One day back on the bookfayce and I want to punch it in the fucking throat.
I left most of the groups I was in and unfollowed a bunch of pages. I kept a couple of guitar groups and a a couple of podcast groups but that’s it.
The first thing I saw after I refreshed for the first time was a post in a guitar group bitching about politics.
Fuck facebook. Fuck it right in its fucking ear.
I often start my lunch break with a visit to Google News where I just pick a handful of articles to read. I saw one today that talked about Tumblr and how, while it seems to be a dead platform, lots of younger people are starting to use it. The implication was that many of the younger people who are ignoring Facebook and Twitter are ending up there. That’s nice. I always like Tumblr, but they made the same fatal mistake that Flickr made when they let Yahoo buy them out. That mistake was, of course, letting Yahoo buy them out.
I think I had two Tumblr accounts and I am pretty sure they are both active… pretty sure. One is just a copy of this blog. Anything I post here gets cross posted there. I would tell you what the address is, but I can’t remember. I just know that when I look at this account’s dashboard there is a reference to it. The second account sometimes gets used when I work on a music project like RPM. I post daily (mostly) progress that are pretty much meaningless to anyone who isn’t me, and after a few days they all look exactly the same.
This post, however, is not about Tumblr. It’s about Facebook.
Reading that article made me ask myself how long it had been since I logged in to Facebook. Turns out it’s been 48 days. December 2, 2021. That’s nice, huh? I’ve only received one notifications email from them over that time and I just trashed it. I don’t think I ever considered my boycott to be permanent, but it’s pretty nice the way I haven’t felt any need to check in for as long as it’s been. I imagine that there is a magic number of days that the boycott will last that will fully satisfy my need to stay away and once I hit that number I won’t get pissed off at myself if I go back.
Something like that.
As we enter the fifth week of the Facebook boycott, Facebook starts fighting really dirty. Low blow, bro. Right below the belt.
Last night I got an email telling me I had 102 notifications waiting for me. One Hundred and Two. It’s not the first you-have-notifications email they’ve sent, but the last one was after only a few days away. Those bastards saved them up and threw them at me all at once. Assholes!
Okay. Wednesday is the one month mark of this fun little romp of social media defiance. When I left I didn’t think about it, I just did it. I didn’t leave one of those stupid I’m-taking-a-break posts, I just went away (and bitched about it here, over and over and over and over again). Maybe on Wednesday I’ll log in, clear the notifications, make sure there isn’t anything important, and then leave one of those stupid I’m-taking-a-break posts. Then I’ll go away again. Maybe forever. Who knows.
I’m working a half day today. My mother needs a ride to a doctor’s appointment so I am leaving early to take her. I haven’t been over to see my parents in a couple of weeks so it’s time for a visit as well. I’ll be masking up and hittin’ the road around lunch time.
Our house has been a battle ground for a long time now. Two opposing forces fighting to dominate the terrain.
Alexa
Siri
Both are stationed in strategic places throughout the house. Both are able to control the lights and some other things. Both play tunes. It’s been clear for months now that the house cannot sustain both forces. One needs to eliminate the other. In the end, there can be only one.
We bought an amazon echo before Apple’s Home app was really a thing. After having everything in the house routed through the echo for a while, I got all hot and bothered over Apple HomePod Minis and when we got one for the bedroom Jen set up everything through Home as well.
I have slowly but surely found myself using the echo less and less. I can get to Siri through my watch so when I need something I just hold down the digital crown for a tick and ask for it. The only thing the echo is really doing these days is working as an alarm clock in the bedroom. Siri can do that too, but echo somehow handles it a little better. Also, the echo we have in the bedroom is one that shows the time. The HomePod doesn’t do that. It’s a small edge for the echo but a noteworthy one.
Over the last couple of days Jen has been making a conscious choice to start using Siri instead of Alexa. It is clear that finally the war for control of our house is coming to an end. Siri will be victorious. Long live the winner of the personal digital assistant wars.
Now if we could just get Google to let Apple run our Nest thermonstat.
Okay. Time to go to work. Happy Monday, everyone.
ADDENDUM: I got another Facebook email. It’s 106 notifications now. Ugh.
Monday came and went this week without me examining the status of my self imposed boycott of the facebook. I’ve actually lost track of the number of weeks. Three? Yes, three. Three weeks without a single visit to the social network.
I feel pretty good about the situation, though I still find myself looking for the app on my phone, or wondering if anyone has posted anything interesting, or feeling jealous when Jen is doom scrolling her feed. All of that feels gross and a smidge on the chemically dependent side. Mostly though, I feel good about the situation. I haven’t found myself fuming over some fascist asshole belittling human life on some random newspaper post in three weeks. That feels really good. That feels sane. Weird, huh?
I just looked it up. I started this idiotic, childish temper tantrum of a crusade on September 27th with the intention of having it last one week. Now I think I’ll set the new re-evaluate date at the one month mark. I pledge to remain bookfayce free until Wednesday October 27th at 2:00pm.
Wish me continued good luck.
I was up early this morning and had some chores to do. Between taking the trash barrels to the street and going up and down the stairs to do laundry (the avalanche of Bellana clothes are finally folded and put away) I somehow managed to register 10 minutes of exercise without even having done any actual exercise. The activity app is off to a good start today.
I’m not sure what was going on, but the FaceID on my iPhone stopped working last night. It was working before I started cooking dinner but I noticed it wasn’t working just after we finished eating. Weird. It didn’t work once for the rest of the day. Right now? Working fine. I’m not sure what happened.
Today is my sister’s birthday. Being facebook free, I sent her a text instead of a post on facebook. I hope that is acceptable. I’m not sure what the protocol is anymore.
Speaking of facebook (giggles), that was kinda fun yesterday. Sure, it pulled the nazis over to Twitter for a while, but I managed to avoid all of that and just have fun reading the faux panic. Sounds like Zuckerberg lost about six billion dollars in stock value. I assume most of that was due to the 60 Minutes story Sunday night, but whatever. It’s all connected to his wallet one way or another. Granted it was just stock value, right? He’ll probably make it back today. It’s not like it’s real money or anything. It’s not like he’s going to need to take a second mortgage to pay his bills.
Okay, time to go to work. We need to get through the day so that we can focus all of our attention on the Red Sox beating the Yankees tonight. It’s a moral imperative. 8:00pm tonight, or thereabouts, we finally get payback for that friggin one game playoff back in ’78. Sure we beat them in 2004 and handed them the most humiliating playoff loss in major league baseball history (giggles), but still… I want one game playoff revenge. Suck it, Bucky Dent.
My one week personal facebook ban is going to be complete in about 20 minutes. Three times today I picked up my phone and actually tapped the spot on the home screen where the facebook app used to be. THREE TIMES! It is shameful how difficult this has been for me.
Now the plot thickens. Facebook may actually be encouraging all the hateful shit that made me want to leave? I suddenly feel even more justified for wanting to piss off. Screw you guys, I am going home.
On an unrelated(?) note, facebook and all of the systems it owns, including instagram and what’s app, are currently down. It’s been about an hour and a half now and the whole kit is offline. Remember the movie Airplane when that guy Johnny who made all of those perfectly quotable jokes in the tower unplugged the runway lights? In my imagination, there is one guy in the main bookfayce datacenter giggling like mad because he unplugged everything. That would be awesome.
Okay, so there are eight minutes left in my personal boycott silliness. It’s a little early to make this call, but let me hereby announce that I am extending the ban goofiness until 2:00pm on Monday October 11, 2021. You heard it here first, and because I won’t shut up about the thing (he says while patting himself on the back, figuratively) you’ll hear it here again and again and again.
Groovy.
Note: I am trying to leave bookfayce. I am not trying to leave instagram. They need to bring that service back up so I can double tap on pictures of Les Pauls… which is pretty much all I ever do on instagram.
I think this is the fifth day of the facebook boycott. I didn’t think this through.
Today is my niece’s birthday. I’m sure my brother and my sister in law are posting all sorts of great stuff about how wonderful she is. How smart, how talented, how generally awesome. All true, of course, but if I don’t go to facebook to see it I can’t contribute my tiny amount (likes and comments) to the festivities. I am missing out. It’s not the Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) it is literally missing out.
My sister’s birthday is next week. My nephew’s birthday is the week after that.
Fuck. This actually hurts. Now I feel like an asshole for missing things on top of feeling like an asshole for blocking nazis and fascists and trumpers left and right. All because of some fucking social media site? What the fuck is wrong with me?
In summation: Fuck.
The Facebook bookfayce exile has lasted more than 24 hours. One day down, six(?) to go. I reached for the phone to check for notifications two or three times and just put it straight down. Nope. No bookfayce there.
I say six days to go, but do I mean it? As in… is it six days or one eternity? I haven’t thought that far ahead yet. I am classifying this as a temporary experiment, but if I feel okay at the end of a week I will just continue to stay away.
Forever though… can I do it forever? Probably not. When the band starts up again we are going to be communicating through Facebook messenger. At least we always have in the past and I don’t think I can Spartacus all four of us into a revolution. I think I am at least going to be using Messenger. After that, what about gigs? I am going to have to play the promotional game. Not that promoting the band on Facebook ever had any real results in the past. You just do it because it’s there, right?
All of this talk is making me want to get the band together. Nope. Not until (at the very least) my house has it’s booster shot. Even that is probably not enough to lighten the Covid-19 lockdown rules. We’ll have to see. We are taking it seriously here. Still. Very serious. Still.
Speaking of guitar… when the new Klon KTR circuits hit the stores, I am getting one. I just want to state that publicly. My Ryra The Klone pedal is awesome, but when the new KTR comes out I am going to replace it with the new redesigned KTR. You heard it here first, babie.
I am not yet quite qualified to get a Covid-19 vaccine booster shot. I have to wait a couple of weeks, I think.
I really want it. I really want it.
I want my band to get back together. The whole writing/recording demoes thing is starting to get old. I need to play loud with three friends who are playing along at a similarly loud volume.
I need a shave. I need to play live music. I need a booster shot. I need to delete Facebook. I just decided a few minutes ago that I am going to experiment with a full week away from the bookfayce. I am going to delete it from my iPhone and my iPad and close the tabs on my computers that I keep open. Hold on, give me a second… Okay, it’s off my phone and my iPad and it’s no longer open on this computer. Let’s give it seven days and see how disconnected and awful I feel. Conversely, I could say to give it seven days and see how less depressing life seems. Seven days without nazis. Well… I’m not deleting Twitter yet, so there are still nazis to piss me off.
When did this booster shot post turn into an anti-facebook post? I don’t know, but I still want the booster so… there’s that.
Okay, back to work.
I totally just fell for a phishing scheme. Soneofabitch.
A friend I haven’t spoken to in a while sent me a youtube link on Facebook Messenger. I clicked it. It asked me to sign into Facebook. I’ve had a rough day and I wasn’t paying attention to what was going on and I signed in.
Idiot.
My password has been changed, and that was a pain too as I tried to use my password manager plugin to generate a super password and it failed… twice.
It’s all set now but……..
Dumbass.
Inside the Red Head's Head 