Category: Life

Why did a hottie take up with a down-on-his-English-degree printing press operator like me?

Because chicks dig sardonic humor and classical allusions, apparently.

Remember, Googlers, when you’re trying to figure out how to attract hot women, the answer is read more Shakespeare.

Early contributions to the identity crisis of the Noggling:

1. Professor Higganbotham
2. Dr. DeGassio
3. Jimmy Ray
4. Jimbo McGibblets
5. Instapoopdit
6. Mr. Fussbudget
7. Fussbucket
8. Waylon

Sorry for the light posting, but I’m doing maintenance.

The Fedora Lounge.

Finally, a reason for the Internet.

(Link seen on the sidebar of The Confidentials, a Milwaukee blog. I got two of my first fedoras at Donge’s on 3rd Street, werd.)

Am I, as Jean-Paul Sartre suggested, metamorphising my own For-itself into an In-itself-For-itself, or am I merely suffering from a bit of indigestion?

Odd warning of the day:

In the inbox:

U.S Consulate General
387 Wichayanond Road
Chiang Mai 50300,Thailand

Dear client,

Congratulations,you have been selected as one of the lucky winners of the US VISA through our internet email extracting and screening machine,your application was applied and processed by our internet email extracting and screening machine which randomly extracts and scans millions of email adresses across the world.

This Special visa programme is new and was innovated by the US embassy in Kuala lumpur Malaysia last year november.The US Consulate in Chiang Mai launched the programme this year november,the programme is designed to be held every year ending.The aim and objectives of the programme is to give free visas to citizens of developing countries around the world to enable them travel to the US and start a new life and work.The Chiang Mai consulate released 12 visas in this regards and hopes to increase the visa number to 24 by late next year,you are among the 12 lucky people that won the visa and among the 5 foreigners that won the visa,7 visas were won by Thai nationals.

Your visa winner’s identity is:MM-52047 and your serial net visa passport with us is:JM-102648,your visa type permits you to travel with your family.Your visa duration is 10 years multiple entry to the U.S,it is renewable upon expiration and it permits you to work,study and own properties in the US.

In this respect you are directed to forward the following requirements for the immediate processing of your visa certificate and acknowledgement card:

1.Write in full your office and residential adress.

2.Scanned copies of your recent passport photograph,members of your family passport photograph should be included if you have family members that wants to travel with you.

3.Scanned copies of your/members of your family international passport and i.d card,your family members above the age of 16 requires seperate international passports for travel.

4.Clearance and acceptance fee:U.S$355(Three hundred and fifty five dollars)only.This fee should be paid through an account of the designated agent and NOT by western union money transfer.

Providing the above requirements will assure you your visa certificate/acknowledgement card and visa security pin code which we shall scan to your email adress.With the visa certificate/acknowledgement card and pincode we shall send to you,the U.S embassy in your home country or your country of residence will stamp the 10 years multiple entry visa on your/members of your family international passport within 3 working days immediately you present these documents to them because the Chiang mai Cosulate has confirmed your visa,all they will do is to log in to the U.S Immigration network database and key in your visa pincode there they will find your visa winning details.

Important notice:

According to the united states code of conduct in the constitution Vol:189/965:Act 220Sl guiding all immigrations,green cards,visas and permit agencies:if non-response after 31 days you receive this message,your winners status shall reveal no interest and we would in response refer your visa certificate/code and acknowledgement card back to the U.S government/immigrations service center.

We shall be anticipating your reply soon.

Thanks

Ray Murphy
U.S Consulate Chiang Mai

N.B:DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL,SEND YOUR REPLY TO THE VISA AGENT,Mr Bent Declerk: visaagent12@netscape.net , visaagent13@netscape.net
Phone:+66-90590020

Probably just some generic, send us your money type scam. But any time they want passports, I get a little more nervous than normal.

I don’t think owning a car branded Kia is good luck. I also wouldn’t own a car called Doa. I just think that’s asking for an amped up tanker truck driver to try to take the Poplar Street exit at 45 miles per hour some morning, tumbling gently down to a car named deathtrap.

If you lie down with dogs, you get peed on by the incontinent dogs.

Share this moment with that special Canadian in your life.

In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high. –Henry David Thoreau

Or just use a shotgun.

While driving along Big Bend Boulevard here in Old Trees, Missouri, our new home, I said to Heather, “Hey, it’s a half track.” Driving down Big Bend Boulevard. A half track. Heather didn’t see it, and she didn’t know what a half track was, so I had to explain it to her.

Fortunately, I could hold up a copy of the Webster-Kirkwood Times from this week and prove to her that my spotting a World War II era military vehicle tooling around town was not a symptom of my insanity.

Proving this was not a symptom of mental illness is not the same as proving sanity, I know, but I will take what I can get.

An unsolicited greeting from the first company my mortgage broker could sell my name to:

Our records indicate you are not participating in our recommended MORTGAGE PROTECTION COVERAGE. You may now be eligible if you are UNDER AGE 76.

The ECONOMICAL term life insurance can PAY OFF YOUR MORTGAGE should you or your spouse DIE. It provides the SECURITY YOUR FAMILY NEEDS at the PRICE YOU WANT.

Well, if I DIE, I think normal insurances WOULD help my spouse PAY HER MORTGAGE (since, by dying, it would really no longer be my mortgage, would it?), and even if I were inclined to UP MY COVERAGE, I would probably look for a REPUTABLE INSURANCE COMPANY and not some fly-by-bulk-mail OPERATOR who probably won’t even EXIST by the time I die (hopefully sometime in the twenty-second century, the later the better) and who interrupts my daily junk mail destruction with UNSOLICITED REMINDERS OF MY OWN MORALITY, IN BOLD AND CAPITALS AS APPROPRIATE.

A regular, long-time reader writes:

Bonjour,

Je suis le webmaster de PageStart.fr et de Marche.fr.
Je souhaiterai faire un échange de liens, avec votre site http://stlbrianj.blogspot.com/.

Si vous le souhaitez, vous pouvez faire un échange de liens avec nous,
dès maintenant, en cliquant sur le lien ci-dessous :
Faire un échange de liens avec PageStart.fr

Si vous n’êtes pas le webmaster du site, merci de nous en informer :
Je ne suis pas le webmaster de ce site

Cordialement,
Eric

Thanks, Eric.

I certainly hope that spam e-mail request was flattering in its native tongue.

Musings from Brian J. Noggle, February 13, 2006:

I don’t know what sort of Birkenstock-wearing Seattlite would shush the commercial-driven sugar-craving mewlings of its larvae with EnviroKidz Organic Koala CrispTM breakfast cereal (Gluten Free! Organic Cocoa!), but apparently somewhere, someone is making money providing the product.

James Lileks, today:

Look. When you put a box of “Cinnamon Toast” cereal on the table, the kid knows what he’s getting. “Gorilla Munch” doesn’t really nail it down. Particularly if the Gorilla appears to be gazing at the person holding forth the bowl, sizing him up for a game of poker. And I don’t get the part about “1% of sales donated to wildlife” – makes it sound like they send someone into the forest and throw wadded-up fifties at random animals.

Great minds think alike. Or perhaps Enivro-Kidz cereal is just that mockable that everyone except the earnest types will make fun of it at some time.

You know, upside down, Paul McCartney really looks like Sumner Redstone.

S & H Green Stamps

Granted, my mother collected them at the end of their era, but I do remember shops that advertised giving them out and the booklets wherein one could paste the stamps and redeem them later for other goods.

Kinda like Marlboro Miles, but without the lung cancer.

More proof it’s hard to be a man in the twenty-first century: these conflicting mandates:

59 Things a Man Should Never Do Past 30:

6. Hang art with tape.

Hanging Pictures on Rock-Hard Plaster Walls:

Back then, walls were finished with three coats of plaster — like the ones in your home — that dried like rock. Hooks with nails won’t go in easily. You might consider using hooks that attach with adhesive.

I guess one can avoid the conflict by only living in homes with drywall after 30 (or mud-walled hovels if that’s your personality), so it’s not a true conundrum.

Fortunately, I know men, real men, don’t check off items in these sorts of checklists of manly behavior and disobey all sorts of dicta. So I’ll just ignore both.

If the nail bends, I’m just not using a big enough hammer.