abundans cautela non nocet

 My body seems to be auditioning for weather predicting equipment. As it cools off, I feel sore It's annoying, I tell you. The belt of knives-that I'd be happy to lose!- remains in place. AND, most annoying of all, my hair is falling out. It's the result of stress following radiation. These are all annoyances because I know the causes, and none of them is serious, debilitating or genuinely problematic. But all at once... it's disheartening and depressing to see my hair falling. It's not as bad as with chemo, but troubling anyway. The tiredness will pass, but meanwhile I need to be careful. And the pain is just... I think Jerry senses that I'm not feeling great. Today he was attached to me, and I couldn't take a step without having a furry shadow by my feet. He tried begging some of my omelette for supper. He wound up with a chunk of egg- and sniffed disapprovingly. He probably thought it was more exciting. I'll probably be fined for calling it an omelette. I understand that omelettes should have 3 eggs, but I use 1, because it's un oeuf. (Yeah, bad pun.)

How many of you play those Facebook games that pretend to tell your personality, or reveal the meaning of your name, or who you were in a past life? (Spoiler, it's usually Cleopatra or Julius Caesar.) I'm not going to warn you that they are little spyware programs and they contribute to the spam emails and robocalls you receive. (Do you even check what data they want from you to play a game? Why would they need your email, phone number, friends list, access to all your photos, marital status...?) If your friends have played, have you ever noticed how similar the results are? "You're 2000000% kind" ; "You're 5000% honest;" "You're kind, but don't get you P. O 'd" and so on. I've never yet seen a negative result. As for games on the meaning of names-it's astonishing how many names translate to "glorious warrior" or "Tremendous Beauty" even when there's clearly no link to the name. In some ways it is harmless fun, and if it stopped there, I wouldn't be a cranky curmudgeon. But far too many are used to gather personal data and then into ways to hack passwords and accounts. It's sad how many people are hacked-thankfully most don't result in harm, but...

Then the other games that ask you for name suggestions, or colours, etc. They're often seeking data to guess your password. Yes, it's fun  to see how many people have the same "Never have I ever" results as you, but-be careful! I recommend that you clear the fields where the developer gathers data. For a game of "Which Beatle are you?" you should not have to  share your photo, friends, email, etc to answer some silly questions. You also should be able to play games anonymously. OK, I did say that I wouldn't warn you. There are many fun games that do not try to collect personal data-play those. You might not be the reincarnation of Cleopatra, nor a lion, but you might find a trivia game, or a multi-player activity instead. I suggest this to help reduce your risk of being hacked, and still have fun.