Good Riddance 2018: Shoo, Sayonara

January 1, 2019 by Let's CUT the Crap! 14 Comments

So this clunky year has finally gasped its last. Don’t want to boot it out the door but shoo, sayonara, s’what’s your hurry?

Saying good riddance doesn’t help, but I’m ready for a fresh new page, a newborn calendar, a clean slate. Yes. I hope it will be better than 2018 . . . or 2017.

Enough of that . . .

Just dropped in to wish YOU ALL the best for a

sparkling New Year full of promise: good

health, joy, and prosperity.

Mwah. With ALL my heart. 

Sign of the Times: Big Brother Amazon is Watching YOU!

Around 3:15 New Year’s Eve afternoon, my Smart TV came on. Thought the cat must have hit the remote but no, she was asleep, and the remote sat on the side table. The screen was a fury of snow and noise. I clicked back to the home page and shut it off. No sooner had I turned around, it clicked on again. More snow and no-reception noise like in the old days. Remember going off the air, rabbit ears, and antennae? I clicked back to the homepage and unplugged the darn thing. C.r.e.e.p.y.

What the heck was going on? Sent my daughter an inquiring text but no response. Impatient for an answer, I flew upstairs. Nope. Her TV not disturbed. I continued what I had been doing and decided to ignore the whole thing, hoping the TV would reset itself after I turned it back next.

The suspense was killing me. I turned on the power 15 minutes or so later. On it came again with a dialogue box about updating Amazon Prime. O-o-kay if that would make this silliness go away, I’d play but wait, I am NOT a member of Amazon Prime. I backed out after I agreed OK and shut down again. Ten minutes later, I held my breath and plugged in again. No more recurrences of unsupervised, uninitiated, and unwelcome TV interaction. This is the first occurrence since the TV fell into my lap about 1-1/2 years ago.

We do not have an Alexa or Google Home. Is Amazon watching because of my Smart TV anyway? Would the situation be worse if I had a monster TV (as I can only dream about)?

Food for thought. Is technology becoming too invasive?