Category: Tech

Bike Day

It was about a month ago that I stopped closing my exercise ring every day. I stopped doing my 30 minutes of walking. My back was killing me around the clock and I would walk for 2-3 minutes and have to stop. I also stopped doing the Intermittent Fasting thing. That was 25 days ago, if the app I track the fasting in can be believed.

My back doesn’t feel any better, really. I think I have gained 30 pounds in those three-plus weeks. I haven’t weighed myself, but I definitely gained a ton of weight in that short period of time. I can see it, Jen can see it, and I can feel it.

When we put up the Christmas tree we had to find a new, temporary home for our exercise bike. That new home ended up being next to my side of the bed. Right across the room from my work desk. As I felt my weight climbing at a rapid pace, it almost seemed like the bike was mocking me. For about two weeks I have been telling myself to just ride the friggin’ thing. Today I finally did. I only rode it in 5-6 minute intervals. I closed my 30 minute exercise ring, but I didn’t close my 1,000 calorie move ring. My back was okay with the whole thing. My legs weren’t. Ouch. That was a trade I can handle in the short term.

I’ll try again tomorrow. I will shoot for more than just the 30 minutes and see if I can close the 1,000 calorie ring too (I wasn’t even close today). I need to do something before I turn into a Monty Python sketch*.

Oh, and I started tonight’s intermittent fast at 7:30pm. It’s supposed to be 9:00pm, but I guess I was a little anxious. Fingers crossed I can keep myself from falling off the wagon, or from crashing it in to a tree.

I am leaving work a couple of hours early tomorrow. I’m thinking of trying to put new christmas lights on the side of the house. Maybe going up and down the ladder will gain me a few exercise minutes and burn off a few calories. Every little bit helps, I hear.

I am freaking out about my weight. Frankly, it’s so out of control and hard to reign in that it’s scaring the ever loving shit out of me. One step at a time, I guess.

*Just a wafer thin mint, sir.

Now I Know How Jaime Lannister Felt

I broke my oath. Just like Jaime Lannister. Here’s hoping I don’t lose a limb in punishment.*

I wrote yesterday that I was losing the facebook boycott battle and was thinking about logging in. Well… this morning I did. For about one minute. I put the app on my iPad, logged in, gave the screen one scroll, and logged out and deleted the app again. I didn’t even read anything. My eyes were looking at the screen but they refused to take any of it in.

I was like an alcoholic thinking he could have one drink and then stop. Here’s hoping I didn’t screw up and go and do it again. I felt pretty dirty. Hopefully it was enough to keep me away for a while.

*Game of Thrones spoiler. Sorry.

Weakness

I’m feeling weak today.

No it’s not a physical strength thing. I’m still freakishly strong (or so they say).

No… it’s… a Facebook thing. There’s a part of me that wants to just say duck* it and install the Facebook app on my iPhone and see what’s going on in the old guitar gear groups.

Yeah… weak.

*I thought it would be funny to purposely use the word duck, which we all know is autocorrect’s go-to fix for fuck. Unfortunately, when I tried typing out duck it somehow autocorrected to suck. I must have mistyped, but it felt like autocorrect was making fun of me for trying to make fun of it.

Wallet Fail

In our Covid-19 Lock Down Household, we are still trying to avoid going out in public as much as possible. That means we are still regular users of Instacart for our grocery shopping needs. My wife is a power user. She’s amazing. If there is something out there to be found, she finds it. It’s incredible.

Today was a first for us. We have had Instacart shoppers leave us thank you notes. One left us a zip lock bag with a couple of disinfectant wipes in it. One shopper left us a thank you note with a little bag of M&Ms. I think we’ve had that shopper twice. That is my favorite shopper. Obviously the M&Ms aren’t eaten, but it’s the thought that counts.

Today though, the surprise gift was something special. It was a wallet. Okay, so it wasn’t a gift, but it was definitely a surprise. A nice little leather wallet. Jen was able to text the shopper and let her know, and I left the wallet outside where she could get to it. It’s all set now.

Yeah, that was a new one for us.

PutzMcDouche

I logged into World of Warcraft for the first time in a while today and played as whatever the last character I created. I died almost instantly. Then immediately died again. That’s when I decided to create a new character. I try to come up with clever character names when I play. Lately I’ve been trying to use names similar to cartoon characters. Not today though.

Today I used a name that may or may not be a mild terms of service violation. I’m not sure.

I used PutzMcDouche.

Am I in for a stern talking to from the powers that be? I’ll let ya know.

The Bruins are losing to Tampa Bay. 2-0 in the second period. It is making me sad. I will rise above it though. Also, earlier today I finished the final season of Supergirl. I made it all the way through. Six season. The last couple… not so great. Still glad I made it through though. I’m up to date on the current season of The Flash, but that’s it for my DC on CW viewing. Oh well. They were fun while they lasted.

8:22 left in the second period and the Bruins are still down 2-0. Crud.

Nerd

So We we’re trying to put a Nest sensor into Harry’s room and we were waiting for it to connect. My iPhone was standing on a charger in my room. In a moment of boredom I opened the camera app on my Apple Watch and took some pics. One with the front lens and one with the back.

Two things. One, if you’ve ever wondered what my phone charger’s view looks like, here you go. Two, if ever thought I wasn’t the biggest nerd in the universe, now you know better.

Effin’ Facebook / Effin’ FoMO

Damn it. Every time I think I’m out, they pull me back in!

It’s been two weeks since I visited Facebook. I wasn’t even thinking about it. Not being there was seriously becoming second nature and I was liking it. The ban/boycott, whatever we call it, was becoming less of a thing and more of a normal.

Then they sent me a friggin’ email. I’m pretty sure I marked Facebook notification emails as spam, yet they still come through. It said there were 18 notifications. No sweat. It said there were three friend requests. WhatWhatWhat? Fear of Missing Out officially triggered.

I mean, let’s be honest here… they are all going to be porn spam. That’s a given, isn’t it? We all know that. I don’t get a lot of that shit at Facebook, but given that I haven’t interacted with anyone in weeks it feels like a great big pornographic red flag.

I don’t know though… there’s a big part of me that really wants to log in and see who the friend requests are from. There is a big part of me that also wants to stay away. I am conflicted. I am in social media conflict.

Fuck you, Facebook. Fuck you right in your fucking eye*.

*I don’t think you need to actually see The Book of Mormon to appreciate its brilliance. You just have to listen to the soundtrack. If you do that, you’ll get the reference.

ADDENDUM: I caved. I looked. They were all spam. FoMO. I didn’t look at anything in my time line, I only looked at the notifications. So yeah I was there, but no I didn’t actually put myself into a real position to get sucked into anything. Well… just being there is risking getting sucked in, but I think you know what I mean. FoMO won today, but it’s been reset to zero again. For now.

Don’t Forget the Water

I was listening to a hockey podcast this morning. It was three hockey writers shootin’ the breeze. They veered off topic and started talking about the pros and cons of real vs fake christmas trees.

Shit, thought I, I forgot to water the christmas tree yesterday.

The downside of putting up a real tree right after Thanksgiving is you have to be extra careful about maintenance. If you want to have a green tree on christmas morning then you better keep it watered. Otherwise Santa will be putting presents under some dead, ugly, brown thing with needles all over the floor.

I’ve also listened to a couple of amateur musician podcasts today and the topic of discussion in each one is the Get Back documentary. They all agree with me. Despite being 800 hours long, that movie is absolutely magnificent. It’s just an utter delight. Where else do you get to see the creative process where Paul McCartney literally wills the song Get Back into existence? That song didn’t exist at all until Paul sat there, strumming on his bass, forcing it out of his head. It’s just magic. It was genius at work. Literally.

One little item that I didn’t really catch had to do with Paul. For huge swaths of the movie the band is playing like shit. There’s so much noodling and farting around, whether it be all of them together, or just one or two, or whatever. The question was posed… in all of that mountain of playing… do you ever hear Paul play a bad note? I need to watch the whole thing again, but right now I can’t recall anything. So not only was he pulling super classic music out of his ass, over and over again, he is also playing so well he seems incapable of doing anything that doesn’t sound right. Hell, he’s even playing his Rickenbacker bass at one point and one of the strings pops out of the nut and lays against another string, and he’s still playing great. How is that possible?

Okay. Back to work. I had a deadline moved up on me and the pile of stuff I thought I had two days to do suddenly has to be done today. Enough of my yakkin’, let’s boogie!

I Don’t Want to Live on This Planet Anymore

I guess questioning evolution and the shape of the Earth isn’t enough for the twitterati anymore. Today I came across two people who seemed to insist that rocks somehow needed god to create them. I was in ninth grade when I took Freshmen Earth Science and we studied how rocks are formed and how the Earth’s crust slides around and pieces bump into each other and how over a shit load of time that can cause things like mountains. I guess that’s some kind of liberal conspiracy now. Oh well. I just wish some people had paid a little more attention in ninth grade science, that’s all.

To make matters worse, the Bruins are losing to the friggin’ Red Wings. 1-0, late in the second. As if stupid humans aren’t bad enough, now I have to see my team lose to the friggin’ Red Wings?

I’ve mixed two of the last four songs for the November music project. Both songs utterly suck.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Dr Farnsworth was dead right when he said I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.