The search continues. Every week day (and most weekends, if I’m being honest), I check two or three different job boards, and sometimes two or three other ones, to see if something new has been posted that I qualify for. I poke through the discord communities that I’m a part of to see if someone’s hiring. If the well is truly dry, I go to specific company sites and see if they’ve posted something that’s simply not getting picked up by the scrapers. I send e-mails to the people I’ve already talked to, asking when we can talk next, and that I’m excited to get to know the team! I scroll through Linkedin, holding in my breath while the page is open, so I don’t inhale anything poisonous.

We’re coming up on six months, and still nothing. Some opportunities came closer, or felt like they did, but nothing has really happened to make me think I’m getting a job any more than it has since I lost my old one, almost six months ago.

I’m in Florida now, staying with my parents and seeing my family, which has been a good change of scenery. I miss my home, and the life that I had there, and while I have no idea what the future holds, it‘s hard not to think that that chapter is ending.

I had to say goodbye to Pullo before making the move. It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. I have never grappled with grief like this, and not having a job or the stability that regular income brings has made it even harder to grapple with the sudden flare-ups of grief that arrive, unannounced. I’m sure life will go on, but it will never be quite the same without him.

My friend Matthew and I have started a new podcast, THE PRISONER’S DILEMMA, where we watch and analyze every episode of the 1960s surreal spy show The Prisoner. It’s been a lot of fun so far, and people have said some very very nice things about it. There’s one episode out and more to come on a bi-weekly basis. Find it where-ever you listen to pods.

Following the death of my favorite social media website, I - like many of my peers - have gone the way of the old Internet and have started a Blog. Now, if you haven’t heard the word “blog” before, that’s because it’s from a very long time ago.

My blog is at http://www.brendanmcleod.dev and I plan on trying to use it regularly to talk about what I’m doing, experiencing, and thinking about on a more regular basis. This newsletter will stay seasonal, I think, so if you just want to check in now and again, this is a fine way to do that.

📺 My mother and I watched the whole of THE SOPRANOS, which I’ve somehow never seen before 2024. It turns out it’s generally pretty good. I don’t know if anyone has come out and said that the Sopranos is good before, but I’m willing to be the brave first.

📽️ I made a rare trip to a Floridian movie theater to see Coppola’s long-in-the-making travesty MEGALOPOLIS and it was the most dull, boring nothing of an experience I’ve had in a long time. I wish it had been bold enough to make me angry. I feel nothing about it, and that’s the worst thing you can say about a work of art, I think.

🎮 Not much video gaming lately. I’m nearly done with CHILDREN OF THE SUN, though.

🎲 Even less board gaming!

📚 Currently bouncing back and forth between IN THE NAME OF THE ROSE and MAGIC’S PAWN.

Be seeing you.