Tag: facebook boycott

Facebook Fights Dirty

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.

They are Fighting Back Again

Oh, facebook. How you fight me.

Last night a friend tagged me in a post. If there was FoMO before… damn. There was no comment, just three names tagged in a reply to a post. I got the notification email and based on the title I read it. I wish I hadn’t.

Want more? Okay. Here’s one more. I’m listening to my favorite Walking Dead podcast. They solicit feedback from listeners, like all good TV show podcasts do, and most of the feedback they get comes via a facebook group. I’ve contributed a few times in the past, but I won’t be commenting on facebook anymore. The episode just started and they were talking about the general mood of the comments on facebook. Damn it. FoMO!

Is this what an alcoholic feels like when all of their friends are still going to bars? No. No it isn’t. It might be 0.1% of what they feel though. Okay, 0.01% maybe. You get what I’m getting at though, right?

Two Weeks Down

It’s Monday again. You know what that means? At 2:00pm the time runs out on the second week of my facebook boycott. I said I’d stay away for a week, then when that week was up I extended it a second week. That second week is up today.

I would like to say it’s been getting easier. I’m not sure that’s true. It’s my nephew’s birthday today and Facebook has become the traditional birthday wishes extension mechanism. They also tried fighting back again. When I joined Lizardfish Kevin made me a co-admin of the band’s facebook page. I got a notifications email for the page the other day. I didn’t open it. I have only gotten the one for my personal account which leads me to hope that I don’t have any new notifications which means maybe they’ll leave me alone now? I don’t know.

While I definitely do not miss the nazi bullshit, which is the reason I left, I am starting to miss some of the other connections. I haven’t seen any pictures of any of my brother and sister’s kids, including the birthday boy, I’m out of touch with friends, and I haven’t had the opportunity to check out any fellow guitar nerds’ rigs on the various groups I belong to. I guess my point here is that I am in full blown FoMO mode right now. The fear of missing out is catching up to me.

When 2:00pm rolls around today I will extend the facebook ban by another seven days. I’m not sure I am going to make it through this one, and if I somehow manage to, I am not sure I’ll be able to stop myself from putting an end to it. It is starting to feel like failure is inevitable.

Early Start

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.

The Facebook Crusade

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.

When the Facebook Boycott Actually Hurts

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.