Tag: tech

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.

30 Minutes in Hades

My exercise ring is closed. I am up to 32 minutes. Two minutes over my goal. I usually walk to close the ring. Today I changed it up a little.

I went with the bike. Oh sweet merciful universe did this thing kick my ass. It was in five minute increments wrapped around large chunks of time wallowing in the pain and suffering that riding the bike caused.

Still…. The ring is closed. The activity app can suck it.

Notifications

I started my crusade against Facebook three days ago on the 27th at about 2:00pm. Despite catching myself looking for the app on my iPhone 4-5 times a day I would say it’s going well. I have survived this far. Even better, my wife has jumped on the wagon with me. How cool is that? We can accomplish literally anything if we do it together.

A few minutes ago something happened that I didn’t expect (though I should have). Facebook fought back.

I received a notifications email from Facebook. I didn’t open it, but I could see the little blurb that gmail displays on the inbox. Robert, you have x number of notification from blah blah blah.

I totally should have seen that coming. I’ve probably received notification messages from them before, but I just didn’t think of it. I probably always routed them to spam, but somehow they still sneak through. Then to sneak through right in the middle of my epic crusade?

Weird.

iPad Multitask

I just used the iPad’s multitask function for the first time. I was taking notes on songs I might want to re-record. Chrome was open on the left half of my screen, playing tracks from alonetone.com, while Trello was open on the right so I could add a comment to each song’s card.

It was so cool it literally changed my life.*

* #sarcasm

One Day Down

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.

More Difficult Than I Expected

It hasn’t even been a full day yet.

I declared myself Facebook Free yesterday at about 2:00pm. This morning when I first got up, one of the first things I did was pick up my phone to check in with Facebook. I suppose I can chalk that up to being mostly asleep still, but what about the other 10 times it happened?

I knew this was going to be difficult, but I don’t think I realized it was going to be this difficult. I’m only planning on seven days off. Let’s hope day two is easier than day one.

I guess a social media addiction is better for me than drugs or alcohol, right? Right?

Booster

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.

iOS 15 is Out?

I am just losing my Apple fanboy cred left and right. I haven’t watched the video of the event they had last week where they announced the latest iPhones. That’s bad. What’s worse? Apparently iOS 15 and the associated WatchOS and iPadOS versions all came out on September 20th… two days ago.

I haven’t installed any of them.

I’m sorry, Apple. I promise to do better in the future. I’m updating my iPhone right now.

Car Music

Car music today! Success even though I SUCK AT SINGING.

I finished five songs. I have three more that are ready to go and I am hoping to add two more to the list. That means there will likely be another car music tomorrow and maybe one more after that. 10 days left including today. Yikes!

When I got home I moved the MacBook and all that come with it from Harry’s room back into our room. I now have a Mac desk in one room and a Windows desk in another. Am I out of my mind? Yupper. Affirmative.

Now I have to go get my haircut before its mass reaches the point of hydrostatic equilibrium and it crushes my entire body into a spherical shape and small objects start orbiting me. Granted, my gut is already at this stage, I just mean that my hair will be at that stage too, right? I’ll be sort of like a binary planetary system or some shit.

Oh, and here’s the clock downtown!