the secret

 i've complained about the bullshit misconceptions regarding "the secret" before, but there's one aspect of it that is valid: if you decide you're going to have a bad day, you'll be sure to get it.

i began the day trying to disable avatars in zoom:

am i the only person who finds the idea of a zoom "AI companion" creepy, and am concerned by the fact that when i tried to disable it it warned me that that would mean deleting biometric data of mine??!

i mean, i've never heard of the AI companion features until i signed in to disable avatars so that my son's zoom class behavior would be less chaotic...

possibly related, by a bizarre sequence of events gd was forced to re-enact the scene from the dirtiest toilet in scotland this morning and we were all thoroughly traumatized.

most of today was spent indoors, alternating between random shit and napping. i finished reading danny the champion of the world, which was superb. we bought noita, which looks amazing, and i have to say mr smear gave it a very fair chance before he decided he was bored. he wanted to like it, but after going through some of it with him and then reading up on how long it takes before it starts being fun, we requested a refund.

oh, which reminds me - i started investigating entry level gaming PCs last night before going to bed, i think i might have found a good solution but i'm going to ask my coworkers to vet it first.

we also tried to get the MIDI controller working with garage band; it does work out of the box, but i couldn't for the life of me figure out the controls.

after spending some time trying to compile the sonnet comics images into a format for the printer. i was horrified to learn that i don't have all the hi-res images, and that some of the hi-res images are slightly different resolutions. fortunately, mr cat was quick to respond positively and he's going to (re-)deliver them soon.

...

i planned to take mr smear to the charles clore park for an outing, which started off positively but he soon found things to complain about and became progressively more convinced that he was having the worst day ever. the fruit shake was great, the ice-cream was great, being on the promenade on a beautiful day was great, and having dinner at mexicana was great (although once he actually tried the food he remembered he didn't like the rice, goddammit).

on the way home his bike started acting up, so he decided he was going to walk. *i& didn't want to walk because i was on blades and moving slowly over long periods makes my feet hurt, and we'd already travelled pretty far. so i grabbed his bike and rolled with it, he jogged alongside me, and this was going great until he tripped on some sunken bricks and really hurt himself.

the limp home was painful for him, and i ended up having to "walk" anyway so it was painful for me too. and we had a few characteristically unpleasant moments along the way, although we both seemed to handle things better once we got home.

now it's just about 10pm, i've almost finished my strong tea and i'm about to get to work 🤞

drips

yesterday:

yesterday was... weird. firstly, my sinuses were busy and i developed a headache towards the afternoon, one which only intensified into the night. i barely slept last night, my head hurt, and i was uncomfortable and restless.

at the same time, i slept really well after my last post and my hips and legs felt much better than usual.

the work day was all over the place, lots of shouting (mostly nothing to do with me) and a few misunderstandings and stress over the work i'm doing. by the end of the day i had a pretty good handle on what was happening, though, which was a huge relief. and i was very proud of myself for bringing home the two extra "happy hour" desserts i'd picked up for gd and mr smear, who definitely enjoyed them.

...

over lunch, a woman from another company made our whole team hate her over lunch when she rudely sat down at our table and invited her friends to join her, when there wasn't any space and we hadn't finished eating.

...

i started listening to the interview with the united nations whistleblower (emma reilly) and it awful, but thanks to UN watch it's not as shocking as it should be. it does answer one of the biggest questions surrounding china's motivation to promote anti-semitic content on tiktok, specifically anti-israel propaganda since october 7th: the chinese are trying to divert attention from the very real genocide that they're perpetuating on the uyghurs, which they're doing in order to secure the particularly resource rich region that they're exploiting as part of their plans for economic world domination.

as much as i was already aware, the interview is an absolute revelation.

...

i've uninstalled the pokemon pocket app. good riddance.

today:

fortunately, i took a tylenol this morning and my head's been alright since then. mr smear had his mid-term today, which apparently went really well 🤞

i left early to pick up a package on the way to the office, but discovered on arrival that it would only be available from noon.

the workday was pretty good. after yesterday's win, this morning's effort went smoothly and i moved on to a surprise "favor" for one of our customers who's still using our pre-pivot platform. i managed to have that code complete by lunchtime, and the rest of the afternoon was a mix of finalizing, and exploring a potential memory leak "on my own time".

i've been using the AI-assisted terminal warp for the last couple of days. it's legitimately great!

...

i picked up one of the three calvin and hobbes compilations i ordered on the way home, and mr smear was very excited - we're all excited to be able to read it comfortably ^_^

i was concerned by the fact that the other two books in the set weren't shipped yet, but as i was trying to contact them about it i received an update that they're now on the way to us as well. awesome!

...

dinner was pretty good, but after dinner we needed to have a conversation - mr smear responded badly to a situation at school today and got kicked out of the class. the first part of the conversation went well, but then it turned to mma and it went... not so well. but as not-so-well as it went, i'm relieved that bedtime was okay.

unfortunately, mr smear's now dealing with an itchy nose and we're worried it might be another herpes outbreak. please god let it be something less exciting 🙏

partially functional

 well, i was feeling a lot better and a lot more on top of things today than all of last week combined. i'm now pretty confident i was sick for at least some of it.

i had two sets of inspiration for two of my tickets this morning, and i completed a long, ugly slog of a job and reached an important milestone in the chaotic messy one.

then i jumped on a bus and headed to an orthopaedist, because i managed to get a same-day appointment when i called this morning. i've been given a referral for imaging for my hip flexors, and clear confirmation that nobody cares about my neck injury unless i'm asking for surgery.

i had a really hard time getting back into work after i returned home, eventually i just gave up.

i made progress in inscryption. and then i died again. but i made progress!

...

the war rages on. we had two rocket attacks tonight, one during dinner and one after mr smear was in bed - he was a dead weight, i had to carry him all the way down the stairs and then all the way back up again. the explosions were way louder than usual.

what's going on right now, globally, is legitimately terrifying. it's bad enough that we're fighting a zombie army on our borders with guns and rockets, but we're simultaneously fighting a war with an even larger zombie army on the social media front. and the most significant platform on that front is run by the CCP. there's a whole generation of young people who've been raised on the internet, who have barely any concept of history and no wiring for critical thinking.

the truth is screwed.

this is what we're really up against.

the void

 the day started off on the right foot, i spoke to the recruiter and learned that she had, in fact, initiated with the salary requirements and that we were playing a negotiation game (which, after hearing from her about their situation, i totally get). then that metaphorical right foot's ankle was sprained when i tried to discuss the offer with my wife, who freaked out before understanding what was going on; that led to a ridiculous chain reaction which almost ended our marriage, and it would take a couple of hours to be able to reel things back in and deal with each other properly. regrettable things were said and done. absurd surreal moments were experienced.

we're okay now, but we're still processing.

what followed was an awkward, unfocused workday that was at least partially successful - great success - but which felt like it could certainly have been more productive overall.

i took mr smear to his second-last session with the current therapist - at least he seems to be doing okay - and went to work from a hotel lobby close by. i was so caught up in a conversation with my mother that i was surprised by a phone call from her asking whether i was coming to pick him up. fortunately i was close enough to un-abandon him within a couple of minutes (in spite of the forever that it took to pay for my drink), and the evening was relatively uneventful even if i did have to check in and out of work a couple of times.

so that was a day. an exhaustion of a day.

...

today's wake up was brought to me by the following:

holy @#!$. this is a one-two combination that clarifies how unprepared the west is for whatever's coming. it's hard not to be creeped out by the sheer scale of what the CCP is getting away with while we all (kind of) get on with our lives 

• Discord: The Most Evil Business In The World
• Sam Cooper: How the West Was Infiltrated by Its Enemies

bonus listen: The Daring Ruse That Exposed China’s Campaign to Steal American Secrets

ugh.

...

physically, i've been feeling so much better since wednesday. like, feeling well, for the first time in ages.

we just did a big grocery shopping, and we're about to go out to sort out a couple of things before shabbat/sukkot. hopefully this will be a peaceful holiday, it helps that rosh yehudi's plans were cancelled by the city after the yom kippur debacle...