David S. Atkinson's Blog, page 173

YESTERDAY WAS MY 2000th POST!

YESTERDAY WAS MY 2000th POST!

Yeah, it’s not really significant, but I thought I’d take a day to mention it. Wanted my Alan Rickman observance to go up yesterday though, so I moved this to today. Man, I didn’t realize I’d been doing this blog for quite THAT long.

What A Week

Man, what a week. Just hang on to the good stuff they influenced in the world:

That’s about all we can do.

What I Think Of Every “No Shave November”

I realize it’s January now. I also realize that “No Shave November” is an effort to do some good in the world. However, I decided to share right now what I think of every time “No Shave November” rolls around:

It’s not good. I just can’t help it.

Miss Halloween Yet?

It’s only been a couple months since Halloween. It’s going to be quite a few months until Halloween rolls around again. Do you miss it yet? I certainly do. Does this help at all?

I didn’t think so. I just thought I’d give it a shot. Kind of hard to stop watching, isn’t it?

Taking A Moment

Ground Control to Major Tom

Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong

Can you hear me, Major Tom?

Can you hear me, Major Tom?

Can you hear me, Major Tom?

Can you hear….

A Calming Animated Gif

Life can be stressful. I’m not normally much for guided meditation or anything like that, but why don’t we relax ourselves by looking at this calming animated gif:

Soothing, isn’t it? Maybe it’s just me. Or, maybe I’ve simply seen too many episodes of Mr. Belvedere.

I’m A Bad Person

A Swedish jockey is catching heat for eating her horse after it was put down. After a severe injury, Helena Stahl had to put her horse Iffy Mant down. Considering her close relationship with the animal, she felt that the most appropriate decision was to eat her horse.

A lot of people were horrified, but I’m not sure one can really look in from the outside and decide what was the best way to dispose of the remains of a friend, how best to grieve. Grief is personal, and any way people dispose of remains seems shocking when one does not follow the cultural ideas behind that particular method of disposal. I wouldn’t do it, but I’m not sure I can call out Helena Stahl for her decision. Burial and cremation are only respectful because we attach respect to them. Really, death is always horrifying. That’s why it’s death.

However, this was the first thing I thought of when I heard about this poor woman and her poor horse:

I’m a bad person.

Quinoa Animated Gif

I felt like going for another animated gif today. I decided to go for another one of an inanimate object again, see what I came up with. As such, an animated gif of quinoa:

I suppose it’s not too surprising. After all, we all know that quinoa is an alien invader of this planet. Think about it…did you hear about quinoa thirty years ago? No, no you did not. That’s because it’s an alien and only arrived on this planet somewhere in the last thirty years and now people can’t get enough of the stuff, doubtless all in line with some alien invasion plan.

In keeping with that, I’d like to be the first to welcome our new quinoa overlords.

Are There Fried Chicken Animated GIFs?

Are there fried chicken animated GIFs? Yes. Yes there are.

The Internet is a wonderful thing.

The Odds Are Actually Pretty Good When Omaha Is Involved

Imagine two people you know whom to your knowledge have never met each other. One you met at a job after law school and the other you’d met almost ten years prior to that during undergrad. They live in the same city, but you have no reason to suspect that they’ve ever crossed paths. The metro area of that city has a population of around 900,000. What are the odds that these two know each other?

If the town is Omaha, higher than you might think. Omaha has something weird about it that way.

I saw a friend post a picture this morning of a couch at a curb sawed in half with a “free” sign on it. She was poking a little fun, but apparently this was her neighbor’s yard and she was wondering what they thought they were doing. The reason this piqued my interest was not the oddity in the couch situation. The reason this piqued my interest was that I’d already seen that same photo…posted by someone else.

You see, my friend had posted basically the same picture. It was his couch, and he was posting his own picture about it.

I did a little investigating.

As it turns out, he’d had a new couch delivered and the furniture place was supposed to take away the old. However, they couldn’t get it out the door (I didn’t think to ask how they’d gotten it in originally). The furniture people left, but told him they’d be back to collect the couch if he could get it to the curb. My friend proved resourceful, but once he’d sawed the couch in half and gotten it to the curb, the furniture people said they’d cancelled the pick up. Apparently, they thought he couldn’t do it. They told him they’d be able to come out again in a week. As such, he put the sign on the now sectional couch and waited to see if the eventual pickup would happen.

Which is interesting enough, but what interested me more was that I ended up explaining to the one friend what her own neighbor was doing with the sawed up free couch. I never thought they knew each other, much less that they lived on the same block. Weird stuff is always happening like that in Omaha, despite the 900,000 metro area population.