Raven's View

My latest Flash Fiction Friday challenge had been to write about the change last weekend to Daylight Savings Time. What if different people changed at different times? What if that hour wasn't really lost? I blended in a bit of magic, via a leprechaun, and had fun with this. 2000 words worth, so the real challenge was to get it to just a tad over the 1000 word limit.

Facebook users around the world reported issues logging into and posting on the site as well as on Instagram and WhatsApp thoughout the day on Wednesday. The outages lasted about a full day, and was Facebook’s longest downtime ever.

via www.cnbc.com

Well, this was annoying.
Blaming it on "a server configuration change" means inadequate testing. Also, 'sorry for any (?) inconvenience isn't very really adequate. How about "here's a free coupon for a coffee or tea"? How about "we'll not monetize your data for a day"?
Problem is, we've become so used to all its features and connections, The Facebook is now a drug for most of us, and Zuckerberg is the pusher. Of course, as addicts, we are willing to rationalize it when our dealer lies to us, uses us, cheats on us, or is late with a fix.
What options do we have, other than trying to quit cold turkey? What's our Methadone?

For this week, the challenge from Flash Fiction Friday was to write about a coat. Your favourite coat, but that you ended up donating to the local thrift store. We had to write about how it then affected the life of the next person. So I 'gave away' my comfy winter coat.  I wanted to explore a different ending too, avoiding a cliche. Feedback always welcome of course. Maximum was 1000 words, I did about 900.

We've had several bouts of above freezing days, with some sun, some rain. And even more below freezing days, with  sun and non-rain, that white stuff that you have to shovel. So, although I got out occasionally to snowshoe, or stroll around my hood, I've tended to stay in. So a bit more writing done, a lot more reading and gaming. As I listen to some tunes. I discovered how to 'cast from my smartphone to my Google Home, so I have a favourite DJ's tracks playing from Soundcloud.