Tag: facebook

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.

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.

How Goes the Facebook Crusade?

I haven’t mentioned the old anti-Facebook crusade that I started a while ago in some time? How’s that going, Robert?

Well I’m glad you asked. It’s been three weeks or so since last I mentioned it and I’m sad to say I’ve actually been on Facebook twice in that time. It’s okay though, I can explain.

First, now that I’m off my father decided to create a new account. I don’t think the two things are related, but the timing is a little crummy for me. My sister mentioned that he sent a friend request. I logged in, accepted it, and logged out. That was it.

Second, I was listening to a podcast focused on cover bands. One of the hosts mentioned a music venue in Manchester, NH that I wasn’t familiar with. I Googled it and clicked on the first link to come up. It was their Facebook page. I wasn’t logged in but I still clicked off as soon as I saw the banner. Nope, no Facebook for this red head.

That’s it. So since the whole thing started almost two months ago I’ve been logged in twice and on the system without logging in once.

I think I can do better than that in the future.

Feels Like Friday

It feels like Friday.

It’s not Friday.

It’s Thursday.

But it still feels like Friday.

I spent the time I thought I would be waiting for the furnace installation to start to move my desk back to our bedroom and give Harry his room back. My chair is still there. So is the little clock I bought. I need to find a new home for that puppy.

I didn’t do it because there is a heater in our bedroom. I did it because I had a handful of meetings over the next couple of days that I need to be contributing too. The bedroom happens to be about as far away from the furnace as you can get and still be in the house. I did not do it for the heat. I did it for the quiet. Also, because spending my days in my kids’ room felt wrong. When the Covid scare required me to quarantine myself it was one thing. That was almost two months ago. It was time to go back to my own room.

Who would have thought that I would have so much influence? Last night I logged into facebook for the first time in a month, just long enough to tell people I was taking a break. After about five minutes I was gone again. I will re-evaluate on November 27, 2021 but it’s looking like I might want to make this final.

Then, thanks mostly to my crusade, Zuckerberg changed the name? Jen just told me that Zuckie is changing the name from facebook to Meta. Ugh. You’re so meta, markie. I told her that he should have renamed the company Metal. That would have been so much cooler. So much… cleaner.

I guess Zuck just couldn’t deal with my exit. Sorry, hoodie man. Start treating nazis like bad guys and maybe I’ll come back. Get on that, bro. Cleaning out the nazi filth would be so meta, bro. It would be pretty metal too.

Gone for Good?

I just installed the Facebook app on my iPad, left a super lame goodbye post, and deleted the app again.

The anti-Facebook crusade part deux is officially underway!

Oh, and of the 106 notifications, exactly one was actually for me. No one there will even notice I’m gone.

So long, bookfayce!

One Month

Today at a little before 2:00 (the end of my lunch break) will mark one month since I started my personal anti-facebook crusade. How many of you fine people have jumped on my little spartacus wagon and left with me? I’ll wait a second for you all to sound off.

(insert sound of crickets chirping here)

Anyway, At some point tonight I may pop in and actually tell everyone there that I’m pissing off. That and clear the 106 notifications (got another email today). I still have Messenger on my phone so folks can find me there, and there’s always twitter (@RobJ_).

After that? Will I be gone for good? I don’t know, maybe? I’m getting to the point where I’m not really missing it anymore. I don’t find myself tapping the spot on my phone’s home screen where the bookfayce app used to be. I take that as a good sign.

Outside of the facebook boycott, today is the day we get to ride out a nor-easter without having a furnace in the house. We have a space heater in Jen’s office and a the wall mounted heater in the bed room. I’m still planning on working from Harry’s room today. If the temperature starts bothering me I’ll move to the bed room. I really don’t think it will though.

Watch me as I eat my words.

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.

I Forgot About Facebook

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.

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?

Example

I wrote about struggling to leave the facebook this morning. Here’s an example of why leaving is annoying.

That Pedal Show, the guitar gear centered weekly show on youtube that I really enjoy watching, does a live show on Mondays at 5:00pm UK time, which translates to noon for me. I try to tune in during work but sometimes I miss out. Today being a holiday, I was looking forward to watching without any distractions. I was going to put my feet up, listen to the discussion, and maybe noodle on my guitar a little to kinda get into the spirit of the thing, you know.

Noon comes along and there is no notification on youtube. There’s nothing on their youtube landing page. There’s nothing on their web page. That last one isn’t unusual, they generally don’t put news there. They put it on facebook. There is a really active facebook group and that’s where I go when I want to find out if they had to cancel a live show. At least… it used to be. All I wanted to do was look at posts around noon time and see if they mentioned anything. I couldn’t though… because I made myself boycott the whole bookfaycey experience.

Shit.

Okay, so I’ll try again next Monday.

Unrelated note: The Apple Watch Activity app dangles these monthly challenge out to users. This month’s challenge, for me, is to burn a specific number of calories. The goal they set is higher than what I would have if I just hit my normal goal every day. In fact, I would miss the challenge by quite a bit.

Usually I don’t pay much attention to things like this. I just keep my head down and do my thing and yippee, right? For some reason though, I really want to hit this one. It told me how much I would have to average each day in order to hit it and I changed my calorie goal to match that number.

I’ve already closed my exercise ring (I’m actually two whole minutes over the 30 minute goal). I’m still only at 80% of the move goal (they call the calorie burning ring the Move ring). I’m going to have to exercise more today, aren’t I. Crud.

Unrelated note again: Kyle Schwarber played first base for the Red Sox last night. Early in the game he made a pretty terrible error. He fielded a ground ball and tried to throw it to the pitcher, who was covering first base, and he underhand tossed it to somewhere near the orbit of Neptune. I didn’t see it because I was listening on the radio, but it sounded really bad.

Later in the game he was faced with an almost identical play and this is what he did (roll the video, please):