The 2020 #AtoZChallenge (because I am a glutton for punishment)

2020 A to Z Challenge logoWhile I was roaming through posts from #IWSG blog hop participants yesterday, I stumbled across the A to Z Challenge, a challenge to bloggers to post every day (except Sunday) through the entire month of April–and relate each post to a letter of the alphabet (in order, of course). Sounds fun, I thought. It’ll keep me writing during quarantine, I thought. And like an idiot I filled out the signup form, and now here I am, needing to cover letters A and B and come up with 24 more alphabetically-inspired posts. Why, oh why, do I do these things?

Besides the alphabet, I hope to write posts around the theme of discovery. I’m wrapping up week 3 of stay-the-hell-home, and in an effort to retain my sanity, I’m trying to approach this bizarre experience with curiosity. What new strategies can I employ to keep from losing my mind? What interesting new things can I learn? What can I discover in my own backyard (besides dog poop)?

For those of you who subscribe to this blog, I hope my much-greater-than-normal posting frequency won’t drive you away. I’ll try to keep my posts short and entertaining, so you’ll want to stick around. Here we go…

2020 A to Z Challenge Logo - A

A is for Alexa, because this week I discovered how to make Alexa fart. Yeah, you read that right. All the power of a digital assistant built into my TV, and I find it the height of hilarity to tell her to fart. Repeatedly. Dear readers, I even spent $1.60 for–wait for it–the Extreme Farts Extension Pack. I truly wish I were joking. I am a 53-year-old librarian, and 3 weeks of quarantine has reduced me to giggling over synthesized farts. Thank goodness no one has invented smell-a-vision.

If you, like me, have the emotional sophistication of a 12-year-old boy–and an Alexa-enabled device–activate your device and issue the command, “Alexa, fart!” And let the hilarity ensue.

2020 A to Z Challenge Logo - B

B is for backgrounds, specifically Zoom backgrounds. As a quarantined academic, my workdays are now populated with Zoom meetings. In my never-ending (and doomed) quest to make meetings interesting, I discovered custom backgrounds for Zoom. If you have a green screen or a reasonably powerful computer, you can try them too. Just Google Zoom backgrounds and maybe add a keyword or two to indicate the kind of background you’re looking for. I met with an employee today while standing in the middle of Diagon Alley.

janet_diagonally.png

Tomorrow I’ll be on Platform 9 3/4.

If anyone knows how to teach Zoom to fart, let me know.

So how about you, dear reader? What have you discovered to keep yourself entertained during this long, strange trip?

4 Comments

  • Zeannaroux

    Oh my goodness I love this! I do not have an Alexia but I swear I will get one day just for this reason lol. As for zoom, I haven’t had to use it much but I did know about the backgrounds due to some unfortunate experiments people have undertaken online. It does make meetings interesting as long as you know what you are doing lol. This is a great post and good luck on the challenge!