Day: September 10, 2021

Throwback Thursday — Games

Fandango12 Comments

There’s a new prompt in town. It’s being run by Maggie, at From Cave Walls and by Lauren at LSS Attitude of Gratitude. The two will alternate hosting and the idea of the prompt is for them to give us a topic and for us to write a post in which we share our own memories or experiences about the given topic. This week, Maggie chose the topic of “games people play.” And Maggie wants to know…

What games do you and your family play?

When our kids were younger, we used to play a lot of board games, ranging from Monopoly to Clue to Scattergories to Pictionary to Wise and Otherwise to Scrabble to Parcheesi.

Do you play games on your cell phone while waiting for the doctor?

Waiting for the doctor, the dentist, or virtually any time. And that game is solitaire from MobilityWare.

Are you a good sport or a sore loser?

I don’t like losing, but, hey, they’re just games. No biggie.

Do board games drive you crazy or do you have stacks of them on your shelves?

We have a bunch of board games but these days, my wife and I mostly play card games, like Rummy 500, Hearts (if our kids are involved), and Crazy Eights. We also play Yahtzee and backgammon, and, when we’re feeling energetic, ping pong.

What game piece do you choose in Monopoly?

Are bridge, canasta, or rummy in your repertoire? What games do you despise?

Rummy 500, Hearts (when there are four of us), and Crazy Eights. I’m not a fan of Bridge or Canasta. I don’t despise any games.

Is there a unique game you or your family played that others may have never experienced?

My son and I used to play long games of Axis and Allies. My son and his wife enjoyed a board game game called Pandemic that we all played, but we stopped playing that in early 2020.

Licked Spam

Fandango10 Comments

No, I didn’t open up a can of spam today and start licking that mystery meat.

When I woke up this morning there were only 13 comments in my spam folder and two in my trash folder, rather than hundreds in each as there had been over the past several weeks. Yay!

I was so fed up with getting hundreds of spam comments each day that I was considering shutting down comments altogether. But I thought that would take away what, to me, is the best thing about blogging on WordPress: interacting with my fellow bloggers. So what did I do to get my spam comments down to a “reasonable number”? I followed the advice of Di, at Pensitivity101, and several other bloggers. They suggesting closing comments on posts more than 30 days old.

I went to my settings and clicked on the button to automatically close comments on posts older than “x” days. I chose 60 days because I can deal with a few dozen spam comments a day. But if it starts to get out of hand again, I can always drop it down to 30.

So, if any of you happen across an old post of mine and wish to make a comment on it, all I can say is: too bad, so sad! 😏

Fibbing Friday — Uh Oh Seven

Fandango7 Comments

Frank (aka PCGuy) and Di (aka Pensitivity101) alternate as hosts for Fibbing Friday, a silly little exercise where we are to write a post with our answers to the ten questions below. But as the title suggests, truth is not an option. The idea is to fib a little, a lot, tell whoppers, be inventive, silly, or even outrageous, in our responses. Today is Di’s turn to host and here are her questions.

1. What is usually shaken and not stirred?

The dice you throw on the table when playing Yahtzee.

2. Who was Dr No?

He was a professor I had in college and whenever he asked a student a question in class, he would always so, “No, no, no!” even if they gave the correct answer.

3. What is a Thunderball?

A bowling ball that makes the sound of thunder when it travels toward the pins on a lane in a bowling alley.

4. Who sang ‘For Your Eyes Only?’

The a cappella group hired to perform at the annual meeting of the American Optometrists Association.

5. What does ‘M’ stand for?

Migraine.

6. What snack did ‘Q’ almost lose when showing off one of his latest gadgets?

A Hostess Twinkie.

7. What was sent from Russia with Love?

Russian Nesting Dolls.

8. What scares the living daylights out of you?

The three Trump-appointed, ultra conservative justices on the United States Supreme Court.

9. What does a Moonraker do?

Rakes the moon. Duh!

10. What is You Only Live Twice about?

Reincarnation.

Fandango’s Flashback Friday — September 10th

Fandango34 Comments

Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of your earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember? Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.

How about you? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Friday Flashback post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.

If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (the 10th) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

This was originally posted on September 10, 2010 on my old blog.

Hoax or Not: Really Bad Taste

I occasionally turn to Google Images when I want to find a picture to illustrate a point in one of my blog posts. You type in a topic in Google Images and hundreds of pictures or images will be presented.

For a previous post on this blog, I typed, “What were they thinking” into the Google Images site. I didn’t actually find what I would have considered to be a suitable image to use for that post, but what I did find was this:

UNBELIEVABLE! I was floored by what I saw, which seemed to be a print advertisement for a flavor of Breyers ice cream. What were they thinking? What incredibly bad taste and amazingly poor judgment! I couldn’t believe it and wondered how a company that makes, arguably, the best ice cream in the world (or at least in my freezer), specifically, Breyers Cookies & Cream with Oreo (yummy!), could publish an advertisement as tasteless as this.

I was relieved to find out that this remarkably crude ad, apparently first published in 2005 or 2006, was a hoax and not a real advertisement from the folks at Breyers. How do we know it was a hoax and not a real advertisement? Well, first of all, the ad copy reads as follows:

Luscious, smooth, sweet and fun. These are just a few of the words we used to describe our new Vanilla Orange Sherbert Creamsicle. These words also aply equally to America’s 2005 Olympic Rhythmic Gymnastics Team and the beautiful young ladies that comprise it. In responce, Breyers has created a flavour inspired by the sassy metallic orange leotards of our young feminine gymnists who are eagerly busting their fresh asses to make every American proud. And of course, our RGT themed Creamsicle is as fun to eat as the girls are a pleasure to watch! So come join in on the action. All proceeds to sales from the Vanilla Orange Sherbert Swirls line go to help sponsor our young ladies in competition against other rhythmic gymnists from around the world.

Notice the misspellings: “sherbert,” “aply,” “responce,” “flavour,” “gymnists.” This ad seems to have been written by a Brit who is also an incredibly poor speller, which may be redundant.

And what about how are “our young feminine gymnists [sic] who are eagerly busting their fresh asses….”?

I guess someone thought it would be funny to show two young girls in tight orange leotards bent over in such a way as to highlight their “nether regions,” with the tag line “lickable.” The bogus ad is disturbing for what it suggests, not for what it actually shows.

Sorry, but this bogus ad, even as a hoax, is in really bad taste (and that’s not a play on the “lickable” theme, by the way).

FOWC with Fandango — Bamboozle

Fandango12 Comments

FOWCWelcome to September 10, 2021 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “bamboozle.”

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.