' See You There or In the Air!'

I just saw a picture of Secretariat and Eddie Sweat together on Pinterest that I had not seen before. I wanted to share it on Facebook, but a pop-up came on and told me I had to "disable my ad blocker" if I wanted to get a better selection or something. Well, I refreshed without disabling my ad blocker, which I have no intention of doing, and the picture disappeared. I kept scrolling, though, and saw it again and shared it. What is it with advertisers these days? They are absolutely ridiculous. There is nothing I am at risk of missing out on if I don't disable my ad blocker. Nothing is worth being bombarded with ads everywhere you go. I have actually been playing some instrumental music on YouTube ("Classical Music For Relieving Anxiety") without ads on a device that does not have an ad blocker. This is amazing. As soon as there is one I will skip it or else turn it off for the night. I'm not sure why it hasn't happened yet. So annoying. Thankful to have been able to have the music on and not be interrupted by annoying ads. Well, like my mother used to say, "I spoke too soon." Practically as soon as I said that, a bunch of ads came on, the kind that wouldn't let you skip them. I shut the tablet down. No use being annoyed for the rest of the night. I can play music on my laptop with no ads but the sound is getting bad. I need to buy a new laptop pretty soon. The one I have is not going to upgrade to Windows 11. Don't you just love being controlled by Big Tech? Don't you just love how they know everything about you and follow you around like Big Brother? I was talking to a friend today about Quanah Parker, because I just finished reading a book about the Plains Indians,and I have been reading about Cynthia Ann Parker and Quanah Parker for a few weeks now, and the author was talking about American Indian art, so I googled it and voila, the first picture that pops up is a photograph of several Indian chiefs, among them none other than...Quanah Parker. Day before yesterday I was shopping for Jockey briefs and had a conversation with a salesperson at Kohl's about them, and guess what was the first thing I saw when I logged on to Facebook. An ad for Jockey briefs. It is getting unbelievable. Someone on Facebook even joked that her favorite way to shop online was to say out loud what she's looking for, then get on social media and wait for an ad for it to pop up. It's that bad, or that good, I guess, depending on how you look at it. I liked it better when you didn't feel like you were surrounded by eyes and ears all the time. We know they hear everything you say. I'm beginning to wonder if they see you too, if you're anywhere near one of your devices. Well, even though it is summer break and I don't have school tomorrow, I am trying to self-regulate to some degree and soon it will be midnight. I want to leave you with this passage from Psalm 94. I have been being shocked by the rudeness expressed on social media every time I look at it, and the meanness and disrespect that seems to pervade today's world, not to mention violence and destruction. It is getting worse, which is to be expected, and it is good to know that God knows all about it. "Understand, you senseless among the people; And you fools, when will you be wise? He who planted the ear shall He not hear? He who formed the eye, shall He not see?" (Psalm 94:8-10) Most of you who might be reading this, I know you are not "senseless people," but you may feel surrounded by them at times, as I do, mainly because of spending too much time on my phone. I am trying to get my screen time down to about two hours a day (what used to be recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics for children, and I can't even do that myself). That may not happen having so much time on my hands now, but I'm going to keep trying. Anyway, so long for tonight. Later, Alligator, if the Lord tarries, or, as my friend Alice used to say, "See you there or in the air!"