14 November 2014

TR + FB = BFF

"As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly." —Proverbs 26:11

I'm ashamed to report that my cheerful experiment failed: A month ago I tried to quit Facebook, but today I began using again. My conclusion? It was fun while it lasted. Better luck next time. Try, try again. That's the way the cookie bounces.

I will use the present post to round up all the things that I posted on that network today, so as to bask in the luxury of my regret.

NEW PAGE

First, the screen shot that begins this post is of my new business page. In an attempt to fail differently, I'll use this public forum to share my main posts—whatever that means—until I become super famous. (I want to get rid of my privacy, but no government or corporation will haul it away fast enough; so it has come to this.)

PICS

The vast red image in the background is taken from a box of toothpaste, and the profile portrait is hand-dyed green to represent the toxicity of my presence. If you could have viewed the original photograph, you would notice that I am posing before a swath of wallpaper that depicts a natural scene: there is a lake, some pretty verdure, and an electric cord extending into the heavens. That cord is my umbilical to the internet.

CAPTION

There is a scene in the movie Wrong Cops where Officer Duke is enjoying a frankfurter in the police cafeteria, and he tells Officer Shirley Holmes that he only recently awoke. That is why I captioned my photo as follows:

"I just woke up. Time to eat a hot dog."

I truly was sleeping just minutes before I snapped this picture, by the way. And note the old fashioned computer monitor directly behind me. Such is my world.

PERSONAL

I also updated my personal account's profile image. This time I did not use a realistic self-portrait but instead I combined an image from an old encyclopedia with a word from the dictionary:

ALIAS ACCOUNT

I even changed the avatar of an old account that I no longer use; and I shared the pic on my public page accompanied by the comment "Just a moment..." because I imagine that this huge, fearfully symmetrical face, which I assume belongs to the world's most powerful supercomputer, is calmly repeating those words while its electronic brain devises a way to obliterate humankind:

"Just a moment..."

STATUS UPDATE

I also posted a textual update that is really just a synopsis of what I take to be the theme of a much-loved film:

The contending stances in this realm remind me of a movie that I mention too often, Executive Suite (1954), with its clash between two representatives: one on the side of creative research & development, whose ultimate goal is to maximize the quality of what is produced; and the other on the side of accounting, whose goal is to maximize profit margins by studying charts & graphs.

ANOTHER COVER

Below is an image I that found on Wikimedia. It amused me to flip it horizontally and then set it as my personal profile's cover photo:

ANTI-AUDIO

Also I promoted my Furniture Beats while stealing Facebook's motto in the process. I said: "They're all free (and always will be) on this playlist that keeps expanding until it clogs the YouTube." Then I gave another link to my albums and added the following paragraph, in a desperate attempt to explain my non-musical aim:

Here's a total joke idea that I tripped into. I keep producing intentionally naive, mediocre beats that are designed to be ignored. (I'm not being modest—they really are supposed to sound frumpy.) I'm gathering every 10 tracks into an album, automatically, whether or not it makes sense to do so. I just completed the 4th set, and they're all free downloads now, but soon (also, only as a joke) I'll charge big money for them.

MORAL

So let this be a lesson to me: if I ever post a lot of things on Facebook, I must tackle the chore of archiving them on this blog. My hope is that this will deter me from using that place.

CLOSING QUOTE

Lastly, since I went to the trouble of scanning a quotation from Nietzsche's famous book, I might as well give it here too. I cited it as a winking explanation of my return to that old dirty network:

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