I Do Not Think That Word Means What You Think It Means
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L’il Dig?
A large public works project that goes hundreds of millions over budget, leads to suits and counter suits between the city and the contractors, and leads to an unsustainable business model that’s freshly-mewling for more tax money. What could make it better? Oh, yeah, brag about the tunnels:
Instead of burrowing underground like miners, crews ripped open Forest Park Parkway and dug a trench that in some places is 45 feet deep. Reinforced concrete shored up the tunnel walls, and massive precast concrete tops – some weighing up to 30 tons – covered the tunnel.
Oh, boy.
I suspect this one, as only a minor boondoggle, won’t collapse, but if it does, we can easily point our fingers at nearby home owners who will have cost lives to maintain their property values.
Also, the ACLU, somehow.
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Number Four, With a Bullet (I Hope)
MfBJN: The #4 source on the Internet for worst kind of popular tripe.
But we’re improving every day in our quest to be your best source for the worst kind of popular tripe.
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ACLU Wants Little Girls To Die
Boy Scouts rescue toddler in river:
A troop of Boy Scouts on a camping trip saved an 18-month-old girl who had fallen in a river upstream from them and was floating face down, officials said.
James Taranto of Best of the Web Today reminds us:
The ACLU describes the Boy Scouts as “an organization that will go the way of the Daughters of the American Revolution in losing its place in American life if it does not end its discriminatory practices.”
If the ACLU had its way, the intolerant organization wouldn’t exist, and that little girl would be dead.
I suppose some secularists and nontraditionalists would say that something would arise to take the Boy Scouts place and to teach young men to love and respect themselves and nature and embraces homosexuality, but I’m not so optimistic. One thing’s for sure, though; the Boy Scouts were prepared when they needed to be in this instance (and, no doubt, in many others). Fortunately for the little girl, her family, and for the future people she’ll touch in her wonderful life.
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Chris Lawrence Said It (II)
He wrote:
Today’s Post-Dispatch has almost all the information you need to know about the grand opening of Metrolink’s Cross-County Extension next Saturday.
It probably didn’t cover this, either:
A woman was critically injured when she apparently jumped into the path of a MetroLink train early today near the campus of the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
Wow, the enemies of light rail are going all out to sabotage the triumph of this inflexible marvel of modern transit just as its latest, and only second, rail line opens, only a year late and only hundreds of million over budget!
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Chris Lawrence Said It
He wrote:
Today’s Post-Dispatch has almost all the information you need to know about the grand opening of Metrolink’s Cross-County Extension next Saturday.
It probably didn’t cover this:
Several passengers suffered minor injuries when equipment on a MetroLink train got tangled and smashed into a window near Forest Park in St. Louis Monday evening.
Remember, friends, you can enjoy this sort of fun on the Shrewsbury-Clayton line starting this weekend!
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Wherein I Admit That My Offspring Is A Genius
That is correct, my Post Fetal Creature (PFC) is a freakin’ genius. He’s only six weeks old and he’s already talking. Well, he’s said his first word, anyway. That is correct, at only six weeks old, my heir said, quite clearly, “a.”
What, you noun-and-verb fetishists, an indefinite article isn’t good enough for a first word? No, you want “mommy” or “dada” or “absquatulate” before you’ll consider it a word.
You’re just jealous of my child’s obvious gifts.
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Unspoken Letters
Cardinals ticket sales are down, and they’ve got a million theories why, but none of the ones enumerated in the story match my expectation.
Here are two things that have alienated some of the out-of-town fan base:
A publicly funded stadium. Remember the signs that said “We’ll build a stadium when the Cardinals build highways”? The people who put them in their yards and on their farms do.
The Cardinals bought KTRS and moved their broadcasts to the underpowered AM station and a “network” that leaves the radio coverage spotty in St. Louis, much less within driving range of a weekend in St. Louis.
No, certainly the dive in tourism traffic comes from gas prices and the rumor that every game is a sell-out. Good luck with continuing delusions.
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Northrop Grumman Marketing Material Front Page News in St. Louis Post-Dispatch
We’ve known it for a long time, but why is the St. Louis Post-Dispatch now running as its Sunday headline, page one, above the fold, Missiles may be next big threat to U.S. airliners?
The nation’s airline industry is a shoulder-launched missile attack away from plunging into a financial tailspin, one that could trigger $1 trillion-plus in financial losses in this country.
Five years after the devastating attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. passenger jets still have no response to a shoulder-launched missile that can be purchased on the black market for as little as $5,000 and can hit a target more than a mile away. If beefed-up airline security continues to keep terrorists and their bombs off commercial flights, shoulder-launched missile attacks pose a likely alternative, experts say.
“Terrorists are a lot like electricity: They take the path of least resistance,” said Jack Pledger, an executive at defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. “Instead of working out elaborate methods, terrorists go to the next-easiest thing. If you take out these easy things, you drive them to using” a shoulder-launched missile.
Pledger is director of business development for Northrop Grumman’s infrared-countermeasure program, which is testing a system that disrupts a shoulder-launched missile’s guidance system. The cost of the system would be less than $1 million for each plane if Northrop were to receive enough orders to warrant high-rate production.
Such a deal! But the government and the airlines are not willing to choke up the million dollars’ plus that Northrop Grumman charges for the solution. Ergo, it’s time to gin up some outrage so The People force the airlines, hardly awash in slush funds, or the government, too awash in taxpayer slush, to bolster its bottom line.
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Book Report: Barrier Island by John D. MacDonald (1986)
This book provides an interesting amalgamation of some of MacDonald’s earlier work, the business-oriented novels, with some of the maudlin sentimentality found in the Travis McGee novels. As it was released as a heavy hardback, with nice paper, it aims to weightiness instead of brisk paperback sensibility. Unfortunately, it’s unsatisfying.
The story opens on Tucker Loomis after a night with an old flame. He’s brought her out to a romantic rendezvous off of Barrier Island, a, well, barrier island off of Mississippi or Florida. He not only wanted to rekindle a little good lovin’, but he wanted his flame, a real estate agent, to witness a payoff to an assistant federal prosecutor. In case the fed fails to carry out his part of the deal, you see.
The book then explores several of the players as the land scheme for which ol’ Tuck is being prosecuted unravels. An idealistic partner in a real estate firm tries to hold his marriage together while investigating the scheme. It seems that Tuck bought the land, envisioned a tropical paradise for millionaires, and sold its lots before the federal government condemned it and seized it for park land. Loomis wants a big settlement based upon the big profits he would have realized, but the idealist real estate man discovers some of the land sales Tuck had made were fraudulent. In addition to his marriage, the partner has to worry about maintaining his real estate firm with the wheeler-dealer who got involved with Tuck in the first place. Meanwhile, Tuck’s dealing with a wife in a vegatative state and an attractive nurse who imagines herself as the new Mrs. Loomis–after the current Mrs. Loomis dies.
With this set of characters and framework, perhaps MacDonald could have done better. Unfortunately, the book suffers from two flaws:
- The point of view is skewed. We’re introduced to Tucker Loomis in the beginning, so I wanted to root for him. However, he’s not the protagonist. He’s sort of the antagonist. The protagonist, as I can tell, is the idealistic real estate agent. Unfortunately, his voice isn’t very consistent throughout the book. When we get the maudlin asides about the pillaging of the environment by the newcomers to the Gulf Coast, it’s almost expository. It’s acceptable in the McGee novels because it’s a part of the character of Travis McGee; but here, it’s hanging out there on its own.
- The end is abrupt. Tucker Loomis is laid low pretty quickly, and the masterful subplots and characterizations end up wasted.
I think the book mixes, unsuccessfully, elements of his early work, elements of the Travis McGee novels, and elements of his later, longer, hardback work (such as Condominium and One More Sunday). As one of his last works, if not the last, it’s not a capstone of his career. But my copy is a first edition, nyah nyah.
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Almost A Punchline
Man falls into vat of chocolate, lives:
An ordinary night’s work at the chocolate company turned dangerous for Darmin Garcia early Friday after he fell into a vat of the molten goo and was trapped for more than two hours.
“I was pushing the chocolate down into the vat because it was stuck,” said Garcia, 21. “It came loose, and I just slid down the hopper into the chocolate.”
With a picture that shows a dark-haired, bare-chested, 21-year-old muscular man more than waist deep in chocolate. Did I say Almost a punchline? I mean Every woman’s fantasy.
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Leave No Hamster Behind Act
Lawmakers will vote today on a bill that could require pet shops to abide by stricter regulations like keeping detailed records on the animals they sell and providing toys and exercise wheels for small animals like rats, hamsters, mice and guinea pigs.
Face it, citizens, our civilization has peaked. The amount of civil liberties that citizens enjoy has reached its high water mark and is ebbing. Our government is now taking rights from us and giving them to animals.
Say what you will about the totalitarian nature of the Chinese regime, but at least it’s using its totalitarianism to the ends of a human society and not the gerbil society.
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Real Men of Criminal Genius
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch lowers the bar on criminal masterminds in this story:
A cigarette thief is taking great pains not to get caught as he makes his getaway from Madison County stores, authorities said Tuesday.
Those great pains?
He uses duct tape to cover the registration number on the temporary Illinois tag on the back of his black Saturn, which has no front plate.
Because apparently the great pains don’t include obscuring his face, since there’s a full facial shot of him accompanying the story.
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St. Louis Public Schools: Past Farce
I felt a great disturbance in the language, as if millions of grammarians suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
I don’t know what’s worse: that the St. Louis City public schools have to advertise so heavily to remind their apathetic student body to please, return at least the first couple of days so we can count you as enrolled when it comes time to get the state and federal funding.
No, what’s worse is that the city schools in St. Louis have officially elevated 2 to preposition status. I mean, for cryssake, if the schools are going to write like that, how do they expect their students to do better?
Maybe they just don’t.
Good luck continuing to pretend to be a viable, meaningful institution. See also reason #8922 why Brian never considered moving to the city when looking for a new home.
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Psycho Hitchhikers Go Berserk
Hitchhiker: You heard of this thing, the 8-Minute Abs?
Ted: Yeah, sure, 8-Minute Abs. Yeah, the excercise video.
Hitchhiker: Yeah, this is going to blow that right out of the water. Listen to this: 7… Minute… Abs.
Ted: Right. Yes. OK, all right. I see where you’re going.
Hitchhiker: Think about it. You walk into a video store, you see 8-Minute Abs sittin’ there, there’s 7-Minute Abs right beside it. Which one are you gonna pick, man?
Ted: I would go for the 7.
Hitchhiker: Bingo, man, bingo. 7-Minute Abs. And we guarantee just as good a workout as the 8-minute folk.
Ted: You guarantee it? That’s – how do you do that?
Hitchhiker: If you’re not happy with the first 7 minutes, we’re gonna send you the extra minute free. You see? That’s it. That’s our motto. That’s where we’re comin’ from. That’s from “A” to “B”.
Ted: That’s right. That’s – that’s good. That’s good. Unless, of course, somebody comes up with 6-Minute Abs. Then you’re in trouble, huh?
[Hitchhiker convulses]
Hitchhiker: No! No, no, not 6! I said 7. Nobody’s comin’ up with 6. Who works out in 6 minutes? You won’t even get your heart goin, not even a mouse on a wheel.
Ted: That – good point.
Hitchhiker: 7’s the key number here. Think about it. 7-Elevens. 7 doors. 7, man, that’s the number. 7 chipmunks twirlin’ on a branch, eatin’ lots of sunflowers on my uncle’s ranch. You know that old children’s tale from the sea. It’s like you’re dreamin’ about Gorgonzola cheese when it’s clearly Brie time, baby.
Well, it’s close.
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Earnesty, If Not Honesty
The funniest part of this Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee ad? That they expect someone to believe that they’d be more hawkish and more law-and-orderly than the Republicans.
Man, it’s probably the funniest thing running on YouTube right now.
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Book Report: How to Break Software Security by James A. Whittaker and Herbert H. Thompson (2003)
After I read How to Break Software (which a quick Google check indicates I have not reviewed, gentle reader, but most of you wouldn’t have read it anyway), I bought the companion volumes. This book, which I bought off of Amazon.com at its retail price, disappointed me where How to Break Software did not.
Both books run off of a quick list of fault-model testing (a term I learned from the first book). I had a ball with the first book, laughing at seeing some of my favorite dirty tricks encapsulated in someone definitive’s book. This book, however, didn’t hold the same glee for me.
The first book dealt with a broad subject and offered some very concrete things to try to attack software. This second book deals with a similarly broad subject (security testing), but is more abstract. The attacks it discusses aren’t as narrow and easy to recreate; they’re more methods and abstract ideas to try rather than concrete shortcuts to finding issues. I know, there’s something to be said for a broad, ranging methodology, but the first book wasn’t that way, and I didn’t expect this one to be that way. Additionally, the book is sized similarly to the first, which doesn’t allow it to go into a lot of detail for each of the abstract things it talks about.
Finally, I don’t know that the book focuses enough on actual security attacks; rather, it focuses on attacks that could be construed as security breaches. However, in many cases, they’re not specifically security attacks, but rather regular tests that could, if applied to applications needing security, be security attacks.
Maybe that’s all security testing is, but this book wasn’t different enough from the first book to make me wonder if it wasn’t really a sequel given a better title.
On the other hand, it does come with a CD and a tool which looks to be pretty cool, if I could get some professional time to play with it.
So buy the first book, How to Break Software, and apply its attacks to secure software. Buy this book if you’re really into it or if the company is buying it for you.
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I Cannot Be The Only One
I mean, who hasn’t seen the stray drops fall from the nipple as you try to align the bottle with the mouth of a squalling, squirming baby, striking his or her cheeks, chin, and lips….who hasn’t seen that and thought of tracer rounds?
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Dominique Lurks
When you look into the bookshelves, the bookshelves look into you. Sometimes.
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Book Report: RPG World Volume One by Ian Jones-Quartey (2004)
I am pretty sure I bought this book as part of a bag of books at the Webster Groves Book Fair. It doesn’t matter, really, but I know you really dote upon my books’ lineage, gentle reader, and I try to recreate it as accurately as I can for you.
The book collects a number of strips from an online comic, RPG World, and presents them, get this, in a hardback book. A graphic novel, if you will, from an online comic. How about that? Of course, I don’t really follow online comics much; I mean, I see the Cox and Forkum and Day by Day like any good conservative blog reader who, you know, reads blogs that have the strips or cartoons printed on them, but I don’t see the sites out. Heck, I don’t even follow Calico Monkey, even though it’s flashed by an acquaintance into whose debt I remain for setting me up with my current sweet gig.
But put it in a book? I am all on it!
The story follows the action of the characters in a video game for the PlayStation as they go about their quest and side quests and deal with the mechanics of the game. It’s an amusing conceit and is full of jokes available to those familiar with the genre. I liked the book and liked that it took me only a couple of hours to read it. Unfortunately, just because I read it doesn’t mean I’ll follow the online version of the comic. Because I’m a luddite enough that I have certain things I don’t tend to do, and follow comics online is one of them. But if I find another book of RPG World somewhere in the wild, I’ll pick it up.
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