What is good about having a pet?

Daily writing prompt

The real question should be what isn’t good about having a pet? Assuming your pet is a cat. I mean, dogs and fish and hamsters and llamas and alpacas and potbellied pigs and all are fine as pets, but cats… cats are the best.

Cats don’t give their love unconditionally. You need to earn it. You need to be the best human you can be to have a cat respect you. That’s the way it should be. Sure, feeding them and changing their litter helps, but it’s attitude too. You do right by them and they’ll sit on your lap and let you pet them and they will rub against your feet while you’re standing around (that is literally the best).

There are downsides too. They are expensive. They require a lot of work. They run around the house like maniacs and mess things up and break stuff. It’s all worth it though, especially for those one or two minutes a year when they let you pet their bellies.

Go adopt a cat from your local animal shelter. We have two and we’re sort of thinking about getting a third (not really, but really… would one male cat in the house calm down the fighting between the two female cats, or would it make things worse?). Don’t think about it… just do it. Adopt a cat.

Name the most expensive personal item you’ve ever purchased (not including your home or car).

Daily writing prompt

Not including your home or your car… well what about upgrades to your home? Do they count as personal items? How about a definition of “personal items”?

Do windows count as personal items? If they do then the answer to this question is probably all of the replacement windows we had put into the house last April. It could be remodeling the garage into a primary bedroom suite. Do bed/bath suites count as personal items? What about furniture? There’s also the cellar, kitchen, and dining room remodeling we did. All of that stuff is really expensive.

While those purchases are accurate, they aren’t really in keeping with the spirit of the thing. At least I don’t think they are. That answer is probably the laptop upon which I am typing this post. It is a two year old MacBook Pro (14 inch M1. I know that because I looked it up when Apple had their M3 launch a week or two ago) and it probably cost about two grand. The most expensive item I own is probably the Les Paul Standard 50’s that Jen got me for my birthday. That probably ran her a little more than the MacBook. However, I did not actually buy that guitar, Jen did. Therefore I cannot use it as the answer to this question.

The most valuable personal item I own is probably my Les Paul Custom. The one that is still in the shop getting major surgery. I paid $550 for it in 1990. A quick search on reverb.com and ebay.com shows me that I could probably sell it for somewhere around five grand. I am not selling it though. That sucker is going into the casket with me when my number is up. My step son can have the rest of my guitars, if he’s still playing. Otherwise, Jen and the kids can sell them and split the money. The custom though… that one is going into the ground with me forever.

Computers and guitars seem like the correct answer to this question, but I feel like I am missing something. I can’t think of what that could be though. I guess that means computers and guitars are the answer I’m running with. You’re welcome.

What podcasts are you listening to?

Daily writing prompt

Woah boy, you’re getting a list for this one. I listen to literally all of them, figuratively. Guitar podcasts, sports podcasts, tech podcasts, and so very many television and movie podcasts. So many. So very, very many TV podcasts. You’re getting a list, folks!

Just looking at the Podcasts app on my MacBook Pro to see what is currently queued up. Here are a few (in no particular order, though it quickly becomes kind of alphabetical when I stopped reading off of my latest episodes queue and started looking at my list of subscribed shows. Also the ones that are in bold text are the ones I never miss an episode)…

• Grumpy Old Geeks
• The ‘Cast of Us (formerly known as The Walking Dead ‘Cast)
• The Talking Dead
• 60 Cycle Hum
• The 40 Watt Podcast
• A Little Bit Culty
• Bald Move Pulp
• Bastards of Boston Baseball
• Caveat
• Chasing Tone
• Chewin’ It with Kevin and Steve (if they ever get around to making another one, what the hell?)
• Children of the Watch: A Star Wars After Show
• Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend
• Crime of the Truest Kind
• Defenders TV Podcast on TV Podcast Industries
• Fatman Beyond
• Film Photography Project
• Friends from Work: An Unofficial Marvel Podcast
• Gig Gab
• Guitar Nerds Podcast
• Hacking Humans
• The Ex Files
• Interdimensional RSS: The Unofficial Rick and Morty Podcast
• House Podcastica (along with about a dozen other shows on the Podcastica network)
• Locked on Bruins Podcast
• Locked on NHL Podcast
• Locked on Red Sox Podcast
• Locked on MLB Podcast
• Mac Geek Gab
• Marvel Cinematic Universe Podcast
• Morning Bru with Billy Jaffe & Andrew Raycroft
• Mugglecast
• NecronomiPod
• Puck Soup
• Star Wars Explained
• Star Wars Stuff Podcast
• Strange Indeed
• Sunny Sixteen
• Thank God I’m Atheist
• The Guitar Knobs
• The Resistance Broadcast: Star Wars Podcast
• The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe
• The Truth About Vintage Amps
• The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week
• This Week in Science
• What We Say in the Shadows
• Who Back When
• WTF with Marc Maron

That is maybe 10% of the podcasts I am subscribed to via the Apple Podcast app. There are a few others that I get to via the web too, but those aren’t in the regular rotation. I generally spend my work day with a queue of podcasts playing as background sound. It is not uncommon for me to play through about 7-8 hours of podcasts a day. Granted I am working at the time so my focus is not 100% and I miss a lot of content, but they are almost always playing.

What was your favorite subject in school?

Daily writing prompt

Which school? High school? College the first time? College the second time? Junior high? Elementary school? Kindergarten? My favorite subject in kindergarten was learning letters. We had cartoon characters called The Letter People. I can’t remember if they were cardboard cutouts or inflatables. I think they might have been inflatables. They are also the only thing I can remember from kindergarten so I guess they are my favorite subject by default.

Let’s go with my favorite subject in High School. It was probably whatever social studies class I had at any particular time. History, civics, that sort of thing. I didn’t really like science, though the labs were interesting. I didn’t like math at all. It was my worst subject by far and I really wanted nothing to do with it. English was good. Literature, at least. Writing was something that sort of came naturally to me. If I needed to write an essay I could crank out something decent quickly. The only complaint my teachers generally had was that I didn’t write enough. Somewhere along the line I learned that the structure of the papers I needed to write was more important to the teachers than the content so I just cranked things out.

There was a period early on where High School Band was my favorite subject, but early in my sophomore year I started a band of my own and suddenly playing music that I didn’t choose for myself was tedious and boring while playing my own music was absolutely exhilarating. So much for High School Band. Jazz band was different, but that was an extra-curricular, not an actual class. In jazz band we could improvise and that lit a fire under me, musically speaking. One that still burns pretty intensely today.

History, government, social studies in general. Those courses were interesting, enjoyable, and fascinating to me. They still are. When I feel the need to do some non-fiction reading it’s usually either a biography of a historical figure or a study of some historical event. It’s been 34 years since I finished High School, but nothing’s changed in that regard. I’d still rather read some good sci-fi or horror though. Those didn’t really come up in English Lit though, so there wasn’t a lot of Stephen King and Clive Barker in school.