Day: January 23, 2022

E.M.’s Sunday Ramble Prompt — Really Weird Questions

Fandango7 Comments

It’s time once again for E.M. Kingston’s The Sunday Ramble. Her prompt is based upon a certain topic about which she asks five questions. We are invited to ramble on about that topic however we wish. Today’s topic seems to be weird, random, and nonsensical, starting with this:

1. You’ve been given an oversized elephant that is blind. You cannot get rid of it. What would you do with it?

First of all, I’d hunt down and kill the person who gave me a non-returnable, blind, oversized elephant. Then I’d contact the nearest zoo and donate the beast to it.

2. If you had the world’s attention for 30 seconds, what would you say?

Please just stop all of the fucking bullshit. Thank you.

3. What would you want to be famous for in the history books for your country?

For being an ordinary Joe who spoke up for democracy in America even though those with real power were happy to see democracy fail as long as they could maintain their power.

4. Imagine you could only speak gibberish to everyone you encountered for an entire day. What would your gibberish sound like?

It would sound exactly like the gibberish that Donald Trump, his sycophants who believe The Big Lie, and who promote party over country sound like. Oh, also like the gibberish that the “personalities” on Fox News speak every day.

5. If you lived in a virtual reality world of your own creation, what would it look like?

It would look like the world that John Lennon wrote about in his song, “Imagine.”

Sorry that this is more political than I intended it to be. But that’s the frame of mind I’m in these days.

A Matter of Survival

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Surviving depended upon his not resting. He didn’t know how much more his body could tolerate, but he knew that the only way he could get through his situation was through dogged determination.

He couldn’t remember anymore how long he’d been alive since the passenger ship he was in was shipwrecked after being hit by a torpedo from a German U-boat. He was still lucid enough to know that his injuries were debilitating and if he didn’t find dry land soon, he would surely perish in the icy waters of the North Atlantic.

He thought back to his ancestors, comprised mostly of hardy Nordic seamen, and to the struggles they had to face and how they were able to get through them. He was sure that once he reached his destination, the shores of America, his own struggles would come to an end. But with each passing minute, his prospects dimmed, and it seemed that death would reach him before he could reach his goal. He closed his eyes and accepted his fate.

When opened his eyes again, he was no longer in the water. “Am I alive?” he asked a man standing beside the bed he was in.

“Yes, you’re alive, although just barely,” the man answered. “You’re aboard a U.S. Navy ship and we’re on our way to the naval station in Norfolk. We thought you were dead when we found you and fished you out of the water three days ago, but you have somehow, against all odds, managed to survive. Now you need to rest. Close your eyes. We’ve got you.”

Written for these daily prompts: JusJoJan (surviving), Word of the Day Challenge (resting), The Daily Spur (tolerate), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (dogged), Scott’s Daily Prompt (shipwrecked), Ragtag Daily Prompt (debilitating), My Vivid Blog (ancestors), and Your Daily Word Prompt (comprise).

Sadje’s Sunday Poser — Just Stop

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For her Sunday Poser this week, Sadje asks…

What are some of the things that people do that make you feel uncomfortable?

As I’ve grown older, I’ve become less of a “people” person than I was in my younger days. I have less patience to suffer fools and it seems, these days, that there are more fools than ever before. And I wish they’d just stop.

So, in no particular order, here are some of the things that people do that make me feel uncomfortable:

Refuse to wear face masks.

Refuse to get vaccinated.

Believe that the insurrectionist from Jan. 6 were nothing more than rambunctious tourists or, worse, were patriots.

Still believe, after everything we’ve learned, that Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 American presidential election stolen and that Joe Biden is not the legitimate POTUS, is valid.

Watch no other news than Fox “News.”

Proselytize about their religion.

Refuse to pick up their dog’s poop.

Think they have all the right answers but never bother asking the right questions.

Think only about themselves.

Talk but won’t listen.

I could go on, but I think you get my drift. Suffice it to say that I am annoyed by and feel uncomfortable around, well, most people.

Who Won the Week — 01/23/2022

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The idea behind Who Won the Week is to give you the opportunity to select who (or what) you think “won” this past week. Your selection can be anyone or anything — politicians, celebrities, athletes, authors, bloggers, your friends or family members, books, movies, TV shows, businesses, organizations, whatever.

I will be posting this prompt on Sunday mornings (my time). If you want to participate, write your own post designating who you think won the week and why you think they deserve your nod. Then link back to this post and tag you post with FWWTW.

This week, the Who (or What) Won the Week winner is checking your spam folder. How often do you check your spam folder? I check my spam folders — both on WordPress and for my email — daily, but I know of a lot of people who rarely, if ever, check their spam folders. Well, this story may make you think twice about not perusing your spam folder regularly.

Laura Spears had purchased a Mega Millions ticket on the Michigan Lottery website for the December 31, 2021 drawing. She saw an ad on Facebook that the Mega Millions jackpot was getting pretty high, so she got on to her account and bought a ticket.

A few days later, she was looking for a missing email from a friend, so she checked the spam folder in her email account. “That’s when I saw an email from the Lottery saying I had won a prize,” she said. “I couldn’t believe what I was reading, so I logged in to my Lottery account to confirm the message in the email.” Turns out that she matched five numbers to win $1 million, plus had the Megaplier to multiply her prize by three, for a total of $3 million!

I don’t guarantee that you’ll find a fortune hidden in your spam folder, but you might want to make a habit of checking in regularly — just in case.

What about you? Who (or what) do you think won the week?

Song Lyric Sunday — Rock and Roll Heaven

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For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday, Jim Adams has given us a theme built around tribute songs written in memory of someone. I was going to used Dion’s “Abraham, Martin and John,” Don McClean’s “American Pie,” or The Eagles’ “James Dean,” but I’d already use all of them for previous Song Lyric Sunday posts. So I decided to go with The Righteous Brothers’ rendition of “Rock and Roll Heaven.”

“Rock and Roll Heaven” was written by Alan O’Day and Johnny Stevenson and was first recorded by the band Climax in 1973. But it was popularized by The Righteous Brothers when released in 1974 and reached number three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.

The song was a written originally as a tribute to several deceased singers, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Otis Redding. In The Righteous Brothers’ single, Jim Morrison of the Doors, Jim Croce, and Bobby Darin were incorporated. Over the years, though, it has been rewritten a number of times to include other singers, including Elvis Presley, John Lennon, Roy Orbison, Jackie Wilson, Ricky Nelson, Dennis Wilson, Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Cass Elliot, and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

The Righteous Brothers were the duo of Bobby Hatfield and Bill Medley. They were one of the biggest acts of the mid-Sixties, but in 1968 Hatfield and Medley split to pursue solo careers.

In 1974, the duo got back together, signing a deal with the songwriting/production team of Brian Potter and Dennis Lambert. Potter and Lambert thought “Rock And Roll Heaven” would be the perfect song for The Righteous Brothers comeback, so they had the duo record the song they day after signing them.

Here are the lyrics to the song.

[Chorus]
If you believe in forever
Then life is just a one-night stand
If there’s a rock and roll heaven
Well you know they’ve got a hell of a band, band, band

Jimmy gave us rainbows
And Janis took a piece of our hearts
And Otis brought us all to the dock of a bay
Sing a song to light my fire
Remember Jim that way
They’ve all found another place
Another place to play

[Chorus]

Remember bad bad Leroy Brown
Hey Jimmy touched us with that song
Time won’t change a friend we came to know
And Bobby gave us Mack the Knife
Well look out, he’s back in town
They’ll all be there together
When they meet in one big show

[Chorus]

There’s a spotlight waiting
No matter who you are
Cause everybody’s got a song to sing
Everyone’s a star
(Everybody’s got to be a star)

[Chorus: x3]