Friday 5 for February 5, 2021: Big Game

This weekend it's all about the BIG GAME... sports fans know it, advertisers love it, the network showing probably loves it the most.... revenue, ratings, money! It's Super Bowl weekend and Scrivener has a game themed Friday 5 for us. So here goes... may your best team win! 

1. What item in your house recently ceased (or is likely soon to cease) Operation?

Total failure: Air Bed. Good thing it is backed by a 5 year warranty. 

Likely soon to die? My Samsung Galaxy J7 smartphone. The back panel is cracked, the battery needs replacement, and today I found a small hairline crack on the bottom of the screen. These damn things are not built to last. For the price you have to pay for them, even on the low end, with my J7 costing $265 back in 2016, it is still disappointing that I may have to replace this smartphone with something else.

Granted for someone who resisted the thought of owning a cell phone of any type over the years until mid 2014, I have to admit, I now have two of them. The Samsung is the primary phone. 

Last year I bought an Alcatel flip phone for only $20 at Target. Good thing. The Alcatel has emerged to be my primary carry around phone. Being an old school flip phone device, it is small and convenient to pack away. It seems to be durable, has a removable battery and I don't worry about it breaking. Plus it is 4G LTE compatible and has a low end operating system known as KaiOS. 

KaiOS can do internet. So the phone is not as dumb as it seems. It has simplified, web based apps that can stream music, play podcasts, YouTube videos and Twitter among other things. Runs on its own network (TracFone in my case) and can connect through wifi or its own data-stream.

The Tracfone plan is not bad. Unlimited talk and text for only $21.18 a month with a 1GB data plan for each month if you use their network. Unused data is carried over to the next month and the next and the next.... so after several months now, I have close to 6GB of data stashed on the phone. The cheap phone also doubles as a mobile hotspot, so I guess if Spectrum goes down I can use their data to run m Chromebook or something. 

The $21 is cheaper than the nearly $30 I was paying for a basic landline. So that went, and I now have two cell phone plans. The other is from T-Mobile and on my shared 55+ account, I pay my portion of $35/mo. Not too bad... Unlimited talk, text and data. Oh well.

I have gone beyond the scope of this question.

2. If someone were to poker ’round in your refrigerator, what item might he or she have questions about?

Whatever forgotten food is fermenting in the back of the fridge will be the item or question. Toss it!

3. What’s in your backPac, Man?

I have never ever owned a backpack. I have played PacMan in the past but I am not good at it. I become lunch for the PacMen very fast. Not good.

4. When did you last run into an old Flame?

I have been lucky enough to avoid "old flames" except for one that I re-connected with on Facebook. I would not consider her to be an "old flame" per se, but she comes the closest for purposes of this question. Luckily for me nearly all of them live far, far away from Hawaii. They are not on social media so that is good.

5. With what object are you frequently playing Hide-and-Seek?

This is worthy of a top 10 list... top 10 items that I frequently can't find when I most need them.

1. Wallet
2. Keys
3. Comb
4. Scissors
5. Scotch Tape
6. Remote Control
7. Garage Door Opener
8. Mask
9. Memory Cards for Cameras
10. Flash Drives - all in a drawer unlabeled... where did I put the back-up installer for OSX??? That kind of stuff.

11th hour prediction (Sunday 2-7-21 @ 7:30am HST): Tampa Bay by 3. I suck at this stuff. CBS will be the big winner ($$$$) if the game is exciting and the AC Nielsen numbers are high. The advertisers have more to risk than the two NFL teams in the game.