Category: Tech

They Are Fighting Back Again

Facebook, man. I said the other day that I wasn’t missing it anymore and they were no longer trying to manipulate me into coming back to the social media teat. That was true at the time but not any more.

They are pushing back in a big way. I have received notifications emails from them three times in the last four days. Wow, desperate much? It’s over. Stop calling me. Go bother someone else for a change. Somehow I think this might be karmic retribution for something in my past.

Facebook is fighting back… does that mean caffeine is going to start fighting back too? Oh no!

On an unrelated note, there is no new Star Wars or Marvel show on Disney+ today so we won’t be having a watch party with Harry. That makes me sad. At least we know that Marvel’s Moon Knight is coming, even if it is over a month away.

One final note on the original topic. Facebook must have known I was writing this because they just sent me another notifications email. It’s the second one they’ve sent today. You’re just making a fool out of yourself now, Facebook. Stop before this gets ugly.

Gear Acquisition Syndrome Twist

I am not giving in to the Gear Acquisition Syndrome that I suffer from. I did take a tiny step toward the dark side though.

I want to get my grubby mitts on a Gibson Les Paul Junior. The plan is to try and trade my 2000 Fender Stratocaster for one. I figure I will do it at a store or something. Earlier today though I heard a podcast where a drummer said he set up craigslist alerts to let him know when a certain piece of gear was available for sale.

That sounds like an interesting move, right? I looked into how to set that up and it is easy as can be. So now I have a craigslist account that is looking for Gibson Les Paul Juniors for sale in the Merrimack Valley. I only saw a single listing while I was there setting it up, but it was a Custom Shop model and the asking price was over three grand. Nope, that’s not the one for me.

Let’s see if this finds any decent deals. Curiosity and all that.

The Activity App Tried to Kill Me

The iOS activity app that’s tied to the Apple Watch gives these little challenges every now and then and I like to complete them because I am easily manipulated by technology.

It had a challenge for the Lunar New Year to do one workout of at least 20 minutes between February 1st and 15th. I decided that today was the day. I was going to hop up on that exercise bike and ride for 20 minutes. I brought up an episode of Tacoma FD (s3ep12 Pickleball) on my iPad and put it on the little iPad holder on the bike’s handle bars. Then I told my wife that if she heard a loud crash coming from the bedroom it was likely because I died trying to ride the bike for 20 minutes, and off I went.

I actually went for 21 minutes. The Activity app triggers exercise time based on your heart rate and for the first minute of my workout (which I tracked in the Workout App because I am not only easily manipulated by technology, but I am also chemically dependent on using technology for everything imaginable) my heart rate did not increase enough. I wanted the 20 minute workout, but I also wanted 20 minutes worth of exercise time on the app, so I had to throw in an extra minute.

What a feeling of accomplishment! Well… I assume I would have a feeling of accomplishment for catching the little carrot that the little app dangled in front of me, but my legs hurt so much that I can’t acknowledge any feelings other than aches and pain and a general sense of blissful, pain masking numbness.

The next challenge is to do 30 minutes of exercise on Valentine’s Day. That’s no worry. I want to do 30 minutes total every day, so it’s a gimmie. Assuming I can get my legs to move again. That’s sort of a big if right now.

Banned Things

Over the last 5-6 months or so I have banned some things from my life. Well, banned or boycott. Whichever is more appropriate. How am I doing on these things?

The most recent ban started six days ago when I started working to remove carbonated beverages and caffeine from my diet. If I am going to go through with the weight loss surgery process, then these two items will be permanently removed from my diet forever and ever. Apparently they are both stomach irritants and when you surgically mangle the stomach the way I plan to, then irritants are really bad.

I first learned of this development on Thursday 2/3 and my first day without either of them was Friday 2/4. I’ve made it six days. So far so good, I guess, but it’s definitely not a second nature sort of thing yet. Not even close. My quarantine routine over the last 23-24 months has involved filling up a bottle of water before I go to bed (with grape flavoring, always). If I don’t finish the bottle then I finish it the next day, but not until sometime in the afternoon. I’d have soda, diet pepsi, in the morning and early afternoon. Caffeine and soda. Now I am just drinking water all the time so the night time water bottle carries into the morning. That probably sounds more complicated than it is, but the point here is that every morning I continue to leave the water bottle next to my bed as if I was going to have a morning soda. No. You’re not. Six days on and I still forget that I am not drinking soda anymore pretty much every morning. That needs to end.

So the dietary bans are still going well, though not quite a routine yet. What was the other ban? Facebook. August 27, 2021 was the day I sort of spur of the moment banned Facebook from my life. That was a little more then five months ago. It looks like five months is pretty much long enough to get to the point where I don’t even notice it anymore. It hasn’t been 100%, but I think I can count the number of times I’ve visited on one hand. FoMO brought me back to clear off some notifications once, and once I went on to just mention I wasn’t going on anymore. That was probably pointless. The last time was a couple of weeks ago when I found out one of my Aunts wasn’t well and I checked my cousins accounts to see if I could learn anything. I was only on for a few minutes but I’ll fess up and admit I was there.

Other than those few times I’ve been able to stay away. I don’t think about it anymore. In fact, I got a notifications email the other day for the Lizardfish group and I had to look at it twice to remember what it was talking about. Sometimes it needles me, like when a YouTube show or a podcast that I am a regular viewer/listener of makes a mention of their respective Facebook groups, of which I am a member, and I don’t know what’s going on. I feel out of the loop. FoMO starts creeping in, but I forget about it quickly enough.

So my personal cancel culture targets are still going strong. Facebook is a big nothing to me now. Caffeine and carbonated drinks are going to be tougher to deal with. I can do it though. Absolutely.

Sick Time

Just thinking ahead on this whole redesigning my internal organs discussion. I asked what the recovery time would look like. They said they recommend you stay out of work for 3-4 weeks while you re-teach your newly remodeled stomach how to handle different types of food. As of right now I have enough sick time banked to be out for half day shy of five weeks. I’ll have to use some of that for the slew of appointments I need to make before the surgery, but I think I am in good shape. I have a ton of vacation time that needs to be used too. Maybe some of those appointments will use vacation time instead of sick time. Maybe.

We’re supposed to have a storm tonight. I keep trying to get a forecast that gives a snow estimate but they all just say a mix of snow and freezing rain. No accumulation estimates. I think that’s a good thing. Freezing rain blows chunks but it’s better than snow, at least as far as shoveling the driveway and plowing the streets are concerned. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Have I mentioned Weather Kitty yet? It’s a weather app for iOS (I don’t know about other platforms, mostly because I don’t use them so I don’t care). It combines weather forecasts with adorable kitties. If that’s your thing, you should check it out.

So… no more caffeine and no more carbonated drinks. I had a diet pepsi before the appointment. I’ve had one since. I’m not going to say that those are the last two sodas I’ll have in my life. I am not even going to say they are the last two sodas I’ll have before the surgery… but they could be. It’s possible. Don’t hold your breath or anything, but it is possible.

This is going to be difficult. It’s also going to be worth it, but it is going to be difficult.

That’s What I Get for Jumping on the Wagon

Figures, right? I start playing Wordle. I play for a couple of weeks and never get good, but do pretty well. Then, just as it’s becoming a regular part of my daily routine, fucking New York Times buys it.

Damn it.

The best part of the silly little game was that it wasn’t owned by some awful soulless corporation. It was just a guy with some coding skills keeping the entire English speaking world entertained for two minutes a day.

Now?

Damn it.