To be able to say "Noggle," you first must be able to say "Nah."
Some phish scammers really don’t put any effort into it. Check out this phish I received today and the domain that displays when I mouse over the “official” link provided:
I mean, come on, how about registering a second host name aside from your primary line of business, pornography, guys? Is a little effort too much to expect from confidence boys?
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Well, it’s Saturday, so I’ve got nothing better to do than to expose you to a representative of my well-used bookmark collection. It’s really only a collection because the bookmarks are accumulating in the nightstand drawer, not because I’m actively seeking new and exotic bookmarks. If I were, I’d undoubtedly have better items than the collection of Amazon, used book store, and “here’s a gift, send us money” unsolicited fundraiser bookmarks I’ve got. Still, some of the bookmarks merit comment, including this one:
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This bookmark comes to us from 1985, and it’s geared to students. Check out the fellow depicted upon the front of the bookmark. He’s got a flattop haircut undoubtedly helped out with a liberal dose of gel. By 1985, we were moving out of the heavily-teased hair styles for the most part and into more natural looks. At least we were in the middle of America; perhaps the Flock of Seagulls thing persisted in pockets on the coasts (although the mullet has yet to go out of style in Jefferson County, Missouri). This kid’s wearing a t-shirt with his own picture on it, the very latest thing available from the malls, and a pair of the oversized shorts they called jams. Me, I never had a pair of jams, although I liked to call the patterned oversized swimming trunks I acquired via hand-me-down-from-outside-the-family or parental garage sale purchase “jams” simply because they had a design upon them. This kid’s also wearing a pair of untied Converse or some other non-Nike brand of high-tops, all the rage amongst the rural toughies in the area in which I went to high school. Toughies whom the urban toughs that I spent my early years would have eaten alive (and probably have in prison by now, or so I hope in the remainder of my adolescent revenge fantasies). The text of this bookmark reads, “It’s cool to be you!” The irony, of course, lies in that this self-esteem-boosting message Crikey, I hope no teenager has thrown a belt over a rafter as a result of the loss of this security blanket. |
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The back of this particular bookmark indicates that I’m not lying when I say it’s circa 1985; as a matter of fact, the text indicates it’s copyright, which I am no doubt violating terribly since you gentle readers could blow up the pictures, print them on the new-fangled photo-quality color ink jets whose abilities we could only see in movies in 1985 while we listened to our dot-matrix printers chattering away or the daisy wheels pounding on paper. Please, do not send me a nickel when you do so, for you’d just be an obvious plant from the copyright holder’s lawyers. The brand name, Tab-Marks, would indicate that this bookmark was the product of one of the big three book clubs of the era. Come It was always a big deal, as our family was rather, um, undercapitalized, to get to order books from these services. I did, on occasion; Do kids still get these circulars? We don’t have children yet, so I don’t know whether schools fit them in yet amongst the I hope one or the other is the case; I’d hate to think that no children spend rainy afternoons in overstuffed recliners with |
Remarkable, ainna, that bookmarks can jog as many memories and reflections, sometimes, as the books into which we stick them? So many people just jam notes, slips of paper, and bank privacy notices (hem, well, perhaps only for technical, business-related books, you see) into books because reading doesn’t require the pomp and circumstance of true bookmarks.
Although, oddly, perhaps that would merit a better sign of books’ ubiquitousness….
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Australian columnist Phillip Adams calls the Oscars a symbol of American hegemony. To alter the quote of a more famous Australian, that’s not a symbol of American hegemony, this is a symbol of American hegemony:
(Link seen on Tim Blair.)
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A study commissioned by a number of environmental groups interested in regulating chemicals has uncovered, in a shocking twist, that your house contains things that the environmental groups want to regulate more (Study finds toxic chemicals in dust samples from U.S. households):
Americans are exposed to a variety of potentially dangerous chemicals in their homes from products such as computers, frying pans and shower curtains, according to a new study released Tuesday.
The study, called “Sick of Dust,” found 35 hazardous industrial chemicals in household dust samples from 70 homes in seven states, including California. It was commissioned by nine environmental groups, including the Center for Environmental Health in Oakland and the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition in San Jose.
“It literally brings home the fact that hazardous chemicals are in our daily lives,” said Beverly Thorpe, international director for Clean Production Action, one of the study’s sponsors. “We feel now is a prime opportunity to overhaul chemical regulation in the United States.”
The researchers tested the dust samples for six types of chemicals, including pesticides and flame retardants. All the chemicals are legal, but many are known to be harmful to immune, respiratory, cardiovascular and reproductive systems. They said infants and young children are especially vulnerable to exposure.
I should have chipped in a couple dollars since this also proves a maxim of mine: Do not eat the dust bunnies.
I’d like to take a moment to elaborate on this thesis and enumerate some other things I don’t think you should put in your mouth or slide down your gullet:
Face it, the world is full of substances that could hurt or kill you, and the government cannot regulate them all. If you’re really having that much trouble keeping toxic substances out of your mouth, perhaps you should consult with your psychoanalyst and see if he or she can get you promoted to the next stage of psychosexual development.
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May 7: Free Comic Book Day
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You know, I don’t normally play chess because most knowledgeable opponents recognize the Noggle Blitz for what it really is–a shortsighted attempt to take as many of the opponent’s pieces as fast as possible while sowing confusion with those inexplicable queen-for-knight swaps.
Of course, I don’t normally drink hard liquor either. But this Shot Glass Chess Set might make me take up both. Take a piece, do a shot!
I wonder what the blogosphere’s resident chessophile would think?
UPDATE: Pejman says what he thinks.
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Imagine my horror this morning when I discovered that I opened my new toothbrush from the wrong end:
Jeez, I should have read all instructions carefully. By removing the toothbrush from the box handle first, I’ve not only violated the warranty, which means that if this toothbrush fails to clean my teeth effectively, I cannot return it to the manufacturer for repair, but also that I have actually diminished the effectiveness of the toothbrush whose toothcleaning power was actually activated by the upward motion of the toothbrush head through the OPEN THIS END side.
Not to mention this very blog entry will be used as evidence against me at the next hearing, making it harder for me to acquire and receive a license for toothbrushes in the future.
What a sucky way to start my day.
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Unfortunately, on June 30th, 2005, Toby will die. I am going to eat him. I am going to take Toby to a butcher to have him slaughter this cute bunny. I will then prepare Toby for a midsummer feast. I have several recipes under consideration, which can be seen, with some pretty graphic images, under the recipe section.
As a poor young man in Milwaukee in the middle 1970s, I ate a lot of rabbit. My father had a string of traps in the city parks and sometimes shot rabbits right out of his car. We ate so much rabbit my father called it “Fuzzy Chicken.” Say what you will, but we never went too hungry when my father was between jobs.
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A reminiscience spurred by Richard Roeper’s column today:
Funny you should mention that, John. I, too, have noticed these bullet hole stickers. They’re not nearly as widespread as “Support Our Troops” ribbons, but they’re definitely gaining in popularity. You can buy stickers that will make it look like your fender, trunk or even your windows have been pierced with single bullet holes or multiple bullet holes. I’ve also seen the stickers on motorcycle helmets, as if the wearer is saying, “I’ve been shot!”
From one Web site hawking the stickers: “Imagine your friend spotting a few bullet holes on his new car after a long day at work; he may just cry like a baby.”
Hell, I’ve lived in the city. I don’t need simulation. On February 20, 1994, I came out from eight hours of slinging produce to find a couple of nice pass throughs between the driver side window and rear passenger window of my father’s car where a couple of small caliber rounds had passed through the car. I drove home with a cold bracing wind blowing through the pebbled windows and got the dual pleasure of dealing with my stepmother’s misplaced wrath and filing a police report. On my twenty-second birthday. Not the height of hillarity, but I didn’t cry like a baby.
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Playboy sends me this junk mail teaser:
On the eve of the re-issue of R.E.M.’s last eight albums on special-edition CD and DVD, front man Michael Stipe spoke openly with Playboy.com about the band’s early days, his disappointment over last November’s elections and why R.E.M. never called it quits.
Which is different from his other interviews, where he had to speak guardedly in case the editorial staff at Rolling Stone, Esquire, Spin or Gentleman’s Quarterly were members of the Bushtapo.
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Does using the word bollix in an office e-mail create a hostile work environment, or is it merely tacky?
Because I can handle tacky.
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Sure, Cagey throws me a bone and reminds me that the Atari 2600 was only # 9 in MobilePC’s The Top 100 Gadgets of All Time, but come on, it’s a magazine entitled Mobile PC–who could have foreseen that laptops and PDAs would weigh heavily?
As a retaliatory strike, I say to him: How many of these classic games do you recognize by their screenshots? It should be easy, old timer, since you’ve probably played at least one of them at an Atari Party sometime and you’ve played the close sibling of another.
(Link seen on A Small Victory.)
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JC T-Shirts: They could be hot sellers in Nigeria!
That’s what I assume from this e-mail I received:
Accept a credit card payment and drop ship to Nigeria? What could possibly go wrong?
But you, gentle reader, can still order any of these snazzy designs through Cafe Press:
Visualize World Hegemony |
 Cog in the Machine |
 Tao Sharks |
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Here’s your future trivia question answer for the week. Remember it and you’ll be the hero of your trivia night in five years:
Flash mob
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I first saw this new form of apostrophe abuse on a late night car dealer’s ad (Yes, George Weber, you’re the offender). However, I see that even CNN is doing it now:
The new abuse: putting 05′ to indicate 2005. You schnucking cretins, don’t you understand the apostrophe represents what was removed? It ought to be ’05, to signify that you, like John Donne and William Shakespeare, have removed something where the apostrophe is.
Oh, but no. Now, in addition to being the tick mark to indicate feet instead of inches, according to the new rules, you can sprinkle an apostrophe any where you want to indicate something in the expression has been truncated. Because readers love puzzles, and maybe they’ll click the link or go to the automobile showroom to find out just what the illiterate meant.
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We here in the Noggle Household recycle a lot. But instead of paying several dollars a month to have the locally-contracted waste removal company take a select number of items, categorized just so and following these said rules so that the uncaring garbagemen can dump the recycleables into a single truck and drive it to the dump, we separate a our goods and sneak them to another municipality’s recycling center. We can recycle a greater number of items this way, for the same cost in gas, and we’re further abstracted from the corner-cutting that will bury our recycleables in a landfill.
But Ann Althouse speaks the real reason we don’t put our recycling at the curb:
Good thing we drank a lot of milk this week so there are plenty of bulky milk containers to cover up all the wine and beer bottles that conveniently sink to the bottom — otherwise the locals might think ill of us — but then they’d probably think ill of us if we had a lot of diet soda cans — or even soda cans, period.
I had to buy a pickup truck to ferry my empties to the recycling facility. Even so, I don’t expect that the neighbors think the clinking in the opaque black bags is milk bottles.
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Attention other husbands out there: Les Miserables is not an up-and-coming blues band. Your wife is tricking you to see a singing play. Don’t fall for it, or you, too, might find yourself having nightmares about living in a world where everyone communicates by singing, and you only understand one word in four.
Or so I heard.
UPDATE: Another band geek weighs in.
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I’m involved in some personal study on Visual Basic.NET and have picked out an appropriate text, but sometimes it’s hard to sit down and actually read and study. So last night, I developed the Noggle Method of education:
Repeat.
Last night, I read almost a hundred pages. Sure, I can’t remember much of what I read, but that’s another feature of the Noggle Method–apparently, not only is the learning quicker, but so is the forgetting.
Also, my self-esteem is pretty high.
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I took Pell Grant money from the Federal Government as part of my college financing package.
You, gentle reader, should then assume that all words on this blog and all independent thoughts and ideas I have are duly vetted and approved by the administration of President George H.W. Bush, by whose largesse I could afford a private university.
Update: Read my longer take on the Maggie Gallagher artifiscandal here.
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At the local recycling facility this afternoon, I say the following bumper sticker:
Support Organic Farmers
I assume that person will be one of the last to welcome our new robot farmer overlords.
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