"My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence." — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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November 07, 2023

Seven Things : Just some thoughts

drawing- girl brushing teeth
bonkers (color version), 2023, digital
01 - Review words/phrases I found quite amusing: (1) Rage-delete. Someone wrote in a book review they had to 'rage-deleted' an ebook because they hated it/got offended by it. I can understand this but seriously, when you're trying to delete a digital file which is you pressing down or poking at the screen several times, it's not as satisfying or as fast as throwing a physical book across the room because your e-reader will pause and ask you if you really want to delete the book. It's a safeguard so you don't accidentally delete a book but really unhelpful when you want to 'rage-delete' a book. I'm sure amazon would love to remove that option so people will have to re-purchase books.  (2) Badbutt - it seems badass is too much like cursing to this reviewer so badbutt it is.

02 - Youtube (which is owned by google) will now not allow you to use ad blockers so if you want to see videos for free, you have to allow ads. If you don't want ads, then, you have to pay 12 dollars a month which is just a bit too much. If they cut that in half, I would actually consider paying. Technically youtube is not free because people have to pay for wi-fi and electricity, it's not really that free but no one thinks about those things, do they?
    So far, the ads are okay but for some odd reason, they keep showing teeth or toothpaste ads which I really, really wish to never see. It's the one reason I started using ad blockers. I just hope they will not remove the 'skip ad' option because some ads are really, really annoying.

03 - Does a book lover always have to be reading? Can you love books and not do much reading? I still haven't been reading much and it's not a terrible thing. I didn't fall out of love for reading books, I'm just at a pause. I believe if you can't enjoy a book, you simply put it down. If you don't want to read, you simply not read. I'm just waiting for a good book to come along and put me back to my reading journey.

04 - I switched google email account for my Blogger blog but now I can't change the background of my comments to the light blue I always had no matter how I tweaked the template. So now my comments has a white background just like readers who leave comments on my blog. I know it's a small matter but I like to be identified as the blog owner responding to comments.

05 - Digital photography is great until you have to sort through 500 photos to pick out 50 or so and then it's just so damm too much work. Sometimes I have to do this for work. Often, I thought of blindly choosing photos by picking the first or the last 50 photos but that's kind of not doing the work so I don't do it but it really takes a lot of patience for this task which is especially annoying if they send you the notice to do this at about 4 pm and you have only an hour to do it even though it takes about 2 or more hours to actually sort the photos. And then, you have to resize the images for web use so, yeah, technology, really fun. At least most of time, it's 300 photos instead of 500.

06 - I now enjoy listening to a lot of music in Mandarin. Before, I kind of disliked listening to Mandarin songs because the sound of the words weren't appealing to me for some odd reason. This could be a side effect of watching one too many Taiwanese dramas because they played music all the time. But it could just be me. I don't actually understand Chinese all that well so most of the time, I don't know what the lyrics mean but I think you can enjoy music even if you don't understand the language. But I did look up some of the songs. Youtube had a lot of videos where Chinese songs are translated to English which I appreciated a lot.
    And album cover arts? They are increasingly getting amazingly ugly and even grotesque. At the iTunes store, I once saw a cover with a guy's head between someone's naked legs covering their private parts - is this what people called good album cover? I think I prefer a bland headshot of the artist instead.

07 - Who likes daylight saving time? There's all kind of explanations for this but no one seems to like the idea. I think I prefer more daylight in the winter, not in the summer. Every time we have to set our clocks forward or backward an hour, it screws up my sleeping pattern and then it takes me a month to adjust. It's too bad I can't just move to a country with no daylight saving time which there seems to be many.

What's on your mind these days?

18 comments:

  1. I still consider myself a book lover although I don't really read many books anymore, for various reasons. But since I was a voracious reader when younger, I've got a truly extensive backlist of books under my belt that I can reference when needed in almost any discussion of literature. And yes, I've thrown a few books across the room in disgust. It's very satisfying.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Debra: I don't think I have read as many books as you. I do hope to read more but my mind is just not into reading right now. Books can make us emotional creatures though I don't recall throwing a book across the room. I might have just stopped reading and closed them instead.

      Thank you for coming by. Have a lovely day.

      Delete
  2. Replies
    1. Christine: I think so too.

      Thank you for coming by. Have a lovely day.

      Delete
  3. I don't like daylight savings time at all. I feel it's not my sleep that's affected, but my eating habits. I get hungrier and crave dinner sooner.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. paperbackprincess: Yeah, that's me too. It's eating dinner an hour later, that's why.

      Thank you for coming by. Have a lovely day.

      Delete
  4. Add me to those who are not fans of DST. It doesn't matter which direction we move the clocks my body takes a while to settle down.
    I am a reader. A greedy reader - which is probably why I do read each and every day.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Elephant's Child: I wish I can be a greedy reader.

      Thank you for coming by. Have a lovely day.

      Delete
  5. I'd love it if they got rid of Daylight Savings Time...which happens during the summer months, not the winter ones so the name is totally misleading! And the whole rage-delete thing totally made me laugh. :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lark: If only we can get rid of daylight savings time. I also laughed when I read that rage-delete comment. Technology can frustrate people.

      Thank you for coming by. Have a lovely day.

      Delete
  6. 1. I love having an old fashioned landline, so that I can slam the receiver on busybody salesmen ;) Rage-deleting would be right up my alley if I had a digital reading device.

    2. Ads for YouTube. I won't watch any more, then. Thanks for the warning.

    3. book lovers love BOOKS.

    5. Yes, so much yes!

    6. Mandarin is one of the few languages, I never enjoyed. I find it somehow grating on my ears ;) I like Japanese, French, Italian ... well loads of languages.

    7. Count me to those hating DST. My inner clock is awry all summer, but has settled now, less than 14 days after the change back to normal time.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Charlotte: 1 - I like old fashioned landlines phones. It's hard to slam the phone when it's small and flat.

      3 - Agreed!

      6 - Yeah, Mandarin did have the same effect on me before but I suppose since I have been listening to it more now that it sounded better. I like Japanese especially how they use words for mother and father though I don't really understand that language.

      Thank you for coming by. Have a lovely day.

      Delete
  7. I read. Then if I'm doing other work, I listen to books!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Romance Reader: Reading is good. I haven't quite gotten around to enjoying audio books yet.

      Thank you for coming by. Have a lovely day.

      Delete
  8. I would die if they took away Skip Ads. Well, not really... And I'm with you on reading. I mean, I can't be doing it ALL the time

    I don't adjust well to the time change. This last one I didn't do bad but usually it takes me a week to adjust...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Greg: Reading can be a habit or just something you do on a whim but certainly no reader have to be reading all the time.

      With daylight savings, we all have to adjust which says something about the human race - we can adjust things or we can do the opposite which is still adjusting in a way.

      Thank you for coming by. Have a lovely day.

      Delete
  9. 1. I knew of rage-delete (which, you're right, doesn't seem a very appropriate verb when you have to jump through a series of hoops in order to get rid of an ebook LOL) but not of badbutt...which sounds a little ridiculous 😂. I don't think it conveys the meaning it's supposed to...

    2. It is a lot of money. Ha! now I see why you chose that art piece for this post.

    3. "I'm just waiting for a good book to come along and put me back to my reading journey."
    Lovely quote! Yeah, even if you love something, you can take a break from it and still love it.

    4. I don't know how it works...but it seems odd that you could do it with a different account and not this one.

    5. "which is especially annoying if they send you the notice to do this at about 4 pm and you have only an hour to do it even though it takes about 2 or more hours to actually sort the photos"
    Maybe you should let them know...or they will keep expecting you to do two hours' worth of work in one...

    6. But at least you do understand some Chinese. I'm impressed - it must be hard!
    "I once saw a cover with a guy's head between someone's naked legs covering their private parts"
    Ugh. Very, um, creative...

    7. I don't mind the hour change, but I hate having to rewind clocks twice a year...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Roberta: 1 - Technology right? They can be quick but still kind of slow.

      2 - Like is bonkers... especially if it involves anything with technology or anything digital.

      3 - Yes, a break from the things we love is not a bad thing.

      4 - It's a css/html code which is quite simple but kind of hard to explain. Who knows why something that is working stops but it could be due to the updates bloggers had been doing.

      5 - I don't think it makes much difference whether I complain about it or not. It's technology that is making things harder.

      6 - Don't be impressed. I only know a few phrases and words. I use google translate a lot. Music album covers are getting a bit too bold in my opinion but you can't stop them, you can only ignore them.

      7 - I guess you use you analog clocks. I only have my analog alarm clock to change. My computer and other gadgets automatically changes the time which I guess that's a plus for technology.

      Thank you for coming by. Have a lovely day.

      Delete

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