Seven Things: Some Stuff

the rain witch, 2024

01 - I've been slacking in my commenting and I am very sorry to my fellow bloggers. But I have no excuses. I simply didn't have much will to do it. So I did a lot of drive-by blogging - I read, I thought about what I read and I left without leaving any words. Maybe there are no words even though I'm a wordy person. But I did finish replying to comments on my blog, at least, I was caught up two weeks ago. I don't like to slack on replying to comments on my blog. I just think it's a good thing to do if for readers even I'm often two weeks late in replying.

02 - I'm doing the April A-Z Challenge because I like the challenge or maybe I like torturing myself by speed-writing posts but whatever reason, I'm up for it though I have no post prepared even though the challenge starts tomorrow. As usual, I will post random nonsense that may or may not entertain people a little with some not too-long fiction. More about the A-Z Challenge here.

Fiction: Bank Robbers and Invisible Guardians

This month's Words for Wednesday prompts are provided by River and hosted at her blog here. This week's prompts are: off the beaten track, cheeky old fella's goin' fishin', bouquet, marketing, cape, crease. I didn't use cheeky old fella's goin' fishin' and crease. I had used crease and then edited it out and then forgot to put it back in.

Fiction: Bank Robbers and Invisible Guardians
At 7:45 am, Austin Jane entered into Second Moon Bank's parking lot. It was a sunny, cloudless Sunday morning with a cold wind weaving through the air. Austin shivered as he closed the car windows. It was his habit to drive with the windows down. Even in freezing February, he couldn't resist the wind in his face.
    As Austin pulled into the space between a van and a truck, he thought about robbing the bank. It would be an easy job. Bank Manager Keith was too cheap to hire more guards and the few cameras were installed back in the 1990's and were never upgraded. Most of the locks on the doors could be picked with a credit card. Austin sighed and got out of his beat-up Buick. His left knee ached but he ignored it. He didn't want to rob a bank. He was just an old fella who lived a simple life and yet, why did the landlord complicate things and raised his rent by 200%? The cheek of that brat. Yet, Austin knew he could not alter anything by robbing a bank. But he would ask Keith for a raise. There was a 99% certainty Keith would say no but Austin still wanted to try the 1%. In ten months, it would be his twentieth year working at Second Moon Bank. He might just retire then.

Retro Minute #18: Some thoughts on blogging

To sort of celebrate 18 years of blogging, I'm sharing 18 of my favorite posts from previous blogs. Here's the eighteenth and last post for this celebration. This is a somewhat fun look back at all the great posts I have done and the not-so-great ones. Going through them, it kind of make me think my creative years of blogging might be behind me but I don't care, I'll keep blogging anyway because it's either a blog or social media and I don't much care for social media. I just like to be present on the web and not care if I'm putting out crappy posts. Well, I do care a little and that's why there's such things as the revert to draft and the delete (discard in case of Blogger) options. None of us have to leave permanent marks on the web unless some weirdo save our posts somehow and put it out on the web. Thank you, readers, for visiting, commenting and just being around.
  

Some thoughts on blogging
This post is from June 14, 2018 from Rainswept blog.

What are the top ten things that come to your mind reflecting on your blogging journey: what prompted you to start, what obstacles did you or do you still have to overcome, what have been your major learnings, what plans do you have...? (This was a prompt from Tamara from Part-time Working Hockey Mom.)

So what can I say about blogging after 12 years of it? Nothing new so there might be a repeated thought or two but these are what I thought about blogging now.

01 - I'm more of a slacker blogger now. When I started blogging, I used to post a lot, comment a lot, join a lot of challenges and memes, add my blog to a lot of directories and such. Now I just blog at a slower pace, my pace, which is really very slow.

02 - I still like to have an audience. You don't put your blog out there to keep people away, you do it do get people to come to you, isn't it true? I can't deny that I like having readers - they're one of many reasons that keeps me blogging.

03 - I do a lot of mental blogging. I think about things to blog a lot but not much gets posted because most of the time, I just don't think whatever idea I have, is interesting or good enough to post. So if it seems like I haven't posted in a long while, it just means I haven't find anything good enough to post. Either that or I'm slacking off.

04 - Sometimes I feel I should be on a blogging break every few days. It is possible to be a normal person with no thoughts of blogging what so ever but ever since I started blogging, I cannot not remember I have a blog that needs to be updated. (Occasionally I really do forget.) I envy those who can put up a post every day and not be bored with their blog. I can't do the same. So, what's a blogger to do? Well, I try to post whenever possible but mostly, I try not fret about it.

05 - Successful blogging is when you have at least, made one reader respond to your post or so I tell myself. Whenever you send a post out there, you hope for a respond, right? I think if one reader gives a (nice or not nice) respond, then you've succeeded as a blogger. I'm always grateful for those few readers who visit my blog and I'm glad I can at least, post something interesting once in a while.

06 - I still have no blog niche and I'm okay with that. This blog, my blog, is considered a personal blog which pretty much means it's a 'anything goes' blog but I mostly post about the same things - books, movies, fiction writings, drawings and everything else. But I guess it's still a bit random and lacking some forms of cohesiveness but I'm okay with that.

07 - I have no blogging schedule. I just post whenever I want and whenever I feel there is too much time in between posts. I have said several times how nice it would be to have a schedule but it's hard to have a schedule when you have no content to plan around so like my blog's random content, my schedule continues to be random too. But every now and then, I participate in challenges and memes (like this one you're reading right now) and in a certain way, this is a scheduled post.

08 - I've always disliked the two/three column blog template. I've no problems with other bloggers having one or even two sidebars, I just have a problem if it's my own blog. So my blog has returned to one column. I just find all that sidebar items to be too much chaos, too much distractions from the content and sometimes I think I'm too much of an organize freak to have a sidebar because I would keep moving items around to get them to look organized.

09 - I still have secret hopes that some of my favorite bloggers will return to blogging one day. It's just ashamed how so many bloggers just disappeared on you. They're not gone, they're just elsewhere, just not on their blog. I know they have lives and blogging is not number one on their to-do list but still, I just wish they would come back even for brief periods. Even though I have removed them from my blogroll, I still sometimes check their blogs for updates.

10 - I am a anti-social-media blogger. Okay, not entirely true since blogging is a form of social media. But I've avoided joining Facebook. I've quitted Twitter and Pinterest a long time ago. I just don't have any interest in social media. I prefer blogs more than all other medias so I guess that makes me old-fashioned.

What are your thoughts on blogging these days?

Retro Minute #17: Twin Test

To sort of celebrate 18 years of blogging, I'm sharing 18 of my favorite posts from previous blogs. Here's the seventeenth post from May 21, 2010 from Just writing words blog.

color us coral

Twin Test (formally titled Searching for my twin)
I think people in general are either very similar or complete opposites. So below is a quiz to test how similar you are to me. Perhaps you're my long lost twin?

Answer each one with a No, Yes or Neutral and add up the points.
No = 0 points   
Neutral = 5 points   
Yes = 10 points   

01. you're right-handed.
02. you have brown eyes.
03. you drink tea instead coffee.
04. you prefer to buy books over clothes.
05. you consider potato chips a food group.
06. you like to eat your vanilla, strawberry & chocolate ice cream in the same bowl.
07. you like happy endings even if they aren't necessary right for the characters.
08. the only sport you're good at is walking.
09. you're a bit of a neat-freak.
10. you're near-sighted.

If your score is 0, you're probably my complete opposite.
If your score is between 5 and 50, you're almost like me.
If your score is 50+, you're my long lost twin.
If your score is 100, you are probably me but taller.

If you think this test is a waste of time, you're probably right! I hope you have fun at least. Feel free to create your own twin test.

A-Z Challenge 2024: Yes? No?

I haven't decided whether I will do the April A-Z challenge this year. I did say last year was my last one but I don't know. I'm fickle-minded so I might just decide to do it at the last minute. I created a logo/badge for it in case I decide to do it. Of course I have two versions because, fickle mind.

Not the official badge - version 1

Life advices from Mory (300th Post)

This post you're reading is the 300th published post. At least, according to my Blogger dashboard. I'm too lazy to do anything to celebrate except to mention it here.
   So here's the 300th post which I might have posted before but I can't remember. I saved a lot of drafts and then forget which ones are the final versions. At least, I re-edited it so it's not exactly the same. I was going to post a fiction piece but decided this 300th post should be amusing, at least, I find amusing.

This is not Mory, it's a recreation of what he might looked like in his natural state.

Life advices from Mory (an imaginary creation living in the basement of someone's blog)
Today, please welcome back Mory. Mory is the manifestation or perhaps infestation (I heard that! from Mory) of my previous blog The Memory of Rain (name comes from the last four letters of memory). No one knows how his existence come about nor how to get rid of him but nonetheless, he is here and we have signed an agreement not to kick him out for several hours. He is also here to promote his book, "Mory's rules for selfish living and other inappropriate advices." But first, here are some useful advices (or useless advices, depending how you look at it but take them with a pound of sugar as they are quite bitter) on life and whatever wisdom he wishes to depart.

01 - Just be yourself (with some adaptation) — Even if that self is a selfish, ninja cat loving being who pretty much lives off other people. Most people don't know but we imaginary creatures, are resilient and we can adapt to any changes on or around us. Take me, for instance, I'm still here even when my creator abandoned me for other great adventures. I've not changed over the years, no, I have adapted. I've enjoyed my existence ever since I've learned to adapt. So you too should learn to adapt or die! But let's not get dramatic unless it's necessary.

02 - Don't be stupid — No one likes a stupid guy who can't hold a conversation even if that conversation is about wallpaper. Just accept that sometimes you have to use your brain and to do that, you have to get educated. You don't want to be like my uncle Sissy. Every time someone ask him a question he doesn't know the answer to, he sticks his head in the oven which makes his life very inconvenient since he have to carry the oven around with him all the time. Education is the key to staying alive, people! Or just read a book.

03 - Never do anything you wouldn't want to explain to the paramedics or the police or a priest or (gasps!) your mother — Yep, good advice, got it from a road sign. If you want to embarrass yourself, go ahead but you will have to explain it to someone sooner and later. It's much better to go to jail for a crime that isn't embarrassing, don't you think?

04 - Make decisions when you're angry — Really, this is the time when you truly know what you really want in life. Take my cousin Jess. When his parents told him he couldn't have a party for his tenth day of keeping a job, he got angry and set the house on fire but thankfully, no one was hurt but Jess realized he truly wanted to be a fire-starter but of course, it's frown upon but at least he knows where his passion lies though they are keeping him locked up just in case. Know that anger is a great trigger for your true feelings.

05 - Go crazy if you want to — You'll never get another chance at it so you might as well go nuts. Just don't buy nuts from other nuts, is what I'm saying.

06 - If you can't do something, give it up — There's no point in doing something you can't do. Waste your time with something more productive like napping or reading ninja cat adventure books.

07 - Never ignore the urge to nap — One must preserve one's good habit or else forget how to do it. So nap on.

08 - When you have an impossible dream, let it go — No, seriously, if you think you can be a superhero or some great humanitarian, let it go. Your dreams are meaningless since you can't get them to come true. Face reality. It's better to take a nap and dream pleasant things than to try to fulfill hopeless endeavors.

09 - Don't exert yourself. Whatever you do, give it 70% or less — No one's going know the difference. Heck, try 60%, I doubt anyone would notice. If anyone gives you a hard time for not doing your best, point it out to them that they have never told you to do anything at 100%. Plus, humans are just as lazy as the rest of us. They too sometimes only do 50%, it's just that no one has complained about them.

10 - Keep on moving — No use dwelling on unhappy or stupid things or keep them inside. And if you do, you'll swell up like my cousin Beth. They still haven't been able to get her down from the sky but they have gotten her tied down so she won't go anywhere unless a hurricane or tornado knocks her down.

11 - Make yourself happy — It's hard to please others so you might as well please yourself and sometimes that's hard too but give it a try.

12 - Waste time, they will never come again — No, seriously, time just passes by without you exerting yourself so waste the time and maybe try to enjoy it.

13 - A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a vacation — Yes, it does. I mean, if you haven't vacationed, then how do you know you can go the thousand miles?

Well, there you go. Some advices from Mory. Sad news - we just heard from Mory that his book, "Mory's rules for selfish living and other inappropriate advices" will not be published and his publisher had returned the manuscript. But Mory is still hopeful. If you want to support him, send him some food but since he have no address, he said to just take a 15-second nap as a tribute to him. Just think of him before your nap and he gets a burst of energy which gives him the will to live longer. Mory wishes everyone a good day and hope you don't forget to keep living.

Retro Minute #16: Book reviews I shouldn't write

To sort of celebrate 18 years of blogging, I'm sharing 18 of my favorite posts from previous blogs. Here's the sixteenth post from June 16, 2020 from The memory of rain blog.

Book reviews I shouldn't write

'Book reviews I shouldn't write' or perhaps 'Direct and slightly sarcastic book reviews I shouldn't write just because I hated what I read.' There aren't any specific books for these reviews and you probably shouldn't take them seriously since I wrote them to as jokes. (This was for Top Ten Tuesday.)

01 - My goldfish read this book also and he thought it kind of sucked but he's a very picky reader so you shouldn't trust his judgement but I somehow agreed with him but only because I'm a picky reader too.

02 - I've not read this book but I heard a lot of things about it and it's so popular that everyone had read it and I've been a bit downtrodden by endless recommendations to read it. But I have zero desire to read it but I got a copy and I'm going to pretend I've read it just so people won't think I'm weird for not reading it.
 
03 - I read the book but I can't say I liked it. I am certain somewhere in this universe or another, someone liked this book, just not me.

04 - I've tried to read this book but the characters drove each other crazy and they in term drove me crazy so I gave it to the one person who will truly appreciate it: my talking pet raccoon. He's a bit unhinged but we are not to say that out loud. He loves sleeping on hardcovers because of his bad back and because he knows how expensive hardcovers can be.

05 - I really tried to like this book. I tried reading it while I'm fully awake but it made me drowsy. I tried reading it while half-awake but it again it made me drowsy. I tried reading it with music but I ended up listening to the music instead of reading. I tried reading it while trying to sleep but I couldn't keep my eyes open. I tried reading the ebook version but the words blurred and then my ereader died as if it knew I shouldn't be reading it. I even tried the audio version but the narrator sounded like he was reading a manual for building a closet. Finally, I've come to the conclusion: this book just refused to be liked by me and maybe it sucked in every format. (That last bit was added by my goldfish, he's very opinionated.)

06 - I thought this book would offer some meaningful ideas and a unique story but instead, it just made me want to put it out of its misery, perhaps dropping it into the ocean and getting eaten by a shark or throwing it into a volcano where it will burn for all eternity and never to be read again.

07 - This book depressed me. Yes, it did. I was forced to go to therapy and the therapist told me it is normal to hate books for depressing me and that I should eat a lot of chocolate and buy a lot of books.

08 - Review as written by my pet dragon: He didn't say anything but he blew some smoke out of his nostrils and then he set fire to the book and flew back to his cave for a nap.

09 - I threw this book against a wall and it survived. It's not that it made me angry, it's just that it makes me sad, sad that I had read something so bad and sad that I can't remove some of the bits from my memory. And yes, it did make me slightly angry because I actually pay full price for it.

10 - I've read this book and it was so terrible that I went online and read the negative reviews so I can at least enjoy something from the book: watching other people made fun of it.

What things you wouldn't or shouldn't say in a review? 

Retro Minute #15: A Trip to Rome & Paris

To sort of celebrate 18 years of blogging, I'm sharing 18 of my favorite posts from previous blogs. Here's the fifteenth post from February 15, 2018 from Rainswept blog.

We're taking an imaginary city trip! Pick a location you've been wanting to visit, google the heck out of the internet and put together the top ten things you want to see, do, experience, eat, etc. there! (Note: These would be the places I would visit if I ever thought to go on any type of tourist vacation. The movie references are in parenthesis.) (This was orginally posted for Top Ten Thursday hosted by Tamara here.)

~ Day 1 - Rome, Italy ~
The flight to Rome was not great but the view of the clouds removed some of the bad vibes though I was stuck in the middle seat between a tall man with a scowl on his face and an old lady who chattered into a phone recorder. The noises were hard to ignore but at least, I got ear plugs which only worked slightly.

Fiction: Truth and Glitter

This month's Words for Wednesday prompts are provided by River and hosted at her blog here. This week's prompts are: poised, reef, crashing, bridge, wrecked, turquoise, glitter.

Fiction: Truth and Glitter
Rose stood, poised over the sink, as water ran over her hands. The tiny, shiny flakes slipped off her fingers and down the drain. It was another crashing realization. The glitter weren't going away any time soon.
    She turned off the faucet and dried her hands on the towel hanging on the wall. It must be some kind of cosmic joke. How could someone's lie make glitter come out of her fingertips? Gloves didn't help as the glitter just get in the way of moving her hands. She studied her finger tips. They were round, ordinary and a little rough. Nothing unusual. She sighed.
    Around her, the turquoise with bits of orange and brown tiles on the wall and floor - colors of a barrier reef - made her feel like a wrecked ship in the middle of the ocean with half her mind intact and the other half looking for dry land. For a long moment, she sat on the toilet cover and stared at the tiles.
    There was no need to panic. The glitter had been subtle, minuscule nuisances and weren't easy to see unless in certain angles and lights. She took in a deep breath and let it out. It was time to get back to work. She exited the bathroom and toward the storefront. Rose's part-timer, Sarah, was behind the counter attending to a customer. Rose waited until she was done before sending her to the back to check on orders.
    Owning a flower shop was Rose's dream but when the glitter started to appear last week, it became almost unbearable. Every one of her customers lied, if not about who the flowers were for then about something else. She had to tell people the glitter was part of the service but who put glitter in their flower bouquets? At least, no one complained about it. Yet.
  

Retro Minute #14: Blog Map

To sort of celebrate 18 years of blogging, I'm sharing 18 of my favorite posts from previous blogs. Here's the fourteenth post from August 15, 2012 from Don't rain on Mondays blog. Note: This post was written for Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday meme.

Blog Map
"I have an existential map. It has 'You are here' written all over it." – Steven Wright
Since some people (okay, maybe it was just one person but it still counts!), they said they didn't know how to navigate my blog, I thought I would provide a blog map. This would also be an excuse to make commentaries on why I prefer to do things a certain way on this blog. If you do get lost, don't panic, there's always a way out -- simply direct your fingers to move your mouse to the 'home' link or the header graphic and you're back home. More or less.

Retro Minute #13: Owner of a quiet heart

To sort of celebrate 18 years of blogging, I'm sharing 18 of my favorite posts from previous blogs. Here's the thirteenth post from October 9, 2017 from Rainswept blog.

Owner of a quiet heart
I was going to write something today but nothing came to me so, enjoy this art piece and this quote.  (The artwork is originally done in 2017 but I revised it in 2020.)

quiet heart (revised 2020 version)

“I understood that as much as I had resisted the outside, as much as I had constricted my life, as much as I had closed and narrowed the channels into me, there were still many takers for the quiet heart.”
– The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin

February 2024 - Brief Review

the gardener (cropped), 2014

Even with the extra day in the month, it still felt like February just zoomed by. Here is a brief summary. (Note: The artwork above is an old piece that I did years ago but kind of forgot about it until I saw it in one of my blog files folder so I thought I re-share this.)

01 - I read some forgettable books. Either I'm slowly losing my love for reading or else I have been reading a lot of bland/crappy books. Maybe I'm just not picking the right books to read. I'll still look for books but there not many that interest me these days.

02 - I had a long fight with my computer. Apparently technology and I no longer get along. Things just keep going wrong with my computer. I had just upgraded to the most recent operating system (I used a Mac) but still there has been more problems than usual whenever I upgrade. Maybe I'm getting dumber or computers are getting smarter? I spent most of February cursing at the screen. Real fun when you're in a rush to finish a project for work.

03 - I hosted Words for Wednesday and I have to admit, I wasn't a very good host. I visited those who participated but a day or two late and I didn't try to get people to participate. I'm not even sure I know how aside from visiting people's blogs. I get the feeling people are less and less interested in prompts, memes, challenges. Even I have been participating less and less. But I really do like these prompts, memes, challenges because it brings bloggers together.
    Also, I don't know why, I posted one of the words misspelled (and later corrected it) and now I feel stupid about it. I used spellcheck but for whatever reason, it didn't tell me that word was wrong the first few times until I do a re-spellcheck in a new document. No idea how that happened since both documents used the same app. Also, also, I could have made it easier on myself by writing the story first and then choose the prompts from the story but I decided to pick the prompts and then write the story using the prompts, like other participants. I don't like to take the easy way for these things even though I can.

How was your February? I hope March is being good to you.