And after all that, I’m back. I’m sure assuming I was missed by a great deal of people is a delusion of grandeur, especially when this week has been my most blogiest in forever.

I spoke about why I took time off, but I never spoke about why I participate in these social networks in the first place. Social Networking as become so ingrained in our society at this point that most people don’t even feel they need to explain why someone else should be on Facebook. You just do it. Don’t listen to Christina Hendricks, just do it. Whatever reason other people do it, here are my reasons.

I enjoy my friends. It sounds pretty obvious, but this is my main motivator. One of the first things I had to overcome when I went on hiatus was the nearly involuntary clicking of the Facebook link in my toolbar. Even without that, typing in “fac” into Firefox’s Awesome Bar is a quick way to get there. This muscle memory action is directly tied to my mind (my heart? awwwww) when I think about my friends. Juan had mentioned in his post that we all crave attention, which is no doubt completely true about me, but I think I would still use Facebook even if I wasn’t able to share my thoughts with the world my friends through it. I read through my Facebook news feed not just to see what my friends are up to, but to do as much socializing as I can given the little free time I have. Even if I couldn’t respond with comments, or give ‘thumbs up’ or otherwise feedback to my friends, I’d still go just to be able to see what’s going on in their lives. These are people I care about, and seeing them grow and change is an important part of my life. (Sappy.) Seeing them doing things together, even if it doesn’t include me, is enjoyable, just cause, well, despite how cheesy it sounds, I just like my friends being happy. And even if I can’t be there as they do whatever it is that they’re doing, them being able to share that information with me is a way that we can have a shared experience despite my absence.

One thing I really didn’t like about the hiatus was not being able to share things with my friends. While sharing things on the internet isn’t a new thing, the proliferation of Facebook has made it incredibly easy to do, to a lot of people. Heck, the origins of blogs was the weblog, which was nothing but a link of the cool things you found on the internet. It was literally a log of what you found on the then wild west internet. Now-a-days most of the most popular sites on the net are just better, cleaner, more widespread versions of just that. So I’ve had my blog for almost 10 years (OhMyGoshThatIsRidculous), and had plenty of chances to share stuff with anyone who reads it, but not until Facebook came around did I really feel like linking something was really getting it out there. People use Facebook, which is why the notes on Facebook of this blog have (hopefully?) gotten more comments than the actual blog posts themselves. Bringing my links to Facebook is more likely to find viewers than expecting them to come to me. But I really do enjoy finding a good video, or a comic, or something else, and knowing that some of my friends will see it and enjoy it themselves.

I guess none of this is quite revolutionary. Perhaps this post was kind of a waste. Maybe I should talk less and go waste some time on Facebook.

See you at internet.

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Yesterday Juan Baez III (He makes us call him that…we have to pronounce it “eye eye eye.”) did a guest post about my current Facebook / social networking diet.

I had feared that my posts talking about this issue weren’t very clear (Who would have thought my incessant rambling would not be easily understood?) as to exactly why I was doing it. So, here goes attempt number four.

I originally touched on how Facebook consists of a lot of posturing. A good bit of preening happens before you post something on Facebook. Sometimes it’s as simple as only uploading the pictures of you that make you look good. Other times it’s spending a couple minutes figuring out the best way to say something in a short, concise manor so you look more smarter. As I said before, this creates an idealized image. And heck, anyone who doesn’t do this and whines about being unhappy all the time, those people are ‘hidden’ from view, furthering the pristine aesthetic. So that’s Facebook.

Another portion of the net I’ve stepped away from is my RSS feeds. This is something that I myself have preened to perfection. I’ve found all the sites I like, and I’ve assembled them together in Google Reader to make some sort of Tony Entertainment Nexus. A portion of this is idealized visions of other people (their blogs). Other portions are made up of funny videos, good music, pretty pictures. What it ends up creating is this world view perfectly tailored to my ideal life. It’s all good, and no bad. If any bad gets through, I skip past it, or I’ll eventually remove that RSS feed.

So here’s the basis of my problem: A very large portion of the “good” in my life, is coming from a glowing screen I sit at all day. When I’m NOT looking at this constant flow of good stuff, I’m in my car, or on the bus, or at home raising my kids. Much of that time I can’t do anything to create my own good stuff. Now don’t get me wrong, I love my family, but right now we’re in a tough spot of having a newborn and a temperamental 3 year old. That means a lot of my time at home is spent managing Noah, and once he’s in bed, Teresa and I are so tired we can barely manage to do more than fall asleep on the couch watching TV. So externally, the world is great, my friends are having fun, creative people are being wonderfully creative, and life is good. Internally, I have the stress of a job and life, a self loathing at my own failure to be creative, and a sense that I have no free time to do anything I want to do. THIS is the essence of my problem. Right now I feel like I don’t have control over making my own happiness, and while it may not be true, the Tony Entertainment Nexus is telling me that everyone else has a great handle on theirs.

All that aside, here’s the truth of this situation. I do have control over my own happiness. While it may be difficult sometimes, it’s my job to remind myself that, despite their Facebook pages, other people don’t have perfect lives either. I have no plans to permanently disconnect myself from the social web, and it’s not going to change itself to my liking, so it’s on me to figure out how to deal with this external/internal dilemma. But if learning to deal with that includes cutting myself off for a while, or maybe every once in a while, then so be it. When I “come back” on Thursday, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to dive back right back in and go back to where I was. Perhaps I’ll try to trim down that enormous RSS list (which will be very long after not looking at it for a week). Maybe I’ll limit my Facebook use to certain times. Who knows. All in all, I’m glad I’ve done this so far, if for no other reason than to prove to myself that I can. I never claimed to be addicted to Facebook, but anybody can say “I’m not addicted. I’ll stop right after this.”

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This morning, on the train, I a guy sat down across from me. I looked up at his face, and instantly saw the Facebook page, and thought “Holy crap, Ben Kingsley’s body double is on MARTA.”

So I guess I haven’t washed the thought externalization out of my head completely yet.

Then again, it has quieted down up there a bit. In a good way. Not in the “man there’s a lot of fumes at this gas station” way.

It’s funny, this week has also probably been the most social I’ve had in a while. On Saturday Tree and the boys and I (still testing out how to say that kinda stuff) went to Grant Park for some art fair thing, and we met up with a former band mate of mine, Andrew Asher (of JATO fame) while he visiting from Tampa. Although if it weren’t for Teresa reading Andrew’s post on my Facebook wall, we wouldn’t have known he was in town. So it’s good to know I have a curator while I’m away.

Then last night I went to Kennesaw to practice with UVM for an upcoming show that I’m subbing in bass guitar for. Twas nice to see my friends again. Moreover, it was great to play live music with people again. It was awesome. I don’t know if any of the other guys picked up on it, but I was trying to hide a giddy smile the whole time. There’s nothing that beats the energy of individuals coming together to make a synchronous racket together. I could gush about it for 3 more paragraphs, but I’ll spare you.

I also found another way to avoid looking at my phone every 30 seconds. Just leave it at home. That’s VERY effective.

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It’s so surreal to hear someone in the bathroom, look around the corner, and see your three year old son washing his hands all by himself.

It’s not really the physicality of it that astounds me, I mean, the kid can ride a bike better than Lance Armstrong, so it’s not that crazy to think he can rub his hands together under water. It’s more that he knows to do it. Sure, we’ve told him a thousand times to wash his hands after going to the bathroom, but I’ve told him a thousand things a thousand times and he still barely listens to me…not sure why that one stuck.

So today is day 3 in the technology lite lifestyle. Wednesday night I pulled my sim card out of my G1 and put it in some crappy Nokia phone we’ve had around the house for years. I deleted the link to facebook in my browser, and I used Leech Block to block twitter, facebook and Google Reader.

The most noticeable effect was being late to work both Thursday and Friday. Turns out that taking the battery out of the phone that also acted as my alarm clock was not a smart move. So I’ve reinstated the G1. I got rid of the social networking apps on it, and use it only as a phone, calendar, and alarm clock.

Second most noticeable effect is sheer boredom in the bathroom. I won’t go into details there.

I read an article this morning in Relevant Magazine about how Facebook is turning us all into narcissists. I was pretty disappointed with it, as the whole narcissism claim has been around since blogs started getting popular. It talked a good bit about how we preen our images, and go back over our profiles to make sure the image we’re projecting is the one we want projected. The author claimed enough of this and you start believing your own lie. This isn’t my issue at all. Yes, I’ve preened my image, but I’ve never deluded myself into thinking that’s the real me. My issue is that I buy into other peoples’ dolled up lives. When I surround myself constantly with the updates and insights of the perfectly preened people, my own flaws and short comings stick out in my mind more. Even a friend of mine who lost his job and had to move out to the middle of nowhere to live with his mom…I envy his chance at a new beginning, his free time. Yeah, see? It’s bad.

The other reason I’m doing this, as mentioned before, was to try and get rid of this constant inner dialogue where I talk to all of you all the time in my head. If I’m not actively posting a status, I’m thinking of what it could be. I’m even thinking of little fake ones, or what I could say if I was in a situation, one that I’m not in at the time. One sentence from the aforementioned article really stuck out. “It’s a constant reminder to externalize our thoughts.”

Ever since I was a kid I would have this thought process, pretty similar to an interview. As I was doing something, I’d imagine being interviewed by someone about it. “So, what were you trying to say with this?” “Well, I feel that…” blah blah blah. It wasn’t so much a sense that I was important enough to be interviewed, more of a desire to be understood, and I guess the interview format was a good way to explain myself. I used to think it was completely crazy, but a person that I look up to once said he did the exact same thing in his head, so I feel mildly validated.

So coming from the self-interview format, and suddenly being given a tiny text form that says “What’s on your mind?” that I knew would be instantly beamed to 80 or so people, well, that’s a pretty hard thing to avoid. I know what you’re thinking. Am I not doing this right now by writing this post? No. I’m not. You know why? Cause with Facebook I knew it would go straight to those 80 or so people, at least those that have not hidden me. With tonybullard.com, Google Analytics has clued me into the fact that it’s only 30 or so people a month, and 25 or so of those people are just looking for The Metal Vocal Tutorial.

Overall, I must say I’m surprised at how little effect the whole process is having. Let me rephrase that: This process has been a lot less grief stricken than I thought it would be. Granted, I do feel the “externalizing thoughts” portion of my brain calming down, but I DON’T feel like I’m missing out on a whole lot. I still have the same desire to hang out and spend time with my friends. The light interaction provided by Facebook never was able to satiate that. But if I think about it, I do feel content to just be at home with my family this weekend. I don’t feel the overwhelming desire to compete with everyone else on Facebook with fun weekend pictures or something.

That being said, enough of this blogging crap. Time to get outside with my family.

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I’m contemplating something that, just in the fact that I deem it worth contemplating, kinda makes me a douche.

I’m shooting from the hip here, kind of a stream of consciousness thing, so forgive me if this gets out of hand. (This implies other posts have some form of organization or plan, which is an outright lie.)

Anyone close to me could tell you that I tend to be discontent. Teresa laments over my desire for “things” all the time. This is partially because I dream out loud, without filter, so I’ll often come out of the blue with “I’ve been thinking about getting [ ].” Even if it’s obviously out of our financial reach. Even if I have no real intention of getting it. I find myself often thinking of things I want. Now, it’s said that those who are thankful for what they have, will not want what they don’t. It’s probably said more eloquently than that. Overall though, I think I’m pretty aware of that I live a pretty nice life. I have all my needs covered easily, and I even manage to balance a few expensive hobbies at the same time. So I don’t quite feel like I take for granted what I have, and thusly want more. But I may be forming a theory.

My mind is always thinking about speaking to you. Yes, you. The internet viewer. Whether it be tonybullard.com, or through status posts on Facebook, I’m constantly thinking about how I can talk to you. When I do things, I think about how I want to tell you about them. When I see things, I want to comment to you about them in some clever way. It’s not twitter narcissism, where I think you WANT to read about what I think about some guy on the train, it’s more like a screaming desire to socialize with people. Crap. I’ve talked about this before. Well, that time I didn’t go so deep into my psychosis of performing for you through text alerts.

I’ve become a little bothered by how much of my mental time is spent putting on a show for people I don’t ever see. So I’ve started to think about going dark for a little while. Yes, that’s right, I’ve done the most pathetic thing in the world, announcing my plans to ‘leave the internet.’

I spend almost my entire day on the internet. I wake up, sometimes check facebook before I shower, then get on the bus, where I listen to podcasts, check facebook and twitter. Then I get in to work and between tasks I’ll check RSS feeds and facebook, again. When I go to the bathroom, part of my routine is pulling out my phone, turning on my wifi and refreshing twitter, so I can read while I…um…sit.

It’s pretty easy to see it’s too much. I spend my whole day seeing other peoples’ idealized presentation of themselves (Is it just me or does it seem like everyone goes on awesome vacations?) and news of new things, and everyone’s link to cool things, etc. Perhaps I’ve been too good at designing all the input in my life. I’ve trimmed it down to all this great stuff, and it’s giving my own life a malaise in comparison.

So, to the point. The thing I’m contemplating. The sentence that will make most of you go, “yeah, so what. Get over yourself.” My plan is to swap out my smart phone with some old candy bar phone around the house, block Facebook in my browser, and generally avoid online interaction for a week. There it is.

I guess I’ll have to start reading books finally.

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“I’m having pretty strong contractions baby.”  That’s what she says to me at 7:15 am. 

“It’s not August 5th yet.  That’s against the rules.”

That’s how the morning started.  I’ll fill in details later, as typing on my phone is annoying.

So, Desmond Gregory Bullard was born at 10:05 this morning, after 3 hours of all-natural labor.  6lbs 6oz. 20 inches long.

There you go.

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Looks like little Desmond is doing just fine.  All this commotion was simply a perfect storm of circumstances that brought up a lot of questions, which couldn’t be answered until today.

So, Bullard Baby Watch 2010 is officially downgraded from magenta to puce.  You can all sleep sound tonight.

Note: This was supposed to have gone up at around 2pm yesterday, right after the tests, but it would appear my phone failed to upload it successfully. 

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I walk into the bathroom, and I sit down to, you know…do my thing. As I’m intermittently relaxing I notice something out of place. Right next to the toilet paper dispenser is a small metal trash can, bolted to the wall. My years of time working in restaurants has taught me that this is a special receptacle for …ahem… feminine napkins.

My mind begins to race. I begin to play back in my head my entering the bathroom. No, I didn’t pass anyone. No, I can’t confirm that I saw a picture of a human without a triangular bulge at its waist. No, I don’t recall seeing a urinal. Oh crap… things were clean.

But I quickly calm myself down. This is a decent restaurant, they probably just keep up on the custodial duties. And the little trash can, well…they remodeled this place a year or so ago…they probably just switched the bathrooms and chose to leave the can on the wall rather than pull it down. Yeah, that’s it.

Then, of course, the door opens.

I listen for footsteps, seeing if they can lend a hand in identifying the gender of this room’s standard occupants. They’re soft. Tennis shoes. All women wear heels, so now I know I’m safe. I continue to listen, just in case, and hear the reassuring sound of one liquid splashing into a bowl of another liquid, as is from a height of a foot or so. So, obviously, this is a man standing at a toilet, peeing. I didn’t hear the toilet seat being put up, so now I know it’s a man. Then, as if God wanted to say to me “Rest easy my precious one” the person lets one rip. The reverberant flatulence settles in my ears like a snuggie of “You’re in the clear.”

Now confident, I finish up, flush, walk out of the stall and go to the sink to wash my hands. (So now that guy probably thinks he’s in the ladies room.) I dry off my hands, and walk out. Just so I can say to myself “See, you’re so silly Tony.” I look back to confirm I was in the men’s room. But before I can even turn around, I notice a door opposite me, with a small sign next to it that reads “Men.”

So that’s my story on how I got away with pooping in the ladies room.

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Short version: uneventful.

Long Version: Went to work this morning. This, in and of itself, is an unexpected success.

After I posted yesterday I went off to play card games with some friends. By “card games” I don’t mean Hearts or Spades. I mean, Yetisburg. A fighting card game based on the civil war. With Yetis. There was a steep learning curve and we just barely finished one game when more people showed up and we decided to eat and watch MST3K. Then I went home.

Once home I straightened up the house a little more and sat to watch The Strangers. I got about 15 minutes in, and decided watching scary movies late at night was not a good idea. Not that I’d get too scared, but more that I’d fall asleep, and no one wants to wake up to people in creepy hoods murdering people. That’s no fun at all.

And now back around to this morning. I tried something new today. I shaved using my face soap, rather than shave cream, and found it to be surprisingly nice. When you only shave once a week, it takes almost 7 times longer to perfect the art. Imagine if you will that I am a 17 year old boy just getting the hang of not bleeding out by the end of each shaving session. Also, the bald spot I accidentally shaved into my goatee has finally filled back in. That was an embarrassing three and a half months.

Anyway, work was work. I’ll appreciate the lack of privacy on the internet and leave it at that.

Got off work late and went back to Juan’s to once again battle the North with my powerful yetis. Finally getting the swing of things we played through a couple games with an even win/loss record. It’s always good to end that way, lest there be slap fights.

I retired early to head home and spray paint air vents, so I can finally cover the two gaping holes in the living room wall. My plan to use the rest of the can to coat a 4′ x 4′ piece of plywood was shortsighted to say the least.

And that leads us right back to hear. I sign off right as Lily Allen’s “Smile (Mark Ronson Version)” which makes me want to get up and clean like a montage in a girly 80′s movie. Slightly sped up goofy scrubbing/dance sequence to follow.

Good night and good luck.

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This morning Teresa and Noah left to go down to Florida to see our new nephew, Bennett Gray. These visits happen maybe twice a year, leaving me up here by myself. In the past it’s resulted in songs (oddly enough that was the same time last year…weird). This time that may or may not happen. But I can tell you what’s happened thus far today.

As soon as Teresa pulled out of the driveway I came back in the house and turned on Pandora to blare loud metal in the likeness of The Faceless. I then sat around for a few moments trying to figure out what to do with myself.

First thing’s first, I need food. It’s Sunday, which means there’s little to eat in the house. So I take off to Kroger and buy a bunch of food I shouldn’t eat. Teresa, I’m gonna put the parts you shouldn’t read in italics (she’s can’t think about food with that baby in her) Here it goes: I bought nacho makings, refried beans and chips and such. I bought Hamburger Helper Cheesy Enchilada with the intention of making it, and then eating it in burritos for the following several meals. I got oreos because I’m weak, but I justify it by considering that it will get me to drink more milk. I just realized that the ice cream I got is ALSO Oreo. This is gonna turn out great. Just to cap it all off, I got Hormel Chili and a bag of Fritos to make some sort of awful elementary lunchroom punishment food. I bought all this because I know that if Teresa was here I’d feel guilty about eating like a college kid. But with her gone I can eat anything without repercussions. (Only part of that statement is not false.)

Once I was all fueled up on left-over baked ziti I decided to do something active. I always complain about never getting to ride my bike recreationally, so I figured I should do that. Unfortunately it’s been raining, so the off-road trails were out of the question (See? I’ll always find something to complain about) so I decided to try a good long road ride. (Long in my book is 20 miles) I was sick of my area, so I looked up some routes in the Roswell area and decided to try the Roswell Mayor’s 20 Mile route. Put together a little cue sheet (yes, that’s my bike INDOORS. I can do anything when Tree’s gone.) and set out on the road. My only comment is that the Roswell Mayor must love to climb hills. Jerk.

After that I decided nothing would be better than to go to Smokejacks and eat fried pickles and their sliced pork sandwich. I drove about 5 miles out of my way only to find out they were closed for some weird religious holiday called “Super Bowl.” I guess it’s like a feast of the saints for Catholics or something. Dumb reason to be closed either way. I want my fried pickles.

So, dejected I went to find the next best thing, Taco Bell. Again, keeping the whole college kid theme going as far as nourishment goes. I downed two half pound burritos and a Mountain Dew. Then I hopped on a snow board and did a gnarly double pits to chesty.

Came back to the humble abode, blared some more technical death metal and did the dishes (BODACIOUS). Now as I type this I’m text messaging with my friend (like a cool college kid) figuring out what we’re going to do tonight. Looks like board games and dorkiness. I’M ALL IN. We even discussed settling a monetary debt by providing root beer. This night is gonna be perfect.

Week without the wife day one has thus far been a success. We’ll see how the rest pans out, and I’ll check in tomorrow to let you know if my heart has stopped.

SEACREST OUT.

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