David S. Atkinson's Blog, page 218

I Finally Finished Reading “Youngblood Hawke” by Herman Wouk!!!!!

I finally finished reading Youngblood Hawke by Herman Wouk!!!!!!

I thought that book was never going to end.

So…Is Ello Still A Thing?

So…is Ello still a thing?

I remember everybody freaking out about it, rushing to flee Facebook and sign up. I signed up just in case, but have yet to do anything on it. I have three friends and have yet to post. It all seems pretty quiet.

Did it already fail and no one bothered to tell me? Or, are we still waiting for the big takeoff?

My Position On The Ebola Panic

I think my position on the recent panic over Ebola can be best summed up by the below clip from the animated Clerks show (the one where Randal fears an outbreak of the Motaba virus after Leonardo Leonardo is bitten by a monkey and gets food poisoning from a burrito):

Doesn’t that put this in the appropriate context? More likely than not, most of the people panicking in the US are probably just being silly. For the moment at least.

Service Animals Should Be Ugly

I saw someone with an adorable beagle the other day. The beagle looked at me all sad, begging to be petted. However, the beagle was wearing a little vest with “SERVICE ANIMAL: DO NOT PET” emblazoned thereupon. I did not pet the beagle.

However, this brought up what I thought was a good point. Service animals should be ugly. Or menacing. Or something that doesn’t make us want to pet them.

After all, you can’t pet service animals. You just can’t do it. Service animals have an important job and they have to concentrate on it. Teaching them to interact with anyone other than the person they are working with, such as for the purposes of affection, disrupts that job. It can even ruin a service animal if they learn to seek affection rather than paying attention to their job.

Still, it was really hard not to pet that beagle. It was just so cute, looking at me all sad and all.

It’s got to be hard to have a cute service animal. No matter what vest you put on, no matter how much you warn people, people are going to keep trying to pet your service animal. They’re just going to keep doing it.

It’d be so much better to have one that people don’t want to pet.

I Have Confirmed That I Have No Reason To Drink Mello Yello Anymore

Back when I was in high school and just after, I used to drink Mello Yello once in a while because it was only 49 cents and other sodas/pops were something like $1 or $1.29 for the same size. Recently I went back for my high school reunion and stopped by the gas station where I used to get Mello Yello a lot and I discovered it was now the same price as everything else. I still got one for the nostalgia value, but I discovered something. I have no more reason to drink Mello Yello.

Drinking that Mello Yello recently, I confirmed that I only drank it because it was cheaper than everything else in the drink case. At the same price, I prefer Mountain Dew. Nostalgia value isn’t enough.

Sorry, Mello Yello. Unless you’re cheaper than other drinks and I’m trying to save cash, it looks like we won’t meet again. You just don’t seem worth full price to me.

Why I Won’t Be Seeing “Dracula Untold”

Absent forces beyond my control, I will not be seeing Dracula Untold. People say never say never, but I think this one is pretty sure. Here are just a few reasons why:

- I’m sick of vampires.

- As I’m sure people have already said, there is very little that could possibly be left untold about Dracula by this point.

- If there was still something untold about Dracula, they went ahead and told it when they made the movie. As such, the title is inaccurate. Should have been Dracula Previously Untold.

- There are other movies I’d like to see first. For example: almost anything.

- “One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach, all the damn vampires.”

Mind you, these are just a few reasons. I’m sure there are many, many more reasons not to see this movie.

Please Make It Stop: “Youngblood Hawke” by Herman Wouk

Please, please make it stop. I’m trying to slog my way through Youngblood Hawke right now by Herman Wouk. Right now I just wish I was closer to page 878 than I was to page 351. It’s taking so long!

I actually like Wouk (probably so far Marjorie Morningstar best followed by Inside, Outside and then Don’t Stop the Carnival) but this one…this one….It’s not like it’s bad, but it just drags and drags. It’s another New York novel. Yet another. Worse, it’s another writer in New York novel. Frankly, it’s amazing that Wouk can make me feel anything for the characters at all.

Of course, that’s getting buried under all the words. Overwriting. Honestly, it feels like the things I don’t like about Tom Wolf in The Bonfire of the Vanities or A Man in Full. It hurts.

I know, I could always stop. I just don’t tend to do that, though.

Anyway, there’s still good here. I just wish Wouk didn’t seem so much like he was trying to write a big American book here. It feels that way too much and I don’t like it.

Columbus Day Is The Day We Celebrate Flip Wilson

Columbus Day is the day we celebrate the comedy of Flip Wilson, right? I can’t remember anything else being involved. It seems like there might be more to the day, and/or some kind of controversy, but all I remember is Flip Wilson.

What kind of controversy could there be over Flip Wilson?

Thieves Actually Steal Used Cooking Oil

I can’t believe it, but someone actually stole used cooking oil. Seriously, click on the link. Someone actually stole 1000 gallons of used cooking oil from a Burger King in Nebraska City. Just as unbelievable, the police are actually looking for them.

Okay, I get that this stuff must have a value. I know it’s often used in cosmetics and the article also says it can be used to make biodiesel. Still, used cooking oil? I will repeat, used.

The stuff is disgusting. I’ve had to empty it before. It’s rancid. 1000 gallons? That had to have taken an awful lot of effort, some money as well. Just how much does used cooking oil go for? I keep thinking of that episode of Beavis and Butthead where they’re told to change the fryer oil at work and end up replacing it with motor oil.

Really? This pays better than a real job?

Fear Ebola!

Some people think we’re all panicking too much about ebola. Personally, I don’t think we’re panicking enough. Just look at this:

FEAR EBOLA!