Kim du Toit has offered his opinion that Sophia Loren is smoking hot.
We here at MfBJN agree and marshal this argument in support of the premise:
Contributing to the Discussion
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Any Blogger Who’s Crazy, Raise Your Hand
From a CNet story about blogs at the nominating conventions:
“You’ve got to closely watch what they do,” a political consultant recently told me, adding that campaigns can’t afford to adopt a casual approach to blogs that pop up during races. “Some of them are really crazy.”
Oooh! Oooh! Miiiiister Kottah!
Sorry, I was introspecting and taking a Horshack test, and I saw in it that I am one of the crazy bloggers.
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Another Juvenile Practices His First Amendment Rights
Looks like some punk has exercised his first amendment rights to expression through vandalism on Hugh Hewitt.com:
Click for full size
Isn’t that little bastard precocious? Unfortunately, there are some segments of society who would see this as a justifiable protest.
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"My Diplo-Sense Is Tingling!"
Headline of the day:
Powell, Annan sense crisis in Sudan
Those diplocrats really are more than the common man!
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Book Review: Bobos in Paradise by David Brooks (2000)
I have been a bad dog. I actually finished this book several weeks ago, and I planned to write a longer piece summing up insights I had into it. However, the book got buried on my desk, and I’m not in the mood to write a longer piece on it, so allow me to sum up:
- Book deals with the rise of an educated upper class (and upper middle class) and how these new members of society alter the culture. It seeks to explain why so many people wear Birkenstocks and shop at Whole Foods and REI.
- The Bobos (Bourgeoius Bohemians) of which Brooks speaks tends to conmingle the baby boomers with geek culture. It’s an interesting mix, and maybe he’s onto something, but I think his generalization might be too hasty.
- The bit about intellectual life, wherein he describes how a person can become a public intellectual, was quite amusing.
- Book seems dated, particularly in political area, especially when one thinks of foreign policy questions that none of us really speculated in 2000.
I understand that it’s chic to savage David Brooks in some literary circles these days, but I found this book accessible and thought provoking in a good way. It encourages musing about social trends, with all the anthropological and philosophical currents that go with it. I want to compare this book to Make Room For TV, but that sells this book short. Both deal with a sweeping orchestra of human experience above the more personal accounts I usually read. So it’s a good book, and a good change.
Oh, yeah, I paid $12.50 for it, but I wanted to read it when it came out, so I waited four years and got it for half price. It’s good that it’s remained relevant enough to be worth the price.
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Drink of the Day
The drink of the day at the Lonestar Steakhouse where I and some of my coworkers dined today featured as its drink of the day:
The Oil Baron Rita
Perhaps I look back too romantically to that time of laissez-faire, but I really don’t picture J. Paul sucking or any of the Texas wildcatters who made it big sitting around the pool, sucking down margaritas that were an unholy and unnatural neon or DayGlo color. Not unless the main ingredient was whiskey, and it got its color from more whiskey.
No, sir, I think a real Oil Baron Rita would be a spicy Mexicana who the baron kept on the side, and if you had her, the oil baron would have his boys convince you of the error of your ways.
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Headline of the Day
Fed’s rate hike signals rebound in economy.
What? Where’s the doom?
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Neil Steinberg’s Friend: Someone You Should Know
From Neil Steinberg’s Wednesday column:
“Fourteen days without alcohol,” said my racquetball buddy proudly as we toweled off in the gym.
“Wow,” I said, genuinely impressed, trying to imagine a fortnight unlubricated, “that’s impressive.”
“Well,” he said, a little abashed, “not consecutively.”
The only salvageable part of the column, but one must seek the whiskey in the Amaretto sour sometimes.
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Again, With Feeling
Pop-Up Mocker updated. Come on, guys, sometimes the posts are kinda amusing, ainna?
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Book Review: Love and Marriage by Bill Cosby (1989)
As some of you remember, I reviewed Bill Cosby’s Time Flies in February. I liked it, so I have invested in other books by Bill Cosby, including this one, for which I paid $2.95 at Downtown Books in Milwaukee.
I’ll give the customary ding to the pop-psych introduction by Alvin F. Poussaint, M.D. Again, this is like throwing a Dr. Phil introduction onto a collection of Andy Rooney pieces, or perhaps Dr. Laura in front of a Chris Rock book. Come on, the difference between the styles jars the reader, and to be honest, if I wanted to read a self-helpish treatise on love and marriage, I would buy a book with pictures, diagrams, and innovations I could not even imagine when I was a fevered twenty-year-old. I mean, it’s like getting served a bowl of brussel sprouts in Baskin Robbins before you can have any ice cream. Sure, I wolfed it down, spitting some into my napkin to conceal it, and then I rushed into the main course of dessert.
This book contains two parts. Part one deals with Cos’s youthful forays into love, which entails everything you expect: Lust, pounding hearts, sweet agony, heartbreak, loss, and all of the above by age twelve. Cosby captures the adolescent and early adult experiences of the opposite sex and the attempts to find a mate–which they did in the old days; now, I think kids just attempt to mate. So this first section really represents the strength of the book, and the stories are told with Cosby’s easy style. Good reading.
Unfortunately, the second part, Marriage, deals differently with his relationship with the woman who finally bagged the struggling stand-up comic who would only decades later evolve into the biggest sitcom star in the business. Perhaps he’s mining his marriage with a sitcom eye for humor, but the second half of the book really focuses on the nitpicking, and the little recurrent tense spots, and the stupid fights that occur in many marriages. As a sitcom veteran, Cosby also recognizes that the husband must be made into the often inept and impotent victim, and that’s how he paints himself. Henpecked. It’s hardly a flattering or inspiring vision of a marriage that’s lasted twenty-five years (as his did by 1989), and Cosby longs for an evolution to a state like his parents’ marriage of fifty years. Ye gods, he’s projecting another 25 years of hard belittlement.
Granted, Cosby hits on the benefits of marriage and at the end alludes to the joys of shared memories, but he disservices the day-to-day, which includes as many (or more, preferably) bright spots as nitterings.
Still, it’s an okay read if you’re a fan of light comic essays in Cos’s style, worthy of a library checkout or a cheap purchase.
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We Three Kings
Donald Sensing finds a new variation on the Nigerian scam: American soldiers need help absconding with Saddam’s loot.
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Do You Feel Lucky, Victim?
A 911 transcript between dispatch and the caller:
The following is a partial transcript of that call. Items in bold appear to be the voice of the 911 dispatcher.
911 Office, Tammy.
Tammy, my ex-husband’s here with a gun. He’s in here. He’s got a gun.
He’s going to kill them, hurry.
He’s got my kids, quick.
What’s his name?
Parker Elliott.
(Quick, shallow breathing)
2005 Forrest Ridge Trail, Culleoka. We’ve got a male subject in the house with a weapon.
He just told my kids he’s going to kill them if I’m on the phone. He’s going to kill me.
I don’t need you to hang up. Has he been drinking?
He’s going to kill me. They’re in the hallway with him, and I’m hiding in the closet.
(First shot is heard)
I’m hiding in the closet. I’m coming out ’cause he’d not going to hurt my kids. The kids are with him.
Can they get out?
I want to make sure he doesn’t shoot my kids. The kids are with him.
They’re deterring him. Please, please, he’s going to kill them.
Has he been drinking?
He’s got to be.
How long has he been out of the residence?
(Labored, quick breathing)
The kids are telling him I’m not here. He said if I’m here, he’ll kill them.
He just shot the gun.
He hasn’t seen you yet?
He’s coming. He just shot the gun again. Please! Please!
What kind of a gun is it?
A handgun. He’s going to the front door.
(Dispatcher to other emergency personnel) He’s inside the house, shooting. He had two children and an ex-wife.
Oh, he hit one of them!
Stay in the closet. He doesn’t know you’re in the closet?
He can see the phone cord coming in. Oh! He hit one of them.
(Gunshots. Sound of girl screaming in the background)
They’ve got the gun. I think my kids have got my gun. I can’t believe I forgot to get it.
I think one of my children has the weapon. He’s shot five times. I’m hiding in the closet, and my kids are out there with him.
How old are the kids?
15 and 18.
(Gunshots and screaming)
He shot five more. Is that all of them?
Ma’am, I don’t know what kind of gun he has.
He hasn’t shot them yet. My kids are still OK.
(Labored breathing)
(Kids screaming)
He’s going to kill me.
(Screaming)
He’s coming to the closet! He’s coming to the closet! He’s coming to the closet!
(Kids screaming, shrieking)
He’s at the closet. He’s going to shoot me. Help me! He’s here. He’s gonna hit me with the gun.
(Children screaming in the background)
Calm down.
He’s still shooting at the kids! Help me!
(Whimpering)
Be calm! They’re getting there. They’re coming.
He’s beating on the doors.
(Loud banging)
He’s still shooting.
Parker, don’t!
Parker, no! Please, no!
He’s going to beat a hole in the door.
Ma’am, calm down. What’s your name?
Please! Freda! Freda!
(Yell heard from man in background)
Please, don’t hurt my kids! Don’t hurt my babies! Parker, no!
Where are they?
I don’t know.
(Screaming)
Parker, please! Don’t!
(Screams, screams, screams)
(Gunshots)
Don’t hurt my babies!!
(Shrieks)
(Screams)
Freda, what’s going on? Freda?
(Gunshots, gunshots)
Hello?
This is E-Com 720. We just heard two gunshots inside the residence. We heard a woman screaming. Now we’ve got dead silence.
10-4.
Sleep tight, and don’t worry; the almighty proper authorities will protect you. Or at least will fill out the paperwork after you’re gone.
(Link seen on Hobbs Online.)
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Book Review: The Complete Geek (An Owner’s Manual) by Johnny Deep (1997)
I can’t believe I read skimmed the whole thing.
I bought this book at Downtown Books in Milwaukee for a couple of dollars, and I took a flier on it because I was in the throes of bibliophilic bacchanal, where another two dollars here and another two dollars there, and suddenly there’s no room in the trunk of the Eclipse for luggage. So I paid $2.95 for this, over ten times its value.
For starters, it’s printed in some comic sans serif font that looks funny informally, is bearable in short doses on the Web, and annoys the hell out of someone trying to read 200 pages of a computerized impersonation of barely-legible handwriting.
Also, its cartoons and cartoonish drawings by a slumming Bruce Tinsley (Mallard Fillmore) are derivative, ultimately limited by the material itself which is centered around the fictitious online journal of “Bill G.” who writes a computer friend who’s supposed to go out into the Internet to find who the best geek is. Or something. I’m not to clear on what’s supposed to tie this collection together.
I mean, there are sections where Bill Clinton is learning from Dale Carnegeek about how to influence geeks, and a section about how to date geeks, and throughout the book asks the reader to tabulate his or her geek quotient through a series of questions. So each chapter revolves around a macro-question and its component subquestions, which appear at the top of each page or so, and meanwhile the chapter is some banter or running storyline about Dilbart (a cartoon cross between Dilbert and Bart, for no particular reason) or Bill G. interacting with his computer bot friend, or the computer bot exploring the Internet cloud.
When it comes right down to it, there’s nothing funny in the book. Not a single chuckle, no matter what state of inebriation I was in while reading it.
I am sure it was hipper, edgier, and more timely in 1997, when the publisher could make a buck on anything with Internet in the title, or geek.
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Do the Math
Techdirt links to a story that says:
…20 percent of U.S. residents admit buying products from spam purveyors.
Techdirt also links to a story that says:
The US has a hardcore group of people who simply aren’t interested in using the Internet. Around a third of US adults have rejected the Net, causing researchers to split them into two distinct groups.
That would seem to indicate that 1/3 of the people in the United States connected to the Internet buy things from Spam! Well, it would, except:
- By 20 percent of U.S. residents, undoubtedly they meant respondents to the survey.
- It’s unclear whether “spam” means opt-in e-mails and e-mails from companies with which the users already have an established relationship.
Other than that, the stories are
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Ebert in Love
Now this is what a superhero movie should be. “Spider-Man 2” believes in its story in the same way serious comic readers believe, when the adventures on the page express their own dreams and wishes. It’s not camp and it’s not nostalgia, it’s not wall-to-wall special effects and it’s not pickled in angst. It’s simply and poignantly a realization that being Spider-Man is a burden that Peter Parker is not entirely willing to bear.
He gives it 4 asterisks, which I assume is good. Unless they’re less than ampersands.
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Honesty is the Best [Withdrawal] Policy
“Many of you are well enough off that … the tax cuts may have helped you,” Sen. Clinton said. “We’re saying that for America to get back on track, we’re probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”
I immediately thought to compare it to the campaign worker who visited James Lileks’ house:
Then came the Parable of the Stairs, of course. My tiresome, shopworn, oft-told tale, a piece of unsupportable meaningless anecdotal drivel about how I turned my tax cut into a nice staircase that replaced a crumbling eyesore, hired a few people and injected money far and wide – from the guys who demolished the old stairs, the guys who built the new one, the family firm that sold the stone, the other firm that rented the Bobcats, the entrepreneur who fabricated the railings in his garage, and the guy who did the landscaping. Also the company that sold him the plants. And the light fixtures. It’s called economic activity. What’s more, home improvements added to the value of this pile, which mean that my assessment would increase, bumping up my property taxes. To say nothing of the general beautification of the neighborhood. Next year, if my taxes didn’t shoot up, I had another project planned. Raise my taxes, and it won’t happen – I won’t hire anyone, and they won’t hire anyone, rent anything, buy anything. You see?
“Well, it’s a philosophical difference,” she sniffed. She had pegged me as a form of life last seen clilcking the leash off a dog at Abu Ghraib. “I think the money should have gone straight to those people instead of trickling down.” Those last two words were said with an edge.
“But then I wouldn’t have hired them,” I said. “I wouldn’t have new steps. And they wouldn’t have done anything to get the money.”
“Well, what did you do?” she snapped.
“What do you mean?”
“Why should the government have given you the money in the first place?”
“They didn’t give it to me. They just took less of my money.”
That was the last straw. Now she was angry. And the truth came out:
“Well, why is it your money? I think it should be their money.”
Of course, I saw the story on Drudge and made the connection independently, but before I could post it here, the all-knowing Instapundit commented on it, too.
Upon hearing the quote, my beautiful wife said, “Geez, Hillary, why don’t you just move to China?”
And my response: “Because, honey, she wouldn’t rule China.”
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To Coin a Phrase
Vendchinko:
When you come to a vending machine and see that a bag of chips or a pastry has hung up on the coils (called the bonus vendable) and has not fallen to the retrieval bin, and you decide to buy a product stocked above that bonus vendable (this product is known as the vendable in play, or vip) in hopes that the falling of the vip will knock the bonus vendable item down, too, effectively giving you two items for the price of one.
People use different strategies when playing vendchinko; some people try to buy the next item in the bonus vendable’s slot, which yields them two of the same item. This strategy can backfire, however, if the items are loaded incorrectly so that the bonus vendable falls, but the vip hangs up the same way the bonus vendable had been stuck, effectively giving the player only one item for the money and creating a new bonus vendable.
When selecting a vip above the bonus vendable, experienced vendchinko players account for the density of the vip’s contents, the packaging of the vip and the bonus vendable, the rotation of the vending coil, and the Coriolis force to maximize their chances of winning at Vendchinko.
So that’s why I stand there for so long in front of the vending machines.
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What a Difference a Decade Makes
Admit it. When you watched The Adventures of Ford Fairlane in 1990, you thought a computer with three CD drives was ostentatious.
But fourteen years later, you wish you could have a super tower with 30 CD drives just so you could have a DVD player, a CD-RW, a DVD burner, and enough CD ROMs to contain all the copyright-protected games you play regularly without requiring you to reach under the desk every couple of hours to fumble for the little eject button.
Or maybe it’s just me.
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Waste Some Time Today
How well do you know Spider-Man?
I am at 80%.
I missed questions 3, 10, and 11, but I want you to know I read the whole series about Kane and the Scarlet Spider courtesy of my brother, whose collection of comic books, gaming books, and fantasy novels I accepted in bulk as Christmas gifts for 1995-1998 since he didn’t want to ship them to Kanoehe Bay, Hawaii, his next base.
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Need I Say It?
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