Friday 5 for August 28: Consumption

From the Weekly Friday 5.



1. What would you consider your most recent major purchase?

Haven't done any major purchases in a few years now. To me, major means anything over $100 for a tangible item. Financially times are way too tough and I really have to be tight on spending.

2. On what are you hoping to spend a good chunk of change in the near future?

Whenever that happens, in order.... a new Chromebook, a Mac Mini with monitor and keyboard, and possibly another car, most likely "pre-owned"... I have no idea when any of this will happen, but they are certainly not going to happen all at once.

3. When did you most recently resist the urge to splurge?

All the time. I am not a "splurge" consumer. I think about everything before I buy. That is why my wishlist on Amazon is dozens of products long. I only browse, but rarely buy.

4. When did you most recently experience buyer’s remorse?

Air bed. Twice now. Don't ask. I won't tell.

5. What’s something interesting you consumed this past week?

More streaming audio and video. I finally transitioned my large Google Music library over to the Google owned YouTube Music service. What a mess that created. Not all of my audio files moved and several of the playlists are a mess.

The YouTube app for mobile as well as the website is also a mess. There is no easy way to organize artists, playlists, albums, etc. On playback I cannot find the buttons to "clear queue"... No good way to drop songs one by one into a queue without having to include all the songs on a particular album or playlist. What a fucking mess.

On the other hand I am enjoying watching the new Star Trek Lower Decks animated TV series on CBS All Access. This may be the best of the recent spin-offs from the Star Trek universe. This one is a comedy of some sort and focuses on the Starfleet personnel that have to do a lot of the grunt work to keep a starship going. The starship is the U.S.S. Cerritos and its mission is "second contact".... mainly to take care of administrative stuff once the Federation establishes a new relationship with an alien world and culture.

What I like the best of the new series is that it occurs at roughly the same time as Star Trek The Next Generation.  I like the familiarity of the series as it relates to TNG and its two follow-ups, Deep Space 9 and Voyager... all of which occur in approximately the same time frame.

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For onebadscrivener:

Lovers and Poets, yes I started to follow Shannon Hurley and I think she posted that stuff to her website many years ago. She has been steady with Lovers and Poets though the duo is her and her husband. It was originally with another guy. My favorite Shannon Hurley song is "California" from 2008.

The funny video and song "We No Speak Americano" by Yolanda B Cool and DCup was a worldwide #1 dance and pop hit in 2010. "The name is a reference to the scene in the film Pulp Fiction, where the character Jules (played by Samuel L. Jackson) tells a female armed robber named Yolanda (played by Amanda Plummer) "Be cool!".... re: Yolanda be cool! I saw the video on YouTube and fell in love with the song... hehe.. yes, useless pop fodder right up there with "Fridays" and "Call Me Maybe". Useless but catchy music.

Friday 5 for September 8: Consumption

The following questions come from Scrivener's weekly Friday 5 blog.

1. What is your paper towel consumption like?

I go through one standard roll about every 5 to 6 weeks.

2. What condiment do you use most often?

Since I am not supposed to consume too much salt, Pepper is my #1 go to condiment. Also use other condiments from the Mrs. Dash family of seasonings. Pepper is the new salt! BTW, seasonings are about as close as I get to regularly consuming a "condiment". I rarely do ketchup, mayonnaise, salad dressing, etc. since much of these things have a salt content.

3. What is your sticky note consumption like?

I'm not a post-it notes type of person. I usually just keep rough notes on scraps of paper on my desk which are usually the backs of sales receipts and bank ATM statements. If the note is very important I either re-transcribe them on the computer and save them in Google Keep or Evernote. If I am feeling lazy or not readily available to access my computer or connected device and don't want to lose the paper scrap? I take a picture of the note, save it to Google Photos in my album called notes and stuff.

I also have a small white board (photo below) that I can write notes on. If I want to keep the note, I take a picture of it.

Granted the three computer methods are not that efficient since notes could exist anywhere among the three. But at least they won't get lost.

The main reason why I don't use post it and other sticky notes is that I can get by using what I have for free instead of buying these expensive, throwaway sticky note pads.

4. What’s your coin jar setup?

1 jar for Quarters, 1 jar for dimes and nickels and 1 jar for pennies. When they fill up I take em to Coinstar and change them for cash bills. The downside to that is that Coinstar does take a cut. However if I have too much loose change it gets to be a humbug to count them all.... especially pennies.

Quarters I mostly keep since I have to gamble on the coin slot machines (known as washers and dryers) in my building to do laundry! Don't you just hate it when you dump a bunch of quarters in the dryer and your clothes don't completely dry on the first cycle! Errrrrrrr.....

5. What’s something you’ve purchased recently that was lower in price than usual?

Don Quijote had a vendor outside selling donut hole sized Andagi (Japanese malasada) in a bag of 4 for a dollar the other day.

I go to the HMSA Farmer's Market to buy a bag of 4 lemons for $2 and a bag of 4 or 5 onions for $2. The other Farmer's Market at Kaiser Pemanente at Pensacola have onion bags for sale at $1.50.