You won’t believe what happens next. Pure genius!
Well, we’ve been having something of a chilly weekend with temperatures down to six degrees inside the house rising to a balmy 12 by the end of the day, all shutters closed and several layers on, plus blankets over knees. The wind has been a bit lively, reported at only force five but I reckon it was harder than that. It ripped the hook and eye from my office shutter so now it must be closed until I get it fixed, so I am without a view for a while. The living room shutters are also closed, with draft proofing around parts of them, the doors are shut and there is now a cover hanging in front of them which still blows out and into the sitting room right next to where I usually sit. I must see if I can find someone to make me a decent, heavy curtain – I shall explore the web later.
The rain did stop on Friday though so Saturday and Sunday were clear days, making things colder than they otherwise would have been I guess. We carried on with our weekend plans which were mainly shopping, feeding the stray cats, doing the housework and getting some writing done. But there were breaks for Roku watching. I’d ordered one of those things you plug into your TV so you can watch streaming TV from the net. I can’t ‘cast’ from tablet to TV with it but we can watch hours of American TV (OMG!) with lots of films and TV programmes, Netflix is on there (though it’s not regional, it’s American) as are loads of other channels and things like YouTube. You can even access your Facebook videos and pictures.
And talking of Facebook images and pictures, I am getting so fed up with some of the stuff that’s being not only put out there but accepted as acceptable. It’s like these ‘things’ are changing the way people communicate and not in a good way. I raise two examples which many people will feel are fine and won’t have a problem with, but which I think are stifling creativity (‘cos everyone is simply copying them). I don’t have a huge problem but these things are starting to taser my nerves each time I see them.
The first are those posts that try and lure you into another site so you will play a video clip, or flick through some photos and then click on an advert button and gain the site a few pennies. That’s not the problem for me as we do that, the £25.00 a year we generate from the advert clicks helps pay to keep the site going, that amount per day would help keep the whole island going, but that’s another story. The style of writing I am objecting to runs something like this:
You will see an innocuous photo but the screaming headline beside it is meant to draw you in and make you believe you are going to see something remarkable:
“She thought it was just an ordinary slide but then THIS happened!” (Woman slides down waterslide and ends up in a swimming pool. So What?’
“He thought he would never walk again, and then he did THIS!” (Man gets off his arse and goes for a walk.)
“He didn’t understand how it worked so she did this. The result is GENIUS.” (Man can’t work TV remote control, woman switches TV on manually.) That kind of thing.
I wanted to tell you about my number two pet hate, but you won’t believe what happened next. INCREDIBLE!
I hate all this ‘This is Bill’ though any name will do it seems. These ridiculous cartoons – that often say things that I totally agree with – are taking over. You may have seen them: “This is Bill. Bill knows it is annoying to post ‘This is Bill’ images on his wall. Bill still does it. Don’t be like Bill.” Or, “This is Bill.” (Yeah? So what?) “Bill doesn’t think it’s necessary to post photos of your food on Facebook. Bill knows they look like sick. Be like Bill. Don’t do it.”
That is so annoying! Being told what to do and think by a stick-man cartoon and someone trying to be flippant. One day these two crass witticisms (if that’s what they are, I can’t actually think of the word for them) will breed and we’ll get things like: “Bill just posted a photo on Facebook. GENIUS! Bill now thinks he is important but actually Bill’s a twit. You won’t guess what happened next. Be like Bill.” And they will make even less sense than they do now.
Thank you. Had my say, and now I am away, leaving you with these last words: “James is an old grouch when he sees unimaginative posts like these on Facebook. James will now ignore them and never post such things himself. James is smart. Be like James.”
