Well, needless to say, every resume on my computer now says I left Macromedia in 2004!

As expected, NONE of them had 2004 before, all 2005.

So, recently been writing on here about not being sure how I’ll be dealing with this commute long-term… and the answer is… I won’t.

On Monday, after preparing a little cheat sheet about my past roles at InfoWorld and Macromedia to read at my first all-hands meeting at 10 a.m., my boss called me out before it started. I follow him upstairs and a HR rep is waiting in the room. I figure this is related to our discussion about commuting on Friday, HR showing I signed paperwork knowing the job was in Palo Alto, blahblahblah. Seemed a bit formal, but whatever.

And, of course, bringing up the commute early was an attempt to resolve it. Given the choice, sure, I’d've pulled for the SF office. But if that wasn’t on the table, I’d figure out how to make Palo Alto work.

In any event, that was my last day at the company. All because of a "discrepancy" that turned up on my background check. So, 10 a.m. and I’m sitting there waiting for the meeting, ten minutes later, I’m being escorted out the side door by HR and literally waiting on the curb for a bus that may or may not even be coming (Jeremy hadn’t made it to work yet, so he ended up rescuing me and depositing me at the train station).

So, what was the discrepancy? That would be the first question most people would have, especially if you’re getting fired for it.

My only thought is it has to be identity theft, because there is nothing in my background that would lead to this result.

I mean, the HR guy seems uncomfortable the whole time. My boss isn’t even looking at me. What is in this report?

It takes about 26 hours before I finally get to see the background check myself, after numerous e-mails, and setting up my Mac to receive faxes (which it did superbly). And I quickly read through the report as soon as the PDF appears on my desktop.

I read it again, thinking I missed something. No criminal background, which is what all my friends were expecting, that my report got crosslinked with someone else, or my years covering the criminal justice system somehow got my name linked to a crime I wrote about but didn’t commit.

Nope, my criminal background is non-existent, as expected. My social security records also pan out, so I’m able to work here, and all that stuff.

The only discrepancy is with my previous employment. My employer submitted the paperwork I sent them to the background check service, and the big discrepancy was:

On my resume, I say I worked at Macromedia from 1999 to 2005.

In reality, I worked at Macromedia from 1999 to 2004.

That’s it. As soon as I heard it, I was relieved, imagining a life of navigating bureaucratic channels to convince people that I did not jump bail to avoid persecution as a colombian drug mule. This was amusing, because I’ve always had a mental hiccup about this. I know that Jeremy has even corrected me in public when I mentioned leaving Macromedia in 2005.

Because when I left Macromedia in November 2004, it was in the third quarter of fiscal year 2005. So, a lot of the stuff I edited always said 2005 all over it. So, I have always been unable to detach the calendar year from the fiscal year, and now, it looks like I even put that on my resume.

So I dash off a quick e-mail to HR and my former boss, explaining how that occurred, adding in that no hard feelings and, as far as I’m concerned, this can just be an amusing anecdote about when I started working there. I don’t think this has any repercussions.

I mean, I know for a fact that Macromedia (now Adobe) would ONLY confirm that I was employed there, my job title, and the dates. If I wanted to embellish a resume, why would I do it on the one part I know will get a response? That said, I didn’t embellish my resume at all to begin with.

I give it a few hours, giving them time to realize what happened or something, then toward end of day after 4 p.m., I call the HR guy, but quickly get legalese responses. We were legally required to send you a background check but are not able to discuss the … etc., etc.

I finally ask him if I should take this to mean that my days there are no more, there is no chance I’m returning, and their message is to call the whole thing over and look for another job. I finally break through the legalese and get that confirmed. So, that job is over…

Of course, it does bring up the question: what was the real reason?

If they were as pleased with my work as they seemed to be, this sort of thing would be easily corrected and that would be that. So, something happened and this discrepancy gave them good standing to call the whole thing off.

Some people have suggested the commute issue was raised too soon, but I honestly don’t think that’s it, seeing as the entire goal was to resolve the commute ASAP so as not to let it build to the point where it affected the job. If my working at the San Francisco office was not a possibility, and I still liked the job as much as it seemed I would, then I would have looked into getting a car, or moving down the peninsula, who knows…

The thing was never that if I couldn’t work in San Francisco, I would leave the job. That just seemed the most obvious resolution, given they have an office near where I live, etc.

Other people question whether it is the "gay thing," but Oasis was on my resume if I recall properly, and I can’t imagine this would be the kind of place that cares about that.

Some people just fear the whole blog/journaling thing is TMI for employers and, given my level of disclosure, there’s way too many options as to what they could have a problem with. But I’ve never said the name of the company where I was working on here. Even now, when I could, I haven’t. I’ve been in worlds of NDAs, and knowing what products were coming out at Macromedia months in advance, messed-up behind the scenes stuff, etc., etc., and none of that has ever appeared on my blog. It’s jeffwalsh.com, it’s all about me here, really.

Of course, the overall feeling I have is… I’d rather companies get wiggy sooner rather than later. So, if they don’t want me, better dump me quickly, because once that negative energy is in place, it will  just build and push me out eventually anyway.

It’s just going to be one of those things about which you never know the real answer. Just one of those things. Just edit the resume, so the date on Macromedia is changed from 2005 to 2004, and start sending it out again.

I did say I couldn’t see myself doing more than three weeks of that commute. I guess I was right.

Interesting goings-on, but I can’t write more now. Soon… maybe.

I recently found out that beneath my vegan, ethical, pro-gay, pro-whatever, etc., etc., facade, I actually do discriminate: I don’t care to see blind performers.

I have no clue how this came to be, but I recently saw that Andrea Bocelli was charge upwards of $200 for seats close to the stage and my immediate thought was… who cares how close to the stage you are? He’s blind! It’s not like he sees you. May as well get the cheapest seat you can and just listen if you like him.

I explore this further and found that, in general, I don’t want to see any blind performers in person. So, I’m thinking that this is some further narcisissm. I always thought it was about how close I was getting to the stage, but apparently, it is about how close the performers get to be to me?

I mean, that is the whole point of being close, seeing the expressions, the glances between band members, which members smirks when someone hits a sour note, and such. The pinnacle being, of course, actual eye contact with the singer.

This can have a downside, too, when you see someone like Tori Amos from front and center, she’ll stare you down without blinking, without looking away, until she finally gets YOU to look away, and then, when you look back, she’s there all creepy and waiting again. Some other times, when you are TOO close, like seats I’ve had for Beck and Ani DiFranco, were like being at an IMAX concert film, since there was NO ONE in front of me except the performer, and when the crowd applauded, it was a strange surround sound coming from behind me, as though I had finally broken down and bought that good Bose system i always wanted. With Beck, I was self-conscious whenever my mouth wasn’t lipsynching all the lyrics properly, hitting a few phrases I never committed to memory, and hoping to not get caught.

But, seriously, put a blind guy in front of me… and what’s the point? May as well bring a videogame. It may be pretty, but that’s the end of it. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-blind. Certainly not in general, and my record collection has Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, and Andrea Bocelli, etc. I think I tossed the CD of that blind blues guy that was in that Patrick Swayze movie, though, but didn’t we all?

No, the disconnect is ONLY seeing blind perfomers playing live in concert. Strangely enough, when I saw Kurt front Nirvana, I think it was literally 100 minutes of him with his hair in his eyes, eyes mainly closed, hitting all the notes, but projecting the vibe that he’d rather not be there. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. I think we all focused on him, loved him, wanted him to look up and see people looking back at him who cared. He never looked up, or in my general direction that I can recall, but… there was that potential at least.

This certainly needs further exploration, although with Bocelli charging crazy-ass prices, Ray Charles dead, Stevie Wonder’s catalog being amazingly uneven and also overpriced, I’m sure, and no one able to remember the guy from the Patrick Swayze movie, it isn’t likely to come up anyway.

But this whole revelation does intrigue me… especially how it came out of nowhere. Really blind-sided me.

But, I went to the Jamie cullum concert tonight, so a bit too wired to be asleep, which just means I’ll be less awake than I prefer at work tomorrow. No risk of getting there later than I should, since the walk/train/shuttle is an exacting science. in fact, I need to get there a tad earlier, so I can buy another 10 Pass.

I’ll shorthand the work stuff for now: First week was great, really like the people, and all my assumptions about a design firm/agency job as opposed to a one client gig seem accurate, so far; chatted with the boss on Friday about the commute not doable long-term, so we’re going to figure out how to resolve. I root, of course, for the city; I spent 20 hours last week getting to/from work; and will do the same this week.

OK, that’s not the stuff I plan to ramble on about today… if I’m bored with commute talk, ya’ll certainly must be. I’ll suffer in silence for a while longer…

So, between the time I took the job and accepted it, or perhaps even from the interview on, where I had a good sense that I would be hired, it was an introspective time. Not necessarily job-related, but assessing who I am now, how I’ve changed, what still needs modification, etc.

The biggest personal change is that I am trying to remove external goals from my life. Not sure if that sounds right, but I’ll overexplain as per usual. It seems to affect the three main things I’ve been pursuing, the three Bs (book, body, boy).

I think that I have, for WAY too long, used things outside myself as when something will change in my life. The book, for example, is always held out as a time when I will become more social, because the time spent writing/editing/thinking about it will become available and I can turn all of that into social energy or somesuch. There’s also the ego component of being able to reluctantly (after a lot of work making sure you teach yourself to convincingly seem reluctant) tell people you wrote a novel, etc.

Then there is the body. I keep using my goal weight as a magic time when i will be confident enough to date, approach guys more readily, etc., etc., which is again, nonsense.

Rounding it off is, of course, the boy. This is pretty obvious after the above two… if I’m not readily being social, not feeling good about the body issues, well. won’t be any boys until that resolves itself.

I’ve written about this stuff before, but there is a shift this time. I think I always saw these as healthy goals, things worth pursuing, but I don’t anymore.

The most obvious bullshit of the three is the body. I have gotten myself so wired about how much weight I have to lose, and wondering how my new job will affect my eating patterns, and my gym attendance, etc., etc., and it is all just another form of procrastination. I’ve spent so long as someone who needs to lose only 10 more pounds, I never let myself be someone who’s lost 115 or whatever it is (no weight watchers this week, you can guess why… heh).

I think keeping my goal out of reach, and with the self-sabotage that accompanies it, keeps me free not to have to take the scary steps forward that are on the horizon.

I’m honestly thinking that it’s time to dump weight watchers. Still pick a day a week to hit the scales at the gym and record it and all, but… should I know that I gained .4 pounds, or lost .2 in any given week? It seems like this will only lead to an ongoing maniacal view of weight. I mean, I’m gay… when I get down to my proper body size, I’ll have clothes that are tight enough that I won’t need a scale to tell me when thigns are drifting in the wrong direction.

I also noticed that a lot of the sabotage was timed with weight watchers. Like, if I weighed in on a Wednesday morning, Wednesday would be a crazy eating day… sort of a challenge like, "Well, off to a bad start… can you make it right in the next seven days?" So, looking to roll that out long term, where with less focus on my weight, I will become less wrapped up in it, and (I think) more likely to just get on living like someone with an average-sized body.

The novel…

Well, I should address that. A lot of people are concerned about the full-time job and how that will affect the book, and whether this book will come out in their lifetimes, etc. I can tell you that, with no doubt, the book is not falling off the radar, although in the short term it is backburnered.

As for taking the job, well, I was out of money. Simple as that. Thankfully, I scored a great job through some serendipity. So, I’m basically like all wanna-be novelists now, having to let the market tell them if they get to quit their day jobs once they are published. Not too rare. I also think I work well with constraint, so knowing that I have a three hour window in which to write, that works for me. Probably more than when I gave myself the whole day… I like margins and discipline, etc.

So, back to the topic at hand…

The novel isn’t going to change my life. In some ways that is disingenuous, of course. Publishing a novel is a huge undertaking, but it will not change my internal wiring. You can’t just say "OK, time to be social now." I haven’t built that muscle memory up, there is no routine to fall back on. The early isolation of my sexuality that I kept alive through my body size is about to resolve itself when I become a boringly gay, average-looking guy. Any social perks the novel gives me won’t be entirely real events. Sure, I’m certain there will be new people coming into my life as a result, publishers, editors, agents… just like my new job has the promise of meeting new and interesting people I want to add to the mix. But, if I don’t naturally vibe with people as a social person, or someone to whom that sort of interaction comes easily, then it certainly won’t be improved by becoming more public. It will just magnify things, the parts where I’ll be confident (having finally written the book) will be easier, but the stuff where I’m still inept, that will resonate even stronger than before… It’s like you always hear, fame never really changed anybody, assholes become bigger assholes, etc., etc., so this needs to be worked on whether or not I’m ever writing a book.

So, I’m just shifting my expectations internally. Become a better, more social person slowly, learning what it takes to get there, and don’t wait to become a published author with whatever fake attention that might bring to sort the shit out. Same with the body… the intense focus is helping nothing. Give up. Be who you are now. Still work out, eat right, etc., etc., and it will just happen.

I think keeping the achievment of my goals external has given the part of me that doesn’t want to change more opportunities to derail me. It’s all that become the change you want to see or whatever hippies say.

Hmm, I think I’m going to post another quick thing… which was already above this, if you read two things.

So, before I became employed, I scored free tickets to see "The Heidi Chronicles." Normally, I would have skipped, but they showed up right after the death of the work’s author, so it was still rolling around in my head, plus.. you know… it was free and all.

Tonight, I decided to try and pretend I was going to come home from work and go to a show. Just see how tight it would be, if possible at all.

The key dilemma, of course, is that the train pulls in at 7:02, the show is at 8, and I have to score dinner between the two.

So, right from the train, I jump on a bus to drag me north on third. I bail at Howard, and go over to 2nd, in an attempt to get my favorite hummus in the city at Zebulon. Only, after work, Zebulon is more of a social drinking lounge vibe, so I bail on that, and hit Osha Thai half a block away. Get a seat, order a green curry with tofu. The catch is: I do nothing to accelerate the process. Don’t say I’m in a rush, don’t pay for dinner before he brings the check, etc.

Long story short. I sit down in the theater at 8:01. A bit rushed, but didn’t run to get there or anything. It was a bit intense, though, and I do want to keep the chill vibe going. I think that is imperative.

I bailed on the show at intermission, because well life is too short for boring, obvious feminist blather. This won a Pulitzer and a Tony? Damn, what was it up against? If this is the woman who defined the feminist movement, well… it’s certain proof that the old newspaper adage is true: it’s better to be first than be best.

Sad realization today: I don’t drink caffeine after 3ish, so that I’m not wired when i need to be crashing in order to do the commute. Which means, I now live in a world that, save for weekends, starts before I can buy bubble tea, and ends after I can drink bubble tea. I am in a tapioca tea-free world. That’s just wrong…

OK, sorry to make this the commute blog, but well, it is top of mind.

I guess my issue is wondering what life would be like on the peninsula. To some degree, I don’t know and won’t until I do it (if I do it). But, whether or not I am going to concerts, and seeing plays, going clubbing, and everything else on a regular basis… I do like the energy of it all around me. I like walking down the street and seeing bars filled with people, and people laughing on the street, and all of it.

All every company talks about is work/life balance, but I don’t see it. And, people who have some semblance of both… it’s never "balanced." The people who achieve that balance make their work their life, and everything else is a bonus. I don’t think that’s my deal, though. Hmm… boss back in the office tomorrow, so who know how fast this will come up. Hell, he could even be reading this now. (Hi!)

A lot of people are "uh-oh"ing the commute, which I guess makes sense. Back in the Macromedia days, I would have already been updating the resume, looking to jump. Not really my scene now. I mean, I’m not fond of the commute by any means, but it doesn’t really bother me.

I’m really coming around to think that projection is a big issue in everyone’s life. When I read Oasis, I see people get the life they anticipate over and over again. If you say your friends won’t handle it well and such, they typically don’t. But I don’t think it’s the friends, but the energy you bring to the equation, that is what they are actually reacting to.

So, with the commute, I spend a lot of time managing it. There are very constant patterns to it. I know how long it will be each day. I know when I will get to work, and when I have to leave work to catch the shuttle I want. To bring any negativity into the mix would only poison something that can’t be avoided right now. So, I just bring a book and read. Finished two books on the commute already.

But, given how little of my day there is once the commute is finished, I don’t think I’ll be doing much work on the train. When I get into Sf now, I am totally unwound, refreshed, and ready to come home, take a bath, unwind, watch some TV, and well, by then it’s usually time to go back to bed.

If I had the laptop fired up and I was cranking stuff out until the last minute on the train, I would need to decompress in that small chunk of time, as well. And… there just isn’t enough of it left to go that route. Not dong contract work, novel work, or anything else while on the train either. Now, if 24 hour fitness had a treadmill car? Sure, I’d be ready to get off the train all sweaty and have that banged off the list with no doubt.

Things that have gotten no attention this week are obvious: the gym and the novel. Neither are minor things, and I’m only giving them a 2-week grace period before they have to find their way back into the schedule.

Lots of suggestions on reducing the commute, none of which seem to change the variables all that much. One is taking BART from 16th and Mission to Millbrae to chop off some of the train walk. As I take an Express Train it makes good time, so I think I would save less than 10 minutes here, and spend more money doing it.

The bike is popular, via your e-mail responses, as it also addresses the gym aspect, gives me something a bit more physical to do than walk and sit for parts of the commute. I think the bike only saves me time on the SF to Caltrain side. Most people at work say it takes them 15-20 minutes to bike casually from the station, which is exactly the length of the shuttle. So, I only save maybe 10 minutes on this side, which in the grand scheme of things isn’t really adding up to much.

Having a bike on the Palo Alto side would allow me more flexibility in getting from the office to the train, but with the length of the commute as it is right now, I can’t really see spending too much longer at the office. My free time is less than three hours a day now, so not really looking to slice that down yet until something else gives.

I do think I’ve poorly advertised how well the 18 months off did me. I would never have been this calm doing this commute before. I recall dreading the InfoWorld commute to San Mateo, which is the midway point of my current train ride, but now it is just relaxing and fun.

I also realize how different I remain from certain aspects of these jobs, since there is a commonality among techy jobs that is pretty constant. One thing is… I’m really not a multitasker. Not trying to become better at it. Don’t think anyone is good at it, really. I’m convinced that the long hours at most jobs is from people poorly juggling 12 things simultaneously, instead of doing one thing, finishing it; doing the next thing, finishing it… which is how I tend to work. Not in a rigid way or anything, but the odds of me checking e-mail while writing a document while browsing a website and thinking I’m firing on all cylinders? One man’s firing on all cylinders is another’s spinning his wheels.

Not that I’m judging. My path certainly puts you in the minority. But it’s a calm minority.

Again, it is all part of the projection… you decide your own fate every time you visualize your future. So, if you don’t like your life, stop forcing it down that path.

PS: Started Hemingway today. Easy to read, although I keep waiting for it to "kick in," you know? I may be waiting in vain. Anyway, just like how he uses semicolons in quotes to show disinterest, and shrink the pause less than a period would allow. So, if a character interrupts the person who is talking and the person talking is placating him with an answer, but wanting to jump back into his story, he just does a quick "No; listen, Jack. I was saying that I went down to the…" Just dug that semicolon on the commute down to work this morning. I guess I’m getting enough sleep (or caffeine) if I’m able to parse sentences and have fun with it that early in the morning. Going to InfoWorld, I used to be nodding off the whole time.

After almost a year and a half of leisure, today was the first day at a new job.

Tried to find jobs in the city, but the place that finally seemed like a great fit is in Palo Alto. And not the step-off-the-train University Ave. Palo Alto that has been my sole view into this town, but a 25 minute shuttle from the train out into the hills.

To save you the math, my commute was four hours today. Two hours on each end, including: getting to the train station, waiting for the train to depart (cuz you gotta give yourself enough time as not to miss the train), the train ride itself (45-minute express trains both ways, btw, so it could conceivably lengthen on some days), and a shuttle.

Now, we’ll return to the commute aspect in a bit, but in the meantime we’ll take a nice intermission. The job is great. Everyone is incredibly nice. It’s just a bunch of really smart, talented people, who seem like they will be a great group of people to get to know and work with. I can’t go into a lot of detail, as I’m trying for once to keep at least one of my jobs off of Google. The day flew by (although a mountain of HR forms always does strange things with time) and it is a place that seems like a potential good fit long-term.

Only not with that commute (oh, intermission is over now). It basically comes down to a few factors that will determine how the commute issue plays out.

The first, of course, is a matter of whether the job might possibly, at some point, migrate to their SF office. I didn’t broach this in the initial interview as it seemed like bad form, wanting to leave the office before you even start; best to get hired and establish yourself before bringing that sort of thing up. Working in SF would shave a good 3+ hours off of my commute, so it’s not a trivial amount of time. So, the issue is whether the SF office is an option. That determines every other course of events.

If the job is going to be in Palo Alto for a good while, then it comes down to two short-term choices: bike or car. The bike shaves time off both sides of the train (less on the Palo Alto side), although what time it doesn’t save on the PA side, it makes up for with flexibility. There are four shuttles that run from my company to Caltrain, they run at 3:30, 4:30, 5:30, and 6:30. Now, the first two shuttles just say slacker… even if you come to work crazy-early, leaving that early looks bad. Plus, I don’t want to get up early enough to justify leaving that early. The shuttle also has a strange element in that it takes you to the California Avenue Station, rather than the University Avenue station. Two express trains stormed past me standing there, but stopped at the next station down the line. And the shuttle only goes to that stop in the afternoon, so… a bit strange. So, definitely worth controlling my ability to leave work whenever I want to, rather than let the shuttle schedule dictate things.

The bike adds some freedom but, let’s face it, the car really opens everything up. Parking at work is not a problem. The only issue is parking in the city, and nothing is more fun than driving into the city to go around in circles for 20+ minutes looking for parking.

So, the next issue becomes stay in the city or move toward Palo Alto… which isn’t one that I would take lightly. I certainly won’t do anything like that for a few months at least. Have to make sure the job is as good a fit as it seems. Have to see what all these new expenses (paying today’s rent prices, car payment, gas, insurance, etc.) will leave me with as far as a salary.

But, like I said, a lot of these things cancel one another out. I don’t want a bike in the city (or I’d've had one by now), and I don’t want a car in the city, so if there’s a chance that in, say, six months we could revisit whether I could be based out of SF, it might be worth getting a cheap used car and driving up and down the peninsula for a few months.

Lots of if/then/elses here… but the upside is that I like the job. Now, it’s just about figuring out how to have a non-commute life outside of it.

I honestly can’t figure out how to fit certain things in. Like, the gym: too early to go before the commute, to close to bedtime by the time I get home. Doing my contract web job on the side will primarily need to be weekends, although that should launch within 2-3 months, so short-term. And, yes, the novel WILL BE FINISHED this summer, so a solution to get that sorted out needs to happen soon. That said, I banged out a LOT of reading today, but there’s a bit too much on my plate to accept a high page count in reading as enough work/life balance.

My life of leisure is coming to an end. Starting Monday, it’s looking like it’s back to full time work.

Not going into the wheres and whys here, since it is a bit strange that people can find out my whole employment history and output on Google as it is, so we’ll see if it’s possible to keep it on the down low this time. Previously, I would keep getting random e-mails about people asking me what it was like to work at macromedia, etc., etc., all based on them finding references to me working there from Google.

Anyway, it is going to be an interesting jump from my current schedule to more structure, but it will sort out soon enough. I wouldn’t even bother if I didn’t have some positive vibes about
the place to begin with. On top of that, I will still be reading, working on the novel, and continuing my ongoing contract job.

On some level, I think I do better with structure and, as the money ran down toward the end here, so did the productivity. I need to have stuff going on in which to shoehorn the rest of my activity. Do the writing before seeing the movie after which you can hit the gym before having dinner with someone, etc. When my day opened up too much, as I cut back on doing other things, a lot of productivity was wiped out as well. Given the whole day to accomplish tasks, they very often didn’t get done.

The new job has a commute, so there’s the reading time, possibly some of the contract time as well, as long as I take the train rather than get a car or somesuch. The gym is between my apartment and the train station, and my initial guess is that I may switch to two 30 minute workouts instead of one 45 minute workout. (The idea there is that it is too time-consuming to work out, go home, shower up, change clothes, and then go to the train. So, instead: workout, shower, change clothes,
leave the sweaty clothes locked up at the gym, go to the train, put in the workday, on the way home, since I’ll need to pick up the clothes anyway, bang out another 30 (in a second unsweated-through outfit), and head home. Will also spike the endorphins a bit to gear me up for working on the book or something).

It will all sort itself out in time. That’s just the thinking for right now.

Not planning to relocate or get a car just yet, although that would unlock additional time. Want to make sure everything’s a good fit and all that before any major jumps. The company also has a San Francisco office, so want to make sure there’s no possibility of migrating the gig north at some point once I have my bearings before doing a major move.

I do plan in the near future to get a new apartment, although I will probably hang out for another six months or so before looking into that. If the job lives up to the promise, perhaps it will be down the peninsula. Or, maybe a car and a relocate within the city will make more sense. Too soon to tell.

Should be an interesting time, though.

So, I’m reading my RSS-pulled news pages, and find a story about one of the actors from the Sopranos who is sued by a company that paid him more than $300,000 to promote the Stacker 2 diet drug. Now, I have no problems with celebrity endorsements, but… why would you want an overweight spokesperson to chat up your diet pill? I guess it works for Dr. Weil and Dr. Phil, who also make millions talking expertly about the weight loss they seem incapable of doing themselves.

A quick online search shows this actor lost 30ish pounds on a celebrity weight loss reality show which, to my knowledge, tends to be about diet and exercise, not what are essentially caffeine pills.

But, I guess I’m wrong. The actor has already switched over to another company to endorse a competing diet pill. By the way, I didn’t go on Google and try to find a photo that made him too extra large or anything. That is a pic from the main page of his official website.