David S. Atkinson's Blog, page 273

April Is Broken

As I looked at the reports of a possible blizzard tonight for the Denver area, I can only come to one logical conclusion. Clearly, April is broken.

After all, we just had a snowstorm a couple of days ago where we ended up with an accumulation of 8 inches.  Seeing as the weather people had predicted 3-7, I’m not feeling real good about the current prediction of 4-8. I also hear reports that we may get more snow next week.

I’ll remind all of you that Spring started almost a month ago. We have had days as high as 80, but then this.

Obviously April is broken. I know Denver tends to get most of its snow for the year at the latter part of winter and sometimes even a little into early Spring, but this is starting to get ridiculous. Given this much snow this often, April must be broken. Someone ought to send a mechanic out right away to check things out. Maybe the dial got mis-set to February or something. In any event, something isn’t right.

For the moment today, it’s just raining outside where I am. I keep looking out the window, wondering when it’s going to change. If somebody doesn’t fix April, it surely will. These things don’t fix themselves.

A Moment Of Blog Silence: Boston

A Free Number Of Copies of “Interview With The Sphinx” By Jack Matthews For My Readers!

A while back, I’d done a review of The Gambler’s Nephew by Jack Matthews in [PANK]. This came to the attention of the good people over at Ghostly Populations, a site dedicated to the various works by Matthews that has made various (including the craft book A Worker’s Writebook: How Language Creates Stories, Hanger Stout, Awake!, the mini-ebook short story collection Three Times Time which is available for free right now) electronic versions of the work of Matthews available.

Anyway, in addition to making me a little more familiar with the works of Matthews, they let me know about his audio play, Interview with the Sphinx. They gave me a chance to listen, and I was impressed. It’s quite different from The Gambler’s Nephew and it intrigued me regarding the variety of Matthews.  For the moment, the audio play is on sale ($1.99 for the audio play by itself or $2.99 for the copy bundled with the script), though the price of the play itself will be going back to $3.99 in May.

In any event, they were good enough to offer some free downloads of the play to my readers. They said I could run a contest if I wanted, but I thought I’d just put this out there and let this go on a first come/first serve basis. The info below is supposed to work for free for the first five people. If you aren’t in time, I guess you’ll need to buy a copy. Regardless, I hope you enjoy it. I certainly did:

Go to this page: http://www.ghostlypopulations.com/2013/03/march-sale-interview-with-the-sphinx-audio-play-is-now-half-priced/.  Click the first link (where it says: “Interview with the Sphinx (Audio Play Only – downloadable mp3s).” You need to add the $1.99 item to the cart, and then apply the code “freeplaydavid”. Then it should be free.

We’ll just give it a shot and see how this works. Those who take a listen, let me know what you think.

What Would You Bring To Court? How About A Duck And A Beer?

If you were going to court, what would you bring? I’m betting things like evidence, your attorney, and things like that would be high on your list. I would be a little more surprised if your list included a duck and a beer. However, according to this article, Michael Hubbard isn’t most people.

Seriously, Michael Hubbard, who has two felony assault cases pending, tried to bring a duck and a beer into court with him in Honolulu. Security screeners found both and would not let Hubbard take either inside.

Does anyone have any pessimism about Michael Hubbard’s chances on the pending charges?

I’m seriously trying to think why this guy might have wanted to bring his duck and a beer into court with him. Was the beer for the duck? Did the duck have some sort of bearing on either of the two felony assault cases? Was Hubbard trying to go for some kind of insanity defense?

This just seems like a bizarre version of one of those ‘and I’d bring’ sorts of games, only it’s court instead of a deserted island. I bet the security screeners thought someone was pranking them when they found the duck. There is just no rational explanation (supposedly the screeners mentioned that people do try to bring pets in, but this is way weirder than that).

The duck could not be reached for comment.

Shouldn’t Parking Fines Have a Cap?

Now, I know that parking tickets/fines are important parts of how we make sure that people behave orderly with their cars. I know this. How do we stop people from just parking their cars wherever they want and causing havoc? Parking tickets/fines. I understand this. However, there have to be limits. $100,000 in parking fines for a single car seems a bit excessive.

Seriously, take a look at this article. Jennifer Fitzgerald’s ex apparently left her car at O’Hare. Parking fines accrued…for three years. Fitzgerald, who did not even park the car there, a car only worth about $600, is suing to try to get out of $105,000 in parking fines.

Seriously? $105,000?! Shouldn’t they just have impounded and sold the car at some point? Perhaps, say, after the first month or so? Three years?! They honestly left his car sitting there racking up fines for three years?! They seriously let $105,000 in parking fines accumulate without doing anything?! Did they even tell her? (Was it reported stolen?)

This just seems ridiculous. Issue parking tickets and fines, fine. I’m good with that. However, perhaps something else should be done before three years elapses and $105,000 accumulates. Something like towing and selling the car.

Frankly, I think the court ought to make Jennifer Fitzgerald pay a reasonable fine (presuming that she hadn’t reported the car stolen, in which case she shouldn’t have to pay anything and the city should be held responsible for not telling her they found her car) and tell Chicago to not be so stupid again. $105,000 for a car they let sit illegally parked for three years is just ridiculous.

Someone Needs To Be Fired From Hell’s Kitchen Besides The Chef Contestants

I don’t watch a lot of TV, but I did take a break from reading last night and watch a couple of episodes of Hell’s Kitchen Season 11 last night with my wife. I have come to the conclusion that they need to fire some people other than the chef contestants. The person who needs to be fired is whoever came up with the intro for Season 11.

Seriously, I was just watching, going with the flow, and suddenly I saw the intro. What the hell is up with this intro? Other than playing a terrible song that doesn’t go with the feel of the show at all, it shows live action versions of the various chef contestants using kitchen implements to fight a slew of computer-animated (cheaply, from the visual feel) robots. Eventually, one of the robots the contestants have been fighting turns into Gordan Ramsay.

Robots? Who thought of this? Yeah, these people are competing…but they are chefs! What the heck does that have to do with robots?

It was one of the dumbest show intros I have ever seen, and keep in mind that I’ve watched Captain Planet. Robots? Hitting the robots with frying pans and throwing meat cleavers at them? Somehow energy bolts fly out of the meat cleavers? It was just STUPID. It had nothing to do with the show, looked cheaply done, and frankly seemed like it had been done with someone who is totally out of touch with what makes a good intro. Someone had an idea they thought was good and no one with any real idea of how it came across bothered to inform them otherwise. Frankly, I can’t believe Gordan Ramsay was willing to put up with this crap. It’s really pretty horrible.

Of course, maybe Gordon just doesn’t care anymore. Based on the performances I saw while watching last night, I suspect he might throw himself off the show just so he doesn’t have to work with these people anymore. “Bugger off! I’m going home!”

I Still Want My North Korean Cakes

I saw a friend post a ridiculous video recently that was supposed to be a North Korean propaganda video about life in the United States. Of course, it wasn’t true. It was a video about struggling portions of Europe or some such thing and some UK travel writer had pretended to do a translation voice over that was more funny than accurate. The main disappointment for me is that North Korea won’t be giving me any cakes.

I want my cake.

Seriously, check out the video. It isn’t real, but it is hysterical. Supposedly we eat snow, make coffee from snow (there is a lot of talk about that), live in tents because our houses fall down, schedule when the homeless will eat the few remaining birds in the trees, and so on. One guy is supposedly going to show the camera his tent, only the roof has fallen in. By the way, the roof includes wooden joists. This is a bit odd for a tent.

Regardless, my favorite bit (even more than the bits where they keep focusing on how we have to make coffee from snow), is how North Korea is supposedly giving poor Americans each a handout and a cake. When I first saw it, I didn’t know it was fake. When I found out it was fake, my main disappointment was that I wouldn’t be getting my cake.

I mean, do I care whether or not North Koreans worry about me drinking coffee made from snow? No. I don’t care if this video is fake or not. What I care about, is the cake. I think North Korea, in a gesture of goodwill, should give us cake anyway.

I Wonder If Anthony Weiner Has A Shot Or Not

I just heard that Anthony Weiner is considering running for mayor of New York. To be honest, I’m a little surprised. I mean, I would have thought he was a political liability in the first place since his name is ‘Weiner.’ The fact that it has only been two years since he sent lewd pictures of himself over Twitter, lied about it, and then eventually admitted it makes this even more surprising.

Just imagine how this could work if he actually got to be mayor. I certainly hope there wouldn’t be a mayoral Twitter feed. Beyond that, don’t you think people would give him crap about it? “Hey, Bill,” Weiner would say, “we need to discuss the union contract.” “Okay,” hypothetical Bill would respond, snickering, “why don’t you send me a text?” It could be difficult for Weiner to be taken seriously.

God knows I’m having trouble taking him seriously.

But, you never know. Other politicians have come back from scandals. After all, we all watched Marion Barry smoke crack on TV and he got to be mayor of D.C. again after that. He certainly had name recognition on his side. I think he’s on the D.C. city council to this day.

I guess you just never know. Maybe people will be pissed enough at Michael Bloomberg over the soda ban that they’d be willing to receive a few inappropriate photos over Twitter. We’ll just have to wait and see. This is New York, after all.

People of Denver! Stop Hitting My Train With Your Cars!

People of Denver, and/or people who drive through Denver, I must ask that you please stop hitting my train with your cars. Or trucks. Or, really whatever. Please just stop hitting my train.

You see, I was on the train into work this morning and I heard people in my train car getting upset (I believe it was something like: “No! No! No no no no no!”). When I looked up, I saw a car headed right for the side of my train car. Of course, it hit:

(This is a shot right out my train window. It actually hit my train car about 10-15 feet in front of me, but this is where it was when the train came to a full stop.)

Really, I don’t think this girl can be blamed too much. In fact, I kind of feel sorry for her. I don’t think she was trying to beat my train or anything. I just think she was turning onto Welton from 22nd or some such thing, hit ice or snow or something, and was unable to stop. Then she just smacked into the side of my train.

Luckily, she wasn’t hurt (neither was the train, though her car was). Heck, the train was even able to keep going once cleared and inspected by police and RTD workers. It was a lot better than the last time that I was on that train and it was hit by a car.

That’s right…I’ve been riding this same train for a little over two years or so now and this is the second time my train has been hit by a car. In fact, I even blogged about it that time. The worst part? IT WAS THE SAME GOD DAMNED INTERSECTION! That’s right! Check my other post. It was 22nd and Welton last time too (though last time the train was unable to keep going and I had to walk about a half mile to get into work).

Regardless, though I feel for this girl and think that maybe she just skidded on some ice or snow or some such thing, I think it’s fair for me to ask the people of Denver (or anyone who drives there) to stop hitting my train with their cars (or with anything else). So, please consider this asked. This is just basic politeness that I’m asking for.

The Vatican’s Position On Batman Confuses Me

Apparently, there were recently some concerns that a Vatican twitter account/website may have been hacked because they’d started running stories about Batman. However, the Vatican assured the media that this was not the case, and instead blamed the fact that a non-English speaker had been doing the postings. This raises many questions for me.

For one thing, what is the official Vatican position on Batman? The article that had been posted detailed how Batman has evolved over the years, growing more bitter and vengeful. Does the Vatican approve? Further, whether or not they approve of the direction the comic has taken from an entertainment perspective is a totally different matter from their position on Batman as a hypothetical human being with a soul to be redeemed. Frankly, this only muddles my understanding of the official Vatican position on Batman.

Moreover, their explanation for what happened puzzles me a bit. They claim this happened because a non-English speaker was doing the postings. Does this mean they were posting things without having any idea what they were about? Seems like the conclusion they are suggesting. I’m not sure it’s a good idea for the Vatican to randomly associate news items with themselves in this way without at least having someone comprehend what the articles are about. I suppose it could have been worse; the articles could always have been about the Jenna Jameson assault and battery case.

I’m just not sure what is going on with the Vatican on this one. Regardless, it looks like they might want to rethink at least one of their web policies…unless there is some connection between Catholicism and Batman that I’ve missed.