Day: July 29, 2022

Wants and Needs

Fandango15 Comments

I’m combining two Jim Adams prompts today. The first one, Jim’s Thursday Inspiration post yesterday gave us the word “want.” Then today, via Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie’s Friday Faithfuls challenge, Jim has asked us to write about the smart devices that we have, or the ones that we would like to own, or any story that involves smart devices.

Alrighty then, let’s do this. Jim defines smart devices as items that connect to the internet, which can be controlled from your smartphone via a companion app. He defines connected devices as laptops, tablets, and smartphones.

I have a lot of smart/connected devices. Obviously my most prized smart device is my iPhone. I also have a smart TV, two Nest smart thermostats, a smart Ring camera over my garage, a Nest smart doorbell camera, a Roku smart streaming stick, and a Google Nest Home Hub. My refrigerator, oven, and microwave are WiFi-connected and my electric car is smarter than your average car. And, of course, my laptop is connected to the internet. I also have a mesh WiFi system that offers speedy WiFi in every room in my house.

Do I need all of these smart devices? No, I don’t. The only one I really need is my iPhone because it’s my constant companion and I do almost everything, including blogging, on my iPhone. I upgrade my iPhone every two years, not because I need to, but because I want to. And since my iPhone 12 is going to be two years old this fall, I want to upgrade to the iPhone 14 when it is introduced later this year. Because I want to.

My laptop is six years old now, making it about 100 in human years. I was thinking that I need to get a new one, but I don’t really want to get one because I hardly ever use it.

As to my other smart devices, I use my smart TV, my Roku streaming stick, my Nest smart thermostats and doorbell camera, and my Ring garage camera almost every day. Conversely, I’ve never used any of the so-called smart features of my refrigerator, oven, and microwave. Google Nest Home Hub is always on and is probably watching our every move and recording everything we say. But we use it to monitor our dog when we are out of the house. So it comes in handy.

Bottom line, I don’t need all of these smart devices, but I do depend upon my smartphone and I am planning to upgrade to the iPhone 14 when it’s available. Not because I need it, but because…

Fibbing Friday — Some Goodies to Nosh On

Fandango11 Comments

Di (aka Pensitivity101) and Melanie (Sparks From a Combustible Mind) 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. This week is Melanie’s turn and she is all about food.

  1. Garlic is said to ward off [What]? Co-workers
  2. Man does not live by [What] alone? Coffee
  3. Fish isn’t everyone’s favorite, because? It tastes too fishy.
  4. Eat more green and you’ll be lean and? mean like a fighting machine.
  5. Over imbibing may invoke the hair of the [what] the next day? The hair on the head to fall out. I must have done a lot of over imbibing in my youth.
  6. Revenge is a dish best served? As a banana cream pie to the face.
  7. Little Jack Horner stuck his thumb in a Christmas pie and pulled out? A long, brown hair that his mother must have let fall into the batter when she made the pie. It caused Little Jack to upchuck.
  8. Raw fish is a delicacy when prepared as [What]? Fried over an open fire.
  9. An apple a day does what? Gives you gas.
  10. Ice cream is best on a? belly button. 😋

Fandango’s Flashback Friday — July 29th

Fandango22 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 29th) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

This was originally posted on July 29, 2017 when we still lived in the city.

Pest Control

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A present from our cat

I live in a high density urban environment and a fact of life when living in the big city is pests. Pests like mice, raccoons, and rats.

But my wife and I have enlisted an efficient and economical method of pest control. We have a dog and a cat.

Our dog is an effective deterrent when it comes to raccoons. Whenever she sees or even senses a raccoon, she’s off to the races, running the critter up a tree or over a fence. She also goes after squirrels and gophers with the same zeal. So far, though, she has yet to catch any of her prey.

Our cat, on the other hand, is a more adept hunter. On more than one occasion, he has presented us with a gift in the form of a recently deceased mouse or rat, like the poor rat in the picture above. It’s then my job to pick up the spoils of my cat’s hunt in a baggie and deposit it into the trash, while my wife rewards our cat for its offering by giving him a treat.

So forget about hiring expensive pest control companies. Pets are the best form of pest control.

This is my entry for today’s WordPress one-word prompt, “pest.”

#WDYS — Like a Moth

Fandango24 Comments

He was like a moth
A moth attracted to light
A light at the end of the tunnel
A tunnel under the canopy of trees
Trees that stretched to the horizon
A horizon on the other side of the pond
A pond with a surface like a mirror
A mirror he cracked when he dove in
In his quest to reach the light
A light that he was attracted to
Attracted to like he was a moth

Written for Sadje’s What Do You See prompt. Photo credit: Casey Horner @ Unsplash.

FOWC with Fandango — Vast

Fandango21 Comments
FOWC

It’s July 29, 2022. Welcome 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 “vast.”

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. Show them some love.