Day: April 2, 2022

WordPress Shenanigans?

Fandango41 Comments

Many of us have a sense of loyalty and devotion to WordPress. I’ve had several WordPress blogs since migrating from TypePad in 2013. But something may be afoot that will put our loyalty to the test.

I don’t know if there is a conspiracy theory going around or if it’s a bad April Fool’s Day joke. But rumor has it that WordPress will be combining the Personal, Premium, Business, and eCommerce plans into one “Pro” plan and will only be offering either a scaled-back free plan or a $180/year Pro plan. This seems to be a pretty credible story, but I have personally opened a support ticked with WordPress to try to get a confirmation if this is true.

If this is true, then, if you’re currently on a paid plan (I’m in the Personal plan), when it expires, you will be reverted back to the free plan or will have to shell out $180 a year to use the Pro plan. And if it’s true, it’s just another demonstration point that WordPress is abandoning its base of casual, hobby bloggers in order to pursue professional e-commerce blogs.

If these changes are confirmed, we need to all reach out to the Happiness Engineers to express our anger at this latest affront. We need to flood the message boards with our outrage at being cast aside by the blog hosting site to which been loyal. We need to let our yowls of indignation energize us, like we did a few years back when we learned that a site called Tygpress was stealing our intellectual property.

Our efforts worked then, and maybe if we make enough noise, WordPress might actually hear us.

Written for these daily prompts: Word of the Day Challenge (devotion), The Daily Spur (conspiracy), Your Daily Word Prompt (express), My Vivid Blog (message boards), E.M.’s Random Word Prompt yowls), and Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (energize).

The More You Know, The Madder You’ll Get

Fandango40 Comments

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but our “friends” WordPress seem bound and determined to fuck over their casual, hobby blogger users in favor of business and e-commerce users.

I’m reblogging this post from beetleypete, who saw this post from Bookstooge.

Bottom line, the Personal, Premium, Business, and eCommerce plans will disappear and there will only be two plans: the Free plan and the Pro plan. The cost of the Pro plan will be $180 a year, paid in advance (not monthly), which is more than three-times what I’m currently paying for the Personal plan.

With the new Free plan, you’ll be limited to 0.5 GB of storage space in your media library, versus 3.0 GB of media storage today. There will also be other Free plan limitations that beetleypete and Bookstooge mention in their posts.

I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!

Read these two post. Then I think all of us need to contact WordPress to vocally complain about this new pricing policy. We can’t let these greedy fuckers get away with this.

WordPress is about to change the variety of plans available to bloggers. In their ongoing quest to pander to business users, (and to make more money)…

Free Or Paid Plan on WordPress? Read this!

Weekend Quickie — April ‘22 #1

Fandango17 Comments

In what is now a weekly prompt, Rory has a new batch of Weekend Quickie questions for us to ponder.

How effective are willy warmers for keeping the chill out?

Not effective at all. Due to a phenomenon known as “shrinkage,” when a willy gets chilly, it tends to get smaller, as if attempting to recede back into the body for warmth. Thus, willy warmers fall off the willy when it’s chilly. That’s science, man.

Have you ever ignited a bottom breeze?

What adolescent male hasn’t ignited a fart at least once in his life? As The Rolling Stones once sang, “It’s a gas, gas, gas.”

If you had to have one hand tied behind your back for one day a week for the rest of your life which one would it be and why?

My left hand. It’s close to useless.

How many cabbage leaves does it take to turn on the average human?

Say what? Cabbage leaves are a turn on? Who knew?

How old is too old and what is too old anyway?

I’ll let you know when I get there.

Are you a bubble wrapper popper?

I used to be, but it frightens my dog and annoys my wife, so not anymore.

Is it legal to paint a tree in the wild?

I don’t think I’ve ever heard or read of any laws saying that it’s illegal to paint a tree in the wild, but at my age, I rarely go in the wild anymore, so who knows?

Why is the color red used to describe love and passion?

Because red provokes the strongest emotions of any color. It is considered the warmest of the colors and, being linked to passion and love as well as power and anger, it has more emotional associations than any other color. That’s why all of my willy warmers are red.

How many banned books have you ever read and what were they?

I don’t know if it was actually banned, but I remember as a young teenager getting my hands on a book called The Story of O, which was a French erotic novel (the copy I had was translated to English). All I remember is that it was about a woman named O who was into oral sex.

What is the most unusual drink you have ever drunk when sober?

When I lived in Texas, the non-alcoholic beverage of choice seemed to be Dr Pepper. It wasn’t at all unusual in Texas, but it was (and I assume, still is) awful.

Bonus Question
Who said, “Oh man, what are you doing with a gun in space?” And who were they talking to?

I was going to say that it was one of the lyrics in the song “Space Cowboy” from the Steve Miller band, but then I Googled the lyrics and it’s not in there.

One-To-Three Photo Processing Challenge — April, 2022

Fandango21 Comments

For this monthly prompt from Kate at The Squirrel Chase, the idea is pick a photo you want to play with and process it using three different methods. Okay, let’s start with the original, which I took on my iPhone at Pier 39 in San Francisco.

All processed photos were made using apps available for the iPhone or iPad at Apple’s App Store. Also, all images, including the original, were resized (shrunk) to make them quicker to load (and to take up less space in my WordPress media folder).

Original
Processed using Sketch Master
Processed using Prisma
Processed using Tangled FX

Which image do you like best?

B is for The Big Lebowski

Fandango46 Comments

For this year’s A-To-Z Challenge, my theme is MOVIES. I will be working my way through the alphabet during the month of April with movie titles and short blurbs about each movie. Today’s movie is “The Big Lebowski.”

“The Big Lebowski” was a 1998 black comedy/crime film written, produced, and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. It stars Jeff Bridges as Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski, a Los Angeles slacker and avid bowler. He is assaulted as a result of mistaken identity, then learns that a millionaire also named Jeffrey Lebowski was the intended victim. Sam Elliott, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, John Turturro, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tara Reid, David Thewlis, Peter Stormare, and Ben Gazzara also appear, in supporting roles.

One of the goons who assaulted The Dude urinates on The Dude’s favorite rug before they realize they have the wrong man and leave. The Dude visits the wealthy Jeffrey (“Big”) Lebowski and demands compensation for the rug, but his demand is refused. But after the millionaire Lebowski’s trophy wife is kidnapped, and he commissions The Dude to deliver the ransom to secure her release. Of course the plan goes awry when The Dude’s crazy friend Walter Sobchak schemes to keep the ransom money.

The scheming and deception leads to more trouble, and it soon seems that everyone from porn empire tycoons to nihilists want something from The Dude.

I really enjoyed this movie. It was funny, quirky, stylistic, surreal, and very much in the tradition of such Coen Brothers movies as “Fargo,” “No Country for Old Men,” “Barton Fink,” and “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?”

Previous A2Z 2022 posts: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y