Snow on the Way

It’s going to snow tonight. Crap. I was going to see if Jen and Harry wanted to go for a drive to look at xmas lights, but now I just want to pull a blanket over my head and hide until the weather clears. I mean, winter officially starts at like 4:00am tomorrow morning. It’s bound to snow eventually. That doesn’t mean I have to like it.

I did a couple of goofy things with this little bloggie today. This post will serve as a bit of a test for one of them. I added a couple of new share buttons. Bluesky and Threads (and Mastodon? Did I add that one too?) are new, and Tumblr was re-added after being removed at least once. I removed twitter/x as well because fuck that musk prick. Fuck him right in his fucking eye. I tested the Bluesky and Threads buttons and they work. I also set new posts to automatically post to Bluesky. When I publish this literary tome I will see if it worked.

Another change, which is internal and should only be viewable by me, is that I think I hooked up to Google Analytics. I’ve had that option for ages now but I never did it. I am at heart a stats geek, so why didn’t I? It seems like I am too late as my engagement stats (the ones built into wordpress.com) are down something like 70% since they peaked back in February. Allow me to make the same caveat I make every time I mention this page’s stats… I really don’t care about the stats, I am just a numbers nerd and like to mess around with them. Also, and definitely most importantly, being down 70% from a very small, some might say microscopic, number is just another small, microscopic, number, dig it? This is not one of those blogs that sees a gajillion hits an hour. I consider myself lucky when I average one hit an hour and in my experience that would be a lot. In other words, I am in no way interested in drumming up business with insipid brain droppings, dig? Like I said twice before in this post, I just like playing with numbers. I have a Computer Science degree for cripes sake. Numbers are fun. Whatever, I am curious if linking up to Google Analytics a) worked, and b) will show me anything fun. I’ll probably write 100000 posts about it over the next few days (assuming it worked, of course).

All of these changes are internal but they might be a hint that a bloggie shake up is coming, and you know what that means… that means I am probably going to start messing with the theme and the layout. Sometimes Robert just cannot stop himself, you know?

What the hell was I talking about? I can’t remember. Oh yeah, it’s going to snow tonight. Doesn’t that suck? I think that sucks.

Oh well. I am going to click Publish now. Here’s hoping we cross post over to the ol’ Bluesky Social. Wish the bloggie luck……….

Twitter Alternatives Update

I haven’t tried to embed a post from one of the twitter alternatives I’ve been dicking around with for the last few months. Mastodon, Bluesky, or Threads. Threads is more or less winning the race but I haven’t given up on the other two yet. I wonder if the ability to embed posts into wordpress.com will be the deciding factor? Probably not.

Here’s one from Threads:

https://www.threads.net/@reallytallredhead/post/C5eDKRLvoB7

Here’s one from Bluesky:

https://staging.bsky.app/profile/robj1971.bsky.social/post/3kpkq7324jq2z

Here’s one from Mastodon:

Hey! We have a winner! One out of three ain’t bad, even if it does look like utter and complete shit.

I’m Pissed at Elon

I was fine using twitter. I didn’t use it a lot, but I would bring it up when I watched a Bruins game or a Red Sox game and it was fun to see other people react.

Then Elon Musk… that prick.

Now I am stuck trying to decide which alternative social network I want to use in place of the twitter. Why? Why did that spoiled asshole have to screw everything up?

Bluesky?

Threads?

Mastodon?

Which one should I go with? I have been using Threads a lot but today I had the urge to go back to Bluesky. Why? Why do I care? What does it matter? I should just go back to myspace. Is friendster still a thing?

Two Thoughts

Two brief topics for this more-or-less lunch time post.

First:

I screwed up. As often happens, three hours after I finished breakfast my stomach was starting to ache because it was too empty to deal with itself. I had a snack. Peanuts. Lovely. I then… had another snack. Some sugar free cookies. That was a mistake. Not because I had a bad reaction, but because I was stuffed and only about 90 minutes away from lunch time. Now here we are, 10 minutes into my planned lunch break, and I am still stuffed and can’t see myself having a real lunch. Dumb ass. You’d think after a year and seven months I would know what I can and cannot handle in terms of between meal snacks. Nope. I screwed up. 

Maybe I’ll try to eat a lunch-esque something or other about an hour from now. I don’t have any meetings so I won’t have any problems with work scheduling, but I also don’t want to ruin dinner. We’re planning on having some gnocchi tonight and I want that to go really well. I wonder… do we have any meatballs in the freezer? Hmmmm… we’ll see.

Second:

Social media. Shit. Why can’t I just stop with the social media stuff? I mean, I post to this blog 123612764 times a day, why can’t that be enough? What the hell is wrong with me?

I need a twitter alternative. There are a lot of decent platforms, but none of them are quite good enough. I should just back one of them and post there 2496723457 times a day and fool myself into thinking I’m having fun with it. It will be a bald faced lie, but I don’t mind.

So which should I go with? There are three that I am kind of using a little bit. 

  • Mastodon
  • Threads (which makes me sick because it’s a facebook product and facebook is just as slimy as twitter)
  • BlueSky

Mastodon is good because this blog cross posts there. Threads is good (even though zuck is fucking evil) because there are a lot of people that I followed on other platforms that I am following there. BlueSky is good but… I really don’t know why. Probably just because I sort of use it, I guess. 

Fediverse Cat

Just curious how images will look in the fediverse. It took me a few minutes to remember my login credentials for Mastodon, but I got there eventually. My posts show up there, and comments made there show up here. Looks like it works as advertised.

46/365
46/365

Fediverse

WordPress.com announced a new function today. We can cross post to federated services (federated is the right word, isn’t it?) like Mastodon. I switched it on and I can see the domain it created, robertjames1971.blog@robertjames1971.blog, in Mastodon… though I don’t really use Mastodon. This post is me testing to see if the cross posting works. They say it could take 15 minutes or so to show up in the fediverse.

Now the good folks at Bluesky have to get their federated act together (I am pretty sure they are still heading in that direction) so I can follow myself there… because Bluesky is one that I actually sort of use.

Social Media Test

Can I embed a post from post.news? I think I tried this once and it didn’t work, but I’ll try again:

https://post.news/@/robj_1971/2NpRPS8AbdWHwyHpYUmbIIln7x6

That looks like a no.

Can I embed a post from mastodon?

That looks like it worked, but it’s fugly with a capital FUG.

For the record, the post.news post looks like this:

Happy St Patrick’s Day

Happy everyone in and around Boston, Massachusetts pretends they are Irish day! Even those of us who actually are of Irish descent. It dawned on me yesterday that with all the weight loss over the last year, and all of the needing to buy new clothes, I don’t actually own any green clothing. After I had that realization it also occurred to me that I didn’t own any green clothing last year either.

We are not doing anything special to celebrate my national heritage this year. I floated the idea last week, but after having Harry home for spring break it seemed underwhelming and I didn’t pursue it. I’d like to drive to New York instead, but I haven’t floated that idea at all so it ain’t happening. Unless Jen reads this and jumps at the idea. Heh heh heh.

No stomach issues today. Yesterday I was dealing with stomach aches off and on all day. The day before I had a minor stomach issue at lunch and then a huge issue at dinner. Today, nothing yet. I had a protein bar and a little bit of chicken for breakfast. No problems. I am hopeful that I can keep this trend running for the day.

I’ve been trying to get into Mastodon (@RobJ_1971). I wrote there this morning that if I had my way my agenda for today would include playing guitar and watching The X-Files and nothing else. Obviously that ain’t happening either (thanks, adulthood). Tomorrow though… Sunday though… who knows. I might finally stop thinking about it and start trying to sell my Stratocaster and using the proceeds to make repairs on my ES-335 (frets and wiring harness) and Les Paul Custom (frets, wiring harness, and pickups). Maybe. Frankly, the idea terrifies me. Mostly because I don’t know what a 2000 American Series Stratocaster’s fair price should be. The used guitar market is constantly in flux and I don’t want to let it go too cheap. I also don’t want to try to gouge people either. I’m thinking $1,200, but is that fair? I don’t really know.

Okay. Get to work, Robert. Happy St Patrick’s Day, everyone. Happy Friday. Don’t drink and drive tonight. Be careful out there. Wash your hands and be safe.

Social Media Confusion and Collapse

I don’t think I am ready to abandon twitter completely yet. I don’t know why. Maybe that putz will sell the company for a gargantuan loss and someone who isn’t disgusting will buy it and fix all of the bullshit and I’ll want to use it again. Doubtful, but maybe. So I haven’t deleted my account, but I did delete every single tweet and mark the account as private so no one else will ever be able to follow the shell of what used to be my social media presence.

I barely acknowledge facebook anymore, though I’ve been on there a few times this week talking to other people about gastric bypass, and twitter is no longer a thing. Despite that, I have spent more time on social media this last week or two than I have in ages. Why? Because I’ve been looking for alternatives.

Post.news, Mastodon, Counter.Social, Hive. Not to mention this page, Flickr, and Instagram. Post feels like it’s in the lead for the new favorite service. None of the new guys are big enough to really know what they are going to be when they grow up yet. All but Hive have feeds that show all new posts, regardless of whether you follow the posters or not. Counter.Social and Post update at a pace where it is possible to follow along and pick out things worth reading. Mastodon is too busy to follow along. Things just go bombing by. I assume the same will happen for the other two if they keep growing in user numbers.

I guess the question I have for myself is this… why do you care? Sure, you were a social media whore 10+ years ago, but why do you still care today? No clue. No idea.

Oh well. I’m done with twitter and I’m done with facebook. Post.news feels like the new leader to me but maybe it will be something else. Maybe I’ll just post here 20 times a day for a while until I get it out of me, if you know what I mean what I mean.*


*That’s a Genesis reference. Back in NYC from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. “Let me out of Pontiac when I was just seventeen, I had to get it out of me, if you know what I mean, what I mean.”

Socials

I mentioned yesterday that I signed up to be a beta tester for Bluesky social. I also said I was pretty much done with social networks but I forgot about Instagram, which I use pretty regularly these days. I guess it just doesn’t register that way for me. I guess.

Today I Googled “twitter alternatives” because I feel kinda gross using an Elon Musk owned product. I signed up for two of them. Mastodon and I haven’t really connected yet. Counter Social and I pretty much have. Like the twit-ter, my user name is RobJ_. Maybe I will be able to automagically cross post from here to there? We’ll have to see.

One more item of note from this evening… I am trying Buffalo Wings for dinner. Well… one Buffalo Wing. The one piece weighs three ounces, and that’s all I can handle tonight. So far so good. I had to Google whether there is sugar in Buffalo sauce or not. According to the couple of links I checked, the answer is no. I should be safe. I just need to take my time.

I probably shouldn’t write a blog post while eating something new… oh well.

Enjoy your dinner, folks!