Friday 5 for June 22: GEAR

Catching up with the Friday 5 here... Gear... one would think I would answer this one sooner... but alas..

1. What kind of specialized equipment do you own for a specific non-electronic hobby or job?

Well I still have my old pica rulers, a reduction scale, exacto knives and blades, scissors, blue pencils, old paper clip art and stick on lettering someplace. Used to use this stuff as a graphic artist back in the 1970s to early 1990s.

2. In what way can this equipment be upgraded or souped-up, and how difficult or expensive would the update be?

It was very expensive but a whole lot better when everything in the graphic arts field was moved to computers. The Macintosh platform was groundbreaking with the introduction of the laser printer with software (Aldus Pagemaker) that allowed people to do all of the old manual graphic arts tasks on a computer. This started in the late 1980s and was complete by the mid 1990s.

3. In your fields of interest, what’s the gear envy like?

Plenty if you are talking about cameras, computers, video and stereo gear. All in that order I guess.

4. What’s something you own the old version of because it’s better than the new version?

Most definitely my two aging MacBook Pros from 2009 and 2011. They are better than the newest models which are hated for their keyboards and the touch-bar that took the place of the f1 to f12 keys. Ugh!

Frankly I think my old Power Mac G4 tower is better than most desktop Macs because it was modular and you could easily go inside them to change and upgrade stuff. Can't do that with most all in one computers (iMac, Mac Minis) that Apple now sells.

Oh I forgot, I still have CDs and plenty of vinyl records. All better than owning only MP3s of the music.

5. What’s a hobby you don’t engage in that intrigues you mostly because of its equipment or tools?

Drone owner and pilot which would combine flying and photography. I have no money to buy one plus there are not too many places to legally fly a drone in the city. Plus there is that learning curve regarding flying... I've read about people crashing their drones and that sounds quite expensive!

Catching Up With the Friday 5s: June 2018

Haven't been doing much here, so this at least catches up with the last two Friday 5s. Questions are derived from Scrivener's Friday 5 site.

Friday 5 for June 8: With a Capital T

1. What kind of trouble are you getting yourself into? - Financial

2. What was your most recent car trouble? - Flat tire two months ago, leaking coolant hose

3. What’s a rhyming phrase (such as “work jerk” or “poo shoe”) to describe something causing you problems lately?

This doesn't rhyme but I will go with "cash flow".

4. What’s something that needs loosening or unsticking?

My car antenna is stuck

5. What’s your favorite board game involving rolling dice? -

Monopoly

Friday 5 for June 1: Esprit

"This week’s questions are ridiculous, but I’m dying to read your thoughts.  Someone asked me a few years ago what my spirit animal is, and it’s a fun question to think about, whether one believes in such things or not (I do not).  In this (ahem) spirit:"

I don't have a spirit anything except for perhaps my own soul. Otherwise here goes with the answered questions.

1. What’s your spirit animal? 

None. Certainly not man if you watched the Planet of the Apes movies….

"Beware the beast man, for he is the devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him (drive him back into his jungle lair) for he is the harbinger of death."

2. What’s your spirit tree? None.

3. What’s your spirit food or beverage?

Water - the basic substance we need to sustain life. I try to drink plenty of it every day. We all should do that.

4. What’s your spirit weather phenomenon? - None really, but I like sunny days.

5. What’s your spirit passenger vehicle?

None, but I guess Toyotas seem to last a long time. Nothing spiritual about that.

Friday 5 for May 18: How About a Knuckle Sandwich?

The original Foodland Meal Club card when it first started.

The following questions are from Scrivener's Friday 5 weblog.

1. When did you last punch someone?  Alternate question: When did someone last punch you?

That was probably in 6th grade or even earlier. I can’t remember. I haven’t punched anyone in decades or have been punched since. I try to avoid violent physical stuff.

2. How many of those frequent (whatever) stampcards / punchcards do you have, and which are you most likely to fill and redeem?

Foodland Meal Club card. When you buy a ready made sandwich (knuckles not included) or bento lunch, you get one stamp. Collect 7 stamps and you get a free sandwich or bento. I have used these several times over the years.

3. When have you had a really good fruit punch?

I can’t remember. Since my heart surgery and pre-diabetes diagnosis, I’ve more or less avoided nearly all sugary drinks.

4. What are your thoughts on boxing?

I’m not a fan of sport fighting of any type. Surely boxing, wrestling, mixed martial arts, etc. are very popular. They are good for the promoters and pay per view TV networks, I just am not very interested. I have watched a few of the classic fights in the past, but none have moved me to fandom of any type. Overall I am not a sports fan of anything. I enjoyed watching the “Rocky” movies more than the real thing.

5. When do you usually punch in and punch out?

Currently late afternoon early evenings.

This song of course goes synonymous with the "Rocky" movies, the third one in the series:

Friday 5 for May 11: Who Put the Pomp in the Pomp Bah Pomp Bah Pomp

Been a few weeks since I did one of these Friday 5 blog postings. So here goes with my first post for May, 2018.

1. What’s something you remember about your high school graduation?

I attended the graduation for sure and walked the line to pick up my diploma. I think my parents were proud of me... most parents usually are. After graduation, we had a small gathering of my high school classmates and fellow graduates over at my home.

2. If you were asked to speak at a commencement ceremony this year, what would be the theme of your message?

Make America Great Again - It will be good for you and for our country. We need a strong country that is centrally focused on us, while retaining those important, traditional values that have made the United States the greatest nation on earth. Dedicate your lives and work to preserving and supporting our freedoms and the Constitution in all that you do.



3. What items in your possession are marked with the name or logo of your high school or college?

I have no idea where my high school diploma is. I am sure that has the State of Hawaii seal on it, since I graduated from Honokaa High School in Hawaii. I know I have my diploma stashed away from my college. It's in a file drawer, still in the foldable, red binder or whatever it is called. I think I have some class key or something from Honokaa, but don't know where that is. I was never one to buy trinkets like class rings since I considered them to be a waste of money. I do have my high school yearbooks.

4. What do you expect will be your next rite of passage? 

Well the next major thing will be death! Came close to that in late 2015. Enjoying my reprieve on life so far, but as the years go by the only thing that will be a major rite is passing on hopefully to that realm where the bright light shines ever so white and forever. Otherwise I am doomed.

5. What’s a good movie with a graduation scene, or a good movie with a graduation theme?

I can't think of anything recent since I rarely go to the movies or have seen many new ones (post 2010)..... My vague memory would like to recall the following:

Legally Blonde - Ellie did graduate right? Loved her pink Apple iBook G3. Been a few years since I last saw this comedy.

Back to School - Didn't Rodney Dangerfield's character also graduate? I think he did... this came out in 1986 and was one of two movies out that year that pushed the old Isley Brothers song "Twist & Shout", covered by The Beatles, back to the Billboard Hot 100 chart that year. The other movie with the Beatles song the same year was of course, Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

OK those are the only two I can think off right now. I may amend this after I see some of your responses or think of another movie.

Friday 5 for April 13: Aloon Again, Naturally

1. With which Looney Tunes character do you have the most in common?

That is an intriguing question that I would have never applied to myself. While I watched Looney Tunes and its Warner Brothers Inc. related stablemate Merrie Melodies a lot when I was a kid, I never totally related to any of the characters in a personal way. After checking with Wikipedia, there are many, many Looney Tunes characters some of which I don't recall.

Any character that is frustrated with the outcome of whatever situation he or she is in. Often it is Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote, and Yosemite Sam. 

2. Who or what are your metaphorical Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote?

Runaway government taxes and spending vs. citizens who just want to stop taxes from increasing and cutting government spending. It is so frustrating.

3. What’s up, doc?

The sky.

The moon.

The planets.

The stars.

The sun.

Birds.

Aircraft.

Spaceships (currently only Soyuz).

International Space Station.

Space probes.

Thousands of satellites and assorted space junk.

4. When did you last hear some opera music?

Just to answer this question I sampled a couple of tracks at this link: 

https://www.accuradio.com/opera/?name=Opera%20Selections&b0=Classical&b1=Opera

BTW, Accuradio is a good streaming service that has all kinds of music genres in a countless number of playlists that you can listen to for FREE.

5. What’s a good life lesson you learned from Looney Tunes?

Cartoon violence is funny. It is not harmful to your health. You just have to be able to separate the fiction (cartoons) from fact (your life). Looney Tunes is good entertainment. Th-th-that's all folks!

Questions from Scrivener's Friday 5.

Friday 5 for April 6: Welcome to the Terrordome

Did something terrible happen to you? "I’m a frayed knot"... Friday 5....



1. What’s the scariest movie you’ve seen?

When I was a little kid, The Haunting scared both my sister and I. This movie came out in 1963. There wasn't much blood or gore. A group of people are recruited by a scientist to spend time at "Hill House" in New England. Stars Julie Harris. Directed by Robert Wise, whose next move was The Sound of Music.

Runner-up: Jaws... the Steven Spielberg movie from 1975.

2. What most recently startled you?

My bank account!

3. What’s something in your residence that’s frightening?

Nothing really except for the possibility of fire or a 6.0 and higher earthquake. Otherwise we have good security in our building.

4. What kinds of social settings cause you anxiety?

Mostly group settings, parties. Never liked them. I'm not a good mingler. I'm a better observer at these things. For the most part I try to avoid these whenever possible.

5. What’s something you are no longer afraid of?

Death. Came close once. Read up on it, and it doesn't sound too bad, as long as it is not violent and painful. I would not want to die in a plane or car crash, drown in the ocean or be murdered. It's mostly the process. Hopefully once that happens, we can all go to a good place.

Friday 5 for March 30: Waste

From Scrivener's Friday 5, my week late entry....

1. What’s something you unintentionally threw away?

Two years ago, a big bag of a big pile of brand new plastic Don Quijote shopping bags were mistakenly tossed out. These bags were given to me by one of the clerks there as they neared the time when all, free, single-use plastic shopping bags were being phased out because a stupid law would make them illegal for stores to give out. Really, really sad. The clerk was nice enough that she gave me a big bagful of new, unopened plastic bags. This was in mid 2015. A few months into 2016 when my sister and I were doing the big purge of all the clutter in my apartment, somewhere that collection of bags were thrown out.

2. What disgusting memory of garbage do you have?

The terrible smell of rotting garbage comes to mind. More specifically some of the times that I had to clean the fridge out and there was rotting food in the back that I had forgotten about. It is especially disgusting when you have to remove the food from the container it was in. Sometimes it is so bad you just get rid of that dead food along with the container!

3. How are you about deleting emails?

Back in the old days of Eudora when emails used to download into your computer, I used to regularly delete them. Today with several free server based cloud accounts, I don't do this very often. I have email accounts on Google, Yahoo and Outlook which are the major ones. There are thousands of emails on my main Gmail account, many unopened. Up to last year there were tens of thousands on Yahoo, but after I was aware of the gigantic data breach they had, I got rid of most of them. Today the Yahoo account is still active and slowly building up with email inventory again. The Outlook account probably has a couple of thousand of emails, not too much. I also have email accounts at SDF.org, Headgap and AOL, but those don't get much use and when I got there I tend to clean them up fairly well.

4. What do you treasure that someone else considers trash?

All of the stuff I keep are "treasures".... I don't think people would consider my CD, vinyl records, DVD and cassette tape collections trash. I hope not!

5. What’s the litter like in your neighborhood?

Not too bad as some other areas in my city. Yes, we have some trash on the street. It can get bad when people put their bulky pick up items on the curb, and the city doesn't pick it up on the day they are supposed to. Sometimes they are a week late.