Despite being an avowed atheist (or at best agnostic) I think that this is a hilariously brilliant idea.

It’s not quite in the same category of misguided as the infamous Amish Online Dating site which I still hope is a joke, but have a cynical suspicion that someone really created it as an idea.

And in the meantime, remember that actually it’s Satanism that is the only perfect religion. If you fuck up in Satanism, you get to go to Heaven…

I got this spam the other day…

My names are Janet Brown, I was diagnosed for cancer for about few weeks ago. I have been touched by God to donate to you, from what I have inherited from my late husband to you for the good work of God/needy/charity, I decided to WILL/donate the sum of USD$10Million to you.  Contact my Attorney/lawyer/Barrister Stephen & Associates with this, specified email; { [Removed, for obvious reasons]} Tel; [Removed, for obvious reasons],for the funds release, my personal ref number law/WILL/9834520012. I will appreciate your utmost confidentiality in this matter until the task is accomplished as I don’t want anything that will jeopardize my last wish. Regards,
Mrs. Janet Brown

That’s exactly as I received it – the only thing changed is that I’ve removed the contact details.

But what you’ve got to wonder is this: What kind of blithering idiot numpty would ever respond to something like this?

And if even one person did respond, it would just prove that Barnum was right – there truly is one born every minute.

In Norwich, a new venue called “Open” has – um – opened.

The URL for the website is Open247.org.uk – implying that Open is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

However, if you look at the opening hours (and it’s not easy to find them) you get this…

The opening hours are as follows:

• Monday – Saturday 9am-10pm
• Sunday 10 – 9pm

Which means it’s not actually 24/7 at all, is it? Although I suppose (at most) 13/7 doesn’t have quite the same ring to it…

Over the weekend, I’ve made a decision and a bit of a commitment, which came as quite a shock to me once I’d decided on it.

Up ’til now (a whole month!) I’ve been looking at the current job as a six-month contract that’s likely to extend, rather than as a permanent role. My aversion to permanent roles is well-documented (and recently re-witnessed by Herself when this job came up) for a range of reasons, so seeing it as a contract role was more of a sanity thing than anything else.

Anyway, I’ve made the decision – allbeit with the proviso “Assuming that it doesn’t go as horribly fucking wrong as the last one” – that I’m going to be here for the next twelve months, through to the start of 2011. After that, all bets are off – but I’m going to do my best to stick out this role for the whole of 2010.

As you can imagine, it’s all been a bit of a shock to the system , but I do have my reasons for making this decision/commitment.

First of all, I’d quite like to have a year that’s considerably calmer than the last two years have been. In this case, while I’m still going to be doing work for myself (and for the clients of my own company) I’d rather reduce the stress levels a bit by not having to keep on chasing new contracts. Making this choice will basically put contracting “on hold” for 13 months or so. With the way contrating and work has gone this year, I can certainly live with that.

Additionally, it means that (hopefully) Herself will be less stressed out about my work situation. She’s never been a great fan of how contracting works, and this year has done nothing to help her opinion of it. That’s completely fair – my own impression of it has taken a pretty big knock this year, and that’s as someone who prefers it. So it’s no surprise at all to know that Herself will be happier if I’m locked in to this for a year.

Another reason is that – as others have said this year – I need to give “proper jobs” a fair crack of the whip. My experience of them ’til now has been unremittingly negative, but I need to give it another go.

The final reason is kind of related to the first. I want to have the time/energy to get other plans done. I also don’t want the pressure of “my livelihood, paying for the house, paying the bills etc. etc. are all dependent on these plans working”, so it makes more sense to keep my head down for a year, do the things I want to outside of that 40ish hours a week, and know that everything’s paid for, that holiday time is paid for etc., and I don’t need to stress (as much) about it.

So yes, that’s the decision made. Unless all else goes wrong, I’m now in the same place ’til Jan 2011. I’m still torn about whether this is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing. We’ll see.

Over the weekend, Belle De Jour, one of the last remaining published ‘anonymous’ bloggers (which should really be pseudonymous bloggers, but let’s not be picky) has come out and revealed her ‘true’ name. There was also a piece in TechCrunch by Paul Carr about this, which made for interesting reading.

While I (for obvious reasons) don’t have an issue with pseudonymous bloggers, I do think that Carr’s point is equally valid – if you’re going to write something under a pseudonym, don’t go out and get a book deal. The concepts of pseudonyms and fame are pretty much mutually exclusive – yes, there are some people who’ve managed both, but not really during the current media-driven Age of Celebrity.

For me, some (OK, a fair number) people know my ‘real-life’ name. I write as Lyle to keep things separate from the real world – I don’t want a Google search on my real name to bring up D4D™, and I don’t want searches on D4D™ to easily bring up my name. I believe it is possible to make a connection or two these days, but I still try to keep the two apart as much as I can.

But I don’t want fame or a book deal. If I were looking for that, I would’ve done things very differently with D4D. (I mean for one thing, I’d have had a theme for it, rather than just random sweary rubbish) And for the writing I do where I would like/love/dream of getting it into production, of seeing the writing become properly known, I write in my own name, and on a totally different site.

I don’t have a problem with people writing pseudonymously, nor with them deciding to remove that pseudonymity in order to re-join the two parts of their lives. That’s fair enough.  I do object to the media forcing people to lose their pseudonymous lives (as happened with Girl With A One-Track Mind when her book came out) but that is – apparently, at least – not what’s happened with Belle de Jour.

As usual, I don’t really know where I’m going with this – it’s just a random spattering of thoughts. I suppose I just end up being bemused a bit when people get the book deal and still think/hope they can stay behind the pen-name.

A quick thanks to Yorkshire Soul, who has managed to write a post that gives me a reason to go to San Francisco.

That just looks like so much fun. (Although I don’t think it would be worth the flight just to do that, of course)