Day: November 5, 2022

Spam Comment of the Week — Week 44 2022

Fandango26 Comments

I get some interesting spam comments on my blog, most of which are captured by Akismet, WordPress’ spam blocker. I generally do a mass delete of all of my spam comments after checking to see if any legitimate comments got caught up in Akismet’s spam-catching net.

I thought it might be fun to select a particularly interesting or unique or outrageous spam comment and highlight it each week.

This is the right blog for everyone who would like to understand this topic. You know so much its almost tough to argue with you (not that I really will need toÖHaHa). You definitely put a fresh spin on a subject that has been discussed for decades. Wonderful stuff, just great!

So what was this that this spammer wants everyone to understand? What subject did I put a fresh spin on that has been discussed for decades?

This week’s spam comment was made on my “Who Am I” (About Me) page. I’m thrilled to learn that I’ve been a topic of discussion for decades!

Anyway, have you read some catchy spam comments that you’d like to share with us? If so, put them in the comments or create your own post and tag it #FSCW.

Question Time Over Coffee — More to Ponder

Fandango23 Comments

Rory, over at Earthly Comforts, has posed a number of intriguing questions this morning. Let’s see if I can come up with some equally intriguing answers.

What is the best advice you have ever been given, and who gave it?

I don’t remember who gave it to me, but it was “don’t sweat the small stuff.”

What word would you choose to use if you were asked to describe yourself with it?

Pragmatic.

Do you like to eat mushrooms and what is your favorite culinary dish? If you are not a fan what is it about them you can’t stand?

I love mushrooms and I think that there is little in the way of culinary dishes, other than desserts, that mushrooms don’t enhance.

Do you have an accent? What is it, and where is it from?

I have a generic American accent. No one can guess where I’m from based upon hearing the way I speak.

How many hours a day do you read and do you think that too much reading might be harmful to your health? If so how and if not, why not?

Between the newspaper, magazines, my online newsfeeds, and blog posts, probably around 4-5 hours a day. I don’t know what “reading too much” means, but I can’t imagine how reading a lot might be harmful.

Have any books or films influenced you in any way and how you live your life? In what way? Did they inspire you to take action and change your lifestyle habits?

I have read many books and seen many movies, but I’m not sure any of them have directly affected how I live my life or have caused me to dramatically change my lifestyle.

How aware are you of your surroundings daily?
Do you notice things others miss out?
Are you detail-oriented?

I try to be cognizant of what is going on around me, but my wife often says that I’m oblivious. As far as being detail-oriented, I am, but I also try to see the big picture.

What is your favorite thing about planet earth?

It’s my home.

Have you ever accidentally upset someone you wish you hadn’t because of their strange reaction, and what did you do and how did they react?

Yes. I once said something to someone who worked for me. It was during a performance review and she was less than a stellar performer. She got so upset she started to hyperventilate. I tried to calm her down and to give her some tips on how to get up to speed. She quit two weeks later.

Do you have any regular behaviors or quirks you would like to lose? What are they, and why don’t you want them anymore?

No. I’m perfect just the way I am. 😏

Are you naturally serious or can see the light-hearted to almost everything?

The latter. Although what is going on in American politics is testing my ability to stay light-hearted.

Who do you think is the world’s worst real life boogeyman, and why, or if you wish, who was the worst boogeyman on the movie screen?

That’s a hard one because there are so many these days. Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to name two.

What’s the strangest phone call you have ever had?

It was in the mid 90s at about 1:30 in the morning when I got a call from the local police in the town where we lived at the time telling me that my 16-year-old daughter and her best friend were at the police station after being picked up for violating the town curfew for kids under 18. Apparently my daughter had snuck out of the house and rode her bike to her friend’s house to have a “night ride.”

Which country in your opinion has the worst politics and what makes them different to your own country?

I don’t live in another country, so I can’t really answer the question other than to say the politics in my country (the U.S.) is the worst I’ve ever experienced. Even worse than during the Vietnam war era, and that was pretty bad.

SoCS — The Longest Word

Fandango38 Comments

I was maybe in third grade when I heard from someone, I don’t remember who, that the word “antidisestablishmentarianism,” with 28 letters, was the longest word in the English language.

Actually, it isn’t. According to Google, “Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis,” at 45 letters, is the longest word. It refers to a lung disease contracted from the inhalation of very fine silica particles, specifically from a volcano.

But when I was maybe in the third grade, Google didn’t exist. Neither, for that matter, did the internet. So when I heard that antidisestablishmentarianism was the longest word in the language, I assumed that it was, in fact, the longest word. And I made it my goal to learn how to spell it by heart.

Once I had mastered memorizing how to spell antidisestablishmentarianism, I would go up to random people and proudly say, “I know how to spell the longest word in the English langage.” Then I would spell antidisestablishmentarianism for them. Everyone was duly impressed. And I was very pleased with myself.

Until one day when someone asked me if I knew what antidisestablishmentarianism meant. I didn’t. My skill was being able to spell the longest word. It didn’t occur to me to that I should also know its meaning. I asked my father what it meant. He didn’t know. Neither did my mother. Nor my two older sisters. Even my third grade teacher was stumped.

So I went to the school librarian and asked her if she knew what it meant. She smiled at me and said, “Let’s go look it up.” Then she led me to the biggest, fattest dictionary I’d ever seen. It was sitting atop a tall pedestal and I had to stand on a step-stool to read it.

The librarian opened the dictionary and turned to the page and said, “Ah, here it is.” Then she began reading from this humongous dictionary.

“Antidisestablishmentarianism: Opposition to the withdrawal of state support or recognition from an established church, especially the Anglican Church in 19th-century England.”

Sadly, even after hearing the definition of antidisestablishmentarianism, I still didn’t really understand what the word actually meant. Something about being against not paying for the church, but to my maybe in the third grade mind, that didn’t make much sense to me anyway.

Besides, my claim to fame was not explaining what the word meant. Oh no. It was in being able to spell antidisestablishmentarianism by heart on demand. Although truth be told, there wasn’t much of a demand for that particular skill.

To this day, though, should anybody ask, I’d be happy to spell antidisestablishmentarianism for them. And I think that is pretty supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (34 letters).

Written for Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, where Linda has asked us to decide on our favorite word and use it in our post any way we’d like. Can you guess the word I chose?