Blogging

It's still fun to me to post every day, so I don't plan to stop. I may start writing more reviews of iOS apps to mix things up. I've thought for months that'd I'd stockpile some posts or at least some ideas, but nope. Every day is a blank sheet of paper. I just come up with topics at the last minute. I need to keep better records, because I've duplicated myself a couple of times.

Tech

In the past 12 months, I've updated all my Apple tech: laptop, iPhone, iPad and watch. I'm going to have to come up with a fancy excuse to get anything major in 2025. I'd love to get a Mac Mini or another machine to set up as a self-hosting device and/or Plex server. Unlike a lot of people, I operate solely from a laptop at home with no external monitor or keyboard. Wonder Woman would beat me to death if I insisted on setting up a desk in another room.

As a Citizen

I will continue to be an outspoken and vocal critic of the MAGA movement in every possible venue. I will not let pro-Trump speech go unchallenged in my presence. I'm not going to obsess over the news or watch the daily clown show, but I will stay informed. I will financially support civil liberties organizations

Professionally

My goal at work is to continue to show up as long as it's tolerable. I had to deal with a couple of crazy rude staff members this year. Time will tell if the administration adequately dealt with that behavior or if it will be culturally tolerated. I'm there to help people. I enjoy it, but I'm way past the point in my life where I have to deal with nutjobs.

Travel

I have a standing offer to go to the Alps with Wonder Woman, but I have to up my walking ability first. She knows my mountain climbing days are behind me but she wants me to be able to go for walks along river banks and around lake sides. I'd also like to make a trip to Austin where my son lives.

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Disclaimer: I do not think people who have a lot of pop-culture knowledge are bad or that they are wrong for being familiar with things I know nothing to little about. Don't @ me.

I will admit to being mostly ignorant of pop culture, mostly because of avoidance. I don't think I've watched a network television show since season 2 of Survivor, and that's been more than twenty years ago. Furthermore, I haven't listened to a commercial radio station by my choice since high school. I was excited when Christopher Reeves made the first Superman movie in the 80s, but I've just about totally opted out of the entire Marvel Comic Universe. This means I've missed most, if not all, the top-grossing movies of all time.

I'm not a total cultural Luddite. We subscribe to most of the streaming channels and regularly watch them, but I opt for as much British TV as I can get (but not Doctor Who). I never watch the Superbowl or the World Series or the NBA Finals. The best I can do is catch a few stages of the Tour de France every July. I recently saw Gladiator 2 and today, Wonder Woman bought us tickets to see the new Bob Dylan biopic starring that kid they hold lookalike contests to match.

I rarely read books published within the last year unless I receive one as a gift. Beyond that, I love to read book reviews and keep up with what's hot but surfing the Internet has ruined my concentration skills and sitting still with a novel is just an advanced form of torture these days. I find a lot of modern fiction to be pretentious and difficult to read anyway. I'd rather stick with golden age science fiction or a good detective novel.I enjoy non-fiction, but that's hardly pop culture, is it?

What interests me not at all is celebrity news and gossip. I do not care one whit who is married to whom. I might pay attention if one of them says something political, just to make sure I don't give a conservative any of my money or brain space. So yes, I know about James Woods, Jon Voight, Kelsey Grammar, and people like that. I don't like them. I like folks like Bruce Springsteen and Beyoncé who, although they probably have no clue anymore what regular people are like, are still loyal to us when it comes to our country's leadership.

The closest I get to discovering new music is through Apple Music playlists. The genres I like are (other than classic rock) Americana, Alt-Country and Folk. Occasionally, they'll add in a group new to me or songs from after I stopped buying music, which was approximately 2006. Wonder Woman makes me listen to Nickelback and that red-headed English guy and various late-stage music that I occasionally enjoy, but not enough to learn anything about them.

Don't try to talk to me about super-hero movies or any of the other franchise series like Mission Impossible of the one where Vin Diesel drives cars. My eyes will glaze over, and I will move away from you. I don't know anything about Harry Potter apart from that the woman who wrote the books is a TERF bully who picks on Olympic athletes. I can possibly name one or two people from YouTube (Mr. Beast and PewDiePie)and one from TikTok (Gerron, the funny Irish guy). These days, I hardly even know any podcasters because I no longer have a commute where I can listen to what they produce.

I hope we can still be friends.

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I cringe whenever I hear some uninformed person going on and on about how easy people in prison have it. “They have it made. They get three hots and a cot and free medical care!” Never mind all the danger, the loss of freedom and the monotony, one thing prison does is infantilize the incarcerated. It takes away many of the privileges of adulthood.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be grown so badly. I loved talking to adults and hanging out with them when I could. Being an adult looked like the greatest thing in the world. You escaped from the dictatorship of your parents and your school, and you got to do whatever you want. I could not wait. I didn't even make it to the end of my senior year of high school under the umbrella of my family. Furthermore, I joined the military and left for basic training nine days after I graduated. Of course, that experience didn't involve a lot of freedom, but you definitely got treated like an adult. I got married a week after I finished that experience and by the end of the year, I had my own place, an income, and the freedom I always wanted.

Of course, commensurate with freedom comes responsibility, but I'm feeling hedonistic tonight, so I am concentrating on the freedom aspect of it. The true freedom doesn't come until your kids are out of the house and self-supporting. In fact, I would say that true freedom doesn't really occur until near the end of your days as a wage slave.

As I was nearing the end of my career, I'd been at my job for over a quarter of a century. I earned the maximum number of annual leave days each year that one can earn, and I never, ever, ever let any of those days go unused. I also had a huge number of sick days on the balance sheet. Every morning, I had the freedom to decide, “Do I want to go to work today?” I wasn't in the habit of abusing my privilege. I had people I cared about relying on me, but I knew in the back of my head that I could have a mental health day whenever I needed.

Other wonderful adult privileges I appreciate to this day or deciding when I want to go to sleep and when I wish to wake up. I had an enforced bedtime past my 18th birthday, and I hated it. I love to read, and being able to continue a book at night in a dark house while everyone else is sleeping is just divine. Likewise, although I do have to be at work on time, I can still get up as early as I want to be on my computer or sleep until the last minute. Nobody is the boss of me! We have to be grateful for things like that after being mandated by parents, our children and other circumstances.

Unlike prison inmates or soldiers, I can choose to wear whatever I want. I do the Steve Jobs thing where in public I go with the same style of pants and a black shirt every day. It's not a uniform, it's just easy, and I've been like that for years. At home, I opt for comfort and tend to hold on to shorts and sweatpants until they disintegrate. 

Oh — there's food too. I grew up in one of those “you have to eat everything on your plate” houses. There were only a few things I didn't care for, but my Mom made them anyway. I haven't had to eat a serving of green English peas since 1979. I'll never eat them again, either. I don't even have to worry about being a good example to my kids anymore. I can have cereal for supper and pizza for breakfast and no one is going to stop me because I am a gown-ass man and I can do what I want, and I love it.

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I updated my /now page - What I’m reading and watching, plus links to this week’s blog posts, the week’s best purchase, and the links I added to my personal bookmarks.

My online persona (which is the same persona I am IRL) is a man who loves three things: technology, his wife and social justice. I mention all three of those things with some frequency, although tech is the only thing I do much consistent long form writing about. Aside from an occasional blog post, my political discourse is usually in the form of memes or micro-posts of 300 words or fewer. I'm often speaking to an audience of fellow travelers, rather than trying to convert Hitler's children. I don't expect many conservative people to even read what I write unless we established a relationship around something else that is strong enough to survive my low opinion of the MAGA crowd.

Mastodon is where I spend most of my social media time, having made nearly 6,500 posts since I joined in January. I cross post most of what I write to Facebook, Bluesky and Threads since I want to promote my writing to as big an audience as I can. I've been on Facebook for 16 years. I stay there mostly to keep in touch with family, although I have numerous friends because of a viral post I had in 2017. It's a horrible place run by a horrible man. I acknowledge that. I hope that Bluesky continues to grow. It's a good place to interact with people outside the advanced tech and blogging crowd that I've met on Mastodon. I joined Threads on the first day, like 18 million other people. I spend very little time there because I don't like the algorithm. The posts I see are not interesting to me, and I don't have the time and energy to do much more than cross post there.

Today, I made an observation about Elon Musk's growing influence over the Republican Party. He threatened a group of Republican House members if they supported a bi-partisan bill that the Speaker had agreed to that would have ended the budget stand-off. The bill contained disaster relief funds that are much needed in my home state, NC, which received $16 Billion is damage from a hurricane in October. What I wrote touched a nerve on both Meta platforms, and I had hundreds of people react and comment on it. 

Here's what I said — Elon Musk took actions yesterday that cancelled Hurricane Helene relief for Western North Carolina.

I got lots of support because as I said, most MAGAts long ago should have ignored me because of the vitriol I throw in their direction. Surprisingly, though, there were still plenty of offended people who Meta thought needed to read Lou Plummer's take on the Washington cesspool today.

Their posts were just about all the same:

• Nothing in Washington is Trump's fault because he hasn't taken office yet.

• I made the whole thing up, and Musk did no such thing.

• I am an idiot who believes what is reported by the media.

What was much worse were the nasty comments from Democrats who live in safe blue states. These people seem to think that 100% of the citizens of red states have Trump flags in their yards. They said things like:

• It serves NC right because they voted for him

• I hope NC likes what they caused. I have no sympathy for any of them.

What the hell? NC voted for Obama in 2008. We have a had a Democratic governor for the last eight years and just elected another one. The same goes for the attorney general's office and other statewide races. A lot of what has happened here is due to gerrymandering and voter suppression. Our GOP controlled legislature has passed numerous laws that have been overturned in the courts and backtracked on others, like the nation's first bathroom bill that cost the state billions of dollars in lost revenue because of boycotts.

There are people who somehow think they have progressive values, yet have no sympathy or feelings of solidarity with those of us fighting the good fight in southern and rural states. I was mocked and ridiculed by them today, and it stung a bit. I don't give a shit what any Republican thinks of me, but I expected more from the stereotypical coastal elites than I got today. Not to belittle a point, but there is truly a difference between a progressive and a liberal. Today was not a good day for one of those groups.

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