time

Time to Write a Poem

Fandango8 Comments

09C450E1-B82F-4E62-9267-BA968ADACB91There was that time
I decided to write a poem
Whenever others read it
All they could do was to groan

Written for Teresa Grab’s Poetry Challenge. Teresa explains that there are more than 100 different poetic forms and she asked us to find one form and to use the picture from Susan Cipriano from Pixabay as inspiration. The form of poetry I chose is FFFP, otherwise known as Fandango’s Free-Form Poetry. And although Teresa said that there is no such thing as a bad poem, I think my poem has just proven her wrong.

More Sunshine

Fandango5 Comments

81BA013E-3FD1-4C3A-A3C0-579F12DC16E8My blogger buddy, Rory, over at A Guy Called Bloke, was kind enough to gift me with the Sunshine Blogger Award. According to Rory, “the Sunshine Blogger Award is an award for bloggers who are creative, positive, and inspiring — people who spread “sunshine” to the blogging world!” So I’m very honored that Rory thought of my blog and me to give the gift of this award.

And now to answer Rory’s five questions.

When looking to create a question and you are faced with a blank canvas – where is your go to for inspiration?

I’ve been posting my Fandango’s Provocative Questions for about a year, and it’s becoming a challenge to come up with new and interesting provocative questions each week. I search the internet for provocative stories, I listen when I hear others talking about philosophical matters, and try to leverage what I see, hear, and read in order to come up with questions that will be compelling enough to prompt other bloggers to respond. It ain’t so easy anymore. But I’ll keep trying until I run out of questions I find provocative enough to ask.

Why do you think politicians feel compelled to lie as blatantly as they do?

Because they know that people want to hear what makes them feel better and voters don’t really want to hear the truth. And politicians pay a surprisingly small price for dishonesty. Look at how frequently Donald Trump has lied and yet more than 40% of voters and almost 90% of Republicans still support him. They clearly don’t care about being lied to.

What is Time?

It’s a magazine.905CCEE0-D2D0-4BBB-BF90-DABA87E84F59

Do you dream? If so, are they in color, black and white, or sepia or indeed a mixture, and what do you think determines the dreams a person experiences if anything?

Yes, I do dream every night. But to be honest, while I think they’re in color, they might not be. I can barely remember what my dreams are about shortly after waking up, much less what color they are. As to what determines what a person dreams about, I have no clue. Most of my dreams make no sense to me whatsoever.

Is success, as Thomas Edison claimed, 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration, or the other way around?

What exactly is success? Well, I look at success as achieving desired visions and personal goals. In my opinion, success does require vision, which some might describe as inspiration, but turning inspiration into achievement requires a lot of hard work. Whether it’s 90% of one or the other or 50/50, I have no idea. If I ever actually achieve my desired visions and planned goals, I’ll let you know. Besides, is how you get there is as important as arriving at your destination?

So, how about you? Do you want to answer Rory’s questions? I pass on his gift to you all!

Credit for image at top of post: jessicanelson1.

Question Fun — It’s About Time

Fandango8 Comments

32EC6BD6-FE46-426B-96A2-6D0363DD30F8Another series of Rory’s Fun Questions. This time they’re all about time. But for some reason, Rory wants us to link to this post. And mine is not to question why, mine is to answer his questions about time.

How often do you actually deep think of time as a concept?

C748207C-78FE-4B8F-B215-8FBFA9AFFD82

When was the last time that you sat down and tried to visualise the future of the planet by 50 years? [Where are we going to be in the year 2069? Explain your thoughts]

I think about and fear for the future of our planet every time I hear someone say that climate change is a hoax. I don’t know where we are going to be in 2069, but I do know where I will be: long gone.

What time is it right now as in the time you are answering this question and where abouts are you in the world?

9:50 p.m. Pacific Time on Monday night in San Francisco, California. But I probably won’t post this until maybe 6 a.m. on Tuesday morning.

Tell me about a time when you stepped out of your comfort zone?

The last time — and, in fact, every time — I attempt to sing karaoke in public.

Last time you had a really good time was?

Last Sunday when my wife and I met our kids and their significant others at noon at a dim sum restaurant in Chinatown.

Quote Time!!! Display two excellent quotes on the subject of horology!

9490C71E-1873-4AC0-AFBC-46B94A3DEAC8B5D06AC0-EE95-42D1-BAA7-99BFCE33FB79

Let the good times roll … please provide me with three song titles that are about the topic of time in your eyes?

  • “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” — Chicago
  • “The Times They Are A-Changin’” — Bob Dylan
  • “Time in a Bottle” — Jim Croce

Having a really good time means what in your world?

In my world, having a really good time means…having a really good time. In what world would it mean anything else? Opposite world?

Time to ….. what?

What?

Which term do you prefer more ?

Lost Time
Wasted Time
Time Spent
Time flies

I like and use them all, depending upon the situation.

What do the following mean? [However DO NOT ANSWER the correct way but answer the incorrect way!]

Ahead of one’s time?
Behind the times?
In the nick of time?
A race against time!
Having the time of your life?
Bide your time?
Bad time for you?
Having time on your hands?
All in good time?
A matter of time?

They are all things I’ve yelled out while having sex.

Can you write a small story on the subject of Time and the Giraffe?

There once was a giraffe who was ahead of his time, even though he was sure that he was behind times. Then, in the nick of time, as he was involved in a race against time, he realized that he was having the time of his life. But then a gazelle warned him that he needed to bide his time before it became a bad time for him. So the giraffe stopped what he was doing, which meant that he had time on his hands (or, technically, his legs). But the giraffe was getting bored, so he asked the gazelle when he could go back to having the time of his life. The gazelle told him, “All in good time.” And that was when the giraffe realized life is just a matter of time.

One-Liner Wednesday — It’s About Time

Fandango14 Comments

36CF6989-7153-42AA-BDDD-B4309EB46092

“When people look at their watches, more often than not, they’re checking to see what time it’s not, rather than what time it is.”

This was another original quotation from yours truly, although I’m sure I’m not the only one who has expressed this sentiment.

I know that I’ll often look at my watch when I need to be someplace at a certain time and, in order to get there, I have to leave for wherever it is that I’m supposed to be “X” minutes in advance.

Say, for example, I offered to pick up a friend at the airport and his flight is scheduled to land at 2:40 pm. And let’s say it takes me 45 minutes to get from where I am to the airport.

Are you still with me? Anyway, in order to get to the airport by 2:40, I need to leave no later than 1:55, right? So when I look at my watch, I’m checking to make sure that it’s not yet 1:55, rather than what time it actually is.

You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? You’re the same way, right?

Of course, the exception is when somebody directly asks you what time it is. Then you look at your watch and say, “Oh jeez, it’s 2:10. I shoulda left for the airport 15 minutes ago.”

P.S. Have you noticed that almost all pictures of watches or clocks in advertisements and commercials show the time as 10:10? Why is that?

Written for this week’s One-Liner Wednesday prompt from Linda G. Hill.

The Horns of a Dilemma

Fandango58 Comments

A229D0F7-A122-45A0-8B9A-EA4980863545Yesterday I read a very good, witty, and entertaining post from a blogger I follow. I so enjoyed the post that I “liked” it and I wanted to write a comment complimenting the blogger.

But I didn’t write that complimentary comment because throughout the otherwise excellent post, the blogger used the word “than” when the correct word would have been “then.”

The blogger would write something like “But than…” or “And than…” and proceed to say what happened next.

I so wanted to post a comment that said something like this:

I really enjoyed you post, but you need to understand the difference between “than” and “then” and use them correctly. “Than” is used to form comparisons between two things, as in “I’d rather have a slice of pie than a salad.”

“Then” is used to express a sense of time or what comes next or used to be, as in “First I’ll have a salad and then I’ll have a slice of pie.” Thus, to write “And than I sat down to watch TV” is wrong. It should be “And then I sat down to watch TV.”

As I said, I never posted a comment because I didn’t want to sound like a pedantic asshole, even though I probably am one. And I didn’t want to make the blogger feel bad.

On the other hand, I felt as if I was depriving the blogger of a “teachable moment.” Wouldn’t it have been beneficial to that blogger to point out that he or she used the wrong word multiple times in an otherwise great post?

The post received a lot of love. Plenty of likes and more than three dozen comments. But not one comment mentioned the “than/then” issue.

What would you do? Would you bite your tongue and let the blogger continue to potentially misuse the word “than” in future posts? Or would you have let the blogger know so that he/she wouldn’t keep making that same mistake?