John Steiner, the blogger behind Journeys With Johnbo, has this prompt he calls Cellpic Sunday in which he asks us to post a photo that was taken with a cellphone, tablet, or another mobile device. He invites us to participate in this cellphone photo prompt by creating our own CellPic Sunday post and linking it back to his.
I have featured photos of my backyard waterfall a number of times on Cellpic Sunday responses and on other posts. I love our waterfall, not just for how it looks, but for how it sounds.
I took this brief, 17 second video today with my iPhone. I invite you to play this video below, and when you do, be sure to turn up the volume on your computer’s or smartphone’s speakers. In fact, watch the video once, and then watch it again with your eyes closed.
How much time do you give to blogging or other online activities? Do you find it hard to manage the time you spend online?
Two things to consider: (1) I’m retired. (2) I blog exclusively from my iPhone. I turn my iPhone on when I wake up first thing each morning and turn it off when I go to sleep (not to bed, but to sleep) each night. Between waking up and going to sleep, my iPhone is always with me and is always on.
There is an app on my iPhone called “Screentime.” According to my recent Screetime stats, I spend between eight to ten hours a day actively using my iPhone. Of that, between 45 to 55% is spent on Jetpack/WordPress. Of course, that time includes not just writing posts, but responding to comments on my posts and reading and commenting on other bloggers’ posts.
There’s another app on my iPhone called “Battery,” and it measures active and idle screen time. Over the past ten days I averaged nine hours a day of active screen time and about three hours of idle screen time. Jetpack/WordPress accounted for a low of around 36% of that active screen time to a high of 57%.
So, between “Sceentime” and “Battery,” the two apps that keep track of how I’m using my iPhone, blogging is the predominant online activity.
Because I’m retired, I do have the time to spend on Jetpack/WordPress. So, no, I don’t find it hard to manage the time I spend online.
For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday, Jim Adams has asked us to find a song that was written for a movie, suggested, once again, by Nancy, aka The Sicilian Storyteller. The song I’m going with this week is “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” written for the 1985 movie The Breakfast Club and recorded by Simple Minds.
“Don’t You (Forget About Me)” is a song by Scottish rock band Simple Minds, released as a single in 1985. It was written and composed by producer Keith Forsey and guitarist Steve Schiff. Forsey and Schiff wrote the song for Simple Minds but offered it to several other acts before Simple Minds agreed to record it. The song was inspired by and used in the John Hughes film The Breakfast Club.
Forsey and Schiff wrote the song while scoring the movie. They were inspired by a scene in which an introvert and a school bully bond while no one else is watching. Forsey said, “It was: don’t forget, when we’re back in the classroom, you’re not just a bad guy and we’ve got other things in common.”
The movie is about five high school students with very different personalities who spend a Saturday together in detention and find some common ground. The question is, will they remember their time together and act any differently around each other when they return to school or, in the face of peer pressure, act their roles?
At first Simple Minds didn’t want to record the song because they didn’t want to record songs not written by the band. But they ultimately changed their minds after meeting with John Hughes and got a screening of the film, which put the lyrics in better context. Forsey visited them in Scotland, and they got on well. While there, he convinced them to give it a go, and they recorded the track in a few hours at a studio in London.
This song broke the band in America and got them on MTV, expanding their fanbase considerably. It was very strange for Simple Minds — who had paid their dues writing songs, playing them in clubs, and knocking on doors to solicit a record deal — to find themselves with a huge hit they didn’t write and only worked on for a few hours. They almost felt guilty about it.
Here are the lyrics to “Don’t You (Forget About Me).”
Hey, hey, hey, hey Ooh, whoa
Won't you come see about me? I'll be alone, dancing, you know it, baby
Tell me your troubles and doubts Giving everything inside and out and Love's strange, so real in the dark Think of the tender things that we were working on
Slow change may pull us apart When the light gets into your heart, baby
Don't you, forget about me Don't, don't, don't, don't Don't you, forget about me
Will you stand above me? Look my way, never love me Rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling Down, down, down
Will you recognize me? Call my name or walk on by Rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling Down, down, down, down
Hey, hey, hey, hey Ooh, whoa
Don't you try and pretend It's my feeling we'll win in the end I won't harm you or touch your defenses Vanity and security, ah
Don't you forget about me I'll be alone, dancing, you know it, baby Going to take you apart I'll put us back together at heart, baby
Don't you, forget about me Don't, don't, don't, don't Don't you, forget about me
As you walk on by Will you call my name? As you walk on by Will you call my name? When you walk away
Or will you walk away? Will you walk on by? Come on, call my name Will you call my name?
I say La, la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la La-la-la-la, la-la-la-la La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la La-la-la-la, la-la-la-la La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la When you walk on by And you call my name When you walk on by
Here is the video of the song with clips from the movie.
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 “customary.”
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, ÿplease 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.
Mildred finished her bacon and egg breakfast, got dressed, put on her hat and coat, and grabbed her umbrella, as the sky was dark and threatening. A few minutes later she arrived at the church, sat down in a pew, opened her hymn book, and started singing in her always slightly out-of-tune manner. Poor Mildred couldn’t hit a musical note if her life depended on it.
When the church service was over, Mildred headed to the recreation center’s athletic fields where her eight-year-old grandson’s soccer team would be playing. Mildred got situated on the bleachers, and pulled out a pair of binoculars from her oversized bag, since she couldn’t see as well as she used to, and she wanted to focus on her grandson running up and down the field.
But shortly after the game started, the rains came. Middle tried calling her grandson, but he couldn’t hear because an airplane was flying directly overhead. Mildred grabbed her stuff and ran, as best she could, to where her grandson was. She pulled him to her under the umbrella to try to keep him from getting more soaked than she already was. He was not a happy camper because he had been looking forward to this soccer game all week. Then, when Mildred suggested they go to the local ice cream shop for a treat, she turned his frown upside down.
Written for the Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Saturday Mix Lucky Dip, where the story cubes are musical note, person in a hat reading, aeroplane, umbrella, soccer ball, binoculars, and egg and bacon.
This, That, and the Other 