This comic is dull, and spending even one minute a day on it is making me duller. And Homestuck, for those keeping count, continues to grow beyond my ability to express myself with every page. I may continue to update this blog whenever I feel like it, but let's call it what it is: I'm pulling the plug.
Today, "Plugger" means "Someone in need of a system for their personal effects".
As a rule, I think, if you can remove the entire concept of a "plugger" from the strip and it doesn't change the strip at all, you've struck Pluggers gold. You're also irritating everyone because you put your pluggers into a joke that didn't need them.
"The downside to wearing cargo pants, it takes at least five minutes to find your keys". See? That's a joke right there. Phrase it in funnier words and it's a standup comedy bit. But dressing the joke in Plugger clothes is like, I don't know, what's an obnoxious gimmicky mascot no one needs or cares about? It's like if you stopped people on the street to tell jokes about your mother-in-law while wearing a polar-bear-from-the-Coca-Cola-commercials costume.
Because you work for Coca-Cola damnit, and that suit is the most interesting thing about you.
Your humble critic's plugger status: Because I'm an adult who understands no one else is going to take care of my things for me, I keep my key in the coin compartment of my wallet in my right front pocket. Always.
Your humble critic has been preoccupied with getting drunk and watching Steven Universe with his brother, so to catch up today we have a combo platter of meanings.
Pluggers, 20150819
"Plugger" means "Person who values efficiency over style".
I don't have a shed, but I use the same principle when I dress myself. However, I usually have enough foresight to take this into account when I buy clothes, which seems contrary to the unspoken rule here saying pluggers have to buy crap they don't need in obedience of their nesting instincts that ends up being used for useless make-work projects so they don't feel wasteful.
This actually describes one guy I know. Dude loves shopping for tools. Everything from screwdrivers to small tractors. Also tree plants and occasionally farm animals. If his wife didn't go behind his back to return as many of these purchases as humanly possible their summer home would be overrun with geese armed with power drills on a yearly basis.
Of course, this guy is pushing eighty and has since his stroke a vocabulary of five words and the impulse control of a four year old.
Pluggers, 20150820
And here we see "Plugger" means "Committed dog walker".
I'm not sure I can add anything that would make this concept more ridiculous. At least the dog owner is a kangaroo instead of a dog. That'd have been weird. Though honestly that dog looks suspiciously like a character in the strip. Maybe this is how they are born: Made to socialize with large enough groups of other animals to force them to develop language, conscience, blue-collar work skills and a paunch.
I don't know. All I know is, if you live in the kind of neighborhood where everyone has dogs learning their names is probably a thing you do, but Amy Laney is probably mistaken about how universal that experience is. Not all of us live in dog-saturated suburbia or downtown Detroit.
Pluggers, 20150821
And now "Plugger" means "Person manifesting an existential paradox state of reduction by 75%".
75% reduction of what, you ask? But that's the wrong question. It's just a reduction by three quarters. That's why it's an existential paradox.
Mr Bear takes twice as long to move half as much lawn, as we can see. But there's no basis of comparison here. It's not twice as long as he thinks it should take, or half the lawn he used to be able to mow when he was younger and stronger. None of that. It just is an amount of lawn mowing in a vacuum reduced to one quarter.
It's like how the Moon has about 25% of the mass of the Earth, and then you remove the Earth from that equation and you have just a Moon with 25% mass. I'm no mathematician, but I think the only word for that is paradox.
And what does this mean for Pluggerdom? Oh, it just opens up literally an entire new dimension of meaning. Pluggers are no longer limited to merely being things or people that are possible to be. Pluggers can be the impossible, now.
I think that time Ernie had a storyline about Sid "The Human Piranha" Fernwelter making up a long series of fake names in order to get out of paying his utility bills actually happened in 1987. There was a time when a dishonest person might successfully fool debt collectors by smooth talking, but that was before credit card companies started doing a better job at preying on people than any human beings could.
I know, given our lives are run by corporations built up to effectively be psychopaths using people any way they can to benefit their shareholders, I shouldn't be upset with little people and their little lies, but it bugs me that there are people who cannot grasp that debts they owe is money they have spent. Yes, you spent it before you had it, and you may not even remember anything about the poker game where you spent it, but you still owe that money to be paid. Debt doesn't go away before you pay it. That's not how money works.
My cousin's check for $1600 that he owes me has been in the mail for over twelve years now.
Your humble critic's plugger status: Zero credit, zero debt
Today, "Plugger" means wait we had basically this joke just two days ago. Fine, "Plugger" means "One who justifies their bad decisions by transparently twisting known facts into law which they can obey to the letter while still indulging in their ultimately self-destructive appetites".
How do you like that, Brookins?
How does it taste?
Sweet, like a hot slice of apple pie with a scoop of ice cream, perhaps?
Did you know construction workers have a higher incidence of suicide than any other distinguishable profession? I read it maybe a decade ago in some glossy magazine. It's because tradition dictates they get up at 5 in the morning and start working, to show that they are Real Men and tougher than common folk. Like a reasonable person could figure out using only their ass, this is Not True and only serves to make them more miserable than common folk. It turns out forcing yourself to wake up before dawn five days of the week for indefinite periods is really bad for you in the long term!
That coffee and donuts breakfast on the road probably isn't doing Mr Bear any favors either.
Your humble critic's plugger status: Negative like a HIV test
