Facebook crap

Does anybody else use the personal lists on Facebook?  And by personal, I mean lists that you created, not the ones that they’ve created for you.  Mine are listed in the picture below, to the right.

I have 4 lists but I only actually use 2 of them.

Family - I use the Family list which as you can probably guess, is all my family members.

Current Friends - I also use the Current Friends which is my current friends, but it also has more.  When I “like” a page and it’s something that I want to see what they post, I add it to that list as well.  Any of my classmates that I actually communicate with, I add them here as well.

Page Alerts - Let’s face it, we all “like” some pages but we don’t really care what it’s about.  Sometimes your supporting a friend, sometimes it’s humorous but it’s nothing you need to see again.  We’ve all “liked” band, tv, or movie pages because we liked them but we really don’t need to see the news associated with it.  I rarely check this one, as you can tell by the 547 unread posts.

Classmates – I approve anybody that graduated from my high school the same year as I did, way back in 1991.  There was over 500 graduates in my class so there were a lot of kids that I knew a little bit and some I didn’t know at all.  When I “friended” my wife, she was in this list that I never check.  But she commented on some stuff I posted and I moved her over to Current Friends.  Of course, now she’s in my Family list.  But I check this list the least, usually only when I’m online and I’m really bored.

As you can see, I never use my home feed which is the feed that comes up when you first log in to Facebook.  As a matter of fact, my bookmark for Facebook goes right to the Family list.  I loved this concept and I was using it before Facebook came up with their automatic lists.  But now, apparently because I made my own personal lists, I have to be punished.  Not only does it not show me everything that I have put in my lists, like it does the home feed, it only shows me what it wants to show me.  I put them in MY lists, why would I want YOU to decide what I see.  I set notifications for everybody that I want to see.  It gives me a crap load of notifications on some days but it’s the only way I can see who I want to see.

Now, on top of them controlling my lists.  Now I get these stupid ads.

They are all over the place and they are right in my list feeds.  Sometimes back to back, sometimes there will be only a post or 2 between them but they are all over.  I don’t play any games on Facebook to begin with so why would I care what my friends are playing.  Now if I went over to my home feed, there are none of these.  So like I said, they punish me for creating my own feeds.  I’m waiting for the Social Fixer app I use (which is also why my background is black) to come up with a way to get rid of these because it pisses me off.  I probably wouldn’t mind it if I was looking for games to play, but I don’t play any games so it’s just a hindrance.

FORE!

Went golfing this morning, for the first time since my cousin was up last year.  My brother has invited me a few times in the last month or so but I always refused because of my back issues.  Well, when he asked this week I said screw it, I’m going.  I’ll drug up if I have to.  I took some ibuprofen before I got there and headed out.  There were 4 of us and we were only playing 9 holes.  The first guy (brother’s friend) gets up, crushes it but I goes right into the fairway next to us.  My brother gets up and crushes it as well, also to the right.  The next guy (brothers friends friend) gets up and barely hits it.  Now it’s my turn.  I’m nervous because I’m not sure how well my back will allow me to swing.  Not to mention, this is only the 2nd time I’ve ever tried to use an actual driver.  I’ve always used a driving iron because I could never get the hang of hitting one but my driving iron had broke and I couldn’t find another one on short notice.  So I get up there, line up and smoke it right down the middle of the fairway.  It hurt my back a little but not bad.  Everybody goes up to take their next shots and some their third.  I get up to my ball, pull out an iron and put the ball within 5 feet of the hole.  I was extremely happy, I thought this was going to be one of those good days.  I ended up 2 putting for a +1 on the first hole.  Then it was all downhill from there.  I never saw the scorecard, but I was probably around 50 for 9 holes.  I’d hit a great shot followed by a couple of crappy ones.  I had a good time regardless of how I played.  I only threw my club once which says a lot.

I used to golf quite a bit in high school.  I even tried out for the golf team once (I sucked).  But the clubs I play with now are the same ones I played with back then.  Although I have picked up a 3 wood and a putter.  I had a friend who was a golf pro at a shop in college so he was a pretty good golfer and he would give me tips on how to improve so I was a decent enough back then.  Never a scratch golfer by any means, but decent enough, especially for someone who never uses a driver.  I generally shot in the upper 80’s, lower 90’s.  But I loved to play and still do, but finances played a lot on why I quit playing as well.  It’s not a cheap sport, especially now when my fat ass refuses to walk instead of getting a cart.  It costs us $17 a person this morning and that was only 9 holes.  This was an out of the way course as well, if you want to go to one of the nicer courses, it’ll cost even more.

My brother is talking about playing every week, we’ll see if I’ll be able to do that or not but I can go every so often at least.  It would be nice to be able to afford it since I now have days off from work and actually have the time to do so.

Tonight, we are heading for Portage to watch my nephew play for a chance at the Little League World Series.  They are down to the final 7 teams and are in a double elimination tournament.  They won their first game last night and play again tonight and more games Saturday and a final game on Sunday if they keep winning.

My Kind of Humor #11

Time for another edition of My Kind of Humor.  These were all posted on my Random Thoughts Facebook page at one time or another.

I’m behind on these, they were posted awhile ago.

People are stupid, but the creator of this card was a genius.

Awkward!

Do you see it?  So is he or isn’t he?  Or is he confused at what the word means?  Or is it a regrettable tattoo?  Does it mean something different in Texas?

This explains so much.

Ha, not a huge fan of Will Ferrell’s movies, but he is hilarious.  And Twilight sucks, a good combination.

I had actually posted this on my Facebook page before, but I love it.  How do people even see this?  If I was looking at it, it would just be 2 boxes.

Do you see it?  Yikes!  It’s embarrassing when a woman’s penis is bigger than yours.

Pretty much Cheri and I’s thoughts exactly.  That would be why we didn’t go to our 20th reunion 2 years ago.

The perfect response to WWJD.

I hate to let out a man’s bathroom secret, but this really happens.

Randomness #16

For those of you asking, which is nobody, Samantha lost her last All-Star game and was eliminated.  But before I get to that, I have to tell you what happened when I got there.  I drove Cheri’s car because I had very little gas in mine and was trying to make it to Friday (it was on Thursday).  She has to be there an hour before the game starts so I drive out early and stay there and then my mom picks up Cheri and they show up at game time.  Anyways, when we got there, we got out of the car and went to the trunk to get her bat bag and my chair.  It was still locked, then I realized it was still running.  CRAP!  It was the first time I’ve locked my keys in the car in probably 20 years (I used to do it a lot when I was in school).  So Samantha had to do her pre-game practice in her slide on sandals and borrow the coach’s glove.  I felt like a dumb ass sitting on the bleachers with all the other parents knowing what I did.  Had I taken my car, you can’t lock the keys when the keys are in the ignition.  Stupid car.

But back to the game, it wasn’t pretty either, her team only came up with 2 hits and I’m not so sure it was their pitcher.  Our girls just weren’t into the game, at all.  Samantha only had 1 at bat and she grounded out.  I was still happy for her, she made All-Stars and she loves to play but she is done for the year.

I’ve taken some time to update a couple of my pages above.  I caught myself up on the book page (although I will be taking some time in the future to change the layout) and I also updated my Social Media page, I deleted the GetGlue and FourSquare sections.  I don’t use either of them anymore.  GetGlue I stopped using when I updated the app on my phone and one of it’s permissions was to take photos and videos without my knowledge.  FourSquare I wouldn’t mind using, if more people did.  On the rare occasion (usually Walgreens) there would be a discount for checking in but I just got tired of using it.  I didn’t have many friends on it and only one local so it was kind of pointless to even know where those friends were.  I thought it would be fun to be close to someone and search them out, and surprise them.  But with nobody in the area, that really wasn’t going to happen.

I need to update the Track of the Day (I actually need to post more of those) and I wish I could add to the Published Content page but I haven’t come up with anything to write and publish.

Our foreman’s carry a cordless phone at work.  On the weekends, since the office personnel isn’t there, all phone calls are routed over the intercom so he knows when someone is calling.  While I was on my break Sunday, he came in and sat with me for a few minutes until they needed him on the line.  He walked out of the breakroom and left the phone on the table.  So I called the work number and listened to it ring over the intercom.  Since he didn’t have the phone on him, he had to run to the shipping office to answer it.  Apparently he didn’t realize he left the phone in the breakroom as he ran right past it to get to the office.  When he answered, I played stupid.  I basically repeated what he said.  He answered with the company name so I asked if it was the company name.  He said yes, this is his name, I asked if this was his name.  I told him my name was his name.  He eventually got mad and hung up on me.

After my break was over, I walked into the shipping office and handed him his phone and started repeating our conversation.  He proceeded to tell me that he called the cops and reported a prank call.  We argued, he kept to his story, I told him he was full of shit.  As I was walking back to my line, my phone rang.  It was a local number and I figured it was my foreman and he was going to act like a cop so I just sent it to my voicemail.  When I got upstairs, I sent Cheri a text message, gave her my foreman’s phone number and told her to copy and paste it to him.  He wouldn’t have her number in his phone.

I thought it was pretty funny but he never responded and I didn’t see him for a few hours until I was leaving.  I asked him if he got it, he said yes and asked if I got his phone call.  Apparently he had a friend call me to pretend to be the cops so I wouldn’t recognize the number.  We both think alike.

Tonight (Thursday) is Samantha’s birthday party at the local roller rink.  She’s been asking for one for years but we never had the money.  I don’t this year either but my mom offered to help pay for it so she’s finally getting it.  I’m debating on whether or not to skate because of my back.  I’ll be ok as long as I don’t crash which I don’t do often but it happens on occasion.  Last time we went was 2008.  I have some videos on my YouTube channel if you want to check those out.  There’s nothing special on my channel, mainly family stuff, which is why I don’t advertise it.

Cheri had Samantha help her with the cupcakes and cake.  It was a bonding experience that I know Samantha loved and I loved seeing it.  Their relationship has grown by leaps and bounds in the last 6 months or so.  The kids are much more comfortable around her.  I’ve always let it just grow rather than force it.  I’ve never told them to hug or kiss her (they do everybody else when leaving) and I’ve never told them to tell her goodnight.  They do both on occasion, not all the time, but more and more.  I know theEx has told them to kiss and hug the JackAss and Samantha says she doesn’t like it at all.  She actually complains about him a lot to us now but I don’t know if she’s just doing that because she knows we don’t like him or if she actually doesn’t like him.  I don’t think she does, but what do I know.

Track – No Se Tu

Artist – Luis Miguel

Holy crap!  It’s been over 4 months since I did one of these.  I have a bunch saved and I’ve been forgetting to throw some up here so I started where I left off.  If you know this song, congrats, and you probably speak Spanish.  This song is completely in Spanish, and no, I don’t speak it.  This song was in the movie “Speechless” a number of times.  It played along with the video and it’s supposed to be a love song.  I had a friend translate for me way back when I first heard it and I remember liking it.  I don’t remember what exactly it’s about now, but I still like it.

Music Monday’s #4

Welcome to the next edition of Music Mondays.  It’s pretty basic, I take a playlist and put it on random, and post what comes up.

• Playlist – “Anything & Everything”
• Description – Anything from Christian to Rock, Rap to Country, Classical to 80’s.  It goes from the 1960’s to current.  Pretty much anything and everything that I like.
• Number of songs on the playlist – 1,324 songs

 

1. Final Days (DC Talk)
2. Walk (Foo Fighters)
3. Shine (Collective Soul)
4. Somebody’s Gotta Feel This (Kid Rock)
5. Hero (Mariah Carey)
6. Thunder Beach (Crumbacher)
7. The First Cut is the Deepest (Sheryl Crow)
8. Wasting My Time (Default)
9. In My Life (Allies)
10. Ice Cream Man (Van Halen)
11. Hey Jimmie (Geoff Moore & the Foundations)
12. I Don’t Want to Lose You (REO Speedwagon)
13. Open Arms (Journey)
14. Sparks Fly (Taylor Swift)
15. Breath (Breaking Benjamin)
16. You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet (Bachman-Turner Overdrive)
17. Rocky Mountain Way (Joe Walsh)
18. You Are My Sunshine (Norman Blake)
19. Babe (Styx)
20. Destined to Win (ETW)

If you notice the number a songs, it went up approximately 50 songs because I’ve added some more.  In that addition, the majority of those were some more christian music that I listened to growing up.  I also ran across the “O Brother, Where Art Thou” soundtrack and added 10 songs from it, I loved that movie.  That also explains the song above at number 18.  I even added a few songs from the 1970’s that I happened to see.  I really should stop playing around on Spotify, my playlist is huge.

Stacking the Shelves #4

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual.

This is another weekly meme about books, I’m probably boring you all but it’s my blog and I can book if I want too.  These are what I purchased this week.

 

Slow Boat to Purgatory (Book #1) by Vernon Baker

A Knights Templar book, ancient secrets, battle of heaven and hell.  I’m interested.

Purchase Price – Free

Kindle Edition

 

 

 

Angel of the City by RJ Leahy

Another post apocalyptic thriller, I’m not sure why I can’t get enough of these kinds of books.

Purchase Price – Free

Kindle Edition

 

 

Timecaster Supersymmetry (Timecaster #2) by JA Konrath

A book that takes place in the future in a perfect society.  I didn’t realize it was book 2 when I purchased it.  I don’t like reading a second book if I haven’t read the first.

Purchase Price – Free

Kindle Edition

 

 

 

Viral House:  A novel by Joe Sharp

A legendary haunted house in the neighborhood and her brother suddenly disappears.  The house has secrets and one of those could be about her brother.

Purchase Price – Free

Kindle Edition

 

 

 

the Hand of God by Tony Acree

One brother sells his soul to the devil.  Now will the other brother have to sell his to save his brother.

Purchase Price – Free

Kindle Edition

 

 

 

 

Ever Fall by Joe Hart

During a storm, his family turns up missing.  During the search, he somehow ends up on an alternate earth full of horrors.

Purchase Price – Free

Kindle Edition

Working in the heat

It’s been a little toasty around here which of course means it must be my 5 day work week.  It’s been in the 90’s with humidity driving up the temps over 100°.  Which at work means way hotter than that.  I took the screenshot to the left on Tuesday, that doesn’t include the humidity.  Sometimes the screenshot to the right happens as well.

They do provide us with ice and Gatorade but we have to make it.  We wouldn’t want management to actually do something for us.  Needless to say I drink a crap load of it in one day.  Our line leader even makes a cooler of it for us up on the line but she makes it so strong.  On Monday, I filled up my water container 3/4 full of water then topped it off with her Gatorade and it was perfect.  That’s how strong she makes it.  I’d say my water bottle contains close to 32 ounces, I fill it up with water the night before work and put it in the fridge.  I drink that up to my first break, then fill it up with ice and Gatorade and do that through my next 3 breaks.  So you can see I stay well hydrated which is the key.  I’ve gotten used to the heat and all the sweat but even so, I have to stay hydrated otherwise I’ll get sick.  Hasn’t happened yet, but it’s possible.

The nice thing about dealing with the heat at work, is it makes it much easier to deal with the heat outside work.  Even though the realfeel has been around 100, it hasn’t felt that hot to me.

All-Star post #2

Samantha’s team won the next 2 All-Star games and are heading to the semi-final tonight (Thursday).  She hasn’t faired much better with her bat, not exactly a great time to go into a slump.  She has played well in the field, no errors that I can think of.  The second game she at least got on base 3 times with a hit by pitch and 2 walks before grounding out in her last at bat.  They won that game 18-1 after scoring 11 runs in the first inning.  In Wednesday’s game she didn’t start but made it in for 2 more at bats, both strike outs.  She made a few good plays at 1st base though and they won that one 8-3 (I think).  They play one of the better teams tonight so we’ll see how that goes and if Samantha can break her slump.

I’ve been keeping the book the last couple of games, the coach that kept it the first game had no clue what she was doing.  She’s pretty much a worthless coach anyways, she just sits there, the only time you hear from her is when she’s either yelling or cheering for her own daughter.  There is a guy in the stands that was supposed to take her place after an issue in practice and he would have been so much better for it, actually helped the girls.  But they let her come back and I doubt this coach will let her coach with him again.  She’s pretty much useless.

WWW Wednesdays #21

To play along, I’m supposed to answer 3 easy questions.

What are you currently reading?

Predation by SJ Parkinson

This has been good so far but I’m not very far in it.  It has a war quality as well as a Star Trek quality since it takes place in another galaxy.

What did you recently finish reading?

The Ultimate Game (Echo’s Revenge #1) by Sean Austin

This wasn’t to bad, definitely different.  A video game comes to life and starts kidnapping it’s best players and uses them as slaves to make itself stronger to potentially take over the world.  The book follows 2 brothers, 1 being one of the best players when they happen to run away from home at the same time that the game is coming after them so it has to track them.  Once caught, they are taken to a cavern where they basically become slave labor to it.  Can they escape before they go crazy?  Read it and find out.

The Guardian of Threshold (Threshold #1) by A.A. Volts

I liked this book and look forward to the next 2.  Mark learns how to have out of body experiences in order to see his mother again but gets a lot more than he bargains for.  2 siblings who are his best friend try it out as well only to become trapped in the Threshold and being stalked by a demon.  Along the way, they make some new friends and find out about the new world.  It all leads up to the ending when everything comes together.   Like I said, I look forward to the next 2 books and have already put them on my wishlist on Amazon.

What do you think you’ll read next?

Zomblog (Zomblog #1) by TW Brown

A regular guy’s journal becomes a firsthand log of the rising of the dead.  I have this and the second book downloaded and I believe there are 2 others.

If you want to join on WWW Wednesdays, click the logo on top or go to http://shouldbereading.wordpress.com/ and leave a comment.

All-Star game #1

Samantha had her first All-Star game today.  It was a sweltering real feel temperature of 93°.  The team didn’t fair to well, which sucked because the coach of the other team was an ass so I really didn’t want them to win.  They lost 12-8 after jumping out to an early lead in the first inning.  They had Samantha batting 5th which she didn’t too well.  You could tell she was nervous just by looking at her.  She struck out her first 2 at bats and then hit into a fielders choice her last at bat.  Which goes for an 0-3.  Her  2 strikeouts, she had swung at high pitches and what made her good during the season is she didn’t chase balls out of the strike zone.  She ended up coming out of the game after hurting herself sliding into 2nd.  Not sure if it actually hurt or she was looking for an excuse on her sucking.

I sat and talked to her tonight about her being nervous.  Part of the problem is her step-father (the JackAss) is always saying stupid crap to her while she’s batting,  She also mentioned that there were a lot of people and that made her nervous.  I told her about learning to block out the stands, you listen to your coaches and the field and that is it.  Don’t listen to anyone in the stands.  That if she was going to play sports in school, there were going to be a lot more people watching her so she need to get used to it.  I also told her that I was so proud that she made the All-Stars, whether she strikes out or hits that I was proud of her.  I told her that she needed to just relax and hit the ball, that she made the All-Stars because she could hit, to go up there, relax and pick out her pitch and drive it.  So hopefully she’ll be a little more relaxed at the plate on Monday.

As far as the team goes, they just didn’t play as a team well.  A lot of little mistakes that add up to more.  They didn’t play horrible, but not great either.  They play again tonight (Monday) and Tuesday night.  Depending on their record in those 3 games will determine whether they move on to play Thursday and/or Saturday.

Swimming and Worrying

I missed all my weekly posts this week, no Music Mondays, no WWW Wednesdays, not even a Flashback Fridays or Stacking the Shelves.  I’m a slacker I know.  I did do a post about joining Pinterest a few days ago, hoping to get a few followers.  It netted me exactly 0 so thanks for that.  The sad part is this is my 2 day work week so I’ve been home more than not.  Although Samantha has had All-Star practices all week to prepare for her games starting tomorrow (today/Sunday) and I usually sit and watch them so I’ve been busy in the evenings.  Friday I took the kids swimming at my grandfather’s sister-in-laws house and accomplished this.

If Trevor doesn’t want to do something, he won’t.  He will be 9 in August and I finally got  him to swim across the deep end.  I begged, pleaded, threatened, told him kids were going to make fun of him, none of it worked.  The sad thing is he can swim, he just doesn’t want to.  I’m hoping filming it and having him do it a few times gave him the confidence to go to town but it didn’t, he went back to playing in the shallow end.  He’s the same way with riding a bike, he just doesn’t care if he learns.  I have to force him into doing it.

Samantha on the other hand, I can treat her differently.  This is how I taught her how to swim.  I knew if I did that to Trevor, he’d drown.  He wouldn’t have even tried to swim, just sink.  It’s amazing the differences between my kids.  It also scares me that Trevor is so like I was when I was his age (although I could swim and ride a bike way before 9) and his laid back attitude just drives me nuts. (Shut up mom).  He’s content by himself, doesn’t need anybody to play with.  You ask him a question that he doesn’t want to answer, he just stares at you.  I worry about kids picking on him in school but it hasn’t been an issue yet, or at least not that I know of.  He scares me because he’s not really like other boys his age.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t care that he’s different, I just don’t want his life to be harder than it needs to be because of it.  I was picked on in school and I don’t want anything like that to happen to either of my kids.

Maybe I’m worrying too much, but it’s my job as a parent to worry.

Pinterest

I did it, I took the plunge.  I joined Pinterest about a week ago.  It’s a little better than I thought it would be.  My wife uses it to store recipes which I never thought about using it as storage.  It’s kind of what I used my Tumblr for only there I can use multiple pictures in one post.  In Tumblr I can use tags, but on Pinterest, I can use boards.  Plus on Pinterest, I combined my sports tumblr and my personal tumblr into one.  You can click on the Pinterest logo to go to my profile page there or click on one of the boards below.  The boards are alphabetical.

I mainly post book covers of stuff I’ve read or purchased to read but I do have a few other things book related on it.  Such as the cover photo above.

These are the hotties of the big and little screen and even sports celebs.  Don’t worry, no nudes, I would never look for nude pictures on the internet.  Never.

I post humorous stuff here, a lot of it is the same stuff I post on my Random Thoughts facebook page, but not everything.

One of my big 3 sports teams that I follow.  Albeit it the least of the 3.

Can’t have a social media site that has pictures without pictures of my kids can I?

It’s sad to say but this board has my 2nd highest amount of pins (1st is humor).  I take enough pictures of her (usually to make my wife jealous) that I figured I might as well have a board of her.

My 2nd favorite sports team, although technically I follow multiple sports from Michigan so I don’t know if you can call it a sports team.  It may be my 2nd favorite but it’s very close to my 1st favorite.

I titled it Star ? because I post Star Trek and Star Wars stuff to it.  They are both awesome, but I am a Trekkie first.

I haven’t added too much to this board yet, but I’m sure I will.

I combined TV, Movies and Music into one category.  It’ll mostly be Movies and TV but I have added a few music album covers that I loved growing up.

This board is mostly vintage baseball with a few basketball.  It won’t have much football just because I didn’t really watch football growing up.

Of course, my number 1 sports team board.  Even though they suck (except against the Tigers apparently) lately, I still like them.  It’s a curse.

So far I have 210 pins.  (Humor (31), Kitty (29), White Sox (28), TV Movies & Music (23), Vintage Sports (20), Star ? (19), Michigan (17), Female Celebrities (14), Kids (12), Books (11), Indianapolis Colts (4) and Superheroes (2)

Pinterest is easier than Tumblr because I go through Feedly for most everything that I read and all you have to do is click the little P on the top left of any picture, and it goes right to Pinterest.  A lot easier than reblogging something on Tumblr.  I did go through my Instagram account, that’s where all the kitty and kids pics came from.

So there you go, you now know my shame.  I joined Pinterest.  I doubt I can compete with my wife on this social media site so come join me there, follow a board, or better yet, me.