“It’s five o’clock on a Saturday.” Or What day is it?

SATURDAY, MAY 22, 2010


“It’s five o’clock on a Saturday.” Or What day is it?

It is a curious thing to know what time it is without looking at clocks or cellphones (and I am sure at least in common usage cellphone IS one word). I don’t usually find the red or underlined characters useful or enjoyable and if I typed it... Unless my fingers did not start on the correct keys, it is pretty much how I wanted it to read. It really is not five o’clock as it was earlier and I suspect that I will not have to explain the reference if you read more than this paragraph.

The keyboard designer did not put tall enough ridges on the homekeys (I know that homekeys is underlined in red and the spellchecker is incorrect again IMHO). I suspect the computer manufacturer is either saving plastic or the Chinese have a better sense of touch in there nimble index fingers. Chinese Engineers will be discussed in another posting.

For brevity, I wish I knew lots more initials that everyone is expected to know. At least the definition, by now. I have decided I do not know enough languages already so there is no reason to attempt to not know two more now. So I am boycotting Texting so it is not obvious that I am a NUB. Besides I could get the electric chair if I get caught doing it while driving.
I thought I had a bad memory, but this MS program has been out there for like forever and it still gets on the internet and looks for updates or patches. AND, I guess everyone at MS likes the entire word selected option when editing. Personally, I do not. I might want to just cut and paste a part of a word. Who’d A thunk? It certainly does not help speed me up when I have to go back to tools, options, edit tab, and then uncheck ‘When selecting, automatically select entire word’; then and only then hit OK. This happens every time I reboot the computer and open Word or sometimes extremely often when I am working in the same document.

I wonder if this happens on a Mac. Is it what is behind the recent resurgence of their product? But since the iPad is giving them a run for their own money I am not so sure of that. Now that MS knows of this glaring error, surely, they will fix this damn thing that has continued to persist thru the four versions I have owned, at least. I know it is at least four versions because I remember googling it and now being able to make the daily correction when required. Good, it appears to be working AND I did not inadvertently change any of the other settings that Options might have thought was how I wanted them. Like not AutoCorrecting… GRRRRRRRR!
I think I used to, no, I am certain I used to tell time without clocks. I did not use the Sister Mediatrix alarm clock substitute method either, where you said a lot of prayers before bed and told God what time you wanted to wake… and then if you woke when you thought you were supposed to or prayed you would, you said a lot more prayers. Or, if you were a nun, could wait until Reverend Mother woke you with the screaming and then say a lot more prayers that this time you would not be punished further and have to say a lot more prayers because God forgot to get you up at the right time.

I am sure the Josephite sisters never saw 5 o’clock in the morning on their backs with their eyes closed. With 85,000 search results, other people, including the Josephite sisters, do not think that Josephite is a misspelling. Phew. Those nuns could never have slept. It must have taken all night to starch the penguin head attachment holding up the veil, iron the rest of the habit and get into it making sure that no child would ever be able to figure if they had hair on their head or what color it might be. Sister Mediatrix had short beautiful auburn hair. I know I spent almost the entire first grade researching it. I figured since she was a woman it would be the same color as her eyebrows. It was.

And, it was not until in college that I found out that there may be no correlation at all. You may think it but I am not going to go there. Besides, back then if you wanted to get rich you owned stock in the company that manufactured the pins with the black plastic bead heads. I think it would take more than one super tanker to deliver all of those pins that went into a few nuns getups. Mother Superior’s at least.

Although my cell phone is vibrating, I know it is not an indication that I don’t know what time it is even if I might be mistaken because it is not the special tune allotted to the one contact who frequently is required by law to notify me of the fact that I am supposed to be somewhere or doing something. And, NO, that special tune is not Piano Man. But since it was not ringing but vibrating instead I had to check to see if I needed to answer because it might be her and she did not take her cell to the pool for her Saturday workout. Possibly, she might be calling from some landline that is not yet entered as one of my allotted 1,000 contacts. So, that at least confirms it is Saturday.

Answering confirmed that a lot of people don’t get jokes about words that sound the same but are spelled differently.

Homophones. Not that kind of phone but a basic English kind of problem some people have. I too have had that problem once or even two times to (I really do know the difference but embedded this to see if Stinky is still reading). Besides, Spelling and Grammar Checker found nothing wrong with that sentence so it MUST be right and I can just go on.
Yes, Homophones… She lost it when I asked if that was with an E or an A and then she waited in silence as did I. I decided not to speak and breath softly to see it she might check her digital display to see if we were still connected to the network and the counter was working on her cellphone. She must have decided the connection was broken. She dialed the wrong number again after the phone went dead. I did not speak but answered the phone. My timer indicated I was not still adding seconds. Then for confirmation she decided to call yet again. I replied to her question that Uncle Rick was not here right now and I did not expect to see him soon because he did not live here. Again the trusty LED indicated she had hung up. I am glad because I might still be holding the cancer generator to my ear because I had not realized that the line had gone dead without my lighted display and trusty timer.

I decided to let the phone go to the answering machine go to Voicemail to insure that she knew POSITIVELY that she had dialed the wrong number once more. She certainly was persistent. She left a VoiceMail. I am not sure how I am going to let Uncle Rick know that he has a message hiding somewhere in my phone or possibly on the network.

When I slept thru the Sister Mediatrix wake up alarm procedure the first time I was going to go fishing with my grandfather. I achieved a maximum FAIL with the Josephite approved internal alarm clock method. I abandoned it. Luckily I did not get yelled at by Mother Superior and did not have to any additional prayers to my repertoire. Grandpa just left in the boat without me since he was a firm believer in the “learn by experience” (or a good beating will cure him) method of child rearing. If I wanted to go fishing at 5 AM I had better figure something out.

It took until high school when I realized the fifty billionth method was also not successful. The one thing Dad always did was wake me when I asked him if it did not require screaming. Dad was a mailman and got up to get ready to get in before the crack of dawn. He used to hit the lever on the electric can opener to let Kai know it was time to get up and run to the kitchen because there was a good chance there would be food in her bowl.

Ladd’s dad obviously was not a mailman. He was not outside and there was not a light on in the house. I gave up on pounding on his bedroom window because that was obviously not working. Since I did not want to teach him a lesson and wanted his company fishing that day, especially since we were using his brother’s boat, I came up with the solution. Shock and Awe. Instead of just ringing the illuminated door buzzer, I went to the 7-11 and deposited a dime in the pay phone. Luckily I had some change laying on the transmission hump. These were the glory days before cell phones or crack had been invented and there were still payphones available where you didn’t have to drive to the bus station to find one. Just to the 7-11 and there was almost one on every corner like the drug stores of today

Ladd’s mom answered and it did not sound like when I got back to the house that she would be cooking eggs or serving coffee. It was doubtful too that she would have her precious Irish wiener dog in her lap singing while she accompanied it on the piano. Ladd though, was sitting on the stoop when I did get there. He even took a shower. I asked if his mom had made any coffee and got slugged in the arm. He was pretty much still too asleep to talk.

After further experimentation I determined that the only way to have Ladd ready to go fishing was to wake his entire household (more kids than a basketball team kind of family) before I left my house. Until she died, Mrs. Ladd expressed her eternal gratitude to me about finally finding a way to get Bill out of bed. It was not the phone calls; she started throwing water on him if he was still asleep and should be up.

Lots of time I used to just see if it was light out or look at the sun to know what time it was. Boy Scouts taught lots of useful information including what time it probably was based on the relative position of the sun in the sky. That was simple except when you threw Daylight Savings Time into the equation or if inside a building that wasn’t the library where there were lots of analog clocks around. Not always three in a room, mind you, but usually at least one.

Abandonment of a time keeping device on my side of the bed had everything to do with the fact that I always woke up when I needed to (and the fact that I woke at all). Not that I always woke up at 6 AM or even 5 AM. It was more like, if I needed to be sleeping I was. If I needed to be up, well, I was typing on my pRotable.

I have a wonderful watch in a drawer not because I have the cellphone that I can open if I really HAVE to know the exact second of the exact minute of what hour depending on where I was on the earth. Most other people do seem to still have this need.

I am curious to know what time it is in Singapore right now. Well maybe not because I already know when it is noon here it is midnite there. Besides at the house I either have all those clocks where it is three different times in one room. Or, the time is displayed based on where I told the computer I was in relation to what it is in Greenwich. The pRotable always makes the proper adjustment for my time zone according to how much we are behind GMT. I know it is behind because the International Date Line is not between us and London… and we don’t want to get into what day it is somewhere else. My pRotable displays those little numbers or the analog clock, where ever I want, depending upon which gadgets I am using or what preferences I have set.

My good friend did email me too: “I tried to leave a comment, but couldn't figure out the drop down menu which said I had to pick a format to leave it in.” Yes, thanx Google! The free site for the blog is nice but I expect better software from you.

…And: “Blogs have to be pretty short + concise, as readers are busy & limited in their time and attention span, they have to be about a certain theme or subject that both you and the reader feel passionate about." Well as soon as I know what that theme is I will let you know but I will try to follow that advice and try to not go off on as big a tangent as yesterday.

Ignoring my on advice, in my reply I typed: “Tell me what time it is in the casino and promise me you won't open your cell phone OR look at your wrist.” (Thank goodness I am not working on a first Gen iPhone that needs its next OS update to multi-task.) I did not admonish her not to lie or quote what Sister Mediatrix told me about lying in regard to some of her other comments which were kind.

Fortunately, I slept thru the five o’clock hour this morning. Someone else did not. But the vet did tell us that the Not So Cute Little Orange Talking Kitty was going to live. He is getting old but not too old to let me know that at least he is thinking that I should be out of the bed by at least 7. I think he was letting me sleep in on the weekend.

I am going to turn on the stereo or find that damn pad that has the priorities set for what I need to do around the house so the entire house does not fall down. IIRC it is on the yellow legal pad on the clipboard. I would really just rather listen to Click and Clack the Tappit Brothers but the Not So Cute Little Orange Talking Kitty was either barfing in the living room and preoccupied or snoring next to the “Purrfect Kitty” on the couch and forgot to say his prayers so he would be awake to let me know.

Maybe I should make sure first that Piano Man is not on the shuffle on the CD player. I will put your minds at ease and assure you that it will NOT be on somebody else’s iTouch.

I am going to ignore all the green and red underlined words. Deal with it MicroSoft and I am not going to even bother to add them to the spellchecker. You Knever no when I might need to type another word that might be exactly like Josephite except one letter is different. Too much to think about twice.

And, at least it is not like last week where I lost an entire day.

I hope that wasn’t too long for you Dorothy but at least you will not have to be the first leave a comment. I will consult with Steve Jobs about what to do. I forgot he and Google and even Adobe don’t seem to be getting along so well lately.


“Sing us a song”…. AAAAAARGH!

At least AAAAAARGH is not underlined in red. I added it to the spellchecker. Leave out one A though.

If you are reading, Uncle Rick: Call your niece!