Nutcracker Week(s) ahead. Our first shows are next weekend, which should mean we’re moving into the first venue Monday. But schedules conflicted, so we don’t get to move in until Friday afternoon, with a Saturday show. The same thing is happening at the second venue the following week. It’ll be…interesting. It usually takes us about a day-and-a-half to get things set up, and this year we’ll only have a matter of hours. Hope we can pull it off.
More About Mastodon and Twitter
I note this Washington Post article talking about the number of Democratic members of Congress who are moving over to Mastodon. I’m not at all surprised that more Democrats than Republicans are exploring the fediverse.
I’m enjoying Mastodon. It’s got a different community feel than I ever really saw on Twitter. Maybe that’s just the “new car smell” percolating through the new users. But I like it. I’m still my introverted self over there, boosting and favoriting a lot more than I’m posting. But I don’t feel the push to share content like I did on Twitter. There’s no algorithm that I need to keep up with or game to get more visibility for what I post. I can share what I find interesting and let people find it.
I’m still planning on keeping my Twitter account. I signed up back in August of 2008, when it was still in its relative infancy. Some of my earliest tweets were SMS messages sent via the old multi-tap keypad on a Motorola RAZR. I’ve managed to avoid most of the ugly stuff for whatever reason. Maybe it’s because I’m not as active there as I am on my personal Facebook account. There were times that I ventured into places and topics that I should have avoided, though I’m behaving myself now. I’m not at all discounting the bad stuff that happens there or suggesting that it doesn’t. I know there are some crappy people on the platform, just like there are on Facebook or Instagram. The anonymity of the keyboard seems to embolden people with axes to grind about a variety of topics.
I haven’t noticed a major change in the content I usually see on Twitter, though I know friends who have. I have noted though a big increase in DM spam. Though “big” is relative here, in that I’ve received two or three such messages in the last couple of weeks. But that’s two or three more than I’d received in the last year, so make of that what you will. Twitter statistics tell me I’ve lost 30 followers this month, which doesn’t exactly square with my follower count on my profile page. That count shows a decrease of about 18 followers. Not sure what the difference is.
New Gadget
I’ve been wanting a smartwatch for a while now, and had a Galaxy Watch 4 on my Amazon Wish List for over a year. I got some cash and gift cards for my birthday, so I picked up a Classic 42 mm from Amazon Warehouse this week. It arrived a day earlier than Amazon said it would, and the Prime driver helped me move a tree out of the driveway to boot. I’ve got it updated to the current software release and downloaded an app and a watch face that’ll let me see my CGM data, which is one of the primary reasons I went with a Samsung. That, and I’m an Android guy, so I couldn’t do an Apple Watch.
Christmas Again
Thursday would have been my Mom’s 96th birthday. Sunday the 4th would have been Messiah Sunday. That always seemed to mark the beginning of the Christmas season at our home, for some reason. The tree generally went up after the performance, because the post-show party was always at our house, and the tree would take up too much space in the living room. Mom loved Christmastime, and Messiah meant so much to my Dad.
I was listening to Pandora Christmas Radio Friday as I worked on the grocery list, and Pentatonix’s “That’s Christmas to Me” came on. It’s a beautiful song, an original of theirs, written by Scott Hoying and Kevin Olusola. The harmonies are simply amazing, and it never fails to bring me right to the emotional brink when I hear it. I think my parents would have loved it.
Football
Yeah, Michigan won the Big Ten Championship. And Tulane won the American Athletic Conference, beating UCF handily after losing to them three weeks ago. Yesterday was a good day for football. I’ll be very curious to see how the College Football Playoffs shake out. Will we face tO$U again? That’s up to Georgia. I think we can handle TCU, though the first half will likely be as nerve-wracking as it’s been the last couple of weeks.
But we could be facing the Buckeyes for the National Championship. Now wouldn’t that be an interesting rematch?
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