Tag Archives: Facebook jail

animals, songs, true crime

Powerful explosions, pesky varmints, and pearl necklaces…

Special thanks to SurryJohn on Wikipedia, who has granted permission to share his photo of a marten and provided today’s unedited and unaltered featured photo. I have never actually seen the marten who has been digging in the backyard, but my guess is that it looks somewhat like the one in the photo.

Welcome to Wednesday’s post. I’m pleased to report that although Arran woke us up at about 3AM, there weren’t any other big bangs this morning. I am, of course, making reference to the huge boom we heard yesterday morning at about 3:45 AM. Bill and I were actually awake at that time, thanks to Arran and his Prednisolone urges to eat. Poor guy woke both of us up a few minutes earlier; I distinctly remember looking at my iPad for the time. I’m glad we weren’t awakened by the sound of the nearby explosion, because that would have been pretty scary. Of course, there were also emergency vehicles and their blaring sirens interrupting the peace a short while later.

I mentioned yesterday that the explosion came from the sound of some criminally motivated asshole blowing up the ATM at our local REWE (grocery store). Apparently, that’s a thing in this part of Germany (and probably other parts, too). Certain people have taken to blowing up automatic teller machines, likely in an attempt to steal money. I’m actually sure trying to steal the cash is why they do it… but perhaps they also enjoy playing with explosives. In any case, when Bill mentioned this turn of events to his co-workers, he was told that there were similar explosions in their towns, too. Naturally, the idiots who are doing this do it when no one might be hurt… or be able to describe them to the police. On the other hand, they also cause people like me to lose out on beauty sleep.

Not long after the explosion, I was in the backyard cleaning up Noyzi’s poop, when the ground suddenly gave way under one of my feet. That was when I was confronted with the small sinkhole. I had considered that perhaps a varmint was in the yard, but then thought maybe it was an issue with limestone in the soil. Bill spoke to the landlord, who came over and inspected the deep hole and said he thought it was the work of a marder. Marders, otherwise known as martens, are basically like weasels. They like to dig holes and climb into car engines when the weather is cold. They can do pretty serious damage to vehicles. However, even though they damage property and dig holes, it’s illegal to kill them in Germany. The landlord said he would come over and fill up the hole today. Now that I know there are martens in our neighborhood, I now understand why I’ve been finding strange looking poop near the front doorstep. I found a nice sized pile on the doormat the other day, noticing that it was full of seeds… probably from the bushes in the backyard. I’m now assuming the dung came from our wild, backyard, weasel like resident.

And finally, a word on the humble pearl necklace… This is another R-rated Ex related anecdote, so if that’s not interesting, move along…

Still with me? Okay…

My friend Susi shared this short video from a Facebook page called Johnny Rambo…

I suspect the above video may eventually become unavailable, so here’s a brief description. The woman in the video is wailing about being forced to wear handcuffs. She appears to be a victim of domestic violence of some sort. Or, she is at least claiming that her husband lied and victimized her, and she’s upset that she’s been arrested and is in handcuffs at a hospital. She yells that her husband is the one who’s been in jail, and yet she’s there in handcuffs.

I don’t know a single thing about what happened, other than what I can see is in the clip, and what she yells at the nurse who is trying to help her. The nurse tries to explain that the cuffs are for the safety of the woman, the cops, and the medical staff. I remember reading about how, when she was rescued from her kidnappers, Elizabeth Smart was placed in handcuffs. At the time, I was horrified for her, but now I realize that cops really don’t know what a person’s mental status is. Still, handcuffs are very uncomfortable and, in some ways, kind of inhumane. Last year, I had problems with my shoulder being impinged. I kept thinking about how it would be agony to have to wear handcuffs. I couldn’t reach behind my back or raise my arm without significant pain.

Anyway, the woman in the video, drops to her knees in prayer, then snarls at the nurse who suggests taking her blood pressure, saying that she’s been checked all over. “See if I’m pregnant at 66 years old!” she seethes, as the nurse says that’s a possibility (pregnancy at 66!!!). The woman is very dramatic in an over-the-top way, which tells me that she probably gives as good as she gets. She seems outraged and indignant, rather than shattered.

Then she yells, “I know it is. He’s put it in my ear, face, and put it all over me! How would you like to have cum poured all over you?!”

The nurse tells her to stop talking about that, as there’s a child nearby, and the woman snaps, “Well, maybe that child needs to hear about it”, as the video ends. I notice that the lady is well dressed in a charming pink ensemble and she’s wearing a pretty pearl necklace. I like pearls. The pearl is one of my birthstones. As Bill and I were watching this video short, I was suddenly reminded of a story he told me about his ex wife, back in the day. You see, they both went to the same Houston high school as Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top did.

One day, Ex was talking about the song “Pearl Necklace” by ZZ Top. Apparently, she was a fan of the song. I must admit, although I am familiar with ZZ Top, I am hearing the song for the first time this morning…

Apparently, Ex didn’t know what this song was referring to when she was enjoying it…

She came to Bill enthusiastically talking about how great the 1981 song “Pearl Necklace” is… and Bill started to chuckle, because she obviously didn’t realize that this was a song about something other than actual pearls… See the lyrics below:

She’s really upset with me again

I didn’t give her what she likes
I don’t know what to tell her
Don’t know what to say
Everything got funky last night
She was really bombed

And I was really blown away
Until I asked her what she wanted
And this is what she had to say
A pearl necklace
She wanna pearl necklace
She wanna pearl necklace
She gets a charge out of bein’ so weird

Digs gettin’ downright strange
But I can keep a handle on anything
Just this side of deranged
She was gettin’ bombed

And I was gettin’ blown away
And she held it in her hand
And this is what she had to say
A pearl necklace
She wanna pearl necklace
She wanna pearl necklace

She’s so cold
As pure as the driven slush
And that’s not jewelry she’s talkin’ about

It really don’t cost that much
She was gettin’ bombed
And I was gettin’ blown away
And she took it in her hand
And this is what she had to say
A pearl necklace
She wanna pearl necklace
She wanna pearl necklace

Ex then got a clue and was supposedly horrified by the song’s reference, even though she is quite experienced in such realms… much more so than I am. I have never had that kind of pearl necklace, and Bill would never give me one, even if I was interested. I know… that’s super gross, but I swear, when I saw that video and heard that poor lady in her pearl necklace talking about being cummed upon by her husband, that old story popped right into my sick mind. God forgive me.

Well, that about does it for today’s blog post. May your day be without random explosions, critters who shit on your doorstep and put deep holes in your backyard, or the wrong kinds of pearl necklaces. Oh… and by the way, Facebook let me out of “jail” yesterday, because they realized that the video below isn’t “sexually suggestive” after I complained. However, they evidently don’t have a problem with a guy sharing a video about a woman talking about being cummed on by her husband. Crazy.

Yes, sharing this video got me put in Facebook jail for a day. There is nothing inappropriate about it. It’s just weird.

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communication, complaints, rants, social media, technology

Why do I tolerate being disciplined by bots?

It’s a beautiful, cool, rainy morning here in Breckenheim. Seriously… it’s GREAT to have some rain at last. It’s been many weeks since we’ve had the kind of soaking rain that is going on right now. The topsoil in our backyard is parched; the grass is dead; and there’s an actual fissure in the ground, thanks to the drought we’ve had. I love to see the rain in September, because it means relief from hot temperatures. There’s a change in mood, too. People seem to want to get down to business again, probably because September is when a lot of young people go back to school.

I hope the rain lasts all day. It will match my mood, which is a bit cranky this morning. Why? Because I’m still “restricted” on Facebook for an infraction that happened in August, and the punishment was only supposed to last a few days. I typed a forbidden three word comment regarding Donald Trump on a friend’s post, and within a couple of minutes, the bots descended upon me with a nastygram and my “punishment”. It was SUPPOSED to be 48 hours restriction from posting in groups. I got my ability to post in groups sooner than I expected, but I still had the red badge of shame, as unbeknownst to me, Facebook bots had decided to give me thirty days of lower ranked posts in groups. I should be done with that “punishment” on September 16th.

I won’t be surprised, though, if I still have the stupid red badge of shame a month from now for a comment I posted yesterday. A friend from my hometown posted about how it annoys him that people post whatever they want on Facebook and he never comments, but when he posts something controversial, people get pissed off. I got curious, and soon found a video he posted…

@mississippichris39 #fyp #foryourpage #mississippi #funny ♬ original sound – chrisalexander3595

My honest response to the above Tik Tok video was, “I think I’d probably kick him in the nuts.” It was a joke, of course. I’ve long since outgrown indulging my urges to kick people in their private parts. The point is, I don’t think I’d appreciate someone telling me to “Shut up” as they insisted on “loving” me, especially since I don’t know what “love” entails to someone so bold. Does it mean loving from afar, or a more physical kind of love that involves the risk of pregnancy (for someone younger, anyway)? A previous commenter posted a vomiting emoji. I wonder if I would have still gotten in trouble if I had posted something like this…

Daily Kick In The Stick GIFfrom Daily GIFs

People post all kinds of offensive crap all the time, but Facebook never does anything about it. Twice, I’ve complained about someone ripping off my profile and pretending to be me. They don’t do anything about it. I post a figure of speech and the bots descend on me like flies on shit! I get accused of inciting violence, hate speech, etc. They ask me if I want to agree with their decision. I have found out from experience that disagreeing doesn’t do anything, as no live person will ever look at the context of the offending post. So I just accept the “punishment”, which has nothing to do with the infraction and simply makes Facebook more annoying and harder to use. I run a couple of groups, neither of which have any issues. Yet Facebook bans me from participating in groups because I posted a forbidden comment on a friend’s post. That doesn’t make sense. And it’s not like I’d learn anything, either, because you never know what will set off the bots. This crap makes me glad I disabled the official Facebook page for this blog.

Common sense would tell me that the right thing to do is to close my account and go back to living the way I did prior to August 2008, when a former friend convinced me to join Facebook. But now, everything is so tied up in social media that I feel like leaving the platform would make things complicated on several levels. So maybe the better thing to do is just spend less time on Facebook, and more time on other platforms. I just recently discovered Twitter and arranged my settings so I don’t get comments from toxic people… or really, anyone, anymore. However, I think Twitter is also pretty toxic, and just reading some of the hatred that gets spewed there is hard on my mental health. I know that sounds “snowflakey”, but life is tough enough without some of the rude, snarky, mean spirited shit people post.

Though I know some people might say the comments that got me in trouble were also mean, neither were personal insults toward anyone who would actually read and be hurt or insulted by them. They were joking comments made to friends. Meanwhile, people can be as sarcastic, nasty, and vulgar as they want to be in any newspaper’s comment section, and nothing will get done.

Is this really what the powers that be at Facebook want? To drive people away with draconian bots and their nonsensical policing of people’s innocuous comments, constantly taken out of context? I feel stupid allowing bots to discipline me, and I’m tired of being Mark Zuckerberg’s ass monkey. So maybe it’s time I spent more time reading books and watching videos than engaging on Facebook. I’d like to travel more, too… for as long as we’re able to, before the next pandemic or having to move somewhere else.

Anyway… it’s a minor complaint. Bill will be home tomorrow. He’ll take Arran to the vet to see if he needs hormonal help or anything else. Arran is a bit perkier this week, but I still want to see if he can use some meds. We’ll have a wine fest, which I can’t post about in my wine group until Saturday, thanks to this asinine “sanction” placed on me by a bot. I’m glad I don’t use Facebook for business purposes. It’s utterly useless for that.

Time to wrap up this post and get on with the day… which will consist of vacuuming, practicing guitar, maybe making a new video, and walking the dogs, if the rain lets up.

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complaints, music, technology, YouTube

I am, once again, a Facebook inmate…

Greetings, y’all. Today has gotten off to an annoying start. First off, last night I got put in “Facebook Jail” for a comment I made on a friend’s post about Donald Trump. What I wrote was not too terrible, when you consider what people regularly post on Facebook. However, my comment tripped the super sensitive bots, and within a couple of minutes, it got “schwacked”, as Bill would put it. I had a nastygram on my iPad, telling me that I was in trouble for posting “hate speech”.

As usual, they gave me the pointless option to appeal, which I decided not to bother with this time. Then they handed down my punishment… two days of not being allowed to post in my groups. Since I run two groups, that’s kind of a pain in the ass. It also really annoys me that my online activity is being dictated by bots. I’ve been giving serious thought to deleting Facebook, mainly because this kind of crap pisses me off. I mean, people can post all sorts of hateful, homophobic, transphobic, racist, and sexist craziness, and nothing gets done. But I make a simple three word comment about Trump, and I immediately get “restricted” from posting in groups for two days. Granted, it’s not much of a punishment, but that’s not really the point. I don’t like feeling like Zuckerberg’s chump. He has way too much power, and he’s delegated it to bots who don’t understand nuances, and don’t get context. That is BULLSHIT. Way too many of us are tolerating it.

This isn’t a nice thing to post, but it’s no worse than a lot of what of people post on Facebook. Moreover, I think euthanizing Trump would do a lot for the safety and security of the world’s people. Now I wonder what will happen the next time I have to put one of my dogs to sleep. Will I also get punished for posting “He needs euthanasia” in that case?

Anyway, this won’t be a big problem for me, even though I run a couple of groups. I do think, however, that Facebook shoots itself in the foot when it “punishes” people for minor crap like this, but ignores the really personal, toxic shit people post to each other all the time. Eventually, people will move on from Facebook, when someone comes up with something better. You know it will happen, too, because there was a time when people couldn’t live without MySpace. Look what happened to that quaint artifact from the early 2000s. Every time this happens, to me or to other people, I think Facebook sucks more.

Moving on…

I did succeed in making a music video yesterday. I can do it better, though… Bill came home unexpectedly while I was recording, so I wrapped up my session sooner than I would have. Anyway, if you’re curious, here it is. Keep in mind, I literally learned this song yesterday, and I do this strictly for fun and artistic purposes. I’m not a professional in any capacity of the word. 😉

It’s a pretty song. Maybe it would be better for me in a higher key, although I do enjoy occasionally exploring the low registers of my voice.

The other annoying thing that has happened so far today is this… I happen to love Beth Nielsen Chapman’s music. I use Apple Music to organize my library. I’m sure there are better options, but I don’t have the time or inclination to look for them. Consequently, sometimes I try to manually maintain the library, especially when I get double entries for the same songs on the same albums. For some reason, when I tried to delete some duplicate tracks, Apple Music inexplicably deleted my whole BNC catalog.

I still had the songs on my computer, of course, but they weren’t being recognized by Apple Music. Moreover, when I went looking for the files, they were all listed individually, instead of in a big file. I ended up having to manually adding over 100 songs back to Apple Music. And I had to do that twice, because when I had the same problem after fixing it the first time, the same thing happened. The positive side of this, of course, is that I got to be reminded of what a great songwriter BNC is, and how many of her songs I love. I continue to improve my guitar skills, so maybe someday, I can tackle a couple of her songs that I can’t find backing tracks for.

One final event that will happen today is that I will be getting a new iPad. The one I’ve been using is getting hard to charge. At this point, it is possible to charge it, but it’s a pain to do it. I decided to go with an iPad Pro, because I use the iPad a lot when we travel, and want the better camera that comes with it. I have it on my phone, and it is superior to what comes with the lower models. I also got an Apple Pencil and a Smart Keyboard Folio, because as long as I was making the order, I figured “what the hell”.

The next big purchase I want to make somewhat soon is a new car… and I want that simply because my old car is 13 years old and has an obsolete stereo. 😉 But as I rarely drive, we can definitely wait on doing that.

Because I’m waiting on an expensive electronics device, I have to wait to walk the dogs, which I know will annoy them. But, at least we have some rain, at long last. It’s been so dry lately… I doubt we’ll get much rain today, but whatever falls will be much welcome, if only to cool things off.

And finally… just for my political friends, check out this ad for Ryann McEnany’s conservative dating app, “The Right Stuff”. Ryann is the sister of former Trump press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany. This kind of makes me want to puke… but I’m sure some people will love it.

ROTTEN.

This sounds like a bad idea for many reasons… I recommend listening to Farron Balanced’s video for reasons why this dating app potentially sucks. Generally speaking, I agree with the host’s comments about not necessarily cutting out people with different political leanings. On the other hand, politics has changed wildly in the Trump era.

I never thought I’d swear off voting for Republicans, but yet here I am. I heard Liz Cheney’s concession speech, as she was beaten in her primary race by a Trump devotee. I don’t like Liz’s politics, but she’s at least fair, decent, and sane. I hope she can make a comeback. I don’t think we’ve heard the last of her, especially as Trump goes down in flames. But for the time being, Liz Cheney’s dedication for not championing sociopathic wannabe dictators has cost her. Maybe she’ll run for president, though. So we’ll see.

Well, I think I’ll sign off now, and play some guitar. Hopefully, the new toy will get here soon, and I can get set up with my new iPad while I wait to be sprung from Facebook Jail… AGAIN.

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