Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 16

Message Spam

Back in April, I received an email from Simple Human. They were having a sale. I decided to pop over and take a look at their kitchen garbage cans.

I found one that I liked, but it came in three sizes. I bought my current garbage can from this company, so I thought I'd login and take a look at the size I had. That would give me an idea what size in the can I was looking at.

Not that I necessarily was going to buy one, but if I was, I wanted something around the same size.

I logged in, but the site didn't respond as expected. Instead, it opened a window that demanded more information including my telephone number.

That's right. Simple Human would not allow me to login to my account without giving them my phone.

No chance in hell.

They already have my email address and my physical address since I ordered from them. They do not need the phone number too.

Oh, and along with the phone number, I had to agree to allow text messages. By providing the information they were demanding, I was granting permission for them to spam my iMessage app. Oh hell to the no times a million.

With this one change to their website, Simple Human has guaranteed that I will never buy from them directly again. They've also discouraged me from ever clicking through on their emails ever again. And I found the exact same garbage can for cheaper than the sale price at an online retailer. Another fail for Simple Human. (No, I didn't buy it.)

I don't know what the hell they think they're doing, but they really irked me. I can't be the only one who finds this ridiculous. What an epic fail.

Alternate Dimensions?

Did you ever have something so strange happen that you wonder if you jumped into a parallel universe? I did and it left me confused.

This isn't some major earthshaking event, but something so small, so inconsequential, that I couldn't understand what was going on. Or maybe that nothing was going on and my mind had stuttered.

What was this minor event that had me questioning the space-time continuum?

I turned into my driveway on there was a black piece of metal on my fence. I'd never seen it before and I would have because it stood out. 

My immediate reaction was what the hell is that?

I've pulled into my driveway literally hundreds of times and I'd never seen it before. I took a picture because what the hell?

It appears to be a black piece of metal and it's screwed into my fence. I didn't add it and I can't imagine why anyone else would attach it to the fence, but honestly, I'd never seen it before and it was the first thing I noticed when I pulled in the driveway. The first thing.

Just to verify I wasn't having a brain schism, I looked through my pictures and found one that included that same section of the fence from 2017. No piece of black metal.

What is this thing and who put it on my fence and for what reason? Argh!

Pleasant Surprise

So I kind of did this thing. It was an impulse, but so far, it's been working out really well.

I subscribed to YouTube Premium. (I do not receive any compensation for anything in this post from anyone, anywhere at any time.)

I've blogged recently about how so many of my podcasts are YouTube first before they show up on my podcast feed. That was annoying, especially since some of the podcasts I listen to are sort of time sensitive and the delay means I don't bother to listen to that episode. That was annoying enough, but then something even more irritating started.

The ads for the podcast would drop into the middle of a sentence someone was saying. That's right. Just random ads dropped in at no good point in the show. I started to do a lot of cursing.

It's one thing to have an ad during a break in the speaking--I don't have a problem with that--but it became impossible to follow the discussion when the ads were popping in mid-sentence.

And finally, I had enough. These were all YouTube first podcasts, so I thought, what if I subscribe to Premium and lose the ads on YouTube? Premium even lets me lock the screen and still listen. I checked the price. The monthly fee seemed high, which is why I hadn't subscribed in the past. But there was a yearly option that didn't seem outrageous. I decided to try it.

It's only been a few days and so far I am loving it. I listen to the podcasts that have been making me crazy ad-free on YouTube. Well, almost ad free. The podcast hosts read ads and those are still there, but that's at a natural break in the conversation and it doesn't bother me.

I also discovered that I get Music Premium with YouTube premium and can listen to music ad free. Amazon Prime Music has become a cluster. I put in one song I really want to listen to and I get similar music unless I pay for more plan. I didn't want to do that. Now with YouTube music, if I want to listen to Prince's When Doves Cry, I can listen to When Doves Cry and not Raspberry Beret. This is a pleasant perk to the subscription and I've been making the most of it.

YouTube Music even created a playlist for me based on the Prince song and it was mostly decent. I needed to delete a few Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks songs, but other than that....

Usually my impulse purchases don't turn out this good, but I'm going to enjoy this subscription service a lot. I can tell already.

Yes, the Name Game is Back

There are six books in the second arc of the Paladin League. I thought I had all the names right, but (as it turned out) I was close, but not quite.

It all happened when I started thinking about Baggs' story. I know his heroine, I know her name, and I thought I had Baggs' first name, too. He'd been hard to pin down, but we'd settled on Cullen.

I will admit I had some unease. It felt right, but not right. I know that makes no sense, but it was one of those feelings of I don't think this is right, but I couldn't figure out why I felt that way.

And then I started getting pieces of the story. I heard Baggs and his heroine talking and she wasn't calling him Cullen. She didn't call him Cull.

She called him Cal.

I tried to re-imagine the dialogue and have her use his name. She wouldn't. That's when I knew I'd been right to feel uneasy. His name was not Cullen. It was something that could be shortened to Cal.

It didn't take more than a minute to get the real name. Callum. But everyone calls him Cal, except for his teammates who use his nickname of Baggs.

Mystery solved. That's why I was able to think Cullen was correct, but still feel uneasy. His name was very, very close, but not quite that. The uneasiness is gone now. This is the right name. And thank goodness I hadn't written his first name yet in any of the books.

Callum Baggnell and his heroine are book 4 of 6 in the second Paladin League arc.

I Got Nothing

 

Once upon a time, I used to blog every day. Sometimes I even posted more than once a day. How did I come up with so much to talk about?

I'm sitting here, trying to figure out what to write and I have nothing.

Part of it is because I used to blog about my stories and ideas and I don't do that anymore. Mostly because so many of my plans and the ideas I wanted to write, well, I just don't have time to write them. I think it maybe disappointed people, especially when I talked about ideas for more books in my Jarved Nine series.

Another part might have to do with being more tired now. I work ridiculous hours at the day job because of how bad the traffic is, and I'm done when I get home.

It's funny how I get ideas on topics to blog about while I can't write them down. I tell myself: Remember this for later! Only I never do.

I took a few minutes to look back at old pictures from posts. There was the one with the fountain pen--I don't use fountain pens anymore, although I like writing with them. I found the picture from when I discovered my latest favorite pen brand (EnerGel) and it's still my favorite. There's a picture from when I tried to make my mom's plum pirogis and failed. And the stray cat I fed on my patio until it disappeared.

And there are so many pictures of notebooks and planners--which I still talk about.

Too Many Ringy Dingys

My house still has a home phone. I needed it for my dad because his cell phone was 1) always turned off and 2) he wasn't adept at using it. And because of his hearing loss, he had a phone with transcription technology so he could read what people said.

It was also his way to keep in touch with his friends and it was my peace of mind, knowing he could call out if he needed help.

Now that he's gone, the only time my phone rings is when someone wants to buy my house.

It's getting old.

So old, that I unplugged the cordless phones and turned off the ringer on the other phone. There was literally one day where that phone rang at least ten times. It's ridiculous.

I don't plan to keep the home phone indefinitely. I only use my cell phone. But I need to make sure all my contact information is transferred to the cell phone. I'm pretty sure at this point that all my dad's friends know he's passed away, although there is one woman who called to wish him a Happy Easter.

But the home phone is on short time. And the nice thing about my cell phone is I can block callers.

The Tote Bag Saga Continues

If you've been following this blog, you know I've been on The Great Tote Bag search for a while now. Too long.

The problem is that I found the tote bag that fits me exactly right. It has everything I need and want. And LL Bean hasn't sold it since I bought it. I check regularly. My tweet at them went unanswered.

I thought about sewing my own tote bag--I even bought a pattern and some fabric to make it--but I'm still a beginner and this project seems daunting.

And so I continue to hunt for the best replacement bag.

There is a brand I've seen advertised on Instagram that looked intriguing. I order the bag that fit the size I wanted, but it was arranged so it was narrow, not wide, and the opening was so tight, it made it difficult to use.

Maika had another tote bag, though. The Carryall bag.

I didn't order it originally because I knew from the dimensions it was too big. Around Christmas/New Year time, though, they did a mystery bag sale and the price was marked way, way down. The only catch was that I wouldn't know which fabric I was getting. That's why they called it a mystery bag. My guess is these are bags they had too many of and they'd just grab one of the overstocks and send it out.

Spoiler alert: I got the Carryall in the fabric I wanted. Not all the fabrics were available. I believe there were around half a dozen there was a chance to receive. I lucked out here.

I was right--the bag is too big. But even though it's not right for a work tote, I still use it all the time.

It's roomy, with a large opening which makes it easy to get things in and out.

 

It has three interior pockets and a key leash, exactly what I wanted.

And I still don't have a new work tote because this is just so big! The company just came out with a new tote bag and it intrigues me because it might be close to the right size. I'm not ready, though, to test it out when the bags are more than I want to spend when they're full price. (Although have you seen the price of tote bags now?)

I'm kind of hoping they put the new bag on mystery sale this upcoming Christmas. That would be my ideal way to try it out. In the meantime, I'll keep using my old tote bag.

Oooh, OneNote!

I have an extensive series bible for my Paladin League series. It consists of an Excel workbook and a massive OneNote notebook. I've blogged about some issues I had with two versions of OneNote on my laptop, but today I am excited.

I finally asked the question: I wonder if I can link my settings list in Excel to the matching page in OneNote? I have a list of every setting I've used, but I don't describe them very well because I have images. Lots and lots of images. So one quick online search and I discovered yes, I can link a cell to a particular page!

Since I already knew how to link a cell in Excel (for the day job), all I needed to do was figure out how to get the OneNote page information. That turned out to be easy.

I'm excited, but also there's one thing I don't like. It opens OneNote on the web, not the app on my computer. It's also a little slow making that page open, but overall, I am thrilled!

Mostly.

Now I have hundreds of cells in Excel that are not linking and I'm not sure it's worth my time to add them. At this point, I know exactly where to click in OneNote to find the place I'm looking for.

After the HEA

When I go to bed, I think about my stories. Usually, not the one I'm actually writing because then I don't sleep. :-) I start worrying that I'm going to forget the dialogue or idea or whatever and so I work super hard to commit it to memory.

Wicked Suspicion has been an exception, but not the story. Well, not exactly the story. At least the main part of the story.

What I've been getting is an epilogue sort of thing. You see, Nyx's brother is protective of her, and while Case might be his best friend, Dylan is going to watch out for his little sister. Also, hey, dude, the bro code! You don't go after your best friend's little sis.

I'm seeing a confrontation between Dylan and Case. Like what are your intentions toward my sister kind of confrontation.

Dylan also shared some information about Case with me that I knew, but didn't put much weight on. After listening to Nyx's brother, I realize now that this is an important piece of who Case is and I better start putting some attention to it.

This is one of those scenes that I would get and not write since it isn't going in the book, but I think I am going to write this one and release it as a bonus for newsletter subscribers. At least that's the plan at the moment. If I run out of time before my release date, that might have to come later.

If you'd like to subscribe to my newsletter, the form is the Coming Next page of my website. Just scroll down to find it.

Olden Days, Current Day

 

At work the other day, I had a conversation with one of the guys about the old days--as in internet dial up, being knocked offline if someone picked up the phone, being yelled at to get offline so someone else can use the phone, etc.

It seems like a million years ago now.

Even after getting broadband, I toted my laptop around and usually had it on and nearby while I was watching television or whatever. That way, if I wanted to hop online real quick, it was handy.

Now, everything I used to do on my laptop (or almost everything) can be done on my phone. I shut my laptop down early because I can do everything on my phone. It's awesome!

What's really good about it is if I need to check something really quick, I don't have to remember what that something is the next time I'm near a computer.

Of course, this convenience has a downside, too. If I'm lying in bed, trying to sleep, and I think of something I need to research for the book I'm writing, I can grab the phone and look it up right then. And I've done this a few too many times.

Right now, I'm writing this post on my laptop while I have a baseball game playing on my phone. Twenty years ago, I couldn't have imagined this and now look.