Fine! Be That Way! See If I Care! [Dave Cares]

"OK, here's how it usually goes," Dave said, as he addressed the crowd that had spontaneously gathered in his Blog Lobby. "I usually wait until I'm working on something that absolutely needs to get done. Then I think to myself, 'Hey, I should stop and update my blog!' That is the reason you are all here tonight."

Dave paced the stage -- yes, he had a stage installed in the Blog Lobby. Because, hey, you never know, right? There may come a night, Dave supposed, where a spontaneous group assembled in the lobby that may need to be addressed. Call him paranoid, if you must, but Dave fancied himself a man of thoroughness and preparedness. Both!

He adjusted his neck tie, straightened his sharp-looking sport coat, and continued.

"In case you were wondering, yes, this is an Armani suit. And the mustache, while fake, is made from the finest camel hair. Imported from, like France or something."

Dave quickly consulted with one of his assistants (the cute one), and found out that there are no camels in France. He shrugged his shoulders and moved on, since, knowing the caliber of the people that frequented his blog, he doubted any of them would catch on to the France/camel thing.

"So, without further ado, allow me to wallow in my procrastination for a bit, and present you with a quick trip through My Little Corner of the World, as it exists tonight... in this very moment!"

Dave waited for the gasps of awe to come washing over him from the crowd, due to the obvious philosophical implications of such a statement, delivered with such verve and showmanship, but it didn't happen.  Instead, he stifled a small burp, smiled, and continued.

"There was this one time, long ago, when I would simply finish something I needed to get done -- like, for example, the script for this year's Christmas play -- without feeling the overwhelming need to write a diversionary new blog post... Alas, those heady days of my youth have long since passed, like the winds of Summer, and now, in these new and exciting days, I find myself taking opportunities like this to simply throw caution into the wind, and spend my creative energy here, in this very blog, instead of funneling it into what I need to be doing!"

Dave ended his vacuous monologue on a high emotional note, both arms uplifted, anticipating the thunderous applause and appreciation.  It didn't happen.

"Buncha friggin' Luddites."

Dave kicked his dress shoes off, dropped his slacks, and stood before the crowd in his boxers... you know... the red ones with the "baked potato" pattern on them.

The crowd applauded.

In sheer depression-inducing disgust, Dave collected his shoes and pants, looked down his nose at the crowd, and waved them on to explore his blog, while he retreated to his basement lair, to reevaluate life for a while. Plus, play Minecraft.

So, I found it. I finally found an author more pretentious and self-absorbed than "He Who Shall Not Be Named"... (you know... the one that wrote The Darkness That Comes Before)... his name is John Brunner, a British liberal SFF author who garnered some accolades during his career... and the book in question is the amusingly-misspelled "The Compleat Traveller in Black" collection... here is what I posted in my Goodreads feed...

This is, without question, the most pungent, steaming pile of dreck I've ever tried to read. I haven't seen self-impressed tripe like this since I waded through "The Darkness that Comes Before". I'm tempted to keep reading it, just to marvel at the sheer jarring spectacle of it all. This might be the worst thing I've read from a major author - and I've read Terry Goodkind! Normally I would suggest avoiding this like the plague... but I may simply recommend it if you're intrigued by literary shipwrecks... try to make it through the first chapter... I dare you...

That sums it up. It is a jaw-slackening pantload of near-Biblical proportions. I made it two chapters in before frantically jumping ship, giggling hysterically. I waited that long for a number of reasons... but mostly because I couldn't believe he was seriously presenting this as marketable fiction. But he was. As I scan the other comments, I am shocked to see many people posting comments indicating that they not only somehow managed to finish reading the collection, but also found some positive things to say about it.

Wow.

I won't post an excerpt here -- though I'm tempted -- in case he has an addled hoard of rabid fans out there somewhere who would try to say I posted excerpts without permission, and thus sue me into oblivion. Never risk the wrath of a demented hoard, I always say. In fact, it's on my t-shirt....

There. That's a leather-covered BMW, for your amusement.

In fact, I have a couple other car-related photos clogging up my blog fodder folder... here...

There's something insanely intriguing about that photo, for some reason... I'm not a car guy, but this one speaks to me. I don't speak "car", but I think it's saying, "Drive me swiftly and wrap me around a telephone pole, Dave, you twerp"....

Wow. That's all there is to say about that Lambo. Wow. I just got a speeding ticket and all I was doing was looking at the photo!

OK, cool, now I can delete those car pics, and make room for other nonsense...

Like this...

See? See what a service you provide me? I collect goofy photos and videos, and they would just gather dust and clutter up my hard drive if you weren't here demanding to be entertained!

Speaking of videos, here's a collection of video clips of Randy Orton dropping RKOs on a bunch of random folks...



OK, fine, I agree... the odds that you'll find that video as endlessly-amusing as I do are pretty slim... I wish I knew how to make video clips like that... I would, as they say, "go to town"...

So, yeah, there's that about it.

Going to end this here post with a video... but you have to promise me something first... you have to promise me that you'll watch it, full screen, high resolution. Plus, promise me that you'll leave a comment. Plus, promise me that you'll remember me kindly once I've kicked the friggin' bucket -- which, hopefully, won't be any time soon, but, hey, you never know, right?



Hey! You promised!

That's all for now.

Dave the Lackadaisiac