David S. Atkinson's Blog, page 255

The Chicken Place At The Mall Should Just Give Up On Us

My wife and I have been living in Denver for a bit over five years now. Similarly, there’s also a mall in the Denver area that we’ve been going to for five years. For about the same amount of time, there’s been a chicken place at the mall sampling their chicken in the food court when things get slow. I think they ought to give up.

Five years! For five years when we go by, my wife will get a sample. I occasionally got one as well, but to be honest I’ve even gotten bored with the samples. It’s always the same sample.

In that time, we’ve eaten at that chicken place once.

Frankly, no matter how many samples they give out, we’re not likely to eat there on a given day. When I want fast food chicken, I want KFC. When my wife wants fast food chicken, she wants Chick-fil-A. We may not agree, but one of us usually gives in. This third option in the food court is just not likely to be a solution.

As such, I really think they should stop giving my wife samples. They really don’t have to worry about me, because I don’t even take them anymore. However, five years of samples that have led to one purchased meal. That just doesn’t sound like a good business plan to me. We ought to be banned from their sample line.

Here’s A Golden Opportunity For Samuel L. Jackson

I just saw an article about a guy who got hit by a train and got up and walked away. I immediately thought what any reasonable person would. I immediately thought: This is a golden opportunity for Samuel L. Jackson.

As I understand it from this article, Kristopher Wenberg was apparently unable to hear a train because he was walking on tracks while wearing headphones. The train slowed down, but still hit him. Wenberg then got up and walked away, calling someone on his cell phone while doing so.

Samuel L. Jackson so needs to mess with this guy.

Seriously, Samuel L. Jackson needs to immediately get in a wheelchair and start following Wenberg around. There are few opportunities for a joke of this kind and Mr. Jackson should not let this one pass him by. It’s really one in a million.

(Note: for anyone who doesn’t get this, go check out Unbreakable and then read this post again.)

Hey Buddy…Can You Spare A Mastadon Tooth?

Get this…somebody tried to donate a mastodon tooth to charity in Grand Rapids, South Dakota. A charity had one of those boxes set up where you drop off clothing, shoes, and similar items you can spare…and someone dropped a mastodon tooth inside.

Mind you, this doesn’t appear to be one of those cases where some odd person drops something really valuable in that the charity then sells for lots of money and manages to help a lot of people. It sounds like the tooth was just donated to a museum. As such, this appears to be pretty much a somewhat useless, odd gesture.

My mind reels trying to explain this:

- Hmmm, a donation box. You what I bet people having a hard time out there need? mastodon teeth.

- Hmmm, I’m not really using this mastodon tooth. Better donate it so someone who might want it more can have it.

- That was good that I donated those clothes I wasn’t using anymore. Hmmm, did I remember to take that mastodon tooth out of my pants pocket?

- I’m a mastodon who just lost my tooth. Better put it in this donation box so the mastodon tooth fairy can bring me a new, shiny quarter.

I’m sure none of these are correct, but I’m not sure the real explanation is going to be correct either.

I Get Interviewed Again!

Susan Tepper (author of such wonderful books as Deer & Other Stories, The Merrill Diaries, From the Umberplatzen, and others)  interviewed me over email about Bones Buried in the Dirt as part of the UNCOV/rd series over at Flash Fiction Chronicles! Go over and take a look.

I’d mentioned this was coming out soon when I let everyone know that Ben Tanzer interviewed me for Episode 70 of This Podcast Will Change Your Life, which went live earlier this week. And, the title of this post refers to being interviewed “again.” However, I do have to give Susan credit as the first person to ever try to interview me.

She actually interviewed me first. Then Ben interviewed me. Episode 70 of This Podcast Will Change Your Life just happened to go live before Susan’s interview of me as part of the UNCOV/rd series. They both did a marvelous job, but I do have to give Susan credit. I’d never been interviewed before.

Regardless, one is a print interview and one is an audio interview and it’s all good news for Bones Buried in the Dirt. You’ll want to check out both, regardless of who actually interviewed me first. Or, at the very least, we all want you to.

I Finally Read The First Harry Potter Book

Well, I finally went ahead and read the first Harry Potter book. I’m quite a bit behind the craze, but I finally decided to have a look. What did I think? Well, I’ll just copy my review from over on goodreads here.

Of course, for fun, let’s not just repeat it exactly. Instead, let’s translate my goodreads review into cockney using Talk Cockney With Uncle Fred:

Blimey! I didn’t get ter dis one fer a number ov years. It wasn’t what I thought i’ was gon’a be bad. I knew i’ would likely be enjoyable, but I just didn’t really feel much ov an in’erest in readin’ it. However, I do ‘ry ter read fngs I don’t feel called ter read from time ter time an’ I decided ter see what da fuss is about. Honestly, I can see why people got in’er dis. It taps in’er a certain ‘opeful part ov people what can’t ‘elp but feel good. It is an in’erestin’ story as well. It was a bi’ mawer child-geared van I thought i’ would be, in some ov da mechanics an’ some exaggerated characterizashuns, but I understand what dis is a funcshun ov da audience fer whom i’ was aimed as opposed ter any writin’ flaw an’ what dis changed as da readership fer da series was realized ter be bigger van originally imagined. In da end, I did ‘ave fun. We’ll see if I ‘ad enuff fun ter go fer da next book at some point. Nuff said, yeah?

For $120 It Oughta Be A Whole Damn Blanket

I want to say one thing in particular in this post. If someone is charging $120 for something that appears to be a blanket, it ought to be the whole damn blanket. That’s my opinion, but that’s what I wanted to say.

You see, we decided to buy my wife a new blanket this weekend. We went around to a couple of different places and finally my wife found something that she loved. As it turned out, what she found was just a blanket cover. At first, I was enthused. We had other blankets, my wife just wasn’t keen on the pattern. This would cure that and wouldn’t be too expensive. Right?

Wrong. That was the moment she told me it was $120.

$120 was at the high end of the blankets we were looking at. Some of them had been as cheap as $60, and this one didn’t even have any stuffing in it. It was just a cover and a zipper. You still needed a whole blanket to shove inside. You still needed a blanket in addition to the blanket cover for it to work, and it was $120.

Personally, I don’t think that a request for a blanket cover to include a blanket if someone is charging $120 is unreasonable. I think that makes perfect sense.

However, I didn’t have a choice in the matter. My wife loved that blanket cover so I had to buy it. I just kind of feel like I got scammed.

I Get Interviewed

Recently, I had the distinct pleasure to be interviewed by Ben Tanzer for Episode 70 of This Podcast Will Change Your Life. We talked about my novel in story form Bones Buried in the Dirt and many other interesting things. You should definitely go over and give a listen (here is the direct link to the episode on the archive and the archive site itself for This Podcast Will Change Your Life).

I’m sure everyone is already more familiar with Ben Tanzer than they are with me, but just in case I’ll remind you that he is the author of such marvelous books as Repetition Patterns, My Father’s House, You Can Make Him Like You, So Different Now, and the forthcoming Orphans and Lost in Space. He also oversees operations of This Zine Will Change Your Life.

Needless to say, I was thrilled that he wanted to interview me. It was fun, too. Go and give a listen. Hear me butcher a few names and titles and forget things I know perfectly well. Have fun.

Also, keep an eye out. Susan Tepper (author of such wonderful books as Deer & Other Stories, The Merrill Diaries, From the Umberplatzen and others)  recently did an email interview with me that should be going live as part of the UNCOV/rd series over at Flash Fiction Chronicles really soon as well (I believe Thursday). I’ll be sure to let everyone know about that one too.

It’s Not Really A Secret That Chicken Nuggets Are Not Entirely Meat

I was a bit surprised to see a study finding that many chicken nuggets are 50 percent or less chicken muscle tissue. Of course, I wasn’t surprised by what the study found. What surprised me was that this was news to people.

The study found that much of what goes into chicken nuggets isn’t breast or thigh meat. Instead, a lot was found to be fat, blood vessels, nerves, skin, and internal organs. Personally, this was exactly what I thought would be in the average chicken nugget. I wasn’t aware that anyone was expecting anything else.

I mean, there’s a reason that this stuff is shredded and pressed back together. It’s because it’s made of cheaper stuff than meat, things you wouldn’t normally consider eating processed so it can be eaten. It it a healthy thing to eat all the time? Probably not. Is it surprising? I don’t really see why.

Doesn’t anyone remember the pink goo that people made such a big fuss about a while back? Wasn’t that what went into chicken nuggets?

I can’t say that I am entirely thrilled about eating this sort of thing on a regular basis, but I also can’t say that I’m under the misapprehension that it’s all muscle tissue when I eat it. It may not be good, but it just doesn’t seem to be a real secret.

Still Waiting For My Voodoo Doughnuts

I’m still waiting for my Voodoo Doughnuts. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. But, the Denver location still isn’t open yet.

Supposedly, the one in Denver is supposed to be opening sometime between Halloween and Thanksgiving.  According to this article, they are waiting on construction permits and don’t want to announce a hard date in case it’s wrong and everyone lines up too early. Once it opens, they’ll be quiet about it until they get into the swing of things and get the operation fully in order for 24-hour operation.

Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

I’m trying to be patient, but it’s difficult. Ever since I heard about Voodoo Doughnuts in James Bernard Frost’s A Very Minor Prophet, I’ve really wanted to try them. Not yet, though. Not yet. I must wait. I must be patient. I must…have willpower.

Let’s Check Out “Midnight Circus”

Having spent as much time as I have in the Omaha area, I was excited to hear that Omaha has a new indie publisher: EAB Publishing. Not that the area doesn’t have a lot going on writing wise, considering the stellar writing program up at UNO, The Bookworm (which just happens to stock Bones Buried in the Dirt), The Lincoln Underground, The Backwaters Press, and so on, but still. It’s not like Omaha is New York. This is exciting.

In addition to being a new publisher, EAB Publishing has a new lit mag called Midnight Circus. They just released their first issue, which you can check out for free right here. (You should. It’s a good issue, which I would even say if I didn’t know a bunch of the writers featured within its pages.)

This is just good news all around. Something cool is happening in Omaha, which as much as I make fun of it from time to time, is actually a pretty decent place. I wouldn’t have spent as much time there as I have if it wasn’t. It’s just cool that something nice like this is happening for Omaha.