Spread the Love – Part 44 1/4

Today, instead of reading my (usually) nonsensical words, you should head on over and enjoy the ramblings of everyone’s favorite Bell Desk employee, The Hook. He’s real. He’s funny. And he’s so full of pop culture references that he sweats them out of his pores.

Check out how great his writing is by clicking here. And, if you liked that, imagine it in book form. What’s that? You don’t have to imagine it? It’s already in book form? Awesome! You can get it here and help support the writing dreams of one of my favorite bloggers, The Hook.

Spread the Love: Tres

Here’s another post where I tell you to go check out someone else’s blog. This time, I’m asking you to go to a place that most of you have probably already visited. It’s a place where frightfully wondrous things happen. You’ve been there before, right?

Rara, my dinosaur friend, is the reason I’ve done this NanoPoblano thing on the few occasions I’ve attempted it. She is an amazing woman who has nothing but kind words for everyone who meets her. More people should be like that.

Go, readers. Go and have some frightfully wondrous things happen to you.

Spread the Love: The Deux

Onto another post where I tell you to read someone else’s blog. That seems like it won’t help my stats at all. If I cared about my stats, that might upset me a little. Since I don’t, I’m going to tell you to travel on down to The Matticus Kingdom.

When you get there, you’ll meet The Jester, Matticus. He’s a good man, a good friend, and the best person I’ve ever published novels with on Amazon. So, not only should you go and visit his blog, you should also purchase his books (I’m pimping blogs and books at the same time. That’s what I call multitasking!)

Here’s a sample of what you’ll find over at The Kingdom.

And Then It Was Gone…

I was at the grocery store earlier getting stuff for dinner tonight. While I was walking around shopping, I saw something. What did I see? That’s the thing. I don’t remember. Whatever it was, it’s gone now.

I do remember that, at some point, I saw something that made me think, “I should make that into a blog post.” That’s when life happened. I had to put the groceries away. I had to go pick up Baby J from soccer conditioning. I showed Baby E what she needed to do when she moved clothes from the washer to the dryer. Then I decided to sit down and write that post I was thinking about at the grocery store.

But I couldn’t… The idea has fled into the dark recesses of my mind, probably never to be seen again.

I thought about it for a few minutes. It still didn’t come to me. This has happened to me so many times since I started this blogging thing. If I actually wrote every post I ever thought about writing, I bet I’d double the number of posts I have on here. Or, close to it.

Oh well. It sucks, but there’s nothing I can really do about it except tell myself that if the idea was that good in the first place, it’ll come back to me eventually.

Cutting the List

It’s a rare occurrence for me to spend much time on this blog these days. I pulled it up today in hopes to add a post on here. Not sure what to write, I pulled up the reader and sorted through the posts that others had put up. While doing this, I noticed that the majority of posts were written by the same five or six people. I felt like I needed to change this, so I searched for some new posts.

The first suggested topic was the word “comics”. I went ahead and clicked on it and read a few of the posts that popped up. There were a couple that I liked and I followed the authors so I’ll be able to go back and read a few of their older posts when I get a little more time. I also commented on one or two while I was at it.

After spending that time looking for new bloggers to follow, I went back and tried to figure out why my current “Followed Sites” list was so heavily occupied by only a few bloggers. What I discovered was that many of the bloggers I’ve followed over the years no longer blog. Most of them, in fact.

I went through my list and unfollowed any blog that hadn’t posted anything in over two years. There were a lot more than I expected.

What I was left with was a list of twenty-four blogs, two of which I started following today. Honestly, at first I was going to use one year as my measuring stick, but it would’ve left it at closer to fifteen. For some reason, having that few on my list bothered the hell out of me, so I left them on it.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to browse through the various blogs out there and try to build my list back up. Even if I don’t post as often as I used to, I’d like to still be out there in the blogosphere, reading those who chose to put themselves out there for the world to see.

Here We Go Again With the Questions

I’ve seen a couple of people do posts where they answer questions. I thought about doing the questions that they did, but there were over 100 of them, and I don’t have time for that. So, instead, I decided to find a random question generator and told it to give me 20.

Here we go.

Which do you like better, Google or Apple? The only Apple product I’ve ever used is my wife’s iPad, and that hasn’t been very much, so I’m going Google on this one.
Do you like bugs? Hell no. Those little bastards are always trying to get in my house.
Which do you like better, ninjas or pirates? Look at my header picture. Is there a pirate on it? No. Is there a ninja? Yes. I think you have your answer.

What is your favorite eye color? Well, mine are blue, my wife’s are green, and my daughter’s are blue, but starting to kind of creep on over to the green side. So….blue/green?

Have you ever shoplifted? When I was in high school. I stole some football cards from a convenience store. My younger brother tried to do it too, but got busted and promptly ratted me out. So, in order to keep the cops out of it, we had to clean the store for an hour every day after school for a week. I took the first week. He was supposed to take the second, but when it came time for my brother to do his, he got pink eye and I had to do it for him. I got hosed….

What is your favorite fruit? Pineapple, provided it’s not cooked. I hate cooked pineapple.

Do you like roller coasters? I did before I hurt my back. Now, not so much.

Have you ever cut someone else’s hair? I want to say that I have, but I don’t specifically remember doing it.

Do you have any tattoos or piercings? Nope, and I don’t plan on ever getting any. I don’t have anything against people that do those things, they’re just not for me.

What is your favorite drink? Sunkist, although I’m trying to cut back on drinking soft drinks.

Have you ever been stopped by the police? A couple of times, but the only ticket I ever got was from a cop in Detroit for not wearing my seatbelt. 

Which do you like better, black socks or white socks? Whichever kind keeps me from sticking my bare feet in my shoes.

Do you have pets? My daughter has a fish named Kiki. He’s a betta, or a Siamese fighting fish if you want to get technical. However, because he’s purple, my daughter says he has to be a girl. I tried to explain that just because it was purple, that didn’t make it a girl, but she wasn’t having it.

How many pairs of shoes do you own? Four. One pair of dress shoes, one that I wear to work, one that I wear outside of work, and one I only wear when I’m mowing my yard.

How many books did you read last year? I don’t know. I didn’t keep count. Probably somewhere between 15-20, I’d guess.

What are your favorite hot dog toppings? Gulden’s Spicy Brown mustard. That’s some good stuff.

Do you like to dance? No. In fact, I dislike it. I will do it on a few specific occasions, however. If my wife or daughter ask me to, I will. Or if I’m drunk….

What is your favorite hair color? I honestly don’t have a preference. They all look good, depending on who is wearing them.

Have you ever dined and dashed? Nope. I’ve joked about it, but I’ve never actually done it.

Have you ever been in a play? Nope. The only acting I ever did was when I worked at Walmart and I pretended that I didn’t hate it there.

 There you go. Hope you learned something there. I didn’t. I already knew all those answers.

Missed Calls

His daughter had played a game on his phone this morning, draining a little more than a quarter of his battery. He still had some time before work, so he plugged it into his charger and went about his normal morning routine. After showering, putting his clothes on, and going downstairs to make his lunch, he kissed his daughter goodbye. It wasn’t until he was halfway to work that he realized he had left his phone at home on the charger.

If he turned around to get it, he would be late. He couldn’t be late. He would have to go the day without his phone.

It felt strange to him to walk around with an empty pocket. He never noticed how much he had grown used to having it with him at all times. The absence of it almost made him feel naked. Still, he had work to do, so he tried to push it out of his mind and get to it.

Suddenly, his ringtone blared loudly in his mind for a few seconds.

It was almost enough to make him jump. As it was, it increased his heart rate and momentarily sped up his breathing. Out of instinct, he reached to his pocket before remembering he didn’t have his phone with him when he came up empty. A glance at the clock showed that it was only twenty minutes until he went to lunch.

The day’s half over, he reminded himself. Only four more hours after I get back from lunch. His lunch dragged on, him not having his phone to update or browse through his social media sites. He was forced to pay attention to some soap opera that was playing on the television. It was mounted on the breakroom wall too high for him to reach the buttons and he couldn’t find the remote. One of his coworkers must’ve hidden it again. Bastards.

After the hellish lunch he just experienced, he was happy to go back to work for once. He had just reached a productive groove when he was interrupted again by the sound of his ringtone. This time he did jump because of how loud it sounded in his head, although he was able to keep himself from reaching for his pocket that time. The clock said that he had only been back from lunch for an hour. Only three more hours to go, he thought.

The next hour breezed through and because he didn’t have his phone, he decided to skip his final break. He found his groove again, doing well above his normal production. Before he knew it, a bell on the wall rang out, signaling that there was ten minutes left in his shift. With his quota hit, he stopped what he was doing and planned on not doing anything until it was time to clock out. Then, he heard his ringtone again.

Like the first two times, it gave him a start, but it didn’t ring out in his head as loudly that time. Annoyed, he vowed to never be stupid enough to forget his phone again.

When he got home, he found his daughter playing with his phone once again. He took it from her and told her to go play with her own toys. She huffed, but did as she was told. As she was walking away, she told him that he was getting texts all day. Only one text showed up, from his wife asking what he wanted to do for dinner. He was going to ask his daughter about it when he saw that he had voicemails. Those had the same alert tone that his texts did. That must have been what she heard.

The first message was from his brother. He listened as his sibling frantically told him that their grandfather had been rushed to the hospital. As the message was playing, he looked through his phone log and saw that the only missed calls he had were from his brother. The other messages had to be from him as well.

Another frantic rambling greeted him on the next one. His brother was practically begging him to call back, saying that it didn’t look good and that the doctors were saying that his grandfather didn’t have much longer. The third message consisted of his brother bawling, telling him that their grandfather had passed away.

Tears began rolling down his cheeks as he put his phone down on the table in front of him. Through the tears, he saw that his phone log was still open. The first call came in twenty minutes before he went to lunch. The second call came an hour after he got back from lunch. The final call came ten minutes before he clocked out.

Crying even harder now, he went through his phone’s settings until it let him play his ringtone. As the music came from the speaker, he buried his face in his hands. His wife came into the room, asking what was wrong. He didn’t hear her, though. He was listening to his ringtone.

The song his grandfather asked him to use.