Say Nay, Kid

Brian J. Noggle

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, local government officials want to change the name of the ballpark from Pac Bell SBC Your Name Here! Park to Mays Field at Your Name Here! Park. To honor Willie Mays, the Say Hey Kid. Wink wink, nudge nudge.

SBC and the Giants organization are resistent to the idea. I can understand SBC’s reluctance. The Giants will come around, though, once they realize that in ten years they can sell both names, making it Your Name Here! Field at Your Name Here! Park.

And in fifteen years, they’ll be selling the players’ names. “Listen, kid, to play in the National League, you’ve got to take the name given you. You’ll be Yahoo! Google, or you’ll be playing in the Grapefruit League for the rest of your life.”

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

I Had To Quell Free Speech In Order To Save It

Brian J. Noggle

According to the New York Post, Al Franken physically attacked a LaRouche supporter who was dissenting from the views of Howard Dean.

“I got down low and took his legs out,” said Franken afterwards.

I don’t get the joke, Alfrie, but I generally don’t. Were you making some point about how you think Republicans show false machismo by picking on small national threats, or something too sublime for me to imagine?

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

Only Ten?

Brian J. Noggle

MSN has Ten Surefire Ways to Tick Off Your Coworkers on its Careers site. Hey, I took a look because I thought I might pick up some new techniques. Unfortunately, this little document is about things you might do that might tick off your co-workers and why you shouldn’t do it. I don’t do the ones listed here.

I have, however, inadvertently stumbled across other surefire techniques to, if not tick off, at least raise hackles of, co-workers and office mates. So might I suggest the following:

  • Audible smacking of gum.
  • Real-time audio commentary to whatever sputteringly shocking news story you are looking at on the Web. Also, do this for at least six hours a day.
  • A messiah complex, wherein you exclaim to anyone who is listening that you are the greatest job title that ever was, but low how they mistreat you. Oh, how sorry they will be when you’re gone. How lonely they will be in the silence of the whining.
  • Answering questions that weren’t asked and then vigorously defending your position to a startled co-worker. Remember to get angrier if he or she agrees or tries to appease you.
  • Clearing the nose and the throat with gusto. Every couple of minutes.
  • Vigorous scratching and appropriate relief noises, particularly if you can bare the skin to scratch.

I am sure my former office mate could add more to this list, but until the doctors break through his catatonia defense mechanism, we’ll never know.

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

Heather Gains Some Geek Cred

Brian J. Noggle

In my continuing quest to shape Heather into a more well-rounded geek, tonight I forced her to watch The Last Starfighter.

So feel free to stop by her blog and to remind her, via comments, Greetings, star fighter! You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada.

A couple of episodes of Doctor Who (with Colin Baker) are next in her education.

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

Hey, You’re Not Barbara Ehrenreich!

Brian J. Noggle

Over at the Independent Women’s Forum, bad Charlotte takes issue with a piece in the New York Times Magazine that resins up the bow for the poor in America, particularly one woman whose tragic life story runs a gamut of poor decisions and short-sightedness. As it is in the New York Times Magazine, the author blames her miserable life on America, not on her miserable self.

As soon as Barbara “Nickel and Dime Bagged” Ehrenreich is back from her next indiscretion that could prevent her from getting a job at Wal-Mart, perhaps she could comment. Maybe we should hope she does not.

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

Tony Blair Breeds Prostitutes

Brian J. Noggle

Drudge links to a story in the News of the World about an eighteen-year-old British student who’s going to sell her virginity on eBay to pay for her schooling.

Let’s enumerate the sordid details, shall we?

  1. She’s only eighteen, and she’s only still a virgin because she’s a lesbian.
  2. She’s going to the university to get a Bachelor of Science degree in Social Policy.
  3. She’s hard up because she’s working 3 shifts a week.
  4. The government is only giving her £3000, which leads poor Rosie to say:

    “The government has made it difficult for people like me to follow their ambition to study.

    “I wish we could concentrate on learning rather than constantly worrying about money or working to get by.

    “I think Tony Blair and Charles Clarke are encouraging a class divide, which is wrong and goes against all of Labour’s principles.”

  5. In Social Policy in British universities, false dilemma logical fallacies are proper rhetoric for socialism:

    “I’m not willing to sacrifice my future for the sake of a part-time job, so I am faced with two choices—years in debt or prostituting myself on the internet for my education.”

  6. Her lesbian lover supports her as long as she is safe, but is angry that she’s [Rosie] in this position.
  7. A British newspaper presented this as news.

British kids these days. Fortunately, we won both the revolution and the War of 1812, or these would be our future leaders and Socialist Policy setters. Our own are bad enough.

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

Update Your Hockey Lexicons

Brian J. Noggle

Heather and I went to see the St. Louis Blues lose to the Dallas Stars this evening, and during the course of the evening I came up with some terms that I think should make their way into common hockey parlance. So please update your hockey lexicons to include the following:

  • It’s like football with polearms. Heather got four choice tickets from her employer, so we brought along a co-worker from España. I like to boil things down succinctly to apt metaphors which don’t require too much scrutiny. No, stop, don’t closely compare hockey to soccer wherein the players carry halberds and attempt to decapitate each other. The National Hockey League is trying to get away from that image.
  • You know, every time someone shoots the puck between the goaltender’s legs, it’s going five-hole, or sometimes when a commentator has a flash of cross-sport brilliance, the puck goes through the wickets. I prefer the puppy’s gone home through the doggie door. How does that work for you?

Sports commentators, you don’t need to pay licensing fees for these terms. However, a mention of my name, Brian J. Noggle, would be nice, or a gift from my inexpensive Amazon wish list perhaps. Thank you, that is all.

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

I Am Stunned, Stunned I Tell You

Brian J. Noggle

This story in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle indicates that men who drink more than fourteen drinks per week and women who drink more than seven drinks a week might be abusing alcohol. Is that really “abusing” alcohol?

Alcoholic beverages, such as delicious Guinness Draught, are designed for human consumption. Consuming them, and even consuming lots of them, is actually using them properly. Now, taking a couple bottles of Jack Daniels Old #7 Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey, pouring them over a couple of derelict sofas, and lighting them on fire, that’s alcohol abuse. Whiskey is not supposed to be an accelerant in arson. It’s supposed to be a slight intoxicant.

On the other hand:

“I’m stunned by some of this information,” said Roxanne Klingensmith, a deacon at St. James Episcopal Church.

The deacon should ask herself, How often do I seek out information that stuns me? Information should educate or, well, inform; if it produces a physiological effect such as immobilization and if one frequently finds oneself stunned or seeking stunning information, one might well suffer from informationism and might abuse information.

(Link seen on Fark.)

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

Line Forms at the Left

Brian J. Noggle

Tim Blair links to this remarkably in-depth recap retrospective on the Jennifer Lopez/Ben Affleck relationship which publicly lasted 18 months or at least two movie promo cycles.

Within it we find this job description:

One reason for the final demise of the relationship is said to be Jennifer’s desire to settle down and have a baby. Another, according to Us, was her chagrin at Ben’s partying ways.

My bachelor friends, if you would like to impregnate and perhaps share a house (and bed) for the long-term (two years? three years?) with Jennifer Lopez, send your resumes to:

Jennifer Lopez
C/O United Talent Agency
9560 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 500
Beverly Hills, CA 90212

or

Jennifer Lopez
C/O International Creative Management
8942 Wilshire Blvd
Beverly Hills CA 90211

Please include a photograph.

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

Barbecuing Your Own Pork

Brian J. Noggle

Apparently, the St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority that was formed in 1989 to build a megolithic publicly-funded dome stadium to lure a football team is still in business, even though its job was completed in 1995. It’s paying six figures to its members, maintaining a luxury suite in the Trans World Edward Jones Your Name Here! Dome, and setting itself up to be a gravy train for two more decades.

What, you mean the vaunted Civic Leaders are in it to feather their own nests at the expense of the taxpayers? I am shocked, shocked I tell you!

How long until Richard “Il Dick” Gephardt can join in now that his small-potatoes, low-paying political career is over?

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

Please Your Masters

Brian J. Noggle

A bit of candor from a municipal official regarding property rights, that is, the municipalities right to revenue from property superceding an individual owner’s “rights”:

But until now, its attractiveness has not resulted in a use of the land that pleased Richmond Heights, said City Manager Michael Schoedel. Instead, the property had been home to a Steak ‘N Shake, Burger King, a gas station and other similar establishments.

“The Galleria is clearly our bread and butter, and we wanted something across the street that would support it,” Schoedel said.

If the owner preferred to use the land for a Steak ‘N Shake, Burger King, a gas station, and other similar establishments? Who cares what the owner wants? Property rights come from the State’s pleasure.

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

Daddy, Where Does Petroleum Come From?

Brian J. Noggle

Professor Reynolds has the word about people who claim that Bush’s Mars program is all about sending Haliburton to Mars to look for oil.

Honey, if Haliburton finds oil on Mars, there are far greater things to worry about than the rich getting richer.

Such as:
How will the discovery of freaking life, albeit dead and decomposed, on another planet impact the Religious Right’s support of Bush?

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories