Day: April 4, 2022

And He’ll Be Mine

Fandango15 Comments

He epitomizes the henpecked husband.

He is such a nice guy and he doesn’t deserve to be treated in the brusque, almost monstrous manner that she does.

I am really concerned about him.

He’s been looking so disheveled lately and he’s clearly unhappy.

I’m glad he came to talk with me about it.

I’ve given him something, shall we say “special,” to put into her afternoon tea today.

By dinner time, she’ll be gone.

And then he’ll be mine.

Written for these daily prompts: Your Daily Word Prompt (epitomize), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (henpecked), E.M.’s Random Word Prompt (brusque), The Daily Spur (monstrous), Word of the Day Challenge (concern), Ragtag Daily Prompt (dishevel), and My Vivid Blog (tea).

Share Your World — 04/04/22

Fandango22 Comments

Melanie has treated us to another edition of Share Your World. Today she poses these questions:

Are you more productive at night or in the morning? Do you think it’s possible to change and get used to another schedule?

As a retiree, I’m never really “productive” these days. I used to be more of a morning person when I was still working. And I guess I still am, because usually by around ten at night, I’m ready to crash.

What’s the biggest vehicle you’ve driven? If you don’t drive, what’s the biggest vehicle you’ve ridden in?

I suppose it was a “Deuce and a half,” which is the term used to describe a 2 1/2 ton army transport vehicle. I had a military driver’s license in the army.

I also drove a 20’ U-Haul truck across the country when we moved from the east coast to the west coast.

What songs would be played on a loop in hell?

Any twangy, whiney country & western songs.

(Deep and chewy philosophical question): What does it mean to be a person? What constitutes “personhood?”

Are we talking legally, with all of the rights and privileges of a citizen? If so, my answer is a human being at birth. Personhood is simply the status of being a person.

How were your spirits (mood) over the past week?

Pretty much the same as they’ve been for the past two years: shitty.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Yes, Eventually

Fandango40 Comments

In the continuing saga of the “did they/didn’t they” and “will they/won’t they” matter of changing WordPress plans and pricing, here is the latest.

Those of us who, over the past few days, have been trying to decipher whether or not WordPress is going to be changing from its free plan plus four paid plans to a scaled-down free plan and one relatively expensive “Pro” (for professional bloggers) plan, have been receiving responses from WordPress that have been at best, unclear, and at worst, contradictory. But it seems that the correct answer is yes, eventually.

In my latest exchange with WordPress, I asked, “So does this mean that the plan I’m on (Personal plan) will disappear and that if I want more functionality than the free plan offers (e.g., no ads, more media storage), I’ll have to upgrade from the Personal plan at $48/yr to the Pro plan at $180/ yr?”

Here is the Happiness Engineer’s response, which includes a happy face.

Yes, you are correct again! 🙂
Though, we have no timeline yet as to when we will totally remove these legacy plans: Personal, Premium, Business and eCommerce. You could still continue to renew your existing plan through the Upgrades menu on your dashboard.

Okay. That sounds pretty definitive to me. The current paid plans — Personal, Premium, Business and eCommerce — are going, going, gone, but no date has been set for their departure.

Thus, at some point down the road, you will either have a free, limited functionally option or a $180 a year profession/business option with all the bells and whistles you’d need to run your own e-commerce site.

As a hobby blogger who has no aspirations to turn my blog into a money-making machine, I have no need for most of those bells and whistles. But once my current Personal plan expires next January, I will have to decide if I want to go to a limited-functionally free plan or pay a lot of money for features I have little use for. And so will you!

I suggest that, for those of you currently on a paid plan, you should renew early, because it seems that once the folks at WordPress set their timeline for this migration, if you want to stay with WordPress, you’ll have to either lower your expectations or empty your wallet.

C is for The Court Jester

Fandango41 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 Court Jester.”

When I was a young lad, Danny Kaye was one of my favorite comic actors. I loved his movies, and of them all, “The Court Jester” was my favorite. The movie was a 1955 musical-comedy, medieval romance, costume drama film starring Danny Kaye, Glynis Johns, Basil Rathbone, Angela Lansbury and Cecil Parker.

The throne of rightful King of England, a small baby with the purple pimpernel birthmark, has been usurped by the evil King Roderick I (Cecil Parker). Only the Black Fox (Edward Ashley) can restore the true King to the throne, and all he needs is the King’s key to a secret tunnel. While he’s trying to steal the key, someone has to change the baby King’s diapers. The task falls to Hubert Hawkins (Danny Kaye), the gentlest member of the Fox’s band. The Fox’s Lieutenant, Maid Jean (Glynis Johns), guards Hawkins and the baby while they travel, but when they meet the King’s new jester on the road, they decide to initiate a daring plan for Hawkins to replace him, become an intimate at the court, and steal the key. Hawkins “becomes” Giacomo, the King of jesters and jester to the King. But things begin to get zany when the King’s daughter falls for Giacomo, the King falls for Jean, people randomly sing what are supposed to be recognition codes, and a witch with very effective spells (and poison pellets) begins to interfere.

The film contains three songs (all sung by Kaye), makes heavy use of slapstick comedy and quick-witted wordplay, and is best remembered for the tongue twister “The pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true!”

Even this jaded old fart, who is not a fan of musical comedies, still enjoys watching this hilarious old classic tale starring the legendary Danny Kaye.

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

Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge #163

Fandango15 Comments

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 photograph below is from pcivdwiel at pixabay.com

For the visually challenged writer, the photo is of an older couple sitting on a park bench on the top of hill overlooking a blue sky with fluffy white clouds. Next to them on their left are two electric bicycles. And, no, that’s not me and my wife!

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.