I’ve read OVERconnected, Derek Thompson’s “The Anti-Social Century”, and I’ve now just finished a horrifying New York Times article on people genuinely believing they’re part of The Matrix because ChatGPT told them so. Look, aren’t we adults? Aren’t you supposed to stop believing in Santa Claus? Get a fucking life. And one of these cooks was actually a married psychologist? Look, if you feel your marriage is hitting a rocky patch, maybe get a licensed marriage and family therapist to help you do couples’ counselling? Who the fuck are these people? What about their social situations makes them psychotic? You know, at least with a physical cult, you’ve got a group, all dressed in neat garb, all doing fancy rituals, there’s typically a charismatic leader—how do you get sucked up into cult shit by a chatbot? I’m not sorry when I say, you know what, we’re better off with those people cutting themselves off from society, at least a child’s imaginary friends don’t tell them to be dickwads and take ketamine.

I’m trying to keep my mind clear and unbogged by too much information. (My girl is doing the same, too.) So I’m reading this non-fiction material at a slow, steady pace… I admit that I am far more distracted these days, than I was pre-COVID, pre-smartphone. I’m trying to dig myself out of that. And I believe I’ve been making steady progress…

I can’t believe one of the problems I’m having with my smartphone is now I have too much to read. You’d think having unbridled access to a digital library might be good and convenient, but… …I find myself ignoring my apartment and spending more time and focus on reading than I should. It’s not the ebooks that are giving me problems. It’s all the online articles I have access to, too. I have to limit that. No more big Atlantic or NYT features on my phone. Strange having to block a news site on my mobile device, but…

I can’t wait for my fiancee to finally emigrate here. I don’t want to be stuck on a screen just to communicate with her.

Job interview today. No telling how I did; it’s not about me, it’s about how I stack compared to other candidates, who may have more relevant experience than I do. Thetta reddast. Things will work out in one way or another. I’m not going to spend ten+ hours a day search for openings and applying, like I used to, whenever I looked for a job. I think I’ve done the heavy work of refining and moulding my CV to the sorts of jobs I’ll likely be applying for, anyway.

The sky is a blazing orange, now with the sun below the horizon, the blanket of clouds above sinking into dusky greys and blues and purples. There’s a mist hanging high in the air, or as Americans like to call it, “high humidity”. I don’t understand why we don’t call it “hot mist”. That’s far more poetic and encapsulates the feeling of walking through it a lot better, doesn’t it? Today I had a nice tossed salad made with umami-focused dressing, mushrooms, and garlic caramelised steak… Thetta reddast. It will all work out in the end.

I don’t say this as a blind, foolhardy optimist, but as someone simply steady advancing forward, as best as I can. I guess you can call this classical stoicism. 2 Mello’s Memories of Tokyo-To album is playing behind me. Life is… At least, for me. Life is good.

Now I guess I’ll paint. Then I’ll clean some more. Then I’ll start baking that meat-and-cheese stuffed Easter “doughnut” shared by that one local peach farmer, the madlad. Growing peaches in a greenhouse in Minnesota? She wants to go for the next harvest, drop by and buy some peaches… I was saying earlier, you know. That, if I had known what I know now, I would’ve never let myself be railroaded into a Software Development course. I’d have gone straight to Culinary School without hesitation, or maybe even into Ag.

« On average, the amount of time people spent with friends in-person decreased from 30 hours a month in 2003 to 10 hours a month in 2020, according to the U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory on the epidemic of loneliness. That decline was especially marked for people aged 15 to 24. »

OH MY G-D HOW MANY HOURS A MONTH DO I SPEND IN-PERSON WITH FRIENDS IT’S AT LEAST 30 RIGHT

—TIME Magazine. Why Gen Z is drinking less. 2025 January 1.

I am trying to get through the first lecture in The Great Courses’ Ancient Civilizations of North America, but sweet baby Moses is the lecturer annoying. Like, I’ve spent over 26 minutes listening to how it’s important to use “respectful” politically correct language?! Can we get to the actual history now?! Just call them fuckin’ Natives or First Nations Peoples and get the fuck over with it!

NOW HE’S RANTING ABOUT CARBON-14 DATING

I’m wonderin’ if I overwatered my tomato plant or if I can blame the recent storms on that. I mean, it’s fruiting, but… the leaves are curling.

Do I really want an “Archive” link in the Navbar? I mean, I don’t know if we really need it. Everything’s already paginated on the Index…

There’s so much I wanna note. I’m finding out that a big part of my restlessness is that I haven’t been able to WRITE for an extended period of time—get my thoughts down, somewhere. You know… Blog. That sorta thing.

Freedom From Pants ’25 has been the most fun thing I’ve ever done for a 4th of July. Swimming at Cedar Lake, all the beer, biking down the Midtown Greenway and seeing all the fireworks go off all around us, watching from Sabo Bridge… There’s a lot to talk about, but, funnily enough, I feel pretty satisfied looking back at my memories alone. I do wanna share this one wild thing, though… These three guys, not with the group at least I don’t think so, they hiked up with a giant-ass king-size inflatable sofa bed above their heads, along with giant glow sticks an’ a cooler. It was super cool an’ comical. Like they literally set it down next to this bench where a middle-aged interracial couple (black woman, white man with a “something Ministries” shirt on).

“You came prepared!”

It’s madlads like them that make me really appreciate community. Yes, community. Tomfoolery IS community. You know how much fun it was waterfalling a keg of Cologne beer in the middle of a sunset in a lake with neighbours you’ve met at local wine-tasting? You know how much fun it was dancing to music set out by a guy who organised a beachside party with blowup-doll volleyball spiking? You know how much fun it was to just ride Downtown with hundreds of other people with no trousers on, and all of us simultaneously and cheering on the cops on bikes? (And I think they were cheering us too?! Damn!)

I used to be far more cynical, far more mechanical. I didn’t understand people, no matter how much I read, because I never interacted with them; growing up Asian in a California suburb will do that to ya. Even now I’m still “shy” (yes, the guy who is everywhere in Minneapolis, is shy). Learning how to insert yourself into a crowd is a learned skill… Which I’m GRADUALLY becoming better at. I think I’m pretty OK at it now. Now, it’s just a matter of time… Consistently showing up to things, getting to know people, writing down their names because fuck it’s so much harder to remember names now since my uh, 10 subsequent COVID infections. Fuck.

I want to keep growing as a person. I want to keep making these connections, these friends, these memories. Life is so precious an’ fragile. Man.

Taste of Minnesota ’25 was ass. I mean, not the music, but what the hell is up with the new security policy for bags? Basically ALL bags banned unless they’re clear?? The whole fest was smaller this year, too… Great music line-up but fewer vendors and a smaller space as a result. Why less food??? Huh…

Just wanna note this somewhere—

According to Canadian legal tech firm Clio, in 2023, 19% of North American law firms were using AI. In 2024, that number jumped up to 79%, with two-thirds reporting weekly use, and one-third reporting daily.

Not sure how accurate that is (i.e. how did they get their sample?), but honestly, I can see the upward trend being a thing. It worries me. The process of coming to justice and compromise isn’t an MadLibs where you just insert whatever noun and verb into a pre-constructed grammatical structure. That’s not how thinking works. I don’t want the equivalent of my smartphone keyboard’s predictive dictionary making my legal arguments for me. Who the fuck is happy about this? Where is this ethical? And yeah I know certain documents are fairly copy-and-paste, but we literally have Word Templates for that. Coming to the conclusion of an actual argument, via ChatGPT? Disgusting.

Man, I am so done with so much of the Internet. Was it always this full of depressing motherfuckers?! I guess when I was a kid, we had—kid problems? A bunch of adults who can’t get their shit together ain’t it—

I’m a lot calmer now than I was before. Got news from Sandy, Joe… …I can’t say much. Haha. Here, on the Internet, I can’t say much. Maybe no one will read this, maybe everyone will, who knows. Maybe it won’t matter in ten years. I don’t know.

My anxiety is gone, I can rest easy and focus on… reading. Relaxing. Swimming. Exercising. Doing everything I can when I’m not searching for jobs and applying. Man, is it tedious to have to tailor EVERY single CV for each job opening. I even got off my ass and updated my LinkedIn. Which I doubt I’ll ever really use. We’ll see how long it takes for me to get a new job. I’m in no hurry, though.

Some people nearby set off fireworks ahead of Fourth of July. It was beautiful. I’m looking forward to going to the Freedom From Pants Ride tomorrow night, and swimming with other people. It’ll be a nice way to celebrate the summer.

I don’t have much else to say, not at this current time. …I do have a lot to think about. But life is going on, at its easy-going, steady pace. Everything is going fine, even if in unexpected directions. Another year will pass… Eventually, I’ll marry. And I’ll be further entrenched in some kind of stability as the entire world around me goes off the rails. Wow.

Currently reading:
OVERconnected: The Promise and Threat of the Internet

Immensely readable and fascinating. I missed this kind of “storytelling” in my non-fiction reading material. Got nothing for praise for the author, I guy who was one of many human parts who built the nascent Silicon Valley.

It feels like the end of an era. But I guess all life-transitions are like that, huh? The difference is whether it was sudden or abrupt, volitional or unexpected. Yesterday, I started looking for a new job, and today I submitted a few more applications. I don’t know where any of them will lead, but that’s not the part that bothers me. I guess it never is. It’s always, “How long will it take for me to set my roots down again?”

I slept in, woke up later in the day, comfortably. It’s almost 4 PM and the Sun is still high and bright. I should go jogging to make myself feel better, go out and enjoy the breeze, well. Tomorrow is gonna be hot as hell. So if I wanna go bike I should do it now…

The apartment is a mess of Amazon packages, as usual, compounded by all the stuff I brought home from the office. End of an era. I want to hang my longboard but that’s not a priority right now. I guess for now, I should enjoy the state I’m in… The city, the green, the water. The architecture. Things are gonna be fine; they always are. Maybe I’m in a rush to do things, again…

I think I’ll go down and visit the Minneapolis Institute of Art some time. Not today, it’s a bit late and I have to clean; not tomorrow, I’m going on the Freedom From Pants Ride and I might want the whole day for myself. Saturday is stormy, so I’ll take the bus. I think that’s what I’ll do.

I want people to be honest and principled, but maybe that’s too much to ask. I don’t really feel “at home” on the Internet anymore.

The Internet has just made everything a lot faster. Too fast, there isn’t time to digest anything. To look over and question and ask if what you’re seeing and what you’re even being told makes sense, and who benefits from the story that you’re being told. I kind of wanna get away from everything. I miss the days when “the Internet”, for me, just meant playing games on Postopia, looking at art on DeviantArt, and reading way too much Wikipedia articles and discussion pages. The whole thing now just feels like an information battlefield where even the most innocuous of publications are just fights for clout.

It’s starting to come to me now, what I wanted to write about, as tired as I am (it’s just before 1 AM now)... So, John Oliver and his Last Week Tonight crew did an episode on AI slop, and its flooding of the Internet with misinformation, and sometimes active disinformation. It’s not just the wannabe-viral crap that concerns me. Because you’ve never needed AI to lie to people, you can just use lies told by real people, omission of inconvenient facts… Just because it comes out of a real person’s mouth, doesn’t mean it’s real. It sucks to look at the state of the world now, and I bet you don’t even have to go that far—you can see it in your personal lives.

I’ve finally got my new blog up an’ ready. It’s strange. I wanted to start this up for the longest time, for at least half a year now, but now that it’s up… I don’t know what to do with it. I mean, my first entry. Earlier I had all these thoughts about what I wanted to write down; maybe I took too long and I’m just too tired to think, now. Swam, chatted with neighbours in the jacuzzi, prepared the Crock-Pot, bathed… I don’t know if I want this to ever “devolve” into just a daily log of what I did on a day-to-day basis. That’s not what I want.