Wil Wheaton tells a beer joke.
(Link also seen on Fark.)
To be able to say "Noggle," you first must be able to say "Nah."
This is Devon answers a burning question:
Underneath the scientific terminology, essentially the answer is because Guinness is so yummy.
(Link seen on Fark.)
Some group called the Multistate Tax Commission has issued a report saying that Internet Service Providers should shed some of their tax burden. Hey, I’m all for lower taxes, but I’m a little worried when they start given little perks to some industries, because then the next one wants one, and suddenly my sales tax is at 20% and my property taxes are about 10% annually. Flat tax the corporations on their profits, but let’s not have our governments play favorites.
More troubling, though, is this from the mouths of the aristocracy:
“State and local governments understand that consumers need to get Internet access,” Tennessee Revenue Commissioner Loren Chumley said in a telephone news conference announcing the study. “The bill that was passed goes far beyond that. It has the potential to wipe out all telecommunications-related tax levies.” [Emphasis mine.]
Any time our Illuminated Leaders start babbling on about what luxuries consumers need, I tremble, for I see the future growth of the Great Society, paid for by….the taxed consumers!
Let no Child be without Broadband!
Rubbish! Now get back to work.
Go read some short fiction. It’s good for you.
If you’re a newspaper columnist like Neil Steinberg, you muse on how long you have been married, had children, and have lived in the suburbs.
If you’re a newspaper columnist’s fan, you think, has it been three years already since he moved out of Chicago?
I need to start measuring my life in more meaningful units. Like meaningful relationships between characters in Friends. Oops, too late.
Dr. Who is really coming back this time.
You damn Matrix-loving, Zelda-playing (instead of Dungeons and Dragons on the kitchen table as the geek gods intended) kids don’t even know what I am talking about. Go write your Java, your .Net, and play command line guru on Linux, and leave the heavy duty geekin’ to your betters.
Colin Baker rox. I’ll lick any man who says Tom Baker was better.
(Link seen on Samizdata, whose location in Britain has saved them from a lickin’.)
Halfway down the page, we’ve got this important bulletin:
Not really my skill set, but when there’s an opening in the shooting or vandalism, I’ll send in a resume.
This morning, he excerpts some blather from Harper’s magazine.
Thanks for taking one for the team, Andrew, and performing vital reconnaissance into what Lewey Lapnut’s found to print this month. Everyone knows I don’t have the stomach for it any more.
Sorry, recycling old Southwest Airlines commercials for you. Really, it couldn’t happen to a nicer psychotic North American than Alanis Morrisette, who’s apparently reduced to playing the Andean circuit these days.
I indicated in a previous post, one of the next things we’ll need for Honormoor’s replacement (that’s the name of the Noggle manor, donchaknow?) is a library. Why, you ask? Let’s take a look.
Brian’s Main Library These three bookcases are double-stacked with hardbacks and trade paperbacks. I’ll be honest, though, the bookcase on the right contains the unread portion of my library. Unfortunately, it contains a lot of scholarly work, like Jean-Paul Sartre, Simon De Beaviour, Jane Austen, John Steinbeck, and other assorted literary figures (as well as Tolkien, sorry) and a pile of nonfiction. Whenever I get a new genre piece, I tend to read it before these masterworks, which would explain why some of these things have gone unread for a decade. But I am working on it. The left bookcase contains what used to be my altar for the authors Robert B. Parker and Ayn Rand, but the Also, please note that these are my books, not Heather’s. I consider each book I have read a | |
Brian’s Reference Library These two bookshelves have my reference library, which includes books on computers, electronics, home repair, and writing. The bookshelves are in my office, which wouldn’t seem to make sense–until you realize that’s where I go to hide when there’s any work to be done. | |
Brian’s Nightstand I’ve started these books, but haven’t finished them, yet. Watch for a book review of that book on the origins of the English civil war coming soon, though. Is that a book by Victor David Hanson under the complete works of Shakespeare? Yes. And I’ll probably | |
Our Mass-Market Paperbacks Here’s the closest Heather’s and my books come to conmingling. The shelf on the right is mass market paperbacks I have read, and the one on the left is Heather’s. Of course, this is the total except for the two or three boxes we’ve not opened since we moved into Honormoor | |
Heather’s Hardbacks Heather’s got her own collection of hardbacks, but she’s only got a single bookshelf. I attribute this to the fact that her boyfriend/fiance was not kind enough to give her a new set of bookshelves for Christmas each year of their relationship. Hey, check out the rare quadraped Jawa without the cloak. Obviously, this cohabitant of the household could | |
Heather’s Kitchen Stash Heather has a bookshelf in the kitchen dedicated to:
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The Piano Atop the piano, Heather stores a number of:
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So there you have it. Our motley collection of bookshelves aren’t as cool as built-in shelves like Mr. or Mrs. du Toit got, but they ain’t too shabby.
All right, kids, you want to know how you tell the sign of a good company when you’re interviewing? Forget what any of the books tell you about how to judge a company during a job interview. Of course, it’s easy for me to say, since I have never read a book about job interviews, but if I had, this wouldn’t be a spurious law, would it?
To gauge what a company’s employees think of it and the environment there, ask, no demand that one of the interview platoon take you to see the cafeteria or kitchenette or the little alcove where they have the coffeemaker. Of course, if they don’t have a coffeepot, leave right away (unless you’re Heather, of course).
The best places I have ever worked, at least in a white collar fashion, had clean breakrooms. Best job I ever had, the breakroom was spotless, but that’s because my duty was to clean it, werd. But six dollars an hour doesn’t support five four cats.
Coffee stains or dirty dishes on the counter can indicate a number of things, all of which are bad news for you, the new guy (or gal):
A clean kitchen indicates that the other employees are adults who can handle their own mistakes and spills, and that they’re concerned with giving a good first impression to the venture capitalists, board members, vendors, customers, or other employees who might wander in after them. This is good.
Of course, it could mean they’ve read this entry and are attempting to subvert NogSub Law IX, but the odds are definitely with the former.
I have received mail about my post yesterday about the high school sophomores in St. Peters who got busted for do-it-yourself porn. As of this posting, three boys have been charged with felonies; the girls, of course, get none.
Let me point out, hopefully more succinctly, the absurdity of the charges. Follow me here:
!SEORE = SEORE
Do you have that moebius strip of logic firmly grasped yet? They are being prosecuted as adults for doing something from which they are being being protected from doing something they cannot decide to do because they’re not adults.
It’s all a part of the ride on the official United States Eight Ten Year Adolescence. Face it, between the years of 13 and 21 23, children begin to phase into adulthood, and society and its occasional-lackey-and-sometimes-master government are pretty slow to dole out the adult privileges and responsibilities, and when they do, they stagger the ages and make it as drawn out as possible.
Consider:
What’s my proposed solution? At the 13th birthday, send each child into the Cave of the Mother Snake, where it must spend the night alone, without a Gameboy. In the morning, when the child emerges, it is an Adult. Drink responsibly, young man or young woman, and remember to use the booster seat when you’re driving.
Also, vote for me.
Thank you.
The Onion has the exclusive: Idaville Detective ‘Encyclopedia’ Brown Found Dead in Library Dumpster.
“The bitter irony is that Brown would have easily cracked a case like this one,” Kimball-Brown said. “I just can’t help but wonder: WHAT DID ENCYCLOPEDIA KNOW THAT WOULD HAVE HELPED HIM SOLVE HIS OWN MURDER?”
While perusing America’s Second Freedom, I’ve often encountered an ad from Browning touting its gun safes. How does it do so? By presenting the testimonial of Inmate #8390027, a.k.a. “Sledge”: “When I get out, I’m getting a Browning safe.”
Text of the ad indicates:
Sledge is currently serving a seven to 15-year [sic] sentence for his fifth conviction for breaking and entering an occupied dwelling (he has plea bargained away over 20 other “B & Es” and admits that he has done more than he could count in his 13-year criminal career). In a letter to Browning written from his cell, Sledge freely admits, “My partner and I broke into hundreds of houses, many with so-called gun safes, and after we tried to get into a Browning gun safe, it was the last thing we ever wanted to see.”
In his letter, Sledge cites a previous advertisement for Browning gun safes under the headline, “The Competition Hates Our Guts.” He responds, “Now that I see what goes into your safe, I see why I could never open one. The competition isn’t the only one who hates your guts!” Sledge can’t stay locked away forever. Isn’t it nice to know your valuables can?
While I see Browning’s goal with this article, which is to say a convicted burglar/home invader knows a Browning gun safe is a good gun safe, but let’s reiterate the eye-catching headline:
Class, discuss the reasons that Mr. Sledge would own a gun safe. Would it be:
Apparently Browning must think it was the last option.
In a story certain to not shock anyone with the faintest memory of being young and hormonal and not suffering from the slightest repressed-guilt-turned-into-outrage, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports:
A group of 15-year-olds from a St. Peters high school who made a video showing two girls kissing and a naked girl being touched by two boys are facing child pornography charges.
All consensual among the fifteen year olds, but guess what? They’re facing child pornography charges! Of course. They’d be safe from statutatory rape charges if they’d limited themselves to copulation, but record it and wham! It’s a crime.
So they’re doing what curious and, let’s face it, unconstrained (whether by parents or morals) digital kids do, which is namely a little I’ll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours, with the optional “see-like-a-blind-person” rule in effect.
Three have been referrred to juvenile court on charges of promoting child pornography, furnishing pornographic materials to a minor and promoting a sexual performance by a child. The other four are still underinvestigation and may be charged, police say.
“They did the act, they knew what they were doing, and they knew it was wrong,” said St. Peters Sgt. David Kuppler. “You can’t film a 15-year-old child nude no matter what age you are. It’s the same standard we would hold an adult to, it’s just the juvenile justice standard.”
Now the system’s going to brand them as sexual offenders, put their names on the Internet for the rest of their lives, and some suburban prosecutor will be one heroic step closer to governorship. That will protect and serve no one but… well, the government and its bit players hoping for named roles (instead of Municipal Assistant District Attorney #2, I will be David Justice, Avenger of the Oppressed!).
The kids all need a good swatting, without the cameras rolling, thank you. A good talking to, and a maybe bit of “Hold on for three years and you’ll be a Vivid superstar, but from here out, you’re wearing burlap.” But jail time (reform school time, I mean, not as bad as jail except it is)?
It’s a continuing shame that parents cannot discipline and their children and hence cannot trust other parents to discipline or train their own children. As part of this abdictation, the only alternative lazy or immoral parents can turn to is the heavy hand of Government, whose spanking hand is numb and unfeeling from overuse and whom the punishment is not hurting as much as it is hurting us.
Go read this post at Samizdata: A law-abiding person has nothing to hide?
I was just thinking up a few scenarios in answer to the assertion that “a law abiding person has nothing to fear from ID cards, in-car tracking systems or surveillance cameras”. These are some wholly or mostly law-abiding persons who do have something to fear:
You’ll have to go to the source for the list.
Here’s a list of more signs you’re getting old.
I have to wonder the real age of the person who wrote this, though, because it seems hollow, as though it was compiled by a damn kid writing for us old people.
Some points:
Now get offa my lawn!
The wise Tim Blair says:
Kangaroos are friendly. Not like wombats; a wombat will leave you for dead every time.
Of course, he’s linking to a story about a kangaroo tugging the Lassie grift and drawing attention to a farmer who’d been knocked senseless. The kangaroo might just have saved the farmer’s life.
However, we here at RooWatch Central have covered this ground already. Beware the kangaroos.
Obviously, this Lulu character is up to something. Now Lulu is being lauded by Australians. Suddenly, she starts amassing wealth and then uses her popularity as a springboard for replacing John Howard, and suddenly, it’s just like On The Beach (well, in that it’s the end of the world, and it’s set in Australia).
Someone better take care of Lulu before she gets access to Australia’s nuclear arsenal or the Collingwood Magpies is all I am saying. Once she has the Bomb or a standing army, there will be no stopping her.
John Kass of the Chicago Tribune knows the difference (but he’ll only share it with you if you register, which you should):
So the best thing the president could have done, politically, would have been to leave it all to the United Nations, to walk away while loudly declaring victory. That would have been the shrewd move.
You, Heather, and El Guapo, Cagey, and the Meatriarchy guy, go read the whole thing.
Show the Chicago Tribune Web servers what a musingtrickle feels like!
Mrs. du Toit has put up a picture of she and Mr. du Toit’s “children.”
Sweet. Perhaps I’ll have to interrupt my too-frequent, too-boring book reviewing schedule to put up a couple of photos of my double-stacked bookshelves for you all to ooh and ah over.
Three things the next house must have:
Living rooms and bedrooms? Optional!
Update: For means of comparison.