changes – Facts, Fictions & Fantasies

Sunday Poser — Evolution

May 25, 2025Fandango9 Comments

For today’s Sunday Poser, Sadje wants to know:

How has your blogging journey changed you and/or your thinking?

Let’s break this question into two components. First, has my thinking changed since I started blogging or because of blogging? No, not really. I started my blog as a way to express myself as a secular liberal living in a religious, conservative world. My anonymous blog became my safe space to freely express my views, perspectives, and opinions.

If anything, I have become more outspoken in expressing what some might view as “controversial” perspectives than I was earlier in my blogging career.

But the content of my blogging has changed considerably over the years. I started my first blog in 2005 and it was more like an online journal than anything else. In fact, I didn’t start writing flash fiction posts in response to either photo or word prompts or ideas that spontaneously popped into my head until 2012. And even then, maybebonky about 20% of my posts were flash fiction.

But since I started this blog in 2017, a much larger percentage of my posts are flash fiction, and these days, without going back and doing a statistically valid and certified analysis, I would guess that more than half of my posts are flash fiction.

And even my style is evolving. I’ve started writing a little poetry and what I call “poetic prose,” where I try to write using more symbolism and imagery than I have done in the past.

So, bottom line, my blogging journey hasn’t significantly changed me or my thinking, but my way of expressing “me” has evolved considerably.

WDP — The Impact of Technology

March 26, 2025March 26, 2025Fandango10 Comments

Daily writing prompt

How has technology changed your job?

View all responses

Imagine a world with no personal computers, no laptops, no cellphones, no internet, no digital cameras, no pagers, no fax machines, no Windows, no emails, no social media. That’s what the workworld was like when I entered the workforce in 1969.

Other than the proliferation of fax machines around the globe in the mid-70s, not much had changed until the early 1980s when IBM introduced the personal computer. A decade later, business had replaced cathode ray tubes (i.e., dumb terminals) with PCs that were networked together and had access to the World Wide Web. In the 90s, cellphones became standard equipment for many employees and by the late 90s, almost everyone in the business world had a BlackBerry device.

I’m retired now, but having been in the workforce since 1969, technology dramatically changed nearly all aspects of my job. By 2005 I was able to leverage technology to be able to work from home, rather than having to go into the office each day. Using video webinars helped reduce my air travel somewhat by allowing me to conduct live product demonstrations from the comfort of my home as well as to hold video team meetings with my work associates.

And now, in 2025, I have my iPhone to do close to 100% of what I used to need a laptop for. Except for filing my income taxes. Which reminds me, I’ve got to get that done.

WDP — Technology’s Impact

March 26, 2024March 26, 2024Fandango4 Comments

Daily writing prompt

How has technology changed your job?

View all responses

Imagine a world with no personal computers, no laptops, no cellphones, no internet, no digital cameras, no pagers, no fax machines, no Windows, no social media. That’s what the workworld was like when I entered the workforce in 1969.

Other than the proliferation of fax machines around the globe in the mid-70s, not much had changed until the early 1980s when IBM introduced the personal computer. A decade and a half later, most business had replaced cathode ray tubes (i.e., dumb terminals) with PCs that were networked together and had access to the World Wide Web. In the 90s, cellphones became standard equipment for many employees and by the late 90s, almost everyone in the business world had a BlackBerry device.

And now, in 2024, I have my iPhone to do close to 100% of what I used to need a laptop for. Except for filing my income taxes. Which reminds me, I’ve got to get that done.

WDP — Pet Peeves

November 28, 2023November 28, 2023Fandango35 Comments

Name your top three pet peeves.

My number one pet peeve is with WordPress. The developers are always adding new functionality or “enhancing” existing functionality without any advanced notification or warning and offer no guidance on how to use the new or changed functionality. And that means that we, the end users, have to zen our way (i.e., fend for ourselves) in trying to figure out what changed and how to use it.

And speaking about changes, I used to get WordPress Daily Writing Prompts on the My Home page when I went to wordpress.com. But for the past few weeks I haven’t seen them displayed when using the Safari or Chrome browsers on the website. I’ve tried to follow the instructions for notifications and have checked Daily Prompts, but they’re still not showing up.

The WordPress Daily Prompt is still showing up on iOS for Jetpack. But some of you are obviously seeing it on the website because you’re responding to it. The other strange thing to me is that the daily prompt on wordpress.com is not in synch with what’s on the iOS app. How do I know this? Well, Di, at Pensitivity101, responded to this question about pet peeves that was today’s prompt on the iOS app on her blog a few days back.

I did ask tech support why the Daily Prompt is not showing up on the website when accessed on my iPhone and my question was referred to one of the user support forums. So far, no response. What a shocker!

My number two pet peeve is with dog owners who let their dogs take a number two wherever they want and the owners just leave it there. How hard is it to carry a goddam poop bag with you when you take your dog out for a walk to scoop it up into the bag and take it with you to toss into your own garbage?

And my number three pet peeve is with people who say that they won’t vote for Joe Biden because he’s too old. When the 2024 presidential election takes place next November, Biden will be four years older than Trump. Only four years!

I’d much rather vote for an intelligent, experienced, decent man who will be 81 than a 77-year-old lunanitic who acts like a petulant toddler.

To that end, this cartoon from the New Yorker showed up in my email today. I think it’s spot on.

Ch-ch-ch-Changes

August 26, 2023August 26, 2023Fandango46 Comments

September is less than a week away, and starting in September, I’m going to be making some changes to my blog. Nothing major, but I will be cutting back on the number of prompts I host. This is subject to change, but at this point, here’s the lowdown:

Prompts I will continue to host:

Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (FOWC With Fandango): posted just after midnight PT every night of the week.
Fandango’s Flashback Friday: posted at 3:00 am PT every Friday morning.

On the cusp:

Fandango’s Story Stater: posted at 3:00 am PT every Tuesday morning — I may continue this for a while longer.

Prompts I will definitely be dropping:

Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge: posted at 3:00 am PT every Monday morning — There already are plenty of other photo prompts out their in Bloglandia.
Fandango’s Provocative Question: posted at 3:00 am PT every Wednesday morning — I’ve been doing this for more than 4 1/2 years and I’ve run out of steam.
Fandango’s Spam Comment of the Week: posted every Sunday morning — Between Pomeranian puppies, the Keto diet, RV repairs, unnamed but fantastic movies, spammers hawking Amazingness (whatever that is), and 40 year old mothers who want to talk and/or show me their naked bodies, it’s pretty much the same thing every week. If something really different, unique, or funny shows up in my spam folder, I’ll post it on an ad hoc basis.

Why am I doing this? Almost nine months after fracturing my hip, undergoing emergency partial hip replacement surgery, and fracturing the humerus in my right arm at the shoulder, I’m still going to outpatient physical therapy three times a week, plus spending two hours on other days doing my at home exercises. It’s eating up both time and energy and it’s a little depressing to still be somewhat disabled after all these months.

Also, I would like to get back to writing more flash fiction and to posting political rants when the mood strikes me. If I drop some of these scheduled prompts I may have more time for that.

If any of you want to pick up the gauntlet for the weekly Flash Fiction Challenge or the Provocative Question prompt stating in September, please feel free to do so.

WDP — As Time Goes By

December 19, 2022December 19, 2022Fandango7 Comments

Is your life today what you pictured a year ago?

Back in the day, when I was a younger man, that would have been an interesting question, as my life would change from year to year, sometimes significantly. I might have gotten a new job, moved to a different city or state, broke up with my girl and/or started dating someone new, met and fell in love with the woman I would marry. Had kids, kids had kids. Lots of changes over the years.

But the biggest change in my life was when I retired. Since then, the changes in my life from one year to the next have been relatively inconsequential. And that’s the beauty of retirement. My life since retirement has been the same as it ever was.

So to answer today’s daily prompt question, my life today is pretty close to exactly where I pictured it a year ago.

Fandango’s Provocative Question #189

November 9, 2022November 8, 2022Fandango64 Comments

Welcome once again to Fandango’s Provocative Question. Each week I will pose what I think is a provocative question for your consideration.

By provocative, I don’t mean a question that will cause annoyance or anger. Nor do I mean a question intended to arouse sexual desire or interest.

What I do mean is a question that is likely to get you to think, to be creative, and to provoke a response. Hopefully a positive response.

I don’t have an active Twitter account, so I really have no skin in this game. But I’m interested in what those of you are on Twitter think about Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media site and of his subsequent actions at Twitter.

In short order, Musk dissolved Twitter’s board of directors, named himself CEO, fired top officials such as the chief executive and chief financial officer, took the company private, fired half of its employees, and has started charging $8 a month to have a “verified” account.

So here is my provocative question for this week.

Whether or not you have a Twitter account, how do you feel about Musk’s takeover of Twitter and the changes he’s made so far. Do you care one way or the other? If you currently are on Twitter, do you plan to continue actively using it?

If you choose to participate, write a post with your response to the question. Once you are done, tag your post with #FPQ and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments. But remember to check to confirm that your pingback or your link shows up in the comments.

Yes, Eventually

April 4, 2022April 4, 2022FandangoLeave a comment

In the continuing saga of the “did they/didn’t they” and “will they/won’t they” matter of changing WordPress plans and pricing, here is the latest.

Those of us who, over the past few days, have been trying to decipher whether or not WordPress is going to be changing from its free plan plus four paid plans to a scaled-down free plan and one relatively expensive “Pro” (for professional bloggers) plan, have been receiving responses from WordPress that have been at best, unclear, and at worst, contradictory. But it seems that the correct answer is yes, eventually.

In my latest exchange with WordPress, I asked, “So does this mean that the plan I’m on (Personal plan) will disappear and that if I want more functionality than the free plan offers (e.g., no ads, more media storage), I’ll have to upgrade from the Personal plan at $48/yr to the Pro plan at $180/ yr?”

Here is the Happiness Engineer’s response, which includes a happy face.

Yes, you are correct again! :)
Though, we have no timeline yet as to when we will totally remove these legacy plans: Personal, Premium, Business and eCommerce. You could still continue to renew your existing plan through the Upgrades menu on your dashboard.

Okay. That sounds pretty definitive to me. The current paid plans — Personal, Premium, Business and eCommerce — are going, going, gone, but no date has been set for their departure.

Thus, at some point down the road, you will either have a free, limited functionally option or a $180 a year profession/business option with all the bells and whistles you’d need to run your own e-commerce site.

As a hobby blogger who has no aspirations to turn my blog into a money-making machine, I have no need for most of those bells and whistles. But once my current Personal plan expires next January, I will have to decide if I want to go to a limited-functionally free plan or pay a lot of money for features I have little use for. And so will you!

I suggest that, for those of you currently on a paid plan, you should renew early, because it seems that once the folks at WordPress set their timeline for this migration, if you want to stay with WordPress, you’ll have to either lower your expectations or empty your wallet.

WordPress Speaks with Forked Tongue

April 3, 2022April 3, 2022FandangoLeave a comment

I’m really getting confused and frustrated with WordPress. I was delighted this morning when I read Jim Adams’ post, in which he wrote that he had contacted WordPress about the alleged elimination of the Personal, Premium, Business, and eCommerce plans. Jim said, “They wrote back to me and said that the Personal, Premium, Business, and eCom plans are not being discontinued. The Pro plan has been introduced in addition to these plans and is currently only available for the FREE sites.”

Great news, huh?

But wait. Yesterday I opened a help ticket asking if the rumors circulating about the plan changes were true. I got this response below just a few minutes ago.

Huh? So which is it, WordPress? Talk about mixed messages and contradictory information. Which is it? Is it what you told Jim Adams or what you told me?

Blogging Insights — Looking Ahead

January 17, 2022January 16, 2022Fandango23 Comments

For her weekly Blogging Insights prompts, Dr. Tanya provides us with a quote about blogging or writing and asks us to express our opinion about said quote. However, this week she is interested in finding out if we are planning any changes to our blog. Specifically, she’s asking us to…

…share our HOPES for our blog in 2022 as well as our REGRETS (if any).

Actually, I’m pretty happy with my blog the way it is, and my philosophy is, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” So I have no specific hopes for my blog other than to continue blogging.

That said, let me ask you all a question. You may answer from the perspectives of appearance, content, frequency, or whatever occurs to you. So here’s my question.