David S. Atkinson's Blog, page 163

I Still Haven’t Stopped: The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers

Nope, I still haven’t stopped with the animated gifs of cartoons. I’m still going. Well, at least this one is an animated gif of a comic book (The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers) instead of a cartoon. That’s different, right? That makes it okay, right?

No, no it doesn’t. I know it doesn’t. We all know it doesn’t. I promise this won’t go on much longer.

Maybe I’m Just Reliving My Childhood: The Mysterious Cities Of Gold

Maybe I’m just using all this as an excuse to relive my childhood. Why else do I keep looking for animated gifs from old cartoons? I held off for a day for an important informational post, but then I’m right back at it. Anyway, since I haven’t managed to stop myself yet, here’s an animated gif from The Mysterious Cities of Gold:

I hope I cut this out soon. I’m sure people are getting pretty sick of this whole thing. You’d think I would be by now…but apparently not.

Release Party Reading This Saturday at Still Cellars Distillery & Art House in Longmont!

Release Party reading this Saturday at Still Cellars Distillery & Art House in Longmont! 7:00 PM Saturday April 23, 2016! Hosted by Steven Dunn!   Readers include Dana Green, Angela Buck, Steven Dunn, Khadijah Queen, Katie Jean Shinkle, and me!

I know for sure Steven will be reading from Potted Meat, Dana will be reading from Sometimes the Air in the Room Goes Missing, and I’ll be reading from Not Quite so Stories. Everyone else will be reading some stellar stuff too. Frankly, I’m pretty honored they’re all letting me read with them. Still Cellars apparently distills some pretty impressive libations as well, so high class company little ‘ol me will be in all around.

You should all come check it out. 1115 Colorado Avenue, Longmont, Colorado 80501. It’s going to be quite a night.

I Need To Be Stopped: Sport Billy

I seriously need to be stopped. Why do I keep posting animated gifs from obscure cartoons? They’re already animated! That’s the whole point of cartoons! Why do I keep doing this? Why did I try to fing out whether or not someone had done an animated gif of Sport Billy?

I think I’m probably the only one who even remembers this cartoon. I need to be stopped. Hopefully I’ll get bored of this eventually.

There’s Actually A Drak Pack Animated Gif!

There’s actually a Drak Pack animated gif! (Figured I’d go with this since I seem to be on a cartoon-themed animated gif kick recently.) I don’t know why this surprises me. People make animated gifs out of everything. Still, this cartoon went off the air in 1982. It’s been almost 34 years, getting kind of obscure now.

I used to adore this show when I was in preschool and kindergarten.

Equal Time

Yesterday I included an animated gif of Spongebob Squarepants in my post. In the interests of equal time, I realized I should therefore include an animated gif from Turbo Teen in today’s post. I’m not sure why it seems like I need to do this, but here we are:

80s cartoons rule! Anyway, now this strange need is satisfied. You may all carry on as you were.

Let’s Be Happier Today

I was kind of angry yesterday. I admit it, I was venting a bit. As such, let’s be happier today. Let’s have an animated gif of Spongebob Squarepants:

There, isn’t that better?

My Least Favorite Tattered Cover Reading Ever

I like Ernest Cline. I do. I’ve only read Ready Player One so far. I haven’t read Armada yet or seen Fanboys, but still. However, the event last night at the Tattered Cover on Colfax was my least favorite event there ever, and I’ve been to quite a few over the years. Sorry, but it’s true.

When I got there, there were already a lot of people. I was told by staff that the signing would be in order of rows, so I sat as close as I could. This meant I was way off to stage (or podium) left, which would end up being disastrous for the evening.

You see, the Colfax locations puts the presenter in an alcove at the center of the basement room. This is normally fine. However, Ernest had a projection up on a screen as an integral part of his presentation. Guess what? They had the projection screen set up on the far side of the alcove. Not everyone could see it, particularly me. That meant that I couldn’t see what he was directly talking about most of the time. You didn’t always need to see the screen to know what was going on, but much of the time you did. Not being able to see, I was completely lost. Even when you didn’t need to see, I’d usually spaced out because I’d been so lost beforehand and so even that was lost on me.

I was pretty much lost the entire time he talked. For an hour and a half. Longer than normal, and not actually involving any reading from the book the reading was about (Armada). Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but since I was so lost every extra minute felt like just that much more time I was flushing from my life. Normally, I get out of a reading by 8. He didn’t even stop talking until 8:30.

In fact, the current book took up about ten minutes at the end. Before that was a lead up about his life, how he came to writing, how he got Fanboy made, the reaction, writing Ready Player One, and all that. That was all fine too, except for me basically wasting an hour and a half of my life since I could follow any of it due to not being able to see the screen.

Worst, the screen was portable. They could have put it at a good location everyone could see, but they didn’t. No one else even mentioned it. Most of them seemed so fanboy/girl themselves that they didn’t care. Maybe they knew it all already. I didn’t, and I just spent the whole time angry and confused, and getting angrier all the time.

Then? When he stopped talking and started signing? That’s when the staff spur of the moment decided to change how things were going to go. The first three rows still went first, but they then were going to do all the people on the sides who’d arrived last. Really? Change it at the last minute when I’d arrived as early as possible to try to get a good spot for signing, a spot I was told would be good, when I could have just stood to get up there faster? They were going to send all these other people up before me who hadn’t been waiting as long? I just got angrier and angrier.

I’ve never been to one that was going to be that crowded where they hadn’t issued numbered signing line tickets. Ever.

It took an hour for me to get up to the desk where he was signing.

Mind you, I got up there at 9:30 and the store had closed at 9. They still had well over half of the crowd to go, mostly because he was chatting with people way longer than he was possible to get everyone through. They just kept letting things get later and later, even announcing that people with kids could get into line out of order, not that people weren’t just getting in line whenever they wanted without being stopped anyhow. Of course, as someone who didn’t bring a kid my time was worthless and I hadn’t been waiting as long despite having arrived just after six.

Yeah, three and a half hours there. For virtually nothing except signed books. I was so tempted just to walk out and abandon the whole thing, particularly since I basically didn’t get to understand the talk anyway, but only held on because I kept telling myself it couldn’t go on much longer. Then it did.

By the time I got up to Ernest, I didn’t even want to talk to him. I handed him my books for signing and just shrugged whenever he said anything to me. Then I got the hell out.

The time I left my house? 5:30. The time I got home? 10:00. All for the privilege of sitting and getting angry, and a couple signed books I could have had delivered that way. I got to meet Ernest, but I was so pissed by that point that it didn’t matter anyway. I like Ernest, but I wasn’t that big of a fan. This big block of resentment I’m carrying around with me will likely fight against becoming one, just from the memory. I’m going to have to wait a long time to read Armada now just to not take all that anger out on the book. It was simply the least enjoyable reading I’ve ever been to at the Tattered Cover.

And I like Ernest Cline.

Finally! Clarification On My January 7 Vaguepost! New Novel Forthcoming! “Apocalypse All the Time”!

Finally! I’m revealing the news I vagueposted about back on January 7th! (And again on January 14th!) My novel Apocalypse All the Time is forthcoming from Literary Wanderlust (tentatively) in January of 2017!

Doesn’t it seem as if someone issues a new apocalypse prediction every week? Y2K? The Mayan apocalypse? The Rapture? Doesn’t it seem endless? As opposed to the traditional trend of post-apocalyptic literature, Apocalypse All the Time is post-post-apocalypticism. Marshall is sick of the apocalypse happening on a weekly (if not daily) basis. Life is constantly in peril, continually disrupted, but nothing significant every happens. The emergency is always handled. Always. Marshall wants out; he wants it all to stop…one way or another. Apocalypse All the Time explores humanity’s fascination with the end times and what impact such a fascination has on the way we live our lives.

Literary Wanderlust accepted the novel on January 7th and we signed a contract January 14th, but we wanted to wait to announce so as to not distract from Not Quite so Stories, hence the reason for the vague posting.

Remember This?

Remember this?

Now you do! [Maniacal laughter]