Day: October 4, 2021

TMP — Remote Overload

Fandango23 Comments

Every Monday, Paula Light, with her The Monday Peeve prompt, gives us an opportunity to vent or rant about something that pisses us off. What pisses me off today is the fact that I have four TV remote control devices sitting on my coffee table in my living room. Four!

Back in the day, all anyone really needed was one TV remote control. A single device to turn the TV on and off, to change channels, and to adjust the volume. Easy peasy.

Things are different today. Take a look at the picture above. The remote on the left is for the TV itself and I use it to change the signal source from the satellite dish to the streaming channels. I also use it to connect to the Bluetooth headphones I wear when watching TV.

Next to that is the remote control for Dish, the satellite service we use. Other than when we’re streaming, we use Dish for watching live TV and for programs we recorded on our DVR. Then there’s our Roku remote control for when we’re watching streaming channels like Netflix, Hulu, Prime, Apple TV, and Discovery Plus.

The device on the right is for Flex, the streaming service from Comcast, although truth be told, we rarely use that device.

There is a silver lining, though, to this whole remote control overload situation. My wife and I used to fight over control of the remote control, but now she has ceded control of the remote controls to me. I feel like the all powerful Oz!

Share Your World — 10/4/2021

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It’s time for another one of Melanie’s Share Your World prompts. Let’s answer her “off-the-cuff” questions.

How do you feel about sharing your computer or phone password with your partner?

We know each other’s passwords so that if anything happens to either one of us, the other will have access to all accounts and websites.

What is the greatest struggle you’ve overcome? (This isn’t meant to be invasive, just use general terms if you’d like. Or if not, feel free to pass on the question. That’s allowed too).

I have struggled with having rejected the religious beliefs of my family and most of my friends. I so wanted to embrace their beliefs, but my head and heart (and pragmatism) just couldn’t reconcile the mythologies they clung to with the reality I was experiencing. As a result, I have lost some friends and even alienated some family members. But I am at peace with my atheism.

If heaven is real and you died tomorrow, do you think you would get in? Why or why not? (This is purely speculation, no bias if you don’t believe.)

This is an easy one since I don’t believe in an afterlife and I believe that when I die, everything will cease to exists, at least from my perspective. So since there is no heaven, I’m sure I won’t get in to that “place” that doesn’t exist in reality.

What makes you feel like you really need to be alone?

After reading, watching, or hearing political news, I just want to be left alone to stew.

Do you have any traditions around this time of year?

October is the Major League Baseball month leading up to the World Series. The post season playoffs start tomorrow. Go Boston Red Sox. Go San Francisco Giants!

Blogging Insights — Don’t Interrupt Me

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Dr. Tanya has decided to change things up a bit for her weekly Blogging Insights prompt. Instead of using the Q&A format, she provides us with a quote about blogging or writing and ask us to express our opinion about said quote.

This week’s quote is from French author Jules Renard.

“Writing is the best way to talk without being interrupted.”

Unless you’re a comedy writer for a TV talk show like Saturday Night Live or The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and must, therefore, work in collaboration with other writers, writing is mostly a solo activity. Well, it is for me, anyway. Hence, unless some emergency or other urgent matter occurs, I don’t want to have my train of thought broken by being interrupted while writing something.

And at my age, I need to write almost everything that occurs to me down as soon as it pops into my head, lest I immediately forget it. Thus, if I am in the process of writing a brilliant sentence regarding a tremendously insightful thought using a few perfectly chosen words, all of that will escape me if interrupted.

So, bottom line, I agree with Monsieur Renard’s quote, although sometimes I find that my writing will be interrupted by my own second thoughts.

The Text Message

Fandango20 Comments

After reading the cryptic text message that flashed up on his iPhone, a shiver shot down Aaron’s spine. Faced with what he perceived to be an insuperable situation, he texted Amanda and told her to meet him behind the campus chapel. Then he pressed the shutdown button and the screen on his phone went black. Aaron then headed across the main quad to the rendezvous point.

He arrived a few minutes before Amanda and was starting to panic before she arrived. When she finally showed up, she was annoyed, and wanted to know why he texted her and then, before she could even respond, shut off his phone.

“I got a text message from Tony,” Aaron told Amanda. “All it said was ‘This is Tony. I know what’s going on, you SOB!’ Amanda, he knows about us, and I think he’s going to do something drastic, like kill me. Or maybe both of us.”

“Omigod, Aaron, you’re such a drama queen,” Amanda said. “Tony sent you that text because I told him I am leaving him, that I want a divorce and want to be with you. You’re being paranoid.”

“You gave him my name and phone number?” Aaron asked. “Are you crazy, Amanda? Why would you do that? He’s the college wrestling coach and everyone knows he’s hotheaded and a maniac. He’s going to come after me, for sure. Under the circumstances, of course I’m being paranoid. Who wouldn’t be?”

“He’s not coming after you, Aaron,” Amanda said. “He’s just toying with you.”

“Toying with me? I think what he texted is a threat. He’s gonna kill me.”

“There’s a big difference between messing with someone’s head and killing someone,” Amanda said.

“You’re splitting hairs, Amanda. To a guy like Tony, messing with someone’s head is the same as putting a bullet in someone’s head.”

When Tony suddenly showed up behind the chapel with a pistol in his hand, Aaron looked at Amanda and said, “What did I tell you?” right before the first shot rang out.

Aaron fell to the ground. Amanda screamed. Another shot was fired. Then there was silence.

Written for these daily prompts: Ragtag Daily Prompt (cryptic), Word of the Day Challenge (shiver), Your Daily Word Prompt (insuperable), My Vivid Blog (chapel), The Daily Spur (button), and Fandango’s OneTwo-Word Challenge (splitting hairs).

Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge #138

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

The photo below is from donmatthewspoetry.com and is used with permission.

For the visually challenged writer, the photo shows a young man in a tuxedo in the foreground. He’s carrying a small, white sewing machine in one hand and has a big smile on his face. Meanwhile, behind him is a brown UPS truck askew on a hill with three policemen and possibly the truck’s driver talking.

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.

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