Category: Time

Direction Feel GOOD! Time

Farewell, Facebook; Tara, Twitter!

By Tom Merriman on

What seems like absolute eons ago now, I deactivated my Facebook account, in case I ever wanted to return but with the intention of never returning to the …erm, be nice. That was back in 2011, and I wrote about it here.

I’ve never looked back.

Never missed it, and never gave it a thought apart from reading and hearing about all of the shenanigans that they and their associates have been getting up to.

I was at a loose end (I know… me! Can you believe it!?) so I did one of the most stupid things anyone can ever do when at a loose end. I Googled myself. Imagine my horror when I saw an early photo of me staring back at me, full name in lights from my ‘inactive’ Facebook account.

Right! I thought, and set about trying to log into my account, using the details that I thought I could remember, but obviously couldn’t. My associated email addresses had been deleted years ago, so I had no way of getting a new password sent to me.

No problem, said Facebook. Just keep trying to log in.

Sigh.

I remembered I had an old computer still set up in another room, so off I went, switched it on (and the beautiful thing powered up first time – not connected to the internet, but I didn’t need that!). I opened the internet browser, which screamed at me saying “NO INTERNET CONNECTION!”  (which I already knew about!) but I went to the saved passwords section. All of my old usernames and passwords were there, for which I am eternally grateful for not throwing the old computer away in the first place! Being a hoarder comes in handy at times!

I trotted back to my current computer, and entered the details. I had remembered them correctly, I’d just had the bloomin’ caps lock on, as you always seem to do in times of desperate need.

I logged into my Facebook account, and reminisced for a few seconds when I saw all of the folk who I used to be ‘friends’ with. Reminiscing over, I promptly ‘unfriended’ everyone, and then downloaded a nifty package which, according to Facebook, held all of the information they had on me. Not that I don’t trust them, but I don’t trust them. That file is now waiting to be read.

My next job was to delete my account completely. Could I find the ‘delete my account’ option? Not at first.

I found an area where I could have my account deleted if someone else informed them that I’d popped my clogs after I’d popped my clogs, but I didn’t want that. I wanted my account gone now. Eventually, I found the option, buried in the ‘deactivate my account’ section, with messages such as ‘if you go, you can never come back’ kind of thing. If I wanted to go back, I’d just set up a new account, not that I will, so it didn’t matter anyway.

I now have to wait 14 days for the account to be deleted from the site, and if I want to stop the deactivation I merely need to log back onto my account to request it. I haven’t been there for seven years, so I can’t see me doing that within the next 14 days.

I Googled myself once more and that image of me has miraculously disappeared. How unusual for it to be so quick. Who’d have thunk?

I also stopped using Twitter around the same time in 2011, so decided to delete that account as well. I only had celebrities following me there, and was quite surprised to see how many were still following me, considering I hadn’t sent a tweet since what seems like the mid 1970s. I also had a share option for my posts on this blog for Twitter, but I’ve removed that… I don’t think it was used by anyone anyway.

So, blogging is now my only form of social media interaction. I don’t class blogging as social media, so it doesn’t have any of the negative connotations that come with that umbrella heading.

I shall end this post with a screenshot of the message I got from Twitter, after years of no use:

I’m not sure whether that’s nice or not, but never mind. I’ve moved on.

 

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Feel GOOD! Time

The Good Old Days

By Tom Merriman on

These Wednesday posts remind me of how it was when I first started blogging, back in the hazy sepia days of 2010. What should I write about today? was always the first question on my mind. Swiftly followed by numerous rewrites of a post that I hoped someone – anyone – just one – would read. I don’t worry about that now, however. Oh, I still worry about what to post, but nowadays I just go with the flow and have done with it.

I’m so comfortable with blogging nowadays I don’t worry too much. If a post works, great! If not, well, there’s always next time. For that not to work either. No… I jest! Some do work. They really do.

For me, now, blogging is less of an experiment, as it was when I first started back at the dawn of time, and more of a little test for my imagination. Where can I stretch it to this week? How far can I go with this train of thought? What can I do with that unsuspecting word?

I like how this place had evolved, and the fine folk who have joined me along the journey.

One thing that has stayed with me, during the millennia that this blog has been in existence, is my intention that it be a Feel Good place. Perhaps random at times, peculiar at others, and just what the? most of with the odd post or two, I hope that the Feel Good vibe seeps through (however subconsciously – and maybe unconsciously!). I imbue each post with the vibe, regardless of how it turns out in the end.

I saw one of those TV adverts earlier, where the woman is talking at the camera (I presume she’s meant to be talking to me, but I get the feeling that she’s looking at my left ear so I have to say she’s talking at the camera) and gushing about how great her laptop has been in helping to create her marvellous blog, which she created by writing about all the things that made her unique. She says she writes about fashion or walking around town with a bunch of balloons. And I think I’m random… I must be, for I use a desktop PC for my posts. Which has been a great help in creating my marvellous blog.

This month sees me starting my ninth year of blogging. Nine years of randomness. Nine years ago, I nervously hit ‘submit’ for the first time. Since then, I’ve flown. I literally really have! Words have flown out of me like nobody’s business. Yes, sometimes they fell just at the point after leaving my finger and before hitting the keyboard, but the words were there to begin with. Hidden, masked, but there. And not only words. Pictures… paintings… photography and (a few, not many) posts about nothing.

Creativity.

That’s what blogging is to me. Feel Good creativity. Good, old-fashioned creativity. Creativity in whatever form comes to the surface at the time.

Like walking around town with a bunch of balloons*.

  • Yes, I know I published a line drawing yesterday, but that was of the town I was walking around in. Today’s line drawing is a self-caricature of moi, doing the walking with the balloons. Notice the trendy sweater? Height of fashion, me. And notice the hair? Yes, I’ve had it cut. ‘Tis gone.

For another year.

Onwards and upwards!

 

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Feel GOOD! Time

Olde Worlde Street Scene

By Tom Merriman on

I gave myself forty-five minutes to try and recreate an old fashioned photo, just using ink. No pencil sketching beforehand; just a case of start and then continue until the time is up. I ran out of time, needless to say, but I managed to get one side of the street in (although the rooftop gargoyles could have done with a little more work).

The people (yes, those funny looking blobs all over the place are people!) and the car (yes, that funny looking blob under the lamppost is a car!) were quickly added in the last ten seconds… and there were more people in the photo that I didn’t have time to include. The photo was taken in 1908, but I don’t think my sketch conveys that at all.

Still, forty-five minutes of doodling is a good way of creating than any other, I suppose! And a hundred and ten years in forty-five minutes is quite an achievement, I must say.

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