When I bring up the Jetpack/Wordpress app on my iPhone the daily writing prompt looks like this:

When I bring up wordpress.com in a browser on my laptop the daily writing prompt looks like this:

Really guys? You let two different prompts out on the same day? Is this a bug or just really shitty implementation? Add this to the prompt not pulling into the posts on their own anymore, and you have me really not wanting to play this stupid fucking game anymore.

So which question do I answer? Who cares, right? Why even bother?

Aw, hell. Right then. How do I manage screen time for myself. I don’t. I work at a computer for 8+ hours a day and I am an adult. I don’t need to manage my screen time. I am not a child. I can do what I want.

Invent a holiday. I’ll give you one. It just happens to coincide with my birthday, but it’s not related to my birthday. May 8th. That’s the date that Germany surrendered to end the European portion of World War II. We can create a holiday out of that and call it Fascism is Evil Day or something like that. How about Death to Fascism as a Political Ideology Day. We can all celebrate by not being fascists. We can all celebrate by reading of the evils and horrors caused by fascism. We can all celebrate by throwing rocks at fascists, fascist collaborators, and fascist sympathizers. It would absolutely be my favorite holiday of the year.

There. I answered both daily writing prompts because Jetpack or WordPress.com or whoever is responsible for it fucked it all up and put out two prompts.

Fix the fucking bugs, please. Pretty please.

What are your favorite websites?

Daily writing prompt

Do people still think in terms of favorite websites? Wouldn’t you say they are more like commonly used tools now rather than favorites? Back in the early days I might have thought in favorite terms, but I don’t think I do anymore.

I can give you a list of commonly used sites. These are the tabs that I keep open on my browser on my personal machine:

• Gmail
• WordPress.com
• Flickr
• Mastodon
• Bluesky
• Facebook messenger (in case the band thread gets updated)
• Reddit
• Trello
• Rhymezone (in case I am trying to write lyrics)
• Alonetone (in case I need to upload a new song)
• Hearthis.at (same as alonetone)
• Wordle
• The Who Back When podcast page, but that’s only until I finish the epic Doctor Who binge watch
• Google Keep for our grocery list
• My Food/Drink tracking spreadsheet

Really, I could do without all of those except Gmail, WordPress, and the food spreadsheet. The rest are not really that important.

Honorable mentions? There could be a few. The For You page on Google News gets a lot of use. So does US College Hockey Online, the NHL, MLB, and ESPN sites. Of course the one page that gets used more than almost all others is Google. Anything that comes up gets a Google search. Wikipedia is probably second on the list, but it’s a distant second.

I guess the answer to the question what are my favorite websites though would be… none, I think.

Is there an age or year of your life you would re-live?

Daily writing prompt

This is one of those difficult questions that requires a little too much self-examination. A little more than I am willing to do at 6:39am on a Saturday morning at least.

A year I would re-live… The answer, of course, is none of them. It is also all of them. The catch is that I would re-live them all only if I could do so without changing anything. There was a time in my past when I wanted to go back and change everything, especially myself. I was basically cripplingly shy and afraid of everything. Socially speaking I was useless and romantically… well, that was literally non-existent.

Then in April of 2007 I went on a first date with someone remarkable. On some strange subconscious level I sort of said fuck it and got over all of my hangups and some how, magically, that first date turned into my first relationship which then turned into my marriage. At that point it occurred to me that all of the problems I dealt with before April 2007 were just steps on the path that lead me to the place… to the me… that I needed to be. Those experiences made me someone that Jen could find value in. Someone that Jen could fall in love with and marry and allow to be a step father to her two children.

That is why I don’t want to re-live even a single day, because doing so runs the risk of changing the eventual outcome. That is literally the last thing in the universe that I would ever want. I wouldn’t mind observing the me that I used to be, but I wouldn’t want to do so in a way that would affect any decisions I had ever made. I would especially like to re-observe everything post April 2007 as that would allow me to see myself becoming that one thing I had always believed I would never be… happy. That’s a movie I wouldn’t mind seeing.

So the short answer to what year or age would I want to re-live is none. As hard as it is to believe, I think I got it right on the first try. I mean, how weird is that?

What historical event fascinates you the most?

Daily writing prompt

I’ve always been a history nerd. There are so many things I would like to go back and witness. Today’s response to the daily writing prompt is going to be a list of things I would go back to see if I could time travel. It’s important to state the rules of time travel though. In my case I would follow the Quantum Leap rules, only not the way Sam did it. I would be Al. Al didn’t actually time travel, he was just able to see what Sam was seeing. He could not interact with anything. He had no affect, and nothing effected him*. He was just a witness. That’s how I want to time travel. I don’t want to step on the wrong bug and change things, you know? Safety first.

So what events would I witness? What are the most fascinating historical events?

• The first moon landing. Wouldn’t it be cool to be there and watch Armstrong come down that ladder? I would probably want to visit all of the moon landings.
• Unfortunately, many of the historical events I am fascinated by are battles. I would want to witness the battle of Gettysburg. Specifically Little Roundtop on the second day, and Pickett’s charge on the third day.
• Possibly the first thing I would do if I could Al-style-Time-Travel would be to see The Beatles live in a bar in Hamburg during one of their residencies. I’d probably catch a few shows in Germany and a few shows at The Cavern Club in Liverpool. All of them would be pre-Beatlemania. Once things went crazy you couldn’t hear them at any of their shows over all of the screaming. I would want to be able to hear every glorious note.
• The signing of the Declaration of Independence
• Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox
• Lincoln’s inauguration addresses, the Gettysburg address, and his assassination. Also, pretty much anything Lincoln ever did in public.
• Every single Rush concert starting at the Coff-In and ending in Los Angeles. All of them. Literally.
• Countless concerts and sporting events.

Unfortunately I need to start my morning routine now so I will cut this post off here. I might add an addendum later as more things come to me, or maybe I’ll just add a second post. This will do for now though.

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*Did I use effect and affect correctly? I would look it up to make sure, but I am way too lazy right now. Let’s just assume I got it right.