David S. Atkinson's Blog, page 179

Animated Oatmeal!

Animated oatmeal!

My First Thought Was “That Looks Christmassy”

You know, it’s funny…when I first saw the Starbucks holiday cup for this year, my first thought was that looks Christmassy. Red and green like that, it just immediately said “Christmas” to me. Just my gut reaction. Guess I wasn’t thinking about it hard enough.

Feeling Sorry For The Negative Commenter

I have comments on here set to moderate so I can at least keep an eye on what’s going up. I try to let everything through, particularly with the people who don’t agree with something I say, but I tend to draw the line at people who are simply being a-holes. Since I have to approve it anyway, I just don’t approve comments where people are being nasty without actually adding to any discussion.

That being said, I kind of felt bad for a recent commenter. The comment was that he/she/it couldn’t believe he/she/it wasted X number of minutes reading one of my posts (from years ago) and then Y minutes more reading the comments. Personally, I couldn’t believe he/she/it then wasted the additional Z minutes in typing that comment, because there was no way I was approving that.

I felt sorry for him/her/it, but then I clicked to delete. Gotta give me more than that. This is a cheertatorship, of which I am the cheertator, not a cheerocracy.

Starbucks Decides To Name Pumpkin Spice Lattes Cinnamon/Nutmeg/Clove/Ginger Lattes To Not Offend Those Who Don’t Celebrate Halloween

Starbucks allegedly recently announced that they will be switching the name of their pumpkin spice latte in future to cinnamon/nutmeg/clove/ginger lattes in order to avoid offending people who do not celebrate Halloween. They reportedly stated that pumpkins are associated with Halloween and not everyone celebrates that holiday. People will still be able to enjoy the same flavored latte, but it will simply be called by the common ingredients of pumpkin spice instead of by the pumpkin spice latte moniker.

Cinnamon/nutmeg/clove/ginger lattes will taste the same.

It was widely believed that white women in yoga pants would riot over this news. However, that outrage has yet to be noticeable. It has been theorized that no one really cares about something so trivial after all.

News sources have supposedly told the public not to worry though. If outrage isn’t forthcoming shortly they reportedly stated that they would manufacture it themselves, so we’re all good.

The Last Fbomb Event Of The Year Is Coming!!!!!

The last Fbomb of 2015 is coming Tuesday November 17th! Denver’s famous monthly flash fiction reading series is about to wrap up for 2015, though 2016 is just around the corner. This promises to be a big one. 7:30 pm at The Mercury Cafe, 2199 California Street.

Meg Tuite is hosting. Featured readers include Kathy Fish, Leah Rogin-Roper, Len Kuntz, and Robert Vaughan. I’m going primarily to hear them, and the other cool people who will likely take part in the open mic portion, but I’m planning to try to read in the open mic portion myself. You should come on out.

If you don’t make it you’ll have to wait until next year. Can’t say I didn’t warn you.

Goose-Chosen

My wife and I were driving this weekend and happened to see a young couple panhandling at the side of the road. That isn’t unusual by any means and we try to help when we can, but the fact that the young woman was bent down petting a goose really caught our attention.

Petting a goose? In the middle of Denver? We had to scrounge up something to give them. Who can simply drive on by the goose-chosen?

The young woman was a little baffled. Everyone who drove by wanted to know what the deal was with the goose, but she didn’t really know. The corner they chose happened to be right next to one of the creeks (Clear Creek, the Platte River which does a great impression of a creek, or whatever) and a few geese happened to be down by the water. Apparently, this one had marched away from his/her goose traveling companions and decided to check out the panhandlers. Didn’t seem to want food, more to be petted or something. It was weird, but the young couple was just laughingly going with it.

It certainly got traffic to pay attention to them.

After all, doesn’t that signal some kind of approval from universe? Selection by a goose? I hope both the couple and the goose made out all right.

I’m Too Risk Averse To Invest In VW

I’m apparently too risk averse to invest in VW stock. I keep thinking about it every time I hear a new wrinkle in the ongoing VW emissions scandal, but then I start to worry and don’t act on it.

I keep thinking what I should do is dump my other retirement investments and go all in on VW stock. It’s doing bad right now, but big companies tend to ride these things out. I could get a bunch right now while it’s in the crapper and then cash in when it returns to normal. These things have a tendency to do that.

After all, remember Exxon and the Valdez disaster? It was such a big deal that at the time I thought Exxon was done. Nope, they pulled through. Did perfectly dandy for a long time, though oil prices are a bit down right now. If I’d bought back in the late eighties and held on for a while, I could have cleaned up.

Of course, I was in middle school at the time.

So why not assume VW will survive this and end up making big profits later? Why not invest while their stock is hit bad by all this and get a big payday when they’re riding high again?

Well, if I invest then they’ll go bankrupt. That’s how my luck is. If I assume this is only temporary and they’ll make big money later, they’ll completely destruct. If I assume they’ll destruct and not invest, this’ll only be temporary and their stock will soar in a few years.

I’m just too risk averse, at least for now.

Heck, they ought to pay me not to invest. If I don’t gamble on them, they’ll have a much better chance of bouncing back from this.

“Not Quite so Stories” Has a Cover!

Not Quite so Stories (my new short story collection forthcoming March 1, 2016 from Literary Wanderlust) has a cover!

(cover design by Ruth M’Gonigle)

Sesame Street Neural Programming

I think Sesame Street did some serious low level hardwiring of my neural network. I heard someone counting “one two three four five” recently and immediately had this run through my head:

Happens anytime I hear someone count like that. It’s entrenched in my brain as deep as breathing and hart rate control at this point.

This Pyramid Stored So Much Grain The Sides Puffed Out

Look, this pyramid stored so much grain that the sides puffed out:

What do you think of that?