Day: November 16, 2020

Blogging from an iPhone

Fandango17 Comments

Some people might characterize it as a bit of an aberration. But the truth is that, before I retired, I used to blog using my laptop because I worked from home and sat at my desk in my home office most of the day and I needed my laptop for work. But upon my retirement, my life experienced a total paradigm shift. Suddenly I no longer was tied down to a desk or had the need to use the laptop. Most of what I needed a laptop for could be done using my iPhone, and I found the mobility of being able to blog from anywhere at any time was liberating.

The first sign of trouble after I made the switch from a laptop to my iPhone for my blog happened this past August when WordPress abandoned its classic editor, which was a cinch to use on the relatively small screen of an iPhone, in favor of its block editor, which is close to impossible to use on a smartphone screen. What the hell? Was this some kind of evil plot to drive us smartphone users and casual bloggers away from WordPress so that it could cater to commercial sites and business users? Were they trying to provoke us hobby bloggers to leave WordPress?

What began to emerge was a fear, or perhaps a recognition, that my blogging days were potentially numbered. I contacted WordPress about how nice it would be for those of us who blog using our smartphones if they were to give us the option of keeping the classic editor as the default editor. But each reply that I received from WordPress left little doubt that they were 100% committed to the block editor and, for those of us using smartphones for our blogs, it was “too bad, so sad.” I started to lose all credence with WordPress’ claim to be the biggest and best blog hosting site on the internet. Maybe the biggest, but the best?

And then, on top of the block editor, the latest update to the iOS app for the iPhone created a major issue with the Reader that caused difficulties when it came to liking and commenting on other bloggers’ posts. Being just one of the many unhappy fans of the block editor that WordPress had forced on us, now, with the issues of the most recent update to the iOS app, I was really pissed.

Throughout most of the month of November, I exchanged myriad emails with the Happiness Engineers about the iOS app issue. And finally, on Saturday, the Happiness and I were in concert that there was, indeed, a bug in the most recent iOS app update and they were going to try to get it fixed as soon as possible and to release a new update to the app to fix the problem in the Reader on the iPhone.

I’m still waiting on that fix to be delivered, but in the meantime, I ordered a new iPhone 12 Pro Max, which has a display screen that is 6.7 inches, compared with the 5.5 inch display on my current iPhone 8 Plus. The new iPhone won’t be delivered until the first or second week of December. But maybe with a display that is almost 22% larger on the new iPhone, I might even be able to use the block editor!

Written for these daily prompts from yesterday and today: Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aberration/paradigm), Ragtag Daily Prompt (mobility/emerge), Your Daily Word Prompt (switch/credence), Word of the Day Challenge (plot/provoke), The Daily Spur (reply/concert), and MMA Storytime (fans/November).

Share Your World — About Cereal, Toys, and Pets

Fandango15 Comments

Share Your WorldIt’s Monday and that means that Melanie has graced us with another edition of Share Your World. This time Melanie wants to know…

Is cereal soup? Why or why not?

No. Try putting Cheerios and milk into a sauce plan and heating it up for a few minutes and you’ll quickly see that cereal is not soup. Cereal is cereal and soup is soup, just like day is day, night is night, meat is meat, and fish is fish.

What are some interesting ways to answer everyday questions like “how’s it going” or “what do you do”?

These are examples of perfunctory questions that people ask without really expecting or even wanting an answer. That said, if someone asks me, “How’s it going?” I would typically say, “Fine and you?” But maybe someday I’ll instead say, “Well, tell me what it is and I’ll tell you how it’s going.“

And if someone asks, “What do you do?” I might answer, “That depends upon how much time and how much money you have.”

What was your favorite toy growing up?

Probably my Etch-a-Sketch. I used to spend hours with that thing. I wish we had digital photography back then so I could have taken pictures of some of the more elaborate sketches I painstakingly created.

If you have a pet, and you could ask it three questions, what would you ask?

We are down to one pet now that our dog is gone. The three questions I’d like to ask our cat are:

  1. Why do you insist on jumping up on the table and sitting down right on top of my newspaper every morning when I’m having my first cup of coffee and trying to read the paper?
  2. Why at 5:00 every morning do you jump on the bed, walk on my body, and start kneading the blanket. Can’t you wait just another hour or two?
  3. What’s up with those gross hairballs that you spit up every few days? A little warning might be nice.

What’s one simple thing society at large could do to improve our world?

Wear a goddam face mask when you go out in public and keep your distance.

Blogging Insights — Dreams Versus Reality

Fandango14 Comments

Blogging insightsFor this week’s Blogging Insights, Dr. Tanya wants to know…

What are your “dreams” regarding your blog?

I started this blog, “This, That, and the Other,” in May 2017. This is my fifth blog since I first started blogging in 2005. In April 2015 I abruptly stopped blogging because I had some personal matters to deal with that required my undivided attention. When I returned to blogging after a two-year hiatus, I did so because…

  1. My aforementioned personal matters had been resolved.
  2. I had retired five months earlier and without my job to keep me occupied, my wife told me I needed a hobby so that I would stop following her around the house like a little puppy.
  3. I missed blogging.
  4. I enjoyed writing and I loved to put my thoughts down “on paper.”
  5. I was looking for something (e.g., writing prompts) that would keep my mind active and sharp, spark my creativity, and trigger my imagination.
  6. My friends and family members weren’t that interested in hearing my constant whining and ranting about Donald Trump and his GOP sycophants, so I needed some way to vent.

I am a pragmatist, so even from the beginning of my first blog 15 years ago, I had no expectations of making money or becoming rich and famous through blogging. My “dreams” for my blog were modest. I would endeavor to write interesting, engaging, witty, and imaginative posts and hope that some of them might resonate with other bloggers.

Now, with almost 3,800 followers, and an average number of daily views (so far this month) of 650 from 220 daily visitors, my “dreams” for my blog have been exceeded.

Going forward, my hope is that I can continue to post regularly and offer content that entertains and engages other bloggers enough that they keep coming back to read, like, and comment on my posts.

I told you my dreams for my blog are modest.

Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge #92

Fandango26 Comments

Welcome to “Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge.” Each week I will be posting a photo I grab off the internet and challenge bloggers to write a flash fiction piece or a poem inspired by the photo. There are no style or word limits.

The image below is from Jordan_Singh at Pixabay.com.For the visually challenged writer, the image shows a young girl walking along a sandy path at night with tall grasses on either side. In one hand she’s holding a suitcase and in her other hand she’s carrying four or five glowing ballons that resemble planets in our solar system.

If this week’s image inspires you and you wish to participate, please write your post, use the tag #FFFC, and link back to this post. I hope it will generate some great posts.

Thanks to all of you who have participated in these challenges. Your posts have been very creative. Please take a few minutes to read the other responses to this photo challenge.

Please create a pingback to this post or manually add your link in the comments.

FOWC with Fandango — Aberration

Fandango31 Comments

FOWCWelcome to November 16, 2020 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). It’s designed to fill the void after WordPress bailed on its daily one-word prompt.

I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (US).

Today’s word is “aberration.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. You will marvel at their creativity.