David S. Atkinson's Blog, page 191

A Post Specifically For Lacey Day (Lazy Daze)

I decided to do a post today specifically for a friend. Hope everyone else is willing to go along with this, it not really being tailored for them. Anyway, Lacey Day (Lazy Daze), here’s a picture of Paul Rudd:

David S. Atkinson: Reanimator!

I am Jesus! My neighbors ended up with an extra plant. Despite us being horticulturally challenged, my wife decided to accept the plant from them. She put it in a pot on our porch. As I predicted, we forgot to water it and it died.

She swears she watered it before she went away for a bit. I’m thinking that wasn’t very often. Regardless, we forgot to mention watering the plant to our cat sitter and then I forgot to water it (this had never been put on my list of duties for while my wife was out of town, but was probably implied) for a few days on my return. It was a desiccated husk by the time I noticed.

So I said to the plant: Lazarus, emerge from your tomb. Look what happened!

Actually, I told my wife I’d try watering it. I watered it for about a week and the above happened.

Still, it came back to life. Clearly, I must be Jesus.

I Wish Someone Delivered Udon In Denver

I wish someone in Denver delivered udon right now.

This may not be much of a blog post, but it’s all we’ve got right now. Besides, I really do with this.

I Never Knew Scout Met The President! (Go Set A Watchman Spoilers)

Wow! I never knew Scout met the president! Man, I’m glad I checked out Go Set a Watchman.

Did you know Scout had to wear leg braces as a kid? Did you know that Scout ran from bullies only to have the leg braces break apart and discover that she can run very fast? She gets an athletic scholarship from that and ends up meeting JFK on a White House trip with the College Football All-American Team.

I never knew that.

I also never knew that she went to Viet Nam and saved one man while losing another, giving her the idea to form a shrimping company. That’s before she discovers an aptitude for ping pong, meets Richard Nixon, and helps expose the Watergate scandal.

If only Scout’s lover hadn’t died of AIDs related complications, leaving Scout to raise their child. At least Scout’s Man, Scout led an interesting life.

I never knew any of this from To Kill a Mockingbird.

Oh…wait, that’s all Forest Gump. I haven’t read Go Set a Watchman yet. How did I get those confused? Oh well, never mind.

Cue Everyone To Start Freaking Out

Well, Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird sequel has finally dropped. Cue everyone to start freaking out.

Specifically, cue a bunch of people to take this way more seriously than a book deserves. Cue a bunch of people to forget that this is a separate book and thus only affects To Kill a Mockingbird when the books are considered together, which doesn’t have to happen with a book. Cue everyone to decide what Harper Lee should and/or shouldn’t have written.

Cue a bunch of people to not step back and take a breath, remembering to put this into perspective.

Am I curious? Yes. Am I going to read it regardless of any of this? Yes. Am I freaking out about it or any of the sundry and possibly sordid things I’ve heard? Not really. It’s still just a book. A long awaited book, but just a book nonetheless.

I just don’t plan to get that worked up about it. Seems like a waste of energy to me, and pointless. I may get more worked up when I read it, but I’m certainly not working myself up right now.

Regardless, I can always pretend it’s just fan fiction the way I do with the newest Star Wars movies and the two Matrix sequels.

You Pushed Pause Didn’t You?

You all used to play Super Mario Brothers on NES, didn’t you? Did you play two player? Do you remember how it alternated turns instead of letting you play at the same time so after you got frustrated dying you had to sit, bored, and wait until the other player died? Did you ever help that along?

After all, either player could pause…even if you weren’t playing. If the other player jumped over a chasm, you could pause the game mid-jump. Do you remember what that made happen? For some reason, Mario’s momentum would be gone when the game was unpaused.

Regardless how easily Mario would have gotten across pre-pause, Mario would go straight down, sink like a stone and die, if you hit pause mid-jump.

Man, that used to really piss off the other person…but you did it, didn’t you? At least once? Come on, you can admit it. We’re all friends here. I know I’m not the only one.

I’ve seen other people do it too.

Did McDonald’s Not Run The Minions By People With Dirty Minds?

I know the MCD Minions toys are supposed to be just speaking gibberish. I know it’s supposed to be ‘Minionese’ and MCD was not intending to have them curse in English. I know this. However, shouldn’t MCD have sat these things down with a bunch of people with dirty minds to see if the gibberish sounded just a little too much like something they might not want it to?

I think they should have. I think more companies should use this kind of focus group, particularly with slogans and logos. We see way too many of these unintentionally go bad (just look here to see what I mean).

The harder part to defend is when the Minion toys tell kids that their real names are Charles Lee Ray and they’ve been sent down from Heaven by the kid’s daddies to play with the kids. I mean, how could that have been a glitch?

How Did Stride Never Do An Ad With Rowdy Roddy Piper?

How did Stride never do an ad with Rowdy Roddy Piper? Remember how they used to market themselves as the “ridiculously long lasting” gum? Remember the following scene?

Stride missed a golden opportunity. Parody.

Imagine a commercial where Rowdy Roddy Piper walks into the bank and says: “I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass, and I’m all out of–” but is interrupted by one of the aliens, who hands him a piece of Stride. Then the alien looks at the camera and says: “Looks like we’ve got some time.”

Whining About Facebook Birthday Reminders

I know I should remember all my friends’ birthdays. I don’t, though. I barely remember my own birthday. It’s crass to admit it, but I’ve gotten a lot better about at least contacting people on their birthday to wish them well since Facebook started giving me reminders. Some might think this shows a lack of engagement on my part, but I just have a lousy memory for birthdays.

So maybe I’m not the best person.

Anyway, these are helpful to me. It’s nice to have the reminder pop up, and stay there until I reach out for contact. However, once I contact, I do want them to go away. After all, it’s annoying to have to check because I think I’ve acted on the reminder and perhaps for some reason Facebook is presenting it again.

It does this.

It shouldn’t. It’s supposed to clear the reminders once I act on them. For the most part it does. However, occasionally Facebook will decide when I go from device to device that I didn’t act on one or more of the reminders and present them again. Sometimes just later in the day on the same device. Sometimes Facebook thinks I’ve already responded to one or more, but not all.

Even though I did.

I have no idea why Facebook has somewhat of a problem keeping track throughout the day which ones I’ve responded to and which I haven’t, especially across devices. I just know it happens, and it undermines the usefulness of the reminders. I wish I would only be presented reminders for birthdays I hadn’t yet responded to.

And, then there are the people whose birthdays pop up but have their accounts configured so I can’t write on their wall. That’s fine…but I wish Facebook had a way to clear the reminder in that case. They suggest sending a private message, which I sometimes do. I sometimes also just put my birthday wishes in a thread already on their wall. Many other people do this too. However, there is no way to clear these reminders in either of these cases. I’ve responded, but birthday reminders will then stay up the entire day.

Why doesn’t Facebook have a way to clear them manually? No ‘X’ to close?

This is all silly, and whiny, but it’s something that annoys me and I felt like putting this out there on the remote chance Facebook might someday care what users think. There’s also a chance I just needed something to talk about in a post today and picked this.

California: I Have A Water Suggestion

California: I have a water suggestion given the current drought situation:

That’s right, put Malcolm McDowell in charge. He should straighten this situation right out. He did a good job in Tank Girl, didn’t he?

He’s a pretty busy guy, but I’m sure he’d want to help.