My family’s been keeping my older brother secret from me for three decades. I found out just now when I was used in an exchange of weaponized information between my parents.

I take April 1st as a day to not use the Internet each year — I fall for all the jokes because I am too credulous. See ya l8r. I’ll just spend the day coding or something. Summarizing receipts.

Ahh, the old alma mater. Happy Saint Patty’s!

I dunno if anyone’s following my train of thought the last few days, but I’m apparently harbouring hilarious amounts of free-floating anger. I’m bubbling with alpha-spikes of rage and laughter — demons screaming away in my skull (but not literally).

I’m trying very hard not to graffiti.

I’m trying very hard not to steal things.

I’m trying very hard not to hurt the people around me.

So yeah, I’m taking some time off to calm down. But one last thing: I’m starting to claim white male privilege.

Example:

“Do it this way.”

“Why?”

“White male privilege — because I said so.”

It’s good fun. I feel like I need a soccer-type card (coloured white) as a punctuating prop.

But yeah: I’m actually seeking professional help. More later. Also I might be dropping a music video soon, and TVO might want something I did a long time ago (I’m guessing that won’t happen — but we’ll see).

Anyway, trying to manage my karma. Out.

Today was contract renegotiation day. They’re looking at bringing me on as an employee, which I am ambivalent towards: I love freedom, I love dental coverage, and never the twain shall meet.

To that end, they’re getting me to help them revise their hiring process, towards which I am also ambivalent: I get to pick my own coworkers, but I have to do HR — traditionally the most useless development task of all.

How does one hire coders? Interesting question. More to follow (and much discussion, I imagine). Since I’m building HR policy from the ground-up, here’re my preliminary decrees:

HR policy #1: We will never hire anyone who has had anything to do with iTrade or Canada Post.

HR policy #2: We will never hire anyone on my shitlist.

HR policy #3: all my industry friends now have job offers (let me know if you want one).

Corrupt, I know. Fun, too!

Jill and I wanted to have the Superbowl on in the background today. The companies involved refused to show it to us, with region restrictions that wouldn’t let us listen to TSN Toronto in East TO, and no video stream.

Okay, whatever. No ads for you. I don’t want a truck or fucking Budweiser anyway. I guess that’s why they’re fucking me off. Anyway, Chomsky:

It’s a way of building up irrational attitudes of submission to authority, and group cohesion behind leadership elements — in fact, it’s training in irrational jingoism.

I will no longer accept delivery of anything from Canada Post. I opt out. I just called to remove myself from their database. Here is the transcript of my call:

System: “For service in English, press 1.”
me: 1
System: “For residential inquiries, press 1.”
me: 1
System: “Welcome to Canada Post Customer Service. Goodbye.”

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THIS AIN’T OVER

An unhealthy amount of my daydreaming time involves categorizing things*. For example, I’ve recently started thinking about getting a business card along these lines:

The odd title is down to another bit of musing: the more I learn about Music the more I think it’s actually the same art as Film and that Game Design is a more-general version of that super-art. Roughly: games are about making NP-hard decisions. Film/Music could be an immense graph of mathematical/physical relationships with individual works as traversals. Music, then, could be a particular problem space within the set of possible Games, which might be why Rock Band works so well.

“Aleatoric” because I like incorporating nondeterminism into things. “Bit” because everything I do is digital. “Sequencing” because everything involves an ordering in time.

* Buddhism says you might not want to spend time making up more illusions to layer over reality. Or, as Marvin the Paranoid Android put it: “Life’s bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it.”

I’m starting my contract tomorrow. My first serious, not-rinky paid gig in three years.

I’m upset. Not in the usual sense, but in the literal. I feel off-kilter. I am required to do something tomorrow. People will care. Okay, yes, also a large amount of anxiety.

Tomorrow I’m going to meditate, get my head right, and be a reasonable human being about the whole thing. Live my truth, and etc.

But if they try to make me work weekends I’m going to claim hardcore Judeo-Xtianity: “Can’t man — Sabbath.”

I find myself needing lightweight CRM software. Trello helped me convert a contact into a later opportunity that I need to follow up on, but storing information in TODO lists is like storing TODO lists in email: stress-generating and bad.

Anyway, more later. For now: Drive with Jill @ The Fox.

[Update: there is no good small/micro business CRM software. 37 Signals was on it, but I guess that project failed -- or converted to Highrise. I just want a one-user-free solution.]