Links
- Original
- Mexican
- Peruvian
- Brazilian
- Decaf (but why?)
- Ground
- K-cups
- Original Nespresso pods
- Instant
- Pre-made cold brew
- Shortcuts Library - HeyDingus - a collection of 36 hand-crafted shortcuts for macOS an iOS, some of which I use every single day. Jarrod also does freelance shortcuts if you need help.
- One a Month Club - If you are a blogger seeking support from your readers, don't reinvent the wheel. The One a Month Club is convenient and easy. I'm supporting six different bloggers with a monthly contribution, including Jarrod.
- 7 Things from HeyDingus - If you like link dumps as much as I do, be on the lookout for this weekly collection, many of which I have re-shared in my own links posts. Sometimes the collection is themed, sometimes it's not.
- Lists - HeyDingus - Some interesting writing on topics including an Apple Wish List, a Blogroll, a Podroll and Favorite Quotes. This page is a fun rabbit hole to fall down.
- The Romans were frequent bathers but they did it for social reasons rather than hygeine.
- The prevalence of the plague during the middle agescaused people to stop bathing for hundreds of yearsbecause they thought it opened up ones pores and let in disease.
- When bathing became popular in the US in the 1860s, baths were relegated to very quick dips in cold water
- In 2021 Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis made headlineswhen they admitted to being averse to soap and water and to only bathing their children when they were visibly dirty.
- The world's most expensive bathtubs are generally carved from a single piece of stone, with the record holder coming from a huge piece of petrified wood, valued at $1.9 million.
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇 - Aretha Franklin became the first woman elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987
- The Boston Red Sox got $125,000 for Babe Ruth in 1920, creating the 84-year Curse of the Bambino
- Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church for failing to recant his 95 Theses in 1496
- Apple Computer was incorporated on this day in 1977 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak
- On This Day - Today in History, Film, Music and Sport
- On This Day - What Happened Today In History Britannica
- On-This-Day.com - Daily history, famous birthdays and music history
- List of days of the year - Wikipedia
- This Day In Music
- Today in Sports History - On This Day
- Today's Famous Birthdays - On This Day
- What was the No.1 song on the day you were born? | This Day In Music
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇 - Generate alt text for images I post on social media
- Launch all five of the communication apps I use at work with a single click
- Restart my flaky VPN whenever it craps out
- Query ChatGPT (no app needed!)
- Save web pages to Obsidian
- Text my wife when I leave work
- The 25 Photos That Defined the Modern Age - The New York Times
- 2024 Winners Gallery – The Epson International Pano Awards
- 2024 Winning Photographers – IPPAWARDS iPhone Photography Awards
- List of photographs considered the most important - Wikipedia
- 50+ Must-See Moments In History
- Winners 2024 — WORLD NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS
- Upscale images for free Upscale by Sticker Mule
- Earth Day 2024 Witness our changing planet in 12 incredible satellite images Space
- Explore NASA's Best Photos of the Year
- James Lucas
- PSA 2024's Funniest Wildlife Photos Are Here. It's Comedy Break Time. ScienceAlert
- 2024 The Pictures of the Year
- 2024 The Pictures of the Year
- See the 2024 Wildlife Photographer of the Year winners NPR
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The Difference Between Journaling and Blogging
When I look back at my blog, it reveals more about my feelings than any journal I've ever kept. I can tell when I was feeling light-hearted or when politics have had me riled up. When I write about my (grown) kids it is usually a reflection of when I'm missing them. My dear sweet Mom reads every post and I put little messages to her in here and try not to cuss. I'm honest about my mental health. Sometimes I vent my frustrations from work, or you know, people.
Every time I have ever tried to keep a journal, it's quickly devolved into nothing more than just a daily narrative - when I got up, what I did at work, what I did in the evening. I always start off thinking I'll inject some emotion into it, something that future me will read with admiration. It just never happens. I've used the great journaling app, Day One, since 2014, but it is more of a digital scrapbook into which I funnel photographs, social media posts, books, movies and TV shows watched and news stories. It's fun to maintain and look through, but I don't get much of a clue about how past me felt on all those days unless one of the photos conjures up a memory.
Before I started this blog, I'd had two stints of writing for other people behind me. One was back in the 90s before we had social media. I used to write essays and include them in our family email chain. I've republished a couple of them here and here. The email chain petered out and most of the writing I did for the next decade was technical in nature.
In 2013, my wife and I hiked the Appalachian Trail on a five-month honeymoon. I used an iPhone 5 to write a blog entry every night in our tent or whatever hostel we happened to be in with pictures and details from the day's journey. I thought about continuing it when we got home, but going back to work and a lack of spectacular views and adventure extinguished that flame.
These days. I average about 1,000 words a day. I write about anything I feel like for most of that, although I dedicate some time to my hobby of writing app reviews. I went through my first hundred days and created a list of blogging prompts, which several people have amazingly taken and completed 50 or more of their own posts from.
Last week, I celebrated the one-year anniversary of my first blog post in my re-entry into the world of personal bloggers. I didn't start the crazy post something every day thing until March. I've written for my blog during a hurricane. I kept it going through a camping trip with five of my grandchildren. More than a few posts have been pecked out on my phone during road trips and airplane flights. I am much more dedicated to talking to y'all than I ever was writing for myself. Thankfully, I have an open-book personality. I'm not guarded about much. My life has been messy and imperfect, but I've done some fun stuffand some hard stuff and ended up pretty happy for the most part. For me it would be harder not to write about my life than it would be to conceal every wart.
Thanks for reading.
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Cafe Bustelo - For the Coffee People
Woah. There is definitely caffeine in here. I think I went overboard with that heaping tablespoon I dumped in my mug. It has flavor… AND THERE’S CAFFEINE. Goes down pretty smooth. Would be great if you needed to stay awake for a week straight and couldn’t afford cocaine.”
I'm not the kind of coffee person who knows the difference between beans or the correct time and temperature for roasting them. I'm the kind of coffee person who counts the first cup of the day as one of life's greatest pleasures. I know what I like. My favorite method for making a cup is the amazing Aeropress. If I have to, though, I'll even drink instant, and I'll enjoy it. Twenty years ago, I used to hang out with a schizophrenic poet who introduced me to the Latino style coffee, Cafe Bustelo. I've been drinking it ever since. It's a very dark, very strong brew that I think tastes exactly like coffee should. My Italian in-laws use it in a moka pot to make what they call "Black Coffee." You can get it in several varieties:
Cafe Bustelo is available in all the usual form factors:
Cafe Bustelo- official website
What's the deal with Cafe Bustelo?? : r/Coffee
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What Happened on January 6th?
Many conservative Americans sport a decal on their vehicles of a black and white decal of the US flag with a single blue stripe running through it to symbolize that they "back the blue." That's the police. Despite that, on January 6th, 2021 a mob of Trump supporters attacked the officers guarding the US Capitol, spraying them with bear spray, ramming them with flag poles, hitting them with baseball bats and purposefully crushing them against the building. Approximately 150 officers were injured. One died the nest day. Two more committed suicide within a week. More than 1500 people have been convicted in court with sentences ranging up to 22 years. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Donald Trump has declared his belief that 1/6.2021 was a day of great love. He's said that he intends to pardon those convicted with minutes of being inaugurated.
January 6 U.S. Capitol Attack | Background, Events, Criminal Charges, & Facts | Britannica
Fact checking Donald Trump's statements about Jan. 6 : NPR
The GOP's collective amnesia on January 6th, four years later - YouTube
Office of Public Affairs | Attorney General Merrick B. Garland Statement on the Fourth Anniversary of the January 6 Attack on the Capitol | United States Department of Justice
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HeyDingus! - Blogging as a Public Service
Before I ever bought a domain or opened an account on the modern social web, I discovered HeyDingus! while trying to find some information to solve a problem I was having. I spent the rest of the afternoon just browsing through the archives. When I was done I shot an email to the owner of the blog, Jarrod Blundy to let him know how much I appreciated his writing. Much to my surprise, I got a response. It turned out to be one of many exchanges I've had with Jarrod over the past year. He is a real role model for the ethos of what the IndieWeb should be IMHO - a mix of public service, autobiography and community building.
Here are a few Jarrod's helpful projects"
Follow Jarrod
💌 Email: jarrod@heydingus.net
🦣 Mastodon: @jarrod@micro.blog
📷 Instagram: @heyjb.me
🧵 Threads: @heyjb.me
🦋 Bluesky: @heyjb.me
📺 Trakt: @heyjarrod
🍿 Letterboxd: @jblundy
🎵 Apple Music: @heyjarrod
📚 Goodreads: @heyjarrod
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"Ooh Boy, You Nasty!" - Five Facts About Bathing
I've had some interesting bathing experiences in my life. In 1986, I spent a month in the Mojave Desert at Ft. Irwin while in the Army. I got one hot shower during the entire month and most of the cleaning I did was by pouring canteens of water over my head with its GI haircut. Some tankers that were there had a bucket shower they hung off the gun barrel of an M-1 Abrams. I though they were nuts standing under a slow drizzle of cold water buck naked for all the world to see.
In 2013, my wife and I spent five and half months hiking one of the US National Scenic trails. Showers were infrequent , averaging about once a week. No long distance hikers carry deodorant (too heavy) and the phrase "hiker stank" is no exaggeration. When hitch-hiking from the trail into town to buy food, we had more than one person suddenly roll down the windows "to let in some fresh air." Most daily cleaning was done standing beside a creek with a bandana and a few drops of Dr. Bonner's Pure Castile Soap - which some brave souls even used to brush their teeth.
Here are some facts about the history of bathing.
This Week's Bookmarks - Using AI in Text, Trusting Software, Predictions, Cleaning Glasses, Like Everything More, Personality Assessment, Resolutions
On This Day - Music, Sports, News, History for Every Day of the Year
If you are a history buff, or the kind of person who likes to send birthday greetings, or you are just fascinated with facts about your chosen area of interest, be it sports, music or the news, you can get what you need from this collection of websites. I habitually kick important information out of my brain so I can better remember trivia.
Here are a few facts about January 3rd I'll probably never forget:
Apple Shortcuts for Rookies and Vets
If you are an iPhone or Mac user, you are probably aware of the Apple shortcuts whether use them or not. Using shortcuts requires two things, surmounting the learning curve to figure out how to use them and then remembering to do so. It's always one of those tech tasks people seem to have on their to do list but they never get around to actually accomplishing it. I use them every day on both my iPhone and my Mac. Here are some of my favorites:
I use shortcuts for the App Store, Blogging, Messaging, Calendar, Social Media and many more areas. If you'd like to get started or improve your own use, here are some resources for you.
Home – Matthew Cassinelli - Matthew is a former Apple employee and an expert on what shortcuts cane do. He blogs about new developments and uses. I subscribe to his blog to get access to a huge catalog of premade shortcuts for both iOS and Mac.
RoutineHub • Your Community for Discovering, Sharing, and Version Controlling Apple Shortcuts - This is the largest collection of shortcuts on the Internet. They are all free and for anyone who is still nursing an old phone, they have a good back catalog of shortcuts for previous iOS versions.
Shortcuts Library - HeyDingus - My Internet pal, Jarrod Blundy is a shortcut wiz and offers a great collection of free ones for you to try. He also creates custom shortcuts for hire and offers them to people who joining his "One a Month Club" and last year to people who helped jim reach his fund raising goal for St. Jude's Children's Hospital.
Actions for Obsidian - Another Internet pal of mine, Carlo Zottman, is the developer behind Actions for Obsidian, which brings shortcuts to the great PKM app loved by many. I use Actions for Obsidian multiple times a day.
Stephen Robles - YouTube - If you want to learn how to fish, I mean make shortcuts, watch a few of Stephen's videos where he shows you to make them yourself.
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Internet Coffee Table Books - Photography for Everyone
Growing up, I loved looking through my Dad's collections of different Time-Life book sets. Dad's a big fan of military history so he had a set on World War Two, plus his own war, Vietnam. He also had the wonderful set on the old west, bound in genuine fake leather. My mother had a book with all of Norman Rockwell's Saturday Evening Post covers and I practically memorized them. As an adult, I got to go to a Rockwell exhibit at our state's art museum in Raleigh, fittingly with my Mom. My own collection of photography based books is limited to gifts I've received, most of them centered around my love of classic rock music.
I look through my own photographs almost daily, both my run of the mill iPhone snapshots and the photos I've taken with my full-frame DSLR. I enjoy finding good collections online of all types of photography: street, wildlife, art etc. Here are a few I have to share.
AI For Better or Worse
The jury is definitely still out on artificial intelligence. Is it a helpful tool or something the billionaire tech bros are going to use to extract more wealth from the working class? It's no secret that the hardware behind the technology consumes electricity and water for cooling like nothing that's ever come before it. One of the most popular AI companies, Perplexity, is not only ignoring long established Internet protocols to mine personal websites for data, its CEO offered to scab the jobs of striking tech workers from the New York Times.
On the other hand, regular people can now perform tasks they once would have had to outsource. That is what happens when technology arrives. Ask the carriage makes and buggy whip folks what happened when cars got here.
If I had a third hand, I'd point out that when an AI scapes my web page to answer a person's question without giving that person a link to wrote I wrote giving me any kind of credit, then the AI company is using me as unpaid labor and that won't stand.
Here is some information about the state of AI at the end of 2024.
Open Source Models are Improving When Compared to Proprietary Models
AI Generated Audio and Video is Here
Chatbot Arena: Free AI Chat to Compare & Test Best AI Chatbots
Products to Check Out
Lindy.ai — Meet Your AI Assistant
Suno - Make a Song About Anything
Google NotebookLM | Note Taking & Research Assistant Powered by AI
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Reasons to Hate Space Karen
Even before Elon Musk appointed himself President of the United States, there were a great many reasons to dislike him from the way he treats women and workers, to the time he called a hero a "pedo guy" and more. If you need some facts and links, I'm happy to oblige.
'How Many Women Were Abused to Make That Tesla?'
Billionaire "Space Race" Is Doing Irreparable Harm to the Planet
In one tweet, Elon Musk captures the everyday sexism faced by women in STEM
Tesla’s construction workers at Texas gigafactory allege labor violations
The One Big Problem With Elon Musk’s Autism Announcement
Elon Musk Really Doesn't Like Mass Transit Systems He's Trying to Build
Kanye West: The World’s 100 Most Influential People by Elon Musk
Elon Musk Compares Justin Trudeau To Hitler In Bizarre Response To Canadian Trucker Protests
Tesla ordered to have Elon Musk delete anti-union tweet
Musk In Trouble After Fremont Factory Employees Test Positive For COVID-19
Elon Musk wins defamation case over 'pedo guy' tweet about caver
U.S. Department of Agriculture to Look Into Monkey Experiments Funded by Elon Musk's Neuralink
16 Valid Reasons Why People Love To Hate Elon Musk
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Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - 30 Years Later
Thirty years ago, writer John Berendt published a surprise non-fiction book that ended up spending a near record 216 weeks on The New York Times best seller list. The book was Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, an account of the multiple trials of Jim Williams, a Savannah, Georgia antique dealer and a member of the local high society. Williams killed a local male prostitute in the study of Mercer House. The book's main character isn't really Williams. It is the Georgia city along with a variety of eccentric individuals.
My personal favorite was The Lady Chablis, a local transgender woman and well known club entertainer. She went on to play herself in Clint Eastwood's 1997 film version of the story.
Also featured in the book and the movie is Emma Kelly, a musician known as the Lady of 6,000 songs, so named by famous composer, Jonny Mercer. He couldn't name a song she couldn't play. He estimated that she knew 6K.
Minerva, a Gullah woman and renowned root doctor was the name given in the book and movie for a character based on Valerie Boles. She served as a conduit of local knowledge for Jim Williams during his trials.
The book was a delight to plow through . At times it reads like a novel but Berendt swears it is 99% true and 1% exaggeration. The film was not a hit, but I enjoyed it as well. John Cusack played one of his best roles in it. This weekend (December 28-29, 2024) I'm making my first trip Savannah with plans to see many of the locations described in the book.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997) ⭐ 6.6 | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story
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This Week's Bookmarks - 3D Street Art, Marsala Recipe, Travel Photography, Real Credit Repair, Potato Salad, Life Hacks, Scientific Mysteries
Step Into the Illusion: Mind-Blowing 3D Street Art by Joe and Max | STREET ART UTOPIA
Alex’s chicken and mushroom marsala – smitten kitchen
Scott Kelby: Using Your iPhone As Your Second Camera for Travel Photography | #BHOPTIC - YouTube
Repair Your Credit Report with a Goodwill Letter | Lifehacker
A Potato Salad Trick | Cup of Jo
What’s your “I can’t believe other people don’t do this” hack? : r/AskReddit
Unexplainable podcast: 17 of the most astounding scientific mysteries | Vox
I Will Always Be an Unabashed Bob Dylan Fan
When I thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail, I loaded my iPhone 5 with music from my two favorite artists, Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash, but only their songs recorded before 1970. They are the only two musicians I listened to for five months. I've heard all of those songs hundreds of times. I took a break from them for a while when I finished the trail, but not a long one.
It's difficult to write about Bob Dylan without repeating what a thousand other people have written. He is a uniquely talented individual whose lifetime of work is meaningful to a great many people. He's been able to do exactly what he wants to do for many decades because, well, he's Bob Fucking Dylan. Who is going to stop him?
Here are some links to explore for my fellow Friends of Bob.
Finally, A Good Bob Dylan Interview | Linkage
The Night Bob Dylan Went Electric | TIME
Chronicles, Volume One by Bob Dylan | Goodreads
Welcome Bob Dylan Fans! | The Bob Dylan Fan Club
Bob Dylan Songs, Albums, Reviews, Bio & More |... | AllMusic
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Things I Don't Understand
I recently gave a big shoutout to my Internet friend, Annie on my links blog. The tag line for her Mastodon account is one of my favorite series of consecutive words on the Internet. "Wtf’ing every day, I’m basically a professional now." Every time I read that, I'm like, me too sister, me too. There is just so much about the world and about people's motivations that I just do not get. Here are a few examples.
Very Expensive Restaurants
I like to eat. You can take one look at me and figure that out without trying too hard. I also like to go out to eat because cooking is one of my chores and having someone else do it is a real treat. Furthermore, we are relatively debt free and have a comfortable income. Having established all that, I have no desire to frequent the most expensive places, either in town or on vacation. I feel absolutely pampered with a meal that costs between 30 dollars. Anything over that makes me feel like I'm throwing money away. Nothing, absolutely nothing, tastes that good. I don't care how fancy the inside of the establishment happens to be or where it is located. I like good service. Tipping well is a sign of good morals, and wait staff deserve to make a living wage. I just don't want to cough up 40 or 50 dollars to a server for a party of two (which I will do if the bill calls for it) because they work at a fancy joint when the waitress at Golden Corral busts her butt for a fraction of that. It doesn't make sense.
Mechanical Keyboards
My first computer was an IBM PC with a loud, heavy mechanical keyboard. It was in the days when we were all trained to die of thirst rather than risk spilling a Coke on our precious computer peripherals. These days I type a lot. I'm on a computer many, many hours a day. I have a definite preference for all my tech needs, but I've never once considered going back to the 80s or 90s experience for my keyboard needs. I don't like loud. I don't like heavy. I don't like expensive. I don't like dumb.
Voting Against One's Own Interest
When I see working-class people with Trump stickers on their cars, I wonder what their motivation is. Republican policies are undoubtedly hostile to average Americans. Huge cuts are made to social programs, education, health care and public services to cut taxes for corporations and the 1%. There is no demonstrable benefit to middle and lower income voters from GOP policies. The incoming administration wants to cut veterans benefits for all the working-class men and women who served in the costly Republican wars of the early 21st century. GOP senators are publishing op/ed pieces on how badly they would like to cut social security and medicare. Literally WTF is anyone with a mortgage and a car payment doing supporting these predatory plutocrats?
Refusing to Learn 21st Century Skills
I am continuing my recent campaign against technological illiteracy in the 21st century. I stepped on plenty of toes recently by mocking people who type GOOGLE into Google when they want to search for something. People told me it was none of my business and that it didn't hurt anything, and I came back at them with both barrels. Billions of dollars are lost every year in lost productivity because people with a proven educational track record of having the ability to learn are not held accountable for pretending to be stupid when it comes to using a computer. When automobiles adopt new technology, people learn how to use it. When you have to use a touch screen at Bojangles to get a sausage biscuit, people figure it out. Why can't they remember to restart their computer when they have a problem? What can't they learn how to find a file on their PC? No one makes them, that's why. Institutions would rather pay an IT department to hold the hands of otherwise competent adults than they would enforce basic tech competency on the workforce.
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Getting the Most from Wikipedia
Wikipedia is under attack from alt-right inhabitants Libs of Tik-Tok and Elon Musk among others, who are discouraging people from contributing financially. Wikipedia has invested in ways to encourage women and people of color to become contributing editors and this has raised conservative ire. Personally, I increased my annual contribution and publicized the attack on this great resource in every way I could. It goes without saying that Wikipedia is great. Here are a few ways to get even more out of it.
How to Download Wikipedia for Offline, At-Your-Fingertips Reading
Weeklypedia - a newsletter featuring the most ediited articles of the week
17 Tips To Get the Most From Wikipedia
How to Teach Students to Use Wikipedia | Edutopia
Wikipedia:Unusual articles - Wikipedia
Video: Become a Wikipedian in 30 minutes
Jimmy Wales on Why Wikipedia Is Still So Good
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Who Was Born on Christmas Day?
Ok, we all know the Big Guy was born on Christmas Day. Actually, Jesus was likely born in the spring based on the dates for the Roman census, astronomical records and the time for lambs to be born in the field in Palestine. The celebration of his birth close to the winter solstice started hundreds of years after his death to pacify recently converted pagans. in any case, 1/365th of humanity was born on December 25. Here are a few of them.
Jimmy Buffett - 1946 “Margaritaville” Singer and Entrepreneur Jimmy Buffett
Annie Lennox - 1954 Annie Lennox in People Magazine
Sissy Spacek - 1949 Sissy Spacek bio
Justin Trudeau - 1971 Right Honourable Justin Trudeau
Dido - 1971 Dido on Instagram
Barbara Mandrell - 1948 Barbara Mandrell Official Web Site
Humphrey Bogart - 1899
Bogie: A Celebration of the Life and Films of Humphrey Bogart
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Read annie's blog If You Want to Feel Good
When you spend time reading personal blogs, you start to get a real sense of some people's lives. You can follow along with their very human struggles to find a job, survive a death in the family, travel around the world, be happy with their partner and more. After a while, you really start to care. When your friends feel bad, you feel bad along with them. I love that part of the Internet.
Sometimes you just need a pep talk. You need some encouragement and advice from a wise friend, who, despite everything that's wrong with life in the modern era, always seems to be there to lift you up. You need that in your life. Well, you can have that in a single click by heading over to annie's blog, the frequently updated font of wisdom and joy freely given to the world at large by the inimitable Annie Mueller. Annie is funny, wise, very real and does a great job of lifting people up and being supportive. Her Mastodon bio states "Wtf’ing every day, I’m basically a professional now." I mean, come on, who can't relate to that?
Sample Posts
Joy is in the doing - annie's blog
Is it funny if I’m the only one laughing? - annie's blog
How to be confident - annie's blog
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My Reaction To Your Reaction
As the calendar year winds down, so does the end of my first year of regular blogging since the 90s. I started off sporadically, mostly writing about tech. I eventually began reviewing apps, something I still do - every single day for the last 265 days. In March I branched out into more personal, autobiographical stuff. Because that still wasn't enough to keep me busy, and because I got a free domain name, I started a links blog in June to share the interesting things I find online, hoping to find other people who are interested in similar things. I didn't have any idea if what I had to say would click with anyone. Lot's of people I follow on Mastodon are comp sci majors involved in advanced development and I'm just a guy who hangs out in the server room. I also started blogging immediately after discovering the current iteration of the indyweb, without spending any time learning the culture or the unwritten rules. In the end, everything worked out. The developer folks with the giant brains appreciate hearing about cool apps. The indyweb at large seems to have one over arching rule, try to be a good person.
Based on Mastodon comments, emails and some rudimentary analytics, these are the posts that resonated the most with people this year..
Non-Toxic Masculinity - My most widely read post was about my journey as an adult to redefine was masculinity means.
When I was younger, I was attracted to traditional masculine roles and activities. I played high school football. I enlisted in the infantry. My first civilian job after that was working in a men's prison. It's not that I now feel like any of those are bad things, necessarily, but I don't need all that testosterone fueled chest thumping and the intimidation and violence that go with them in order to feel like I'm a real man, whatever that means.
The Perfect Blogger I like to wite about the experience of being a part of this community and y'all seem to like to read about it. This post got a lot of reaction.
It's not that I want to see myself in every blogger, quite the contrary. I want to read women bloggers, trans bloggers, POC, millennials, Gen Z, international writers. I want to make my world bigger.
My Partner - It really made me happy that people liked this appreciation piece I wrote about Wonder Woman, my wife, Carol. I frequently mention her and I wanted folks to know why. I think I succeeded.
She has good genes does my wife. She is a careful eater and a devout exerciser. In her late 50s with 13 grandchildren, she doesn't appear to have aged a day from when I met her at a hundred-mile bicycle ride in 2011
The most popular posts from my links blog were ones I compiled of topics that the blogging community appreciates.
For Linkblog Fans - a collection of places where folks share the best of the Interent with each other
OMG.LOL is the Best Thing on the Internet - the home of my Mastodon instance, /now page and about page is awesome and if you don't have an omg.lol account, you should.
Some Advice on Not Drinking - This was a no-judgment zone with some practical advice for anyone who wants to avoid alcohol for a night or for a lifetime, written from the heart.
For my fellow App Addicts, these were the most widely read reviews from 2024. People were really curious about these programs. This blog by far is the one people read the most with 280,000 hits since March. I'm happy to have the experience of writing for a wide audience and to share my hobby and experience with the world. I hope I have helped people.
FreeTube - Maybe the Most Underrated App | AppAddict
Applite - An App Store for Homebrew | AppAddict
ToyViewer - A Preview Replacment | AppAddict
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Rock and Roll Picture Show
Rock and Roll will never die, but it is it aging gracefully? That's an individual call. There are a lot of rock stars forever frozen in time, including the various members of the 27 club: Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kim Morrison and Kurt Cobain among them. YouTube is full of vintage rock videos long predating the MTV eraof my youth.
We can always listen to the music of whatever defines rock and roll for us. In my case, that energy is best defined by one iconic album, Back in Black by Australian rockers AC/DC,. But rock is a visual spectacle as well as an aural one. Many of us had photos of our favorite rock stars adorning our walls at some point in our lives. In my case, the four color 8x10 photosof John, Paul, George and Ringo that were included with the White Album stared down at me all through my high school years.
Whenever I want to lose myself in nostalgia, I put on a classic album from one of my favorite bands and spend some time looking through collections of photos from the best best entertainment photographers of all time, who had dream jobs following bands around, going to concerts and getting paid for it!
Before They Were Famous - Over 150 Rock Star Yearbook Photos
900+ Best ROCK STARS ideas | rock and roll, musician, rock music
The Most Iconic Moments in Rock and Roll Photography
Clapton, Zappa, Elton John: Photos of Rock Stars With Their Parents
Home | Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
23 Iconic Pictures Of Rock 'N' Roll's Greatest Performers
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