I caught the coof. God dammit. Again. It’s goddamned horrible. I’m not a fan, do not recommend. Don’t have “COVID parties”, don’t intentionally try to catch this thing, you’re gonna get it over and over eventually. Just avoid it. And all you superdodgers out there better count your lucky fucking stars that you don’t go through this shit, because it’s unfortunate to say the least.

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed this yet, but I treat this blog as my sort of social media. It’s where I dump my thoughts and feelings whereas normally most people would do so on facebook or twitter. I don’t accept that someone else has any say in what language I use or what thoughts I express, and so this is the road I’m taking for better or worse. I can be as kind or as abrasive as I see fit without conforming anything about myself to any standard set by society. I can do so relatively safely from behind a pseudonym that isn’t directly attached to me publicly. My OPSEC isn’t perfect by any means, and most would say it’s incredibly insufficient, but I think I’ve found a rational balance with OPSEC. Security, at the end of the day, is always a compromise between the end goal and usability. The end goal being absolute security, which is almost entirely unusable by anyone. A totally secure system doesn’t exist, because total security precludes all usability. So, of course, security is always trying to find the needle’s happy place between a usable and unusable system. You can easily find photos of my face on this blog, but that’s pretty much it. There are also a few other obscure bits and pieces, but it’s not frequent and it would require some effort for anyone to put together a comprehensive dossier on me.

Though I readily admit that once you have this pseudonym, you have everything. I’m further obscured in that Bungie has named a major enemy in a video game “The Red Legion”, super fucking helpful to my OPSEC. It’s also really common in paintball. There are like fifty million “Red Legion” paintball squads all over the globe. But once you filter those results out, oh man, you end up with a treasure trove of Usenet and god knows what material on me starting all the way from 1998 and onward. Not all of it is flattering, either.

I guess that’s why I remain pseudonymous rather than just lamename myself. Because I have grown and developed as a person, and while I’m still not perfect, I continue to grow and develop as a person despite past mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. People nowadays don’t really care and presume you’re always the equivalent of something you said twenty years ago. It’s ridiculous and unfair, but my fiance will be the first to say “Life isn’t fair”. She’s right. It’s not.

Man, fuck this COVID thing though. Fuck it completely. It’s no bueno.