David S. Atkinson's Blog, page 189

I Don’t Think People Who Eat Spicy Foods Live Forever

I’ve talked before about seeing poorly written blurbs on display screens in elevators. I saw another one recently that gave me pause. It claimed that a new study suggests that people who eat spicy foods are 17% less likely to die than other people. I don’t think that means what they think it means.

There should have been some kind of time-based qualifier.

I don’t think people who eat spicy foods live forever.

17% less likely to die? Aren’t all people 100% likely to die? Everyone is going to die, sooner or later. Clearly, they must mean the study suggests that people who eat spicy foods are 17% less likely to die early, perhaps by a particular age range, than people who do not eat spicy foods.

That isn’t what they said.

Now, I know that reporting isn’t as rigorous these days. We don’t demand it, and aren’t willing to pay for it. News comes too fast and in too great a stream for that. A little blurb on a screen in an elevator is even worse.

However, this merited at least one additional word. “Early” would have at least helped.

Food Armageddon

These food combinations are getting a little ridiculous. We have the taco in a Dorito shell. We have a burger on a bun made of doughnuts. We even have bloody marys with pizza, burgers, onion rings, and so on. Screw it. Let’s just declare food armageddon.

Let’s dump cheese burgers, tacos, gravy, pizza, doughnuts, fried chicken, french fries, onion rings, vodka, Mountain Dew, Doritos, chocolate pie, ice cream, bacon, sour cream, cheese, Captain Crunch, candy bars, and every other bad for us comfort food in a five gallon bucket. Fill that sucker to the brim. Enough is enough, just go nuclear already.

Let’s Start A New Deflategate Rumor

People are talking about Brady and deflategate again. Personally, I don’t care much about it. Even if I cared, I probably wouldn’t care any more. As such, let’s start a new rumor about it: Deflategate is related to The Brady Bunch.

You see, Marcia was afraid that she was going to get hit in the face with a football again before a big date.

To mitigate the damage, pain, and facial problems this would cause, she snuck into the locker room at school and started deflating all the footballs. This turned out in a way she didn’t expect, causing the entire school football team to be unjustly imprisioned for treason.

Man, The Brady Bunch was wacky. I blame the 70s.

In Memory: Shinobi Terrence Wells

I found out last night that a wonderful human being passed away this weekend. There are some people who just make your day better whenever they are around simply by being who they are. This man was one of the warmest, most compassionate people I have ever met. He was always witty and interesting, and had the absolute best sense of humor. It had been a while since I’d gotten to actually see him, but luckily I happened to find him online recently. His passing is difficult to mentally process, but at least I got a chance to talk to him again before he left, instead of finding out about it later and only wishing.

So long, Shinobi Terrence Wells. The world isn’t as nice a place without you in it, but it’s a much better place for you having been here for the time that you were.

The Cats Are Messing With Me

My cats are messing with me.

My wife has been out of town for a bit so my house has been pretty quiet. I’m the only one here, other than four cats. However, other than various kinds of “meows,” cats only make so much noise. Usually.

I’ve been reading late at night in the quiet and suddenly jumped when I heard something that sounded like a “BAWOOOOONNNNGGGGG!!!!!!!” somewhere in the house. For a second, I thought there was someone else in the house. Of course, there wasn’t. What had happened was that one of the cats had gotten bored and flicked one of the many spring door stops in the house.

They startled me (being an unexpected, non-cat type for the most part noise), and startled themselves. They do this, get startled at the noise, and then come running into the room where I am, looking around wildly like an intruder has just revealed himself/herself/itself. They know what this is though, and what it does when they flick it. They just wait until it’s really quiet to do it in order to mess with me.

It’s happened a few times.

I’ve Been Reading That Inscription Wrong For Five Years

I had the good fortune of getting to hear Etgar Keret read back at AWP when it was last in Denver. I saw him signing someone’s book before the reading and mistakenly, and unintentionally rudely, ran up to get my books signed. Turns out, he was just borrowing the guy’s book so he could use it as part of the reading. I was embarassed, but he was nice enough to sign my books anyway. I told him my name was David and he wrote in one of them: “Slay a king!”

Or, so I thought.

I went around jokingly telling people Etgar Keret told me to commit regicide. I told people I was keeping an eye on the Mattress King.

I was a little puzzled, but I figured it must be metaphorical or something. I thought it might have been a biblical reference. I remember David being a biblical king, and struggling to stay king, but didn’t remember him killing any king. I remember him killing Goliath, but no kings. I figured maybe it was just that everyone knew the bible better than me and maybe he was famous for killing some king, like Saul or something (though that ran counter to what I remembered).

I was lucky enough to communicate with Mr. Keret over email recently. He was nice enough to respond to a communication I sent someone to forward to him, in which I’d mentioned the inscription and included a pic.

He explained that he actually hadn’t finished writing what he’d intended, perhaps because I rushed him right before a gigantic reading and flustered him. He hadn’t finished crossing the “t” he’d intended to. It was supposed to far less lethally say “Stay a king!” rather than “Slay a king!”

That made a lot more sense.

Funny that I’ve been reading this wrong for five years.

In Remembrance

I saw a friend share the pic below on facebook in remembrance of Rowdy Roddy Piper upon hearing of his death. I can think of no better tribute.

“Not Quite so Stories” has a tentative publication date!

Not Quite so Stories (my new short story collection forthcoming from Literary Wanderlust) has a tentative publication date! The current target is March 1, 2016. Start looking for it close to then!

I’ll be sure to keep everyone updated.

Was Packing Material Necessary?

Dear Petsmart: Was it really necessary to package the litter I ordered in boxes with packing material?

My wife has our car out of town right now and I decided I needed some more cat litter. We have four cats, so we can go through quite a bit of litter. The bags we buy are forty pounds each, and I wanted three. Trying to get these without having them shipped was going to be problematic.

So, I ordered online. Found a sale so even with shipping it was only a few dollars per bag more than normal. That was cool. We usually go to Petco, but they didn’t ship big bags of litter. Petsmart did. I figured they’d use UPS as opposed to the post office, which was good. Forty pound bags of litter wouldn’t fit in the boxes at our mailbox station and I probably would have been told to come pick them up at the post office. I would have been no better off than getting it from the store myself. UPS would drop off on our porch.

I didn’t think anyone would steal three forty pound sacks of litter.

So this was all there when I got home. Each bag was individually boxed. Eached was packed with a bunch of packing paper.

Cat litter is not particularly fragile, just in case you didn’t know.

It seemed silly, and wasteful, but maybe there was at least some reason. I suppose they had to box it so that the little bags didn’t get cut open in shipment. Also made it easier to stack in a truck, I suppose. I also suppose they couldn’t have the bags moving around in the boxes, and it would have been too heavy to put multiple bags in a single box.

All in all it probably wasn’t that weird…but it seemed odd when I first opened it.

Most Complete Michael J. Seidlinger Collection Ever?

So, do I have the most complete Michael J. Seidlinger collection ever?

A number of these are out of print right now and hard to find. The Artist in Question is almost impossible to obtain (someone might have most of the others, some may even have The Artist in Question, but I’m not sure anyone, even Michael, has The Artist in Question and all these others). However, I think I’ve got every full book he’s written. Anyone see anything I’m missing?