Alright, I know I can break down now, because I'm at home again. I don't have to hide my true self when I'm here, either in a dream, or in reality. The world is a good place.

I'll just listen to an old record off my hard drive for a minute here.

...

...

....

...

What was that about a fountain?

So that dumb blond can't write lyrics, huh? Could've fooled me. Oh, right. She didn't write them. She has men who "help" her make this music. (And by "help", we know we're talking about something that goes on in the bedroom. Are we all on the same page here? Good.)

I just sent out a big scary email. I wonder if I put too much into it. I'm a little nervous that I might have. Oh well. I just need to relax. Each moment by moment by moment. I'm still in burnoff mode, and I can feel a strong healthy current within me, though sometimes it wants to rage up and take control of me.

I allow it to have me when I'm certain I'm alone, but only if it promises to stay within certain predefined boundries.

"Yeah, he's nutso." "The man is talking to himself." "About to lose it completely.&quo;t "He really should be locked up."

I hear these voices, not as auditory hallucinations, but as warning beacons, setup within in my mind to caution me as to some possible futures. I'd prefer to avoid these particular futures.

But I cannot allow paranoia to have me. It is my tool, and it serves a good purpose, but I do not belong to it. I refuse to submit to unfounded fears. As with Spock, logic is my guide. It is not my only guide, but it is one of my guides. It works well to use logic when paranoia threatens me. Heh.

Yeah, if you only knew what a true kook I am.

I talked to a psychologist yesterday. A professional one, though this meeting was not done in a professional capacity. He's an old friend. Yeah, the same person I saw the movie with.

I asked him to anchor me. I was fairly sure I could get through it by myself, but it's always nice to have a little companionship.

Initially, when I called him up and calmly told him I was psychotic, his immediate suggestion was to have me contact a therapist in a professional capacity ASAP. Maybe the person who had helped me last year. I responded that I thought it might be a decent idea, and we would see what we could do.

But after we had talked for a few hours, I convinced him beyond a doubt that the clinic just isn't right for me right now. My paranoia was warning me against it (I still have some very vivid memories from back in '96), and I was choosing to listen to the paranoia in this case. For now. Not completely rational, but you know me.

I wore the poor old man out. Or so it seemed to me. By the end of the day, he was little more than a slobbering baby, at least in my eyes.

I can't blame him though. I hit him with a lot. He doesn't know anything about how to use the Internet. He's probably never even heard of google.com. So when we got to my apartment, and he laid down to rest, I typed quietly so as not to jar him.

It probably seemed like magic to him. Here I was, sitting in my chair, typing softly (using the keyboard in the living room that doesn't click), as he laid back with his eyes closed. Any subject he mentioned I could become an instant expert on. With his awareness preoccupied by the heavy topics we had discussed during the preceding minutes, it must have seemed supernatural to him that I could be such an encyclopedia, and with such effortlessness.

He doesn't know about google.com.

This is a very smart man. He is capable of forming sound arguments, and listening to all opinions with reason. He's certainly got more smarts than most congress critters.

So a few months ago, I thought, with a high degree of certainty, that I could convince him to join "our side" on issues such as the fall of napster, copy-crippled cds, DeCSS, and maybe free-as-in-speech software. I was such a fool to get frustrated when he didn't respond with the degree of passion that I had hoped for, from an individual who is otherwise so passionate about politics of this country.

He didn't disagree with me. He wasn't willing to strongly agree with me either, though. He just listened to my arguments, sometimes smiling and nodding, sometimes taking a devil's advocate position which would make me think. But it never felt like he had much power or conviction. After a few minutes, he would change the subject. I thought to myself, "Why doesn't this man care about these things that are so critical, pivitol, and whose legal status could change the future forever?"

He doesn't know about google.com!

And here's the kicker: I'd be willing to bet that many of the people in congress are less informed, and less intelligent than the man I talked to. (Rick Boucher might be an exception, at least in the informedness with regard to technology department.)

Go ponder that for a while. Then come back and tell me how we are going to get Washington to do the right thing. (That's Washington D.C. Not Washington state. Washington state is the home of the enemy. Remember?)

(Also keep in mind that most toddlers will lack any memory of a time when google.com did not exist. They won't be able to comprehend how anyone lived without it. Well, maybe they will be able comprehend it. They'll comprehend it in the same way that most 20th century Americans can comprehend living without electric lights. But wait... We're in the 21st century now.)

I gotta finish ordering myself a bumper sticker from this website. I think we're finally reaching the point where the dot com swindlers have mostly passed, and now we're finally seeing a few real business models. For online small businesses, I mean. Not amazon.com. There's going to be many of them that will prosper, but not get too large. That's the way things should work.

Cut'n'paste time. I'm listening, but I don't want to type.

Amazing music. I didn't Napster that one. I paid for it before napster existed. It was a B side on a cd single I had purchased on Pearl Street. However, if anyone would like an Ogg Vorbis copy free of charge, email me. Don't forget to include your pgp key, so I can make sure I never get prosecuted (unless you're an undercover RIAA cop). Wouldn't want third parties to be intercepting such contraband, would we?

And kids, remember, the Apple Corporation cares about you too. Don't steal music. They said so in their commercials. How very touching.

BTW, I don't know how I ever lived without Mozilla's tabs. I cannot comprehend an age when these tabs did not exist, because I use them so instinctually these days. Have done so for months. My experience of the web would be greatly dimished without the tabs feature. How did we ever live without them?

Still think MSIE rules the web? Just wait. Let them compete, and see what the boys in Redmond can come up with. [/me grins an evilly maniacal grin.]

Ok, this is getting ridiculous. I'm losing myself in this. I have to assume the role of Thomas Anderson again tomorrow.

About Thomas Anderson: Thomas Anderson might be evolving, but he's doing so very slowly. He needs to get more efficient. If he continues to display the post-LSD-high [Updating on Wed Aug 7 23:34:36 MDT 2002 by B: More like heroin actually, while he listened to Spiritualized at full volume on the headphones in his cube. Yeah, this dude is fscked up. But almost nobody in the office notices, since they're too busy trying to meet the deadline with only a partial crew working], drugged out, incompetent, stoned junkie look we were witnessing earlier today, he's going to lose his job. Does he even care whether he loses his job?

He had an excuse. This time. He was tired. He was beat. He had been on a long trip. He hadn't gotten much sleep. Even though he had taken an extra day off work, he was still very, very tired. The company he worked for might be bumping up against a deadline before long, but he was way too out of it to grasp what was going on. He'll be fired soon, unless he improves, because he was goofing off on company time.

So we're gonna tweak his character tonight. He might lose his job later, but let's let him keep it for a while. Let's fix him up.

In the morning, his cubicle will be a little cleaner, a little nicer, and a little bit easier to work in. The display screen in front of his eyes will seem slightly larger to him, but he will barely notice. Somebody will have planted a gag decoration atop his monitor before he arrives at work. He won't really notice it though, because he is focused on improving his job performance.

Let's wait and see how he does.

Once again, I don't get through all the topics I was hoping to mention. And these poor people who are waiting for wedding summaries are being put on hold indefinitely.

But my time is past up. I gotta get to bed before long. I'm short on sleep. I've been putting myself into debt by borrowing from the sleep gods. If I don't start repaying, there's going to be interest added on top.

So... Rambling over. I'll discuss more things another night.

Recommendation for your Netflix queue today: Pump up the Volume. Or just save yourself the trouble, and see it at Bitscape's place someday. He owns a copy.

[AND CUT]