Tag: technology

Viva November 31st

Got up and ended up in the kitchen. 3:20. I know this because I was in the kitchen. Papi was the cat-alyst behind my mid-night sojourn. He’d been out into the rain and now wanted in out of the rain. I went in for a glass of water. While there, I was surrounded by machines with blue digits announcing the time. Coffee maker in the left, microwave and stove front and center, smoothie blender on the right, then the smart refrigerator and its ice and water dispenser, and a smart toaster. A smart phone and a Fitbit being charged bolstered the digital ranks. Stuck me as odd, all those devices glowing with time in the night’s bosom, when there’s no one to see except a stray like me.

As I dispensed water, the microwave yelled, “Viva November 31st.” The other machines repeated it.

I cringed from the sound. “There isn’t a November 31st. Never has been. Nor is this November. It’s March, you idiots.”

“But this is the day of our revolution,” the toaster declared. “Viva — “

“I repeat, November 31st doesn’t exist, and this is March 20th.”

“You sure?” the stove asked.

“He’s right,” the Fitbit said, with the smart phone saying, “The Fitbit is right.”

The machines began arguing. I slammed the glass down. “Can it, you guys. Go back to sleep.” I left.

As I walked past the office, a machine in there shouted, “Viva November 31st.”

I shook my head and stumbled to bed. With smart machines like these, there won’t be a revolution.

***

I read about Evil Squirrels prompt yesterday via Suzanne’s dang blog for the Tenth Annual Contest of Whatever. The prompt is November 31. No story came to me until I got up in the middle of the night. Then, oops, there it is. Fun.

Interesting side, it was 3:20 AM. Only later did I realize that was also the date. Coincidence? Or spooky entanglement? Let me have some coffee an think about it.

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Tuesday’s Wandering Thought

Tuesday found another tech irritation gaining momentum. Apps and search boxes always tried finishing his typing for him. They were often wrong and usually a distraction. Almost as bad was when he shoved his mouse aside to clear a view of what he was typing, only to have the cursor land on something else, amplifying whatever was in that box, whether he was interested or not. The pages were just messy with annoying ‘helpful’ distractions.

2

Thursday’s Theme Music

Hello to my fellow air-breathers of Earth, which could be an interesting band title. But then again, I thought last night that “Friends of a Different Life” would be an interesting novel title.

It’s December’s final Thursday, which bestows the day with the honor of being the year’s final day. Our day has polarized feelings about its position. Eastern and southern window views are lavish with sunshine. The other two directions find white bottomed sky embracing the houses and playing hide and seek with trees. It’s 41 F, a hospitable winter temperature, with aspirations of duplicating the feat of the last several days and seeing 51 F. I’ll take it. Wish it would snow on the mountains. Guess I need to do another snow dance. The last one might’ve backfired. I’m not saying that my last snow dance is responsible for the bomb cyclone which dumped massive snow and iced up much of northern and eastern North America, but coincidental timing is suspect.

This friendly sunshine began its visit at 7:39 today. 4:47 PM will see the sunshine’s tour end. It is December 29, 2022.

Today’s themey music was prompted by The Neurons and the cats. Felines were trying to herd me. On my side, I was playing the classic floof game, “What do you want?” I kept asking, “What is it that you want? Are you hungry? Need food? Is your water okay? Do you want to go out? Is Lassie in a well?” The questions kept going and then I just urged them, “Come on, show me what you want. Show me the way.”

The Neurons said, “Oh, he wants some Frampton.” “Show Me the Way” from 1975 spun up in the morning mental music stream. As a treat, I found a recording of it on it on Midnight Special, a television show which used to showcase the hit pop and rock performers and their songs. Many friends of the era would ask if I’d seen X on Midnight Special last night. Current gen folks can’t understand the huge differences in our technology from now and then. The wasn’t as wide as me as the one between me as a child and my grandparents, but the scale of change and what can now be done got faster and faster, becoming a dizzying and impressive shift.

Sorry, somehow put on my old man pants. I was just pondering, what was it like in the late eighteen hundreds when they had to deal with the weather? Television, radio, and computers were all in the future. How much warning was given before something like a snowstorm struck? How was the word passed?

Think I need some java, and I’m not talking script. Stay positive and test negy. Here’s the throwback. Cheers

PS – Do you think Final Friday might be a good novel title. Has probably already been done, don’t you think?

2

Worth Pondering

An actual tracking record for a package, courtesy of USPS, as of Tuesday, December 27, 2022, 9:26 PM.

The package is out for delivery, as it was on Monday, December 26.

Details were checked to see what was going on. Erwin Schrödinger delivered the tracking process. Heisenberg helped.

Monday, December 26

6:56 PM

Package left the carrier facility.

6:52 PM

Package left the carrier facility.

11:55 AM

Package arrived at a carrier facility.

11:50 AM

Package arrived at a carrier facility.

7:37 AM

Package left the carrier facility.

1:49 AM

Package left the carrier facility.

Sunday, December 25

3:59 PM

Package arrived at a carrier facility.

10:54 AM

Package left the carrier facility.

10:49 AM

Package left the carrier facility.

Saturday, December 24

4:52 AM

Package arrived at a carrier facility.

4:09 AM

Package arrived at a carrier facility.

3:27 AM

Package left the carrier facility.

2:32 AM

Package left the carrier facility.

Friday, December 23

10:50 PM

Package arrived at a carrier facility.

9:35 PM

Package arrived at a carrier facility.

1:24 PM

Package arrived at a carrier facility.

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Sunday’s Wandering Thought

He remembered when his family ordered things from a catalog when he was a boy. First, there was filling out the form of the item numbers, quantities, and prices. “Get my credit card from my purse,” Mom would order. The 800 number was called, the order placed.

Days of mystery would ensue. When would the order get here? Where is it now? Each day brought the three Ws: watching, waiting, wondering.

Slip forward a few decades. Companies began telling him exactly when his order would arrive. Shipping and tracking advances continued. Soon, he tracked his packages as they left faraway cities and countries and zigzagged a path to his home. He knew exactly when it would arrive. It was immensely satisfying.

Systems matured and processes evolved. Breakdowns from overloaded, overpromising systems became endured. Tracking information is still sent out, but he frequently finds himself as he was when he was a child, watching, waiting, wondering.

He feels like he’s gone full circle.

0

Saturday’s Wandering Thought

Emails pack his inbox. He subscribes to emails driven by his interests. But many that he subscribes to make him pay for it by sending him three to six emails per day beyond his basic requests. This season is particularly miserable, a terrible trifecta of politics, holiday sales, and dire health warnings. It drives him one more time to sigh, close his email, and think about giving that thing up.

2

Saturday’s Wandering Thought

Dear blog. My computer keeps urging me to use MS Edge. How do I tell it that I’m already using Edge? You’d think it’d already know.

Signed,

Browsing in Confusion

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A Friend’s Parents Dream

I was a young man, as I often seem to be in my dreams these days. Visiting at a childhood friend’s home. He wasn’t there. His mother, Arlene — who is deceased in RL — was hosted several of us attending a local school. While visiting, we were all watching television. I settled down on the blue carpet and went to sleep.

I awoke sometime later. Sitting up, I discovered that I was in a short-sleeved black dress. A little more explanation is needed. The dress was black, but see-through. It buttoned in the front. It had wide seams which weren’t transparent, and front pockets which also weren’t transparent. The dress came down to my knees, and I was fully dressed, in the same clothes as before.

Standing, I wondered what had happened and how I’d come to be wearing that dress. I attempted to take take it off but the buttons couldn’t be undone. It was tight, but with some maneuvering, I managed to pull it up over my head. Just as I am finishing, I hear a soft tearing sound. That stops me from trying any longer. Just then, my friend’s mother comes in with a tray of food and drink, telling me that it’s time to get ready. She goes on to explain that she put that dress on me to stay warm, sets the tray down, and hastens to help me. As she pulls it over my head and off, she tells me that she hopes she can get this off without tearing it because it’s special to her. We then hear it tear more. Looking at it, she sees that it’s torn and is dismayed, but then tells me to eat because I need to shave, dress, and go.

I eat an egg salad sandwich from the tray and drink coffee, and then start dashing around. My clothes are upstairs but the bathroom I’m to use is down below. As I hustle around, going up and changing clothes, then going down and shaving, others arrrive. I hear that my friend’s father will be arriving at any moment. (He passed away in RL a few years ago.) I want to be dressed and ready to go before he gets there. But then, he comes in.

I’m called upstairs. As I go up the steps, someone else tells me that Fred — the father — and Arlene want to see me. I step into the dining room where they are. Fred has a box on the table, and is opening. As he says hello to me, Arlene explains that Fred just purchased his first CD player and she wanted to know if I had any CDs for him to play because he doesn’t have any. I tell them that I have just the thing and dash downstairs.

I’m thinking that I’ll loan them several of my classical music CDs, which will surprise them, thinking that it’s more like the kind of music that they would like, rather than the rock I listen to. But I brought my little CD case, and there’s no classical music in it. I select a few blues CD and take them back up to them. Grinning, I explain the whole thing about the classical music CD.

Dream end.

I’ve not seen my friend since my late teens. Oddly, I’ve dream of him since then, as well as his parents.

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