Tag: dailyprompt

Nope

Daily writing prompt
What are your favorite emojis?
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Yeah, I’m an adult so….

If I were a tween, 11 or 12 years old or so, I might find this writing prompt endlessly fascinating but I am old. Really old so… sorry, Skippy, I ain’t playing today.

Sure, I text or chat the odd thumbs up or happy face now and then but that is all. I didn’t bitch when the name “emoticon” was erased from the vernacular and replaced with emoji. I’m sure the Illuminati that secretly runs the internet had some fierce debates on that topic, but I wasn’t in on them so I just let it slide.

I will admit that I may have shed a metaphorical tear for the future of humanity when I learned that The Emoji Movie existed. That was too much for me to deal with.

So what I am saying is that I don’t have a favorite emoji. I remember the early days of America Online and therefore… “:)”

.

Right? If you love emoji then I love you for it. You do you, my brothers and sisters and only friends.

Topics?

Daily writing prompt
What topics do you like to discuss?
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Translating today’s prompt from Jetpack to Robert-speak it is asking me to write about what I like to write about in my personal blog/journal/brain dropping target. I thought I had an About Me page around here somewhere that served that purpose for me. Whatever, I feel a bullet list coming on…

What topics do I like to discuss?

  • My wife, Jen
  • My step kids, Bellana and Harry
  • All things family
  • Music
    • Playing music
    • Writing music
    • All things related to playing in a band
    • Listening to music
    • Arguing about music (I am a grade A music snob and I am always right)
    • Recording music
    • All things related to musical instruments and gear
    • Leaving the house to go and listen to live music (which doesn’t happen often anymore because I am old and go to bed early)
  • Sports
    • Hockey, both NHL and minor leagues and sometimes even NCAA
    • Baseball, both major and minor leagues
  • Travel
  • Stressing about money and how we don’t have enough for what we want to do with our lives but still try to find a way if we can
  • Weight loss surgery recovery and all the gross stomach issues that go along with it that are 100% worth the struggle
  • Working as a programmer for a software company that develops systems for hospitals
  • Photography
    • Digital photography
    • Film photography
    • Cell phone photography
  • Bad haiku that are likely viscously insulting to the actual artists who write real haiku
  • Technology
  • Being a total Apple fanboy
  • Social media and how it is both an obsession and infuriatingly awful
  • Politics
    • How the maga cult is the new nazi party and how that fascist pile of orange goo is literally evil
  • Cats

Yeah, that seems like a good, short list of topics I like to talk about on this cute little bloggie page. Hopefully you, dear readers, are into reading weird, middle aged people from New England who like to write insipid crap about some of these topics, and hopefully I don’t make you wait too long before hitting something you are particularly interested in.

Yet Another Question About Risks

Daily writing prompt
When is the last time you took a risk? How did it work out?
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Okay folks… let’s change the subject. I’m tired of sharing stories about past risks. Enough.

You take a chance getting up in the morning, crossing the street, or sticking your face in a fan.

Frank Drebin: The Naked Gun

Last night I took a risk. I was in Foxborough and I needed to drive home to Methuen. It was 9:00pm. There should not have been any traffic. I had three choices for the drive home. 95 South to 495 North to 93 North, 95 North to 128 North to 93 North, or 95 North to 93 North. The last option includes driving through Boston. At normal times of day that would be the last option I would ever take. Boston is a traffic nightmare. At rush hour I would take the route 495 option. It’s by far the longest, but by far the less likely to have an ugly traffic jam so the time on the road isn’t so bad. More often than not I would take the route 128 option. It can have some nasty traffic in places but it’s way better than going through the city.

Last night it was hours after rush hour. It was pretty late at night. Boston should not have been a problem. Even though I almost never choose to go through Boston, that was the option I picked…

and I got stuck in construction traffic that added half an hour onto my drive. Instead of getting home at 10:00pm, I got home at 10:30.

MuthaPussBucket!

It was a risk… and it bit me on the ass. Stupid risk.

Now, can we stop having daily writing prompts asking about taking risks for a while? It’s repetitive and it’s getting BORING.

Thank you, good night.

No Regrets

Daily writing prompt
Describe a risk you took that you do not regret.
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There are a few I could use for this prompt. Mostly things that I have talked about at length in other prompts. I am at work right now and have a ton of things going on, so I will be brief today. You won’t have to dig far back to find more details, I don’t think.

Was getting married a risk? Do people see marriage as a risk? What about proposing? I ask because my gut tells me that will be a common topic of discussion today, but for me it is not. Getting married was not something I saw as a risk, it was something I saw as destiny. I wanted it so bad that I never saw it as something to be nervous about. It was something I couldn’t not do, know what I mean? It’s been almost 15 years since we said, “I do” to each other and it’s still far and away the best thing I have done. I could never claim it was a risk. Nothing could be further from the truth.

So what do I write about then? It has to be my college experience. Or should I say experiences. I started college in the Fall of 1989 as a music student with a focus in sound recording. I dropped out after the Fall 1991 semester. That was a risk. I still view that as much one huge failure in my life. It turned out to be the right move, but it’s still a massive fail.

In October 1992 I went to a tech school in Boston that doesn’t exist anymore and did a one year program studying sound recording. I graduated with excellent grades but struggled to find work afterwards. Going to that school probably counts as a risk, but it’s a low risk. I didn’t have much of a shot at success. Not due to the school, but due to my personality. On some level I probably knew all along that I was just stalling to keep the real world at bay for a year. I ended up doing warehouse work and being pretty miserable.

In the Fall of 1997 I went back to school. That was the biggest risk. I had a job. I was doing poorly but sort of getting by. Going back to school full time at the age of 26 was a tough choice but I was hopeful that it would pay off. It took a while to graduate, including changing schools once, but I did and I got a job and I started a career that I like and then I met a girl on myspace and she was amazing and you know the rest based on what I wrote a few paragraphs back.

So stopping what passed for my life in my mid-20’s and starting over was a major risk for me, but it is one that I don’t regret at all. I am very happy with the way things turned out.

Not Today

Daily writing prompt
Write about a time when you didn’t take action but wish you had. What would you do differently?
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Sorry, dear readers, but I gots nothin’ for this one. Not only can I not think of anything I could share, I can’t think of anything too personal that I wouldn’t share even if it answered the question. I literally cannot come up with anything for this at all.

Everything I have done in my life has lead me to where I am today. I like where I am today. I am happy and in a good place. I am surrounded by good people and I have a family who (for some unimaginable reason) loves me. I would not have done anything in my life any differently as that would risk changing where I ended up… and I would never want to do that.

Life is good, even if the Bruins did lose game two to the Maple Leafs last night.

Nerves

Daily writing prompt
What makes you nervous?
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Today’s question is pretty funny. It is a laugh riot. What makes me nervous? What doesn’t make me nervous. Literally everything makes me nervous.

The usual big ticket items make me nervous. Fascism taking over my country makes me nervous. The maga cult moving into my neighborhood makes me nervous. Money makes me nervous. Food, clothing, and shelter make me nervous. Cancer makes me nervous. Dementia makes me nervous. All the big scary things.

The unusual little things make me nervous too. Breathing. Crossing the street. Both sleeping and waking up. Most other people. The sky. The ground. All of it. Everything. Literally everything.

I guess I am an all purpose kinda nervous wreck. I do my best to deal with it and hide it from the normal folks, but it’s always there and everything can set it off.

Everything.

Cool Down

Daily writing prompt
How do you unwind after a demanding day?
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I’m not sure how to unwind. I feel like I carry things like tough days around with me for long after they stop being an issue. I try not to hold grudges and I try to just let stressful things go, but the only thing that seems to work for me is time.

I try to relax after a hard day. I try listening to music, watching a good TV show or movie, maybe put up my feet and watch a game or something. Maybe have a nice dinner or just sit and breath and calm myself down. It really doesn’t work though. My idiot brain just keeps cycling through whatever happened and my attempts at relaxation are just a waste of effort.

Bummer, right?

Myspace

Daily writing prompt
How do you use social media?
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In the early days of social media I used the holy hell out of it. Yahoo 360 was first for me. It had a blog space. I started writing whatever crap popped into my head. Not long after I moved over to Myspace and planted my social media flag there. Again, I used the bejeezus out of the blog there. Everything I posted there has been ported over here. Back in 2006 I connected with a woman through Myspace. She was nice and charming and funny and wonderful and today she is my wife. How is that for a social media success story?

By 2008 Myspace was history and Jen and I both started Twitter and Facebook (Bookfayce) accounts. I used them a lot. I mean, a lot. In November of 2008 I also started a stand alone blog on Blogger. Two of them, actually. One was public and the other was private. I kept anything related to my kids on the private account. Everything from both blogs now lives on this blog, just like the Myspace stuff. In 2009 I started an account on what might be one of the original social media platforms. Flickr. No one uses it socially anymore, mostly, but it is still the best site for hosting photos. I have a few there. By “a few” I mean over 55,000… so yeah, I use the hell out it.

When Instagram came along I sort of saw it as a companion to Flickr. I opened an account right away but closed it after a while. Then after some time passed I opened another one and then closed it. I can’t remember how many times I did that. I just didn’t like the interface. Scrolling kept “accidentally” marking things as favorites and it drove me friggin’ nuts. Eventually I just gave in and kept an account live. I still pop in once or twice a day, mostly to look at Les Pauls. I post there now and then but I don’t really interact with anyone. It’s like Flickr. It is a social media platform, but I am not terribly social on it.

A few years ago I got fed up with all of it. Facebook was turning into a cesspool as the fascist maga cult was pulling in people I knew and they were getting louder and louder and the idiotic algorithm was showing me more and more of that garbage and I just decided I didn’t want to go there anymore. I’ve missed out on a lot of family and friends stuff, but from a mental health standpoint I feel better about the world. When I started the weight loss surgery process it was suggested that I join some support groups on Facebook, so that pulled me back in for a while, but eventually I had a good enough grip on the situation that I wasn’t learning anything new anymore so I backed off again. I still pop in now and then to see what people are going through with their recoveries, but I don’t do it often. Twitter went from a similar sort of cesspool vibe to an absolutely ridiculous den of scummy bullshit when that musk putz bought them out. I don’t use that at all anymore.

I’m trying to keep my toes dipped in the social media world via a few Twitter alternatives. I want to pick one and just use that when I need a social fix, or when I am bored and want to kill a few minutes. Threads has a good music community but given that it’s a bookfayce product it makes me want to vomit when I use it. Bluesky and Mastodon are okay but I don’t really have a community to connect with on either platform so I don’t use them often. This blog cross posts to Mastodon so there’s that at least.

So the answer to the actual question, How do you use social media is that I try not to. Not really, at least. I was 100% invested in it back in the oughts and early teens, but now I just feel like it’s mostly outlived its usefulness. Instagram, Youtube, Flickr… yeah, I still use those regularly but I don’t really use them as social media outlets. I get all of my public bitching and moaning ya ya’s out on this page. I still use this thing a lot. I mean, a lot. Way too much. I mean, way too much. Part of me wants to stop entirely but I doubt I have the will power for that. Although… I thought the same thing about Bookfayce once too. Maybe… Maybe it’s time to just quit cold turkey. Probably not today though. Yeah, I am sure I can quit any time I want. You know that song, right?

Brain Drop

Daily writing prompt
Jot down the first thing that comes to your mind.
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The first thing that comes to my mind? What if it is completely uninteresting? Worse, what if nothing comes to mind? What if my brain is entirely empty? Oh no! That doesn’t leave us with much to discuss. This might be pretty weak as a writing prompt, eh?

Fortunately for me and my tiny old person brain, there was a thought that came to mind as I read the prompt. Unfortunately for you, my readers and only friends* it is nothing interesting. Just before I sat down at my desk and brought up wordpress.com, I had finished my daily exercise. 46 minutes of running (jogging, pronounced “yogging” with a soft J**) in place. The thought that was going through my head at that very moment was…

Holy crap my legs are dead. 46 minutes of jogging (yogging) in place is tough to pull off.

That is it. That was the first thing that came into my sad little brain. I wish it could have been something more interesting and exciting and intellectually stimulating but alas, no. My sincere apologies, friends.

*This is not a movie quote. It’s a paraphrase of a movie quote. A Clockwork Orange. In my teens and early 20’s it was a huge movie for me. When I was a little older I had a friend who had dealt with some bad things when she was young and it changed my perspective on the movie. It was triggering for her, though we didn’t use that term back then, and I saw it in a new light. Once I met Jen and Bellana I suddenly understood her problem with it and felt like even more of a fucking idiot for not having seen it before. The movie includes A LOT of violence against women and girls and now that I had a woman and a girl who were more important to me than anything else in the entire universe I understood that I could never watch that movie again. Now the movie is triggering for me too, in a different way but still pretty painful. Never again. Never ever. I still find myself quoting a few lines now and then because they are so completely burned into my brain, and the language created for the story is pretty unique and amazing. The treatment of the women in the story though… yikes. What the fuck was I thinking when I was a kid? How could I have been so blind and selfish? Never again.

**This is also a paraphrase of a movie quote. Anchorman. This one is something I can watch over and over again. Yeah there is a lot of misogyny in the story, but it literally exists to show how stupid men were toward women back in the 70’s. I mean, 60% of the time it’s accurate every time.

Nothing

Daily writing prompt
Describe a random encounter with a stranger that stuck out positively to you.
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Yeah, I gots nuttin’ for this one.

Ah, lemme think on this a little… I’m sure I can come up with something stupid to add to the discussion… When we were wrapping up the planning stage of the great kitchen remodel project we were in Home Depot and had to ask a staff member for help with something. He was unable to answer our question but, positively speaking, none of us caught COVID-19. That counts, right?

One more shining example for you. I was in the check out line at the grocery store, Market Basket in Salem, NH, the same branch my brilliant kids worked at when they were in high school, and the kid ringing up my stuff said she liked my jacket. That was positive, wasn’t it? Even better, the jacket was a xmas gift my wife had given me so I got to go home and tell her about it so that she would know that some kid at the store admired her taste in jacket purchases. Call that bonus positivity!

I think that’s going to have to do it for today’s question. I generally don’t talk to strangers. Yeah, it’s an introvert thing but it’s also a lesson my parents taught me when I was really little and I learned it super well.

Happy Thursday, my positive readers and only friends.