THE LAST TIME WE...

On Facebook, many people post a lot of useless stuff.  However, someone recently posted something that I got very emotional thinking about it.  It was a quote that goes like, "One time you had fun with your friends but did not know that it would be the last time you would be together."  I am not much of a party animal but I suppose the scenario can apply to any gathering.  Maybe just a simple dinner with loved ones.  More recently, on Mac Geek Gab podcast I heard about an iOS app called Last Time.  Supposedly you make an entry in the app and it keeps a running count of whatever that you just entered.  Looking at the app some time later, you would learn that you have a certain pair of shoes for so many months, you last had dinner at some place so many weeks, and so on.  In my emotional state, I am not sure I want to install the app but I think eventually I will.

This week I learned of the sudden death of an elderly friend.  He is older than me by some twenty years.  He was a young medic during the Vietnam War while I was still a toddler.  Vietnam is a big country and we never met there but some forty years later in Brooklyn, NY we did, through a run club.  He took up long-distance running late in his life but he was good.  I am not fast to begin with but he was indeed faster than me.  I used to think that when I get to his age I would be happy to still be able to run like him.  One time he paced me at a Summer Series 5K and it was one of my best times.  I was in much pain, since on my own I usually don't run that hard, but I was very happy too.  He was a good friend and a good coach.  A very nice guy overall.

For me, his sudden death left two unfinished businesses.  I am not 100% sure, but I think he once mentioned he had this letter he found on a wounded enemy combatant.  Recall that he was a medic in the Vietnam War.  He wanted me to translate the letter, just out of curiosity.  He never got that letter to me.

The other unfinished business is that at one time I wanted to make a route-art, StravaArt if you will, for him.  Since he was in the armed force, I thought it would be appropriate to use his last name.  At the end of his name, I would add a red cross, to signify his role in the war as a medic.  Maybe I thought that I better run the idea by him first, but never got around to it, nothing ever came out of my StravaArt idea.  I may still be able to do that one of these days.  I do plan to resume running regularly so it's a good possibility.

PAIR OF EYEGLASSES FOUND IN GREENPOINT, BROOKLYN

 P2MX+48 New York

Every now and there’s some alert on Facebook or such social media of someone gone missing. Their family would try to spread the word as far and wide as possible to try locate them. This post of mine is similar in nature although not as critical.

Today (Tuesday October 20, 2020) around 6pm I happened upon a pair of eyeglasses on the sidewalk outside David’s Auto Repair in Greenpoint, at the northeast corner of the intersection between India Street and McGuinness Boulevard. (The code at the beginning of this post is used by Google Maps to locate the business). I picked up the pair of eyeglasses and asked the man who happened to be sitting near the entrance of David’s Auto Repair. It wasn’t his. I went inside David’s and left it with the receptionist. Ideally the owner of the glasses visited the business recently and eventually traced his way to the store.

Just as an experiment, I am going to post this story in my places on the Internet and maybe you can help too. Ideally the post should go to some Greenpoint, Brooklyn groups or networks.

I BELIEVE I CAN SLIDE

My good fortune with Wii Fit Balance Games is rolling along fine.  Or maybe my skill just keeps getting better and better.  With Balance Bubble games completed, my new Balance Game these days is Penguin Slide.  You control a cute critter, the penguin, that stands on an iceberg.  Fish jump out of the water onto the berg, some gliding along, some jumping.  You shift your weight left or right to slide in that direction and gobble up as many as you can.  Be careful not to slide too far to the edge, as falling into the water costs you time.  At the edge, if you quickly shift you weight back toward the center of the iceberg, your movement becomes a jump, which you definitely need to catch the 10-point hovering, red fish.

For a long time, I struggle to get into the Top Ten list.  Naturally, my son, younger and more nimble, occupied the top slot, probably a few slots in the top five as well.  Thanks to much practice and a better understanding of how the characters in the game behave, I got better and was able to get into the Top Ten list more frequently.  I discovered that when the Red Fish appears, it's best to get ready for it.  No more chasing the 2-point Green Fish or the 1-point Blue Fish.  Just stay in the center of the berg, as soon as the Red Fish emerges from the water at whichever side (left or right), hovering in midair because it has some special power, slide that way and jump.  With that technique, I got enough points to bump my son off from the #1 position.  I even got as high as 98 points!  Now I plan to keep trying until I get 100 point, or more, then I will move on to other Balance Games.

BALANCE BUBBLE PLUS COMPLETED!

The first time I tried Wii Fit Plus' Balance Bubble Plus, it was so difficult.  The idea is the same as the original Balance Bubble.  You "travel" in a bubble and direct the movement by leaning left, right, forward, and backward.  Yes, it's very useful to be able to move in all four directions.  And it's a bubble so the slightest bump and your "vehicle" busts, game over.  First time I played Balance Bubble I also thought it was difficult.  Too difficult for mere mortals!  Luckily the "harzards" moved in the same pattern so after a while I knew what to do to complete the game and completed it I did.  The Plus version introduced a rotating arm, a big one, shortly after you make a few turns.  This is where it's important to be able to go backward a step or two.  You don't want to move faster than the arm.  Every now and then I can even squeeze right in front of the arm and not have to wait for a gap to open up.  Then comes the dark tunnel, with which I had to constantly stop to observe the surrounding because your light can only see so far.  Move forward too fast and you can bump into the floats or whatever that's floating around you.  Out of the tunnel there are two small rotating arms going in opposite direction.  You need to time your movements and squeeze into the gaps.  Last hazards are the bees!  I hate them!  There are five or six of them, just cutting across the screen as you try to reach your final destination.  In a classic case of witnesses with unreliable memory, after I completed the game I watched some YouTube videos and now I cannot recall if I paused on the first two bees then zoomed past the remaining bugs, or if that's what I saw in the videos.  Whatever, I did finish the game, not easily, far from the ease the YouTube people showed.  For example, it looks like when they arrived at the dark tunnel they just went straight through without pausing like me.  Oh well, I should be glad that I at least finished it.

SWIPERS GONNA SWIPE

 I love the iPhone and smartphone technology but in some aspects my old-school way of thinking can only take me so far.  In particular I am talking about swiping with the finger(s) as a way to interact with smartphones etc.  Swiping with one finger, say as a way to look through a list, is kinda easy.  Pinching and un-pinching to zoom in and out isn't too difficult to learn.  Some maps would tell you to use two fingers to move around.  The message would be there so you can read it and act accordingly.  That's the max for me.  I understand there's a whole slew of things you can do with three fingers or maybe even four fingers.  That's too much for me.

I looked forward to using iOS 14 just for the ability to add captions to photos.  I hate it when I cannot find a particular picture I want.  Having the appropriate caption associated to each photo would be useful, but only in the recently released iOS 14 can that be done natively.  The thing is I couldn't find the place where I would enter the caption.  I know there's an Edit button, after you selected that you can do some simple manipulation of the photo, like rotating, cropping, or messing around with its color, brightness, etc.  So that's where I went to find some mythical button that says Add Caption.  Except it's not there!  I tried Googling for it but because of my choice of words all I got back was lists of features of iOS 14.  Why, some of those lists even mentioned the ability to add caption, just that they are so busy talking about the new features there's no time to show me how to actually do it.

I decided to ask a friend who upgraded a few days earlier.  Maybe my iPhone 7 is too old to support the feature.  Not so.  The feature is there, I just had to get the photo in full-screen mode then swipe up from there.  Doh!  There it is, a blank space to take Caption!  Of course, afterward I searched for How to add Caption in iOS 14 or something similar and there are many useful hits, albeit useless now.  Now that I know how to add caption, it vaguely dawned on me that I came to that screen before, where there are other info about the photo, like Location.  I probably arrived there by mistake, otherwise I would know how to get there.  Maybe it's just me, but that's not intuitive at all.  Oh well, years from now when old farts like me die off the young people (young now anyway) will all agree what a great interface it is, so natural to swipe up to see more info about whatever they are looking at.

CLAPTRAP BY TOM RICHMOND AND DESMOND DEVLIN

I love MAD magazine.  Being a bit artistic myself, I love to see the caricatures in the magazines.  I don't know why I didn't buy it more regularly.  For a while, I decided to buy it every two months, that's their publishing schedule, six issues a year instead of the usual twelve.  It gave me an excuse to wander into Barnes and Noble.  I even stated buying the compilation books, which technically are just reprints of the magazine, except for the foreword and other writings in the beginning.  But I missed so many years/issues, the regurgitated materials in the books were new to me.  I even decided to stick with MAD after the move from the East Coast to the West Coast.  New staff, new this new that, many people hated the new stuff, but I didn't mind.  But my measly support wasn't enough.  Now MAD supposedly won't even publish much new materials any more, except perhaps the cover and a few pages inside.  Enter former MAD cartoonist Tom Richmond and former MAD writer Desmond Devlin!  Together, they are putting out a new book with at least ten parodied movies, brand new, never published elsewhere.  There are a few Indiegogo tiers to consider but simply put for $25 you can a book featuring materials normally seen in a MAD magazine as if the mag is still churning out new, monthly content.  They already plan to do Volume 2, if this pattern continues it's almost like having a monthly MAD magazine with new materials.  Who knows, they may even release something every two months!!!

First, Tom and Desmond needs your help.  Support the IndieGoGo project, if you share my love for MAD magazine.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/claptrap-movie-spoofs-in-a-classic-humorous-vein?fbclid=IwAR1ToPkFdB-xN9uPeor3baZkH4Y-pX5FQQBRB9LcTsYmO0Stj95O71IuJ2k#/

NO SLEEPLESS IN MAC LAND

I finally have a modern computer monitor that can directly connect to my not-so-modern, but not that old, Mac laptop.  Typically with laptops using external monitor, I prefer to keep the lid closed.  I have this fear that a laptop is very vulnerable when it's wide open.  A push of the screen in the wrong direction can snap something and it won't function the same way any more.  When not in use, I usually keep the lid either closed all the way or at least leaning toward the closed position.  Alas, the way Mac OS X works, as soon as you closed the lid, the computer goes to sleep.  There's no built-in function like Windows where you can tell the operating system to Do Nothing.  There are utilities to disable sleeping but they don't work with laptop lids closing.  What a bummer!  Ya know, back in the day, the Mac was a superior graphical interface but in some areas Windows now has overtaken it.  Like this Sleeping issue, for instance.  My so-called workaround is to keep the Mirroring function, so that the laptop screen and the external monitor show the same thing, then close the laptop lid but jam it with my Bluetooth keyboard.  The laptop lid is in a slanted position so I don't gain any additional real estate space on my physical desktop, but at least I can see the big screen with the laptop screen sorta out of the way.

WII FIT - BALANCE BUBBLE GAME

 Part of my daily exercise regiment includes, usually, 30 minutes with Wii Fit Plus.  For those who don't know, the Nintendo Wii game console interface is more physically-involved than other systems.  It's a decent way to get some exercise while playing games.  They even go as far as having exercise programs such as Wii Fit and its sequel, with which you do actual yoga and strength training exercises.  The interaction is achieved with the help of the Wii Board, which the player would stand on.  You can weighed everyday to track your pounds.  You can also find out how balanced you are, even though your left and right sides are not identical, you do want to try to have a sense of balance of the two sides.

Sometimes the yoga and exercises get too boring.  You can unwind a bit by playing Balance Games and such.  They are basically video games but you control by shifting your body to move around.  Just like video games, with some games you can only advance so far and it seems there's no way to complete the game.  With some computer video games,  there are cheat modes that you might find to finally complete the game.  Not a good idea to always cheat, but it's just a game and if you already tried hard enough you just want to get over it.

One game I finally complete is Balance Bubble, found in the original Balance Games of Wii Fit.  Like many things in life, the first few times I didn't get very far.  I kept trying and got better, eventually completed the Basic Level.  In Advanced Level, there are bumble bees buzzing around and would bust your fragile bubble that you ride in when you cross their path.  Again, for a while I couldn't get past these pesky insects.  Luckily, once you know that the bees fly in certain pattern and that you can go backward or stay in place, then it's not too bad.  Also, in places where the wave emanates from the shore, the current isn't that strong so you don't need to overreact and end up crashing into the shore.

I am now trying to complete Balance Bubble Plus.  The route is totally different, there are rotating arms, and there's a dark tunnel that you can only see so much ahead.  You just have to move slowly and carefully avoid bumping into the round objects floating about.  Once you are out of the tunnel, there are two rotating arms, with smaller radius so that you have less room to maneuver, one set of arms after another.  And they rotate in different directions, too!  The furthest I got was past the first set of arms.  Even if I somehow get past the second set, time may be running out, too, so I'll have to try to lose little time in the easier, beginning section.  These games are supposedly to be relaxing but they are getting my blood pressure up!

LET THE MUSIC PLAY... FOR THE DISHWASHER

 I don't cook so the deal at home is I do the dish-washing etc.  We don't have a dishwashing machine so it's a tedious task that I was happy to delegate to my son when he was home from college.  Now that he's back at the dorm, it's my responsibility again.  I try to make it more tolerable by having something to listen.  I am a big fan of podcasts so that was my first choice.  However, dishwashing can get noisy and as sharp as my hearing is the clanging sometimes muffle the sounds from the podcast off my iPhone.  I would miss the punch line of a joke on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me or Ask Me Another, so that's no fun.  Next I tried my music library, but after a while it gets boring, hearing the same old songs day in day out, even though I have a lot of songs randomly played.  So I tried apps like iHeartRadio.  Strange thing is the app would just stop at some point after playing for like ten minutes.  First-world problem!

Now I am happy with YouTube playlists.  Not just any list, but 70s and 80s rock music, maybe even 60s and I can even stretch to pop music.  Yes, there are advertisements and some even demand you interact with them before the next song plays, so it's not a perfect solution.  What I like is now I finally learn the names of some of the tunes I hear regularly.  Not that the makers of those playlist always list the song names, but some kind souls usually add the names, in proper order, as a comment.  Thank you!  Two songs I now know the names for are The Breakup Song by The Greg Kihn Band and Paint It Black by The Rolling Stone.

NOT THE BRIGHTEST BULB IN THE ROOM?

Continued to slog through study session for A+ certificate, so boring since I know most of the stuff, I just don't have the piece of paper to prove it. Let me try to make some puns so I can remember more useless facts and acronyms...

Why are laptops screens never brighter than desktop computers' screens? Because for their memory laptops use Small Outline Dual Inline Memory Modules whereas desktops' memory modules are just Dual Inline Memory Modules. SO DIMM vs. just DIMM!

I did learn something fun, not sure how useful it is though.  Supposedly while some designation for memory speed are usually rounded down for better appearance, such as 66

2/3 becoming just 66, exception was made DDR2-666, as it gets artificially inflated to 667 to avoid looking like the Devil's Number.  Talk about religion of the Western World influencing everyone else.  If the people who control technology believe in Buddhism or Islam then 666 doesn't mean anything.  On the other hand, if the Chinese control these designation, everything will end in 8, as the sound for the number 8 is the same for expansion, more, increase, which the Chinese automatically pair to wealth, health, the usual good stuff.

BACK TO SCHOOL, SORTA

No respect, I get no respect.  Yup, when it comes to some jobs, having no certificate whatsoever in the computer field gets me no respect.  Recruiters nowadays probably run resumes through some filter and if there's no A+ or MCSA, or whatever the job demand, then you get filtered out.

I finally took the plunge and registered for a paid A+ online course.  It's not the first time I try to go for a cert, but this time it's online so hopefully the progress-tracking provided, the example tests etc will help.  In the past, I spent x dollars on some set of books then lost interest shortly afterward.  Maybe because work required more time, family matters, whatever.  This time, with the exam voucher already paid for, that should be incentive enough to get the darn thing done.  Plus while unemployed I do have some time.

People ofter mention so-and-so school course is so useless, such as, "When was the last time I need to use trigonometry in real life?"  Trigonometry, I have to agree on that, at least for my line of work (computer support, mostly at financial institutions) but not algebra.  Still, likewise these cert courses are so boring, going into every little details and most likely won't be used ever in real life.  It's like reading a book on how to avoid being sued if you run a business.  It makes me chuckle to think back on all the risky behaviors ex-colleagues of mine did.  Like stacking boxes so high or haphazardly so that they eventually crashed down overnight.  Or management at older jobs where the floor had gaping holes because some tiles were partially removed.  I guess if those people have certs they wouldn't do that.  Or that they don't care about safety, just rushed around getting the job done with the minimal effort and move on to the next one.  Sigh.

At least now I am at some chapter in the online course where it's a little more exciting, different types of USB connections, hard drive connectors etc.  Maybe if I think of a pun to go with a topic occasionally it won't be so boring.  Like SATAday Night Fever or ATA boy!

Have you found something really useful from an A+ cert prep course in real life?

THE RETURN OF THE AMAZON REMOTES

 Like many people, I buy from Amazon, every now and then, not weekly like some addicts.  I try to support my local businesses but sometimes the local places just don't have what I want. The pandemic doesn't help either.  Getting the stuff delivered to me is convenient, especially since there's an Amazon Locker at my nearby 7 Eleven.  Porch pirates ruin the experience and I once lost a package so now even if I have to pay extra for the Locker I still go with it.

One thing I dread about though is returning stuff to Amazon.  I haven't had the need to do so, until this week.  In my mind, that involves finding some box that would fit the items, pack the items, contacting the seller for some authorization paperwork, print or write the return address, then finally take the package to the post office, which the past few times when I went there on the weekend the queue was long.  Not at all an attractive prospect.  Recently I bought some third-party remote controls for my Wii console and they wouldn't stay synced.  I had to sync them each time the Wii is powered on.  I was glad to find out that it was a rather smooth process to return them.

I had a month to use the product before it's ineligible for return.  I heard about Kohl's store being physical pickup points for Amazon but didn't know that they process returns there as well.  7 Eleven places also handle returns, except the available choices are few, nowhere near where I live.  Kohl's is not as close but I could use a nice walk, some excuse to get out of the house once in a while.  Although the return process for Kohl's clearly mentions no need to pack up the items, I thought since I had a printer and a padded envelope from a different, recent Amazon purchase I would pack the items up.  It turned out to be unnecessary, or probably detrimental to the process in use by the person doing the returns.  She asked me to cut open the packaging and then she did her usual things.  So much for trying to re-use stuff.  I guess Amazon has their fixed process, or the person doing the work just didn't know what to do when the items are already packed.  Whatever, a day or two later I got credited for the purchase on my credit card.

I did notice a small pile of used Amazon boxes by the entrance to Kohl's.  The boxes are probably from people who picked up their stuff and then didn't want to deal with proper disposal of them at home.  If you need a box, Kohl's by Caesar's Bay should be a place to check out.

ORIGAMI ORIGIN

I love origami and had a phase during which I was very much into modular origami.  There are so many types of modular origami, as I discovered in the books I borrowed from the public library or bought from elsewhere.  I tried maybe two or three types and found sonobe modular to be the easiest to do.  Sonobe, that's all I know by name.  It's important to know the lingo so we origamists can communicate.

One day at a friend's house, as we prepared to start dinner, my friend's mother started folding these little trays.  The trays were then used to hold bones and such, stuff discarded from the food dishes.  I love origami but so far the stuff I made were just decorative and serve no useful purpose.  I sometimes joke a sonobe ball can be kept in the car dashboard for throwing at bad drivers, but such action would probably escalate quickly.  Anyway, I asked the woman to show me how to make it and was able to master it quickly.  Later on, I showed my own mother and she's been making them regularly.  I just made the ones shown below, as offer to my local Buy Nothing group.

What are they called?  There must be a name for them.  Some Japanese words, I prefer.  I don't make them regularly and usually I would have to reverse-engineer one when I forget.  If I know the name, I can look it up in YouTube.  Better yet, I plan to use Jitsi Meet's record feature to make a YouTube video, just for my own feeble memory to rely on when needed.

 

COSTCO QUEUE OR NO QUEUE

 Sometimes Life is just not logical.  I need to make a grocery run to Costco in Sunset Park, plus a visit to Bed Bath and Beyond just a few blocks away.  I got to Costco around 4 P.M. and there was a queue going around the block.  I suppose it's some kind of social distancing measure.  Wife didn't want to be spend time on the queue so we went to BB and B.  I gave up on the idea of visiting Costco that evening, since most likely when we were done with BB and B, more people would get out of work and make a stop at Costco, further lengthening the queue.  Strangely, on the way back from BB and B, we drove by Costco and lo and behold there was no more queue.  I thought maybe because the store was going to close soon, but an employee said they were still open for another three hours or so.  What gives!?  So much for logical thinking.  Or maybe the queue wasn't for social distancing, or maybe the queue was too long and Costco was afraid of losing customers and just let everyone in.  Who knows.

Inside it was somewhat comforting to see that everyone wore masks.  The store was big but there were many people too.  There's no way you can avoid being close to people.  Hopefully the masks did their job.

MEET PHILO-REN, SUPPOSEDLY

 Back in 1989 when I first started working my first job out of college, a colleague just bought a house and there was this plant in a pot in her backyard.  I think it wasn't in great shape, I vaguely recall her telling me.  She noticed I was diligent in watering the various plants in the office and offered to give the plant from her backyard to me.  Probably more likely just a snip of it, I cannot imagine her carrying the plant with its pot on public transportation.  We were working at One Penn Plaza and I think she traveled via MetroNorth commuter rail, from Little Neck area.  Took care of the plant I did, I even took some cutting home and gave out to other people who were interested.  I took a piece with me as I changed jobs over the year and still have a few at home right now, some 30+ years later.  I never knew what type of plant it was so one day Google told me it's a philodendron.  Recently, my track club sprouted a plant propagation club and I wanted to find out what type of philodendron my plant is.  I already came up with the punny name Philo-Ren.  Alas, none of the places Bing took me to told me what type of philo the plant is.  Some site mentioned pothos and a club member did too.  So, after all this time, it's not a philo, but some type of pothos.

Can actual people of the Internet help?  I really want it to be a type of philo but the color and shape just don't match anything I read.  The leaves are elongated, not heart-shaped.  Color is solid green.  This particular plant (in the photo) grows in water and is near a window, so while it has some sun, no soil nutrient so the leaves are not that large.  I moved a cutting to a pot outside and the new leaves are significantly larger.  Please let it be a philo, else I need to come up with another name to be punny with reference to pothos.

TROUBLES IN WII PARADISE

In general, I am very happy with my Wii setup, in particular Wii Fit exercise program and Wii Board.  But as my son pointed out recently, it's over 10 years old, the world has moved on to bigger and better things.  Well, maybe not better, as the Wii physical input is probably still the best.  Yes, things are breaking down, perhaps aided by fumbling fingers.  Recall that when I recently re-discovered the Wii controllers and boards, the busted batteries appeared to do some damages to the battery compartment.  That wasn't the case.  But then the family started to use the setup regularly, everyday, sometimes by three different people.  Mistakes were made and new batteries got depleted.  One controller started acting weird, going off on its own or losing connection to the main system.  Luckily, there is a market for replacement controllers and I got a pair this week.  A visit to some setup screen and the new controllers detected the mothership, we already started using them yesterday.  (They actually arrived that day Tropic Storm Isaias cut off our power, didn't do us much good to have them.)

Something else that's different with the Wii setup is how the top ten list for Wii Fit Plus behaves.  While I am still glad that the ranking carried over from Wii Fit to Wii Fit Plus, I also noticed that some list got many entries cleared out.  Can it be because the main system is running out of storage space?  So that given the additional poses and exercises that came with Plus some older ranking must be removed?  I think as long as the top few positions are still intact, I am OK with it.  Yeah, first world problems.

I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW

Yesterday, Tropic Storm Isaias hit New York and it sure was nothing to sneer at.  Not that much rain, at least for where I was, but really high wind.  The wind just blew right along the street outside my house, along with traffic too.  I am sure a block over it was going against traffic.  Electrical power went off many times, each time just a second long, but by 3:30 P.M. it finally did enough damage wherever power was flowing from and there was no power for a while.  The occasion finally made me install the iOS app from Con Edison to report the outage.  Supposedly power wouldn't return until 3 A.M. next day.  Luckily, power did come back around 10 P.M. same evening, a few hours ahead the scary estimate.

In recent months I started using these so-called cabinet LED light-sticks and love them during the blackout.  They are very bright, have a USB port for charging so you don't need to worry about regularly buying alkaline batteries (be it AA or D etc).  They are motion-sensitive so they are great for hallways and other places that don't need constant illumination.  The first one I got only had two mode - ON with timed shut-off and OFF.  The next three I got, from a different company just to see how different they are, also has a ON-until-manually-powered-off mode.  As if to further convince me to get away from D-battery lanterns, and their ilk, one of the old lanterns the batteries busted so badly that the spring parts that help keep the batteries in place corroded right off.  I am tempted to cannibalize another flashlight, or anything else that's broken but has a similar springy thingy, to repair this one, with some Crazy Glue, but I definitely will not buy any more of them old flashlights.  LED rules!

SAY NO TO MO'

And they lived happily ever after.  Or so they thought.  Some time ago I read somewhere that gift cards make great presents.  They give the recipient the choice to get what they want and the cards themselves have no expiration.  Then Toys R' Us went out of business and I joked about getting gift cards for my nephew who was going to become a father.

Not too long ago I won a raffle for a Modell's gift card.  Just before the pandemic hit NYC, Modell's went bankrupt.  I think I already used the gift card but wasn't that sure.  This week I noticed that on the back of the card it says the card expires five (5) years from the date of issue.  So much for that idea about gift card having no expiration date.  Or maybe it's just Mo'.  Not that Mo' will be around much longer, but for now I must Say No To Mo'.  One other thing:  when I visited my local Modell's this week, they have a sign that says they only accept gift cards up to July 26 or .  It was already early August so whether or not my card had any values on it, it was no good.  I did call 800-ASK-MODELLS and only to be directed to some mailbox that's already full.  No human to help me with my card.  When I insisted, the chap at the store in Caesar's Bay supposedly looked up for me to confirm that the card had zero dollar.  I hope he's right.  Or if he didn't really look things up and just wanted me to get out of his hair, oh well, easy comes easy goes, that's how raffle prizes are sometimes.

A WEIGHTY SOLUTION TO A FIRST-WORLD PROBLEM

I still use a regular, non-digital bathroom scale to keep track of my weight.  Yes, people elsewhere may have hunger problem but some of us worry about being too heavy.  I do need to lose many pounds and a combination of rope skipping, elliptical running, and Wii Fit exercises seem to help.  The Wii Board can sense my weight but from time to time I still use the bathroom scale.  Problem is my eye-sight ain't that great and I cannot see the dial that well standing atop the scale.  I can bend down but even though my whole body is still on the scale, the action seems to affect the weight reading.  Enters the omni-present smartphone!  I now use the zoom function of the camera to get closer to the scale's face to better see my weight.  Yes, the cell phone weighs something but it's a good trade-off.  I am fine with that.

iOS TEXT REPLACEMENT

I regularly offer to my Buy Nothing group free items or stuff to borrow. I would end the post with the phrase “Pickup near the 25th Avenue station of the D train.” By now, the iPhone is smart enough to start offering the word “near” as soon as I typed “Pickup” and so on. But I can take that further with the Text Replacement function. As illustrated below, through the Settings app, I define the “word” BNpu as “Pickup near the 25th Avenue station of the D train”.

As long as your brain can remember a few “words” that you define, there are great possibilities with Text Replacement in helping you save time and be more accurate with your typing.

I already created the shorthand BNpu so it appears in the list, you would touch the plus sign in the upper right of the screen to create a new shorthand.

Note that the shorthand is not case-sensitive, I had the n in lowercase but iOS still offers me the replacement text.