Weird Question Thursday

I should probably make this a weekly blog, as I am full of weird questions every day of the week. But I will spare you my weirdness for a while — although I ~do~ have a weird question today.

I have many times written about the “interesting” comments I’ve received over the years in my SPAM folder. Enjoying My Back Yard?  is one that comes to mind. But I’ve had a more recent visitor.

What’s Going On Back There?  was written back in 2021, a little ditty about all the weird SPAM hanging around in my back yard. (It’s an amusing blog… go visit if you’re so inclined…)

Now and then friends read past blogs, and I love that. Now and then they leave a comment, and I always answer. But those comments are usually in my regular comment section.

The other day this particular blog had an out-of-the-blue comment. Looking at the comment, I find it’s all in Swedish.

Hmmmmmm.

You know me. Piqued my curiosity. So I translated the message in Google Translator, and it turned out to be a promotion for new age “things” — meditations, astral traveling, crystals and gems — all that astral junk. Junk that intrigues me.

For one flash I asked myself — do I check out the link? Post the link?

Would you check it out?

In a second flash I asked myself — why would something that piqued my interest and sounded fun need to be pulled from the SPAM folder and translated?

Needless to say, I deleted the SPAM. The sender may have had the best intentions, sharing a peek of worlds I’ve yet to check out. But I don’t trust Free Bird offerings. Especially not from the SPAM folder.

That’s not the way to get followers.

I don’t trust most links today unless its something I’m researching and KNOW is safe. So why was I even considering checking out this blog site?

The point of this blog is to encourage you NOT to follow your wonderfully impulsive nature and follow links that may or may not be safe.

Who knows? The links might lead to the understanding of your astral dreams (pun intended), or they may lead to malware and Hell.

Let’s stay safe here on Earth for a little while longer.

 

 

 

Look Through Any Window

CAM00209I keep saying over and over again that I’m not getting older, that technology isn’t getting the best of me. After all, I do work in an office; I do code copy for the Web; I do work with spreadsheets and word documents, and do design a website here and there. So it’s not like I’m a rookie here.

But I recently bought a new laptop with Windows 8, and I can’t tell you how lost I am.

There are boxes on the startup screen that mean nothing to me. Boxes I want nothing to do with. Yet it is nearly impossible to figure out how to get rid of them. I’ve been looking for how to open the DVD drive (besides pushing the button on the side), or how to put an icon on the desktop. Every corner is a link to another universe. Is this supposed to be the new wave of enlightenment? The “world” at my “fingertips”?

I am beginning to understand why my father wanted to cocoon himself in his apartment in his later years. I can see why seasoned veterans would rather make phone calls with a flip phone or turn on the telly and have only 5 stations to choose from. Every time I turn around I have to learn something “new” which, to most of us, means “complicated.”

I am all for growing and learning something new. Or reinforcing what we already know. You’re never too young or too old to develop or refine your skills. I know a lady who is learning to speak a new language, a girlfriend who is going to cooking school, and a couple of guys who are building a car practically from scratch. What’s not to learn? So it takes some of us a little longer to put piece 1a3 into 2f6; sooner or later we figure it out, and are (hopefully) wiser for the fact.

But back to Windows 8. Who really needs all this stuff? Who needs three different browsers and two photo saving programs and clouds and Skypes and skies and a dozen game icons? I know – they all have their special place in others’  lives. My girlfriend used Skype to talk to her husband who was in Thailand, and many people would never know what their nieces or nephews or their kid’s friends’ kids look like if it weren’t for downloading their photos into one of the galleries. Listening to your own music from your laptop is really nice, too.

But what I don’t need is to click on four different corners to change screens, or a plethora of icons that will take me weeks to figure out. Am I just lazy? I don’t like that word. Stupefied? No…not that word either. Mystified? Well, I do like that word, but I hate to use it on such a three-dimensional object as a laptop. Maybe it’s more like being … distracted. I am such a sensitive, awakened, seasoned, middle-aged persona (like you) that I don’t have time to waste learning things that aren’t important to me (kinda like the subjects in college).

I already have a hard enough time coordinating jewelry and outfits. Or keeping my laptop files in some semblance of order. I’m not up for figuring out squares and corners. I just want simple word documents and chat boxes and an easy way to get to WordPress. For me and my limited play time, all I really need is a laptop with a smooth keyboard, a bit of Photoshop to play with images, and, okay, I-Tunes. And that mahjong game. And the link to Yahoo TV.  And, okay. The link to my horoscope. You get my drift.

My head’s already in the clouds enough the way it is. I’m not sure I need my laptop there, too….