Tag: tech

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.

Bush League Radio

WEEI… ugh.

I was about to write a post about some bush league coding, but now I know the code is fine. I’m trying to listen to the Red Sox game’s radio feed via the MLB app on iOS. It’s been really crappy for the last couple of innings. Just drop outs and break up and terrible. I assumed it was the app. I was wrong. My sincere apologies to those who work on the app for my cursing you up and down and saying bad things about your mothers as I was getting more and more frustrated. I was wrong. I am sorry.

No, the bush league shit is actually WEEI itself. It was the actual radio feed that was failing. They are currently broadcasting a major league baseball playoff game via a cell phone. I shit you not. Now, I have a teeny tiny mini spec of radio experience and I am willing to accept that this is actually Tropicana Field’s fault. If that is the case then it’s just another in a long line of garbage coming from that stadium. The team is epic. The facility is the shittiest of shit. I will not, however, let WEEI off the hook because they should expect crap like this and have some sort of backup in place for when the shitty stadium goes to shit. Nope. They have a cell phone. Bush. League. Crap.

Anyway, it’s the top of the fourth inning. The Red Sox are down 5-4. The Sox opened the game with two runs in the top of the first and then Sale sucked up a storm and gave up five in the bottom of the first, including a grand fucking slam. Remember when David Price was a post season dog who was guaranteed to choke in the big game? He overcame that eventually and has a ring to show for it. Sale was supposed to be different, and I know he’s coming off a gigantic injury, but he choked in a must win in his last regular season start, and he was god awful tonight. The fuck, dude? Are you a new pre-redemption David Price?

The Sox did manage back to back home runs in the third inning to close the gap, but I didn’t hear it because WEEI was falling apart at the time.

Come on, Red Sox. Let’s get that lead back and let Mr Sale off the hook.

Lawn Pause

Front yard: Done.

Side yard: Done, from the street all the way back to the woods.

Health check: OUCH! My back hurts, my leg hurts, my arms hurt, my shoulders hurt. Yup, it’s lawn day. I’m taking a break for a few. Usually my lawn breaks are on the patio in the back yard, but everything out there is soaking wet and the sun hasn’t had any luck drying it off, so I am inside.

Okay, break time is over. Get back out there and cut some more grass, fat boy! You can do it! Through all of this mowing the lawn your Apple Watch activity app has given you credit for 16 minutes of exercise! Go cut that grass and close that ring!

Face ID

I just figured out why my iPhone’s Face ID wasn’t working last night.

It’s my glasses.

I have two pairs of glasses. All through the work day today I was wearing my computer use glasses and Face ID worked every time. After work I switched to my regular use glasses and it failed. Huh. I took the glasses off and it worked. I put the glasses back on and it failed.

SONOFABITCH!!!!

ADDENDUM: I cleaned the lenses on my general use glasses and Face ID works again. Whatdayaknow.

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.

Hello Stress

As mentioned in the previous post, as well as a couple from last week, we are trying Hello Fresh again. Are you familiar with it? Every week they send us recipes and all of the ingredients for a couple of meals. All we have to do is follow the instructions and boom, fancy dinner for two. It’s kind of like culinary paint by numbers.

Except it tends to be really stressful. We’ve tried it in the past, as well as their main competitor Blue Apron, and generally trying to get all of the prep for each step done in time would raise our blood pressure by about 10000%. This time we’re taking it easier. If step one is prep, step two is cook, and step three is “while that’s cooking, prep again” we just do the two prep steps first. It takes longer to finish, but it’s easier on the heart.

Mostly.

There is also the little issue with the smoke alarms. I think in the last six meals we’ve done, we’ve set off the smoke alarms in the house four times. Four. Times. It’s gotten to the point where I turn on the exhaust fan and open all of the windows before I do anything else. It didn’t help tonight though. Frying up the chicken cutlets in the pan on the stove sure enough set those bastard alarms off once again. At least we know they work, right?

Speaking of the frying pan, the oil the chicken fried in splashed all over the kitchen. I’ve mopped the floor three times in the last two hours. Hopefully we don’t slip and fall. I would feel like a right asshole if that happened.

Still, despite all of that… the dinners we’ve made have been really good. Jen was a little down on one, but the rest have gone over really well.

Here’s hoping the trend continues. I think Jen is happy to not be eating chicken breasts and quinoa every night. Whatever makes my love happy.

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.

Baseball

The Red Sox are down 1-0 in the second. The Blue Jays are spanking the Orioles, the Yankees are scoreless, and the Mariners are losing.

Come on, Red Sox. Let’s get it together.

I asked my father if he has any clue what happens if we end in a four way tie. He hasn’t a clue either. I doubt anyone does.

We had a FaceTime call with Harry and we are hoping to have another with Bellana. Jen and I have both closed our exercise rings, which is awesome. We’ve got two episodes of The Walking Dead tonight (one from the main show and one from World Beyond), Jen and I are caught up on Ted Lasso and The Morning Show. I’m up to date on all the shows I’m watching on my own.

I haven’t played guitar at all this weekend. I need to, soon. I did get a flu shot yesterday. I’m qualified for a Covid-19 booster starting Thursday, so the flu shot was kinda like practice*.

The Red Sox are still down 1-0 after 2.5 innings. Not worried at all**.

And that’s where we are right now.

* No it wasn’t.

** Yes I am. I’m totally worried. I’ve been a Sox fan since the 70’s. The multiple championships since 2004 haven’t cured me of all of the heartbreak.