Christmas Report 2024

Well, I got a new iPad Mini for Christmas.

Part of me, for years, has considered acquisition of an iPad to be a huge waste of money. I only really want it for reading blogs and reading RPG rulebooks and supplements.

Then a few days ago I decided that as a now 60-year old man with sufficient income, who is a law abiding citizen, public servant, and all-around nice guy, I should have a fucking iPad if I want one.

So I went over to Best Buy, bought a 256 gig iPad Mini and one of those little covers for it, splurged on AppleCare, and handed it to my wife, who’d been scratching her head as to what to get me for Christmas.

Then we crammed our car full of stuff to the point you couldn’t get another toothpick into the trunk, heading to Houston, where I promptly got sick with a sinus infection.

Side note: As we drove into Houston around 8pm, we passed untold car dealerships with untold acres of cars on the lots, with untold measuring units of electricity keeping those lots lit like the surface of the sun on a cloudless day. So is my ownership of the iPad wasteful? I don’t even care. When they shut down those lights call me back on this.

This is the first time since the start of the pandemic that I’ve been sick. Right at the start of the pandemic I had a sinus infection, and I have not been sick since then. Until now. So that’s a pretty good run.

I spent Christmas Eve day and evening in bed, with a 101.6 fever. Finally took some meds around 8pm and got the fever down. Felt better today (Christmas Day), but still have had a bit of fever off and on. Going to the NextCare Urgent Care in the morning to get checked out and see if I can get some antibiotics. Sinus infections and me have a long history. I know the drill.

Being sick away from home sucks. Being sick as a guest in a house where the extra beds all feel like concrete slabs does not, in fact, make it better. It is hard to sleep, even after taking Benadryl, when you wake up because the bed is killing you. Oh well, another day and I’ll be home to our super-luxurious bed with actual springs in it.

Between sleeping, laying around being semi-miserable, and reading today, I’ve been setting up the iPad.

NO ONE does a smoother job of welcoming you back into their ecosystem than Apple. I am typing this on my MacBook Pro. I have an iPhone SE and an old 16gig iPad Air I inherited from my mom that is basically useless. I turned on the new iPad Mini, held my phone up to it, and the damned things talked to each other. A meaningful conversation in which the phone gave the iPad all the information it needed to set itself up. No fuss. No cursing. So, so good. I swear if I had to use a PC and/or Android I’d just quit technology completely. Actually I’d go Linux.

The new iPad Mini has ZERO social media installed on it. NONE. It is for specific purpose, and spying on me for FB is not one of them. I understand that Apple will spy on me. That’s not the hill I’m going to die on. I also told Apple Intelligence to FUCK OFF during the setup process. AI is bullshit. Outside a few very controlled uses it is probably the worst thing to happen to tech since social media. Now, if they can use it to cure cancer, that’s cool. I’m talking about people using AI to “create blog content” or to “come up with better ways to write a sentence or convey and idea.” Sorry folks – there are SUPPOSED to be good writers and shitty writers. If you are a shitty writer, you get better by learning to write better, not by farming out the work to AI. That is the hill I’ll die on, or at least lay down uncomfortably for an extended time.

Overall, even with the sinus infection and torture-bed, it has been a good Christmas. We are with our family for the first time in several years and it all went well. Our dog Riley is with us, and he’s been a good boy. Everyone falls in love with him. Lefty (our cat) is at home and I can’t wait to see him again. Best of all, other than me, everyone is healthy. There was a time a few years ago that wasn’t the case.