ, in the sidebar, the identity of Betty White’s real killer:
And he would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for those meddling morons!
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IT’S NO YOLK Model Kelly Brook serves up cheeky poses to launch cookery calendar with SlimFast
I would say, “Mine, too,” but my mother-in-law gives each of us a calendar every year for Christmas, and I have run out of wall space in my office to hang one, so I am topped up on calendars annually.
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If you happen to find yourself looking for pictures of Kathy Ireland, our professional service team is ready to help!
She appears in the posts We’re Not Far From A Forbes Swimsuit Edition and Film Watching: National Lampoon’s Loaded Weapon I (1993).
If you need anything else, do not be afraid to ask!
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I guess the world wants me to look for Pete Metheny records at book sales.
My relationship with Pat Metheny is about as complicated as an entirely one-way thing can be; obviously Pat has no idea of who I am or what I might be thinking about him at any given time. I bought Letter From Home in 1989 and was a compulsive customer of his from then till 2019 or thereabouts. I have pretty much everything he has ever recorded, in multiple formats. Bought all the sheet music. The practice-exercise book. T-shirts, guitar picks. Hell, I bought Zero Tolerance For Silence, a repulsive cacophony of noise that was meant to be a final middle finger towards David Geffen. Have seen him in concert more than a dozen times, including three separate episodes when I caught the same gig twice in a week, at different places. You get the idea.
If you call the number, you are warned that we are experiencing high call volume, and have not adjusted staffing levels at all; why would we? At least that’s what they should say. I was on hold longer than the actual length of the flight I was calling to change, it seemed. At least the hold music was unobtrusive. Meandering jazz. It made me wonder how much demand there is these days for smooth jazz – you know, the stuff secretaries put on the stereo in 1983 when someone was coming over for dinner for the third date. I was listening to some Pat Metheny the other day, and wondered: is this stuff just over?
I mean, it seems to be over for Pat Metheny, inasmuch as I don’t hear him doing this type of music any more, so perhaps that’s a clue.
So I’ll watch for some of the early work of the artist on records when I hit the book sales and whatnot.
Of course, the mentions of the artist accumulating in my subconscious would have made me pick up something even if I didn’t say on my blog like a blood vow to the unheeding Internet that I would be looking for the artist in the future.
I’m not convinced to pay full freight for it, though, unlike that hard rock album Lileks told me to get.
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Today’s sidebar at Ace of Spades HQ:
C’mon, man, I don’t even have to click to know what you’re talking about.
I did, though, and discovered the sidebar’s ranking matches what I said in 2019.
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And recognize that this might well be the very last time, at least according to the chronology of the writing, where you read Old and busted/new hotness.
Ed Driscoll, 8:14 PM (Eastern) today:
OLD AND BUSTED: ‘Only hot people get the Pfizer’ Vaccine rivalries descend on TikTok.
–NBC News, April 8th.
The New Hotness? Wait. So now Moderna is twice as good as Pfizer?
–Jazz Shaw, Hot Air, today.
Curse you, Ed Driscoll! But be advised that I have probably been wearing a fedora longer than you have. AND I LOOK BETTER IN IT.
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I cannot help notice that all of a sudden, a lot of people are reading this eleven year old book report on It Happened In Lemay, a comb-bound self-published collection of historical anecdotes and stories about south St. Louis County published by the editor of a tiny little paper in the area.
In my imagination, several people have learned that the book contains clues to a secret of some sort, perhaps a treasure, and they’re desperately trying to find a copy (the copy?) that will lead them to wealth or something. And they will stop at nothing to get it.
Personally, I hope it’s the location of the Yocum Silver Mine so I don’t have to travel too far to find it if I work out the mystery or get caught up in the search.
Of course, the biggest puzzle might turn out to be Where is it on Brian J.’s read shelves? I mean, I read it right after we moved to Nogglestead. Back then, the read shelves were organized, but a lot of time and a thousand books have been added since that sepia-toned time.
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In 2004, I mentioned that Bravenet singled out the works of John Norman in its terms of service:
Funny, Frank Herbert, J.R.R. Tolkien, and R.A. Salvatore don’t suffer from the literary persecution John Norman does. Here’s section 8d of BraveNet’s terms of service:
(d) Associate Bravenet and any Products and Services with any adult material of any sort. This includes, but is not limited to, such things as nudity, any site, page, image or service requiring any adult verification service, anything that users to be 18 or older to view or join or access, and any text, image or likeness suggesting sexual and/or inappropriate and/or illegal acts of any sort. Without limiting the foregoing, you may not use the Products and Services to store, use, contain or display pornography, adult novelties, adult toys, XXX material, escort services, Gorean, bondage, BDSM, bigotry, racism, hatred, profanity, or any material which may be insulting to another person(s) or entity;
No Counter-Earth fan pages for you, children.
Well, I see today that Lileks added Bravenet forums to The Bleat, so I went a-looking to see if Gor is still prohibited.
Yes.
Although it’s now in section 9, so someone has updated the terms in the last seventeen years, although nobody removed the Gorean prohibition. Probably they didn’t know what Gorean meant. Which, to be honest, is probably why few people post Gorean content using Bravenet widgets or services. Not because anyone but me reads these terms and conditions closely.
You can probably find all kinds of Fifty Shades of Grey knock-offs across sites using Bravenet components, though. Because that’s modern stuff and not really dirty like your grandpa might have liked.
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Or bot as the case may be for answering a question I had in my report on watching Alien.
I noted that I had the first, third, and fourth movies in the series, but not the second, and I mused it was probably not at the place where I bought the films.
Well, a reader or some scrapping algorithm in Singapore led me to the answer.
I bought the movies at the Hope Church Relay for Life Garage Sale in 2013.
The three Alien movies I have yet to see. The Hope Lutheran Church sale did not have Aliens.
I have started haunting antique and thrift stores for films and have yet to see Aliens.
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I can’t believe I wasted some of my best lines on Twitter and Facebook, making money for the Boy rather than as an attraction for you, gentle reader, to come here for the wit and make me money by clicking one of the (blocked) ads or the Amazon links, even though I was booted from the affiliate program when Amazon had tantrum about people making money in states that threatened to collect Internet sales taxes before they had a footprint in that state. Now, of course, Internet sales taxes are a fait accompli and Amazon has big footprints in the state, but when I applied for reinstatement, not enough people ordered through my affiliate link, so I got discharged a second time. Maybe I’ll try again when I get up to fifty readers a day consistently–they’re mostly search hits for old book reports anyway, the kind of place where an affiliate book link might make sense.
But I digress.
Apparently, I posted this gem on Facebook ten years ago:
Momma always said life is like a box of Kafka’s.
Now more than ever, ainna?
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In case you missed it, today is Musings from Brian J. Noggle’s seventeenth birthday.
I should have dropped this into conversation sometime last week so you’d have known to get me something or send a card, but I wanted to see who was a MfBJN superfan, and actually, the only answer is Me Five Years from now.
But thanks to those of you who are mere readers and commenters.
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This weeks Week in Pictures at Powerline features a meme from my area:
If I am not mistaken, that is Kearney facing east. North of Kearney, there’s only Interstate 44 and then non-overpass intersections north.
Of course, I hardly ever see the intersection going that way–when I’m going to ABC Books, I take US 65 north to Kearney and then turn west on Kearney to get to Glenstone and my favorite bookstore.
I have seen the sign on rare occasions when I have wanted to catch the highway from Kearney or when I have gone east on Kearney to a sports facility formerly known as The Courts, where my boys had a basketball camp and my youngest briefly played in a basketball league.
Not as weird as seeing a known intersection in a CAPTCHA.
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Of course, in this example, the great minds would be me and the Amazon AI thing, but on the very day I post a bad lip reading GIF from Rambo: First Blood Part II, Amazon recommends to Neo that she watch the latest Rambo movie.
Perhaps all of us right-wing whackadoodle bloggers look alike to Amazon’s AI.
We must use this to our advantage.
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Economist and long-time blogger Tyler Cowen was a produce clerk, and shares his lessons from the experience.
You might remember, gentle reader, I shared my essay Lessons from a Grocery Store on this here blog (well, on its Blogspot incarnation originally) almost seventeen years ago.
(Link via Instapundit.)
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The other day, I was torn about the proper catchphrase for this portion of the 21st century:
The Springfield area had rolling blackouts during the winter storms a couple weeks ago. I have been trying to get the phrase They’re not going to like the nineteenth century they’re voting for, but it might as well be They’re not going to like the third world country they’re voting for.
In a post Teenage Mutant Ninja Idiots, it sounds like Sarah Hoyt might favor the former:
Look, it took me a while to figure out things were going to h*ll. Mostly because…. well. I was raised in the 19th century, and some parts of it were not quite that advanced. Take toilet flushing: you take the full bucket in with you. Well, that’s how I first learned. I don’t know when grandma’s toilet had a flush installed if before or after we moved to my parents’ newly-built house which, d*mn skippy had a flush installed.
So that’s a vote for the first one, which to be honest is the one I prefer, too. But she also says:
Except that even there, you know, it was an European flush. I honestly can’t tell if Europe is just more advanced than us on the war on things that work — my best friend growing up lived in a Victorian that had perfectly functional elevated flush tanks, with no problems — or if — since friend’s house was built by an English consul — most of Europe (and the world) just cosplays modernity without any clue how it should work. I do know that my parents’ flush was low water before low water was fashionable (in a region of the world that has problems rather with too much water and back then when our water came from a well and was therefore “free”.) So, you know, you still had a bucket standing by just in case.
Also, the dishwasher was high water (but low hot water, because that cost money) and got done as soon as I was done scrubbing and rinsing the last pan. Ditto for the washer. We had a tank outside. I actually love hand-washing clothes. At least in summer. In winter, when your hands become painful from going in the water and you find out what “instant arthritis” means, it’s not so fun.
So, anyway, you see, in the states any level of “this is easier” was an improvement. I remember a day in the late eighties, when I sat down and went “The dishwasher is going. The washer is going. And I have time to write.” It was like…. trumpets sounded, I swear.
Which sounds like it could also be a vote for the latter.
I’m still on the horns of a dilemma. Rest assured, though, gentle reader, that I shall overuse the “C’mon, man” formulation in posts for the near future. At least until the lights go out.
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Tam K. misquotes Carlin:
Remember, everyone that drives faster than you is a maniac and everyone who drives slower is a moron.
Ackshually, it’s….
Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?
I am pretty sure the bit is on What Am I Doing In New Jersey, which I got on audiocassette when it was fairly fresh. I listened to it whilst driving back and forth between St. Louis in Milwaukee every couple of weeks after I finished up at the university in the great northern land and returned to Missouri for what, seemingly, was forever.
This quote has been top-of-mind because, yesterday, after maybe contemning another driver but without any of the seven words you cannot say on television, I explained the quote and the perspective of each driver makes the other drivers seem crazy, but that I was likely as crazy as they were from their perspectives.
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Almost eleven years later, and I have not combed all links to the Blogspot incarnation of this blog to update them to the new domain?
Ay. I thought I had already done this. I guess not. Nine pages of search results currently. Hopefully, by the time I stumble across this post five years hence, I will have gotten them all.
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This blog is not on the first page of results for brian noggle on Duck Duck Go. Or Bing.
Sigh.
I would say it’s because The Man is Keeping Me Down, but it’s mostly because, c’mon, man! It’s a blog, man. That’s so 2003.
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My accountant and his wife have a podcast. You can see them on YouTube for the nonce, but given that the podcast is entitled “Right From Us”, perhaps not for long.
I spotted it when I hit his wife’s blog today because I was looking for something to read that would not be too newsy because, brother, I’d rather not right now.
Funny story: He’s actually my accountant because I spotted Mrs. C.’s blog on an old Springfield blog collection when I first moved to town (and got myself on that blogroll). She posted that he had just gone solo as an accountant right as I learned that the woman who did our taxes had retired–and I parted ways with our St. Louis tax advisor right about the time the firm was getting heavily sanctioned by the IRS. Not that my parting with that firm meant that they did not still try to send us intermittent invoices for years afterwards.
When I first met the accountant, Mrs. C. was in the other office, and I mentioned reading her blog. It was an awkward moment, as meeting someone whose blog I’ve read for a while without commenting or anything makes me feel like a cyberstalker a bit.
An awkward moment that I’m sure to recreate in a month or so when I sit down with my accountant after having watched their podcasts and learning a lot of cool things we have in common.
(Oh, and as a reminder, my attorney is not really named Bernie–it’s a song I heard again recently on WSIE and recognized immediately.)
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