Permanently delete account

Your account has been deactivated from the site and will be permanently deleted within 14 days. If you log into your account within the next 14 days, you will have the option to cancel your request.

They really do want to hang on to you. 14 days to deactivate your account… name another web application that does that?!

Anyway, the option is here:  www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account

I feel subversive just sharing the link!

More on that damned social network

I can see it’s going to take a while to get this facebook stuff out of my system. It keeps popping into my head, as it has done every day for a couple of years… and this is my problem with it. I mean, what exactly is it? It’s a communications medium, sure, but it’s more complicated than a telephone or email. It’s a whole framework, the colours and the page layout get stuck in your head. You start thinking of yourself in terms of your facebook persona, which is really not healthy.

And it feels weird that it should be such a big deal, deciding not to be a part of this thing, that everyone just assumes you should be part of. It doesn’t usually take days to remove yourself from a web-based service, but in order to stay in touch with the people you want to you have to clearly signal your imminent departure and request actual email addresses. How old fashioned, I’m going back to email…

I just look forward to the time when facebook doesn’t pop into my head for a whole 24 hours.

My next blog entry will be about something much more interesting.

De-facebook Training

I’m now in facebook decontamination mode. This is a kind of re-training of the brain, and it probably means that my blog entries for a while will be a bit facebook-y in their content… oh well, gotta go through it I guess.

The thing for me, and this is why I started to dislike being on facebook, was that I was starting to think in status updates… any little phrase or pun or a lyric I enjoyed… etc… had to go straight onto the virtual semi-personality page. Last night riding home I found myself feeling all cobwebby-headed, like I was half living in fb-land.

No me gusto mucho!

Extra caution

Actually, it’s extrication. I’m sick of facebook, sick of going around mentally marking out my life in short, pithy statements. I don’t know why it’s better to mark it in longer, diary-like entries, but it seems more real and as if you are knowing yourself better, and hence sharing yourself better, by doing so.

So I’m planning my fb exit strategy. Unfortunately it seems necessary to keep a musician profile going as it’s the best way of publicising gigs, and to do that I need to keep a personal profile to admin… but it will be a less cognito one. All my personal ‘real’ stuff will be going on the blog.

Wonder if I’ve got any readers left, 20 months on? Guess I should promote it on facebook before I disappear…

Life is better in 3d

or: Who gives a flying click?

Is it just me, or is this a bit surreal? This is the complete transcript of a facebook ad:

Life is better in 3d

It’s free. It’s easy. Turn yourself into a 3d creation today. Express your unique personality with your friends.

Sounds like it should lead to a page advising that people turn off their computers and go outside… I haven’t clicked through to see what it’s advertising, and I don’t intend to (unless I let loose with a flying click whilst vainly trying to prove my intelligence by clicking on spinning asteroids in the ‘biggest brain’ game) because I know I’ll be disappointed.

Things I could have been usefully doing…

… instead of staying up til 1am playing ‘who has the biggest brain’ on facebook:

- racking off kiwifruit wine
- sweeping kitchen
- finishing Bill Bryson book
- finishing Graeme Greene book
- finding panniers, bike lock, bike light etc to prepare for cycling to work in morning
- finishing off outstanding website work
- grabbing a guitar and sorting out half-written songs
- stretching
- sleeping

However, on the plus side:

- I’d had a productive day already
- I now apparently possess a 2801cc Squidlian brain
- I’m getting much better at dividing by 3

Pity in a way it’s not 2799cc, as that would make 3 neat compartments of 933cc each (but maybe I needed those extra 2cc to figure that out… um… yeah)