I may have spoken a little too soon when complaining about The Fires of Heaven (book 5 of the Wheel of Time). It turns out the battle I'd just finished reading through was not the epic end-of-the-book battle, which was quite a bit better. Still, I'd have liked to have known how the fight with Couladin went. The last time Mat got to fight with description was fighting against Galad and Gawyn in Caemlyn, if memory serves. Also, the scientist in me would like to know exactly how the time paradox issues of Baelfire are resolved, not just that a bunch of people saw a few people die, but those people don't remember dying. It's a little too vague for my tastes.

My own book is coming along just fine. That is, if "fine" means fixing up the first and only chapter and running into writers' block as soon as I start another one. It'd really help if I had some plot ideas, you know? It seems the only plot I know enough about is my own. Unfortunately my own story is full of plot holes, so it's hard to garner any readers.

I'd start talking about Travis right about now, but at the moment, I don't have any new stories about her.

Shortly after I last posted, say about 10 hours later, I left for Bellingham with my kitties. They so enjoy car rides. Kotenok actually might. He just sits in the box quietly. Calloh cries every few seconds from point A to point B, unless the music is loud enough that she knows she won't be heard. Or maybe she's just not being heard. I listened to that Seabird disk on the way up. It played through twice. I've probably listened to each song now at least 20 times, and about half of them (the ones I really like) more than that. Probably my favorite song, musically, is called Cottonmouth (Jargon). It's kind of depressing though, sort of liberating but vengeful at the same time. It makes me feel good, but dark at the same time. Those two don't mix well inside of me.

Speaking of dark, I just finished Fable a couple hours ago. Alexander loaned it to me on Tuesday after Eureka. On Wednesday I was feeling kind of off, to the point that my manager noticed, and commented a couple times that I was slower than normal (which I guess means I'm fast sometimes?), and I ended up going home early. I think that was a run-on sentence. That night I put in between 5 and 8 hours. On Thursday, yesterday, I was feeling worse, and called in sick. Honestly, it had nothing to do with the game, and I wasn't even all that hooked by Wednesday night. Video games are often restful, though, and I ended up playing another 13 hours or so. The good news is that I felt better today. When I got home I finished up the remaining 4 or 5 hours. It's a decent game, for sure. The gameplay during battles is fun, though it can get a little repetitive. I was light-side, as I always am in such games (I don't know what I'm going to do in the Force Unleashed), so I got the Tear of Avo, or whatever, which is either the second best or tied for the best weapon in the game. I wished there was more storyline behind it. The evil sword had quite a bit of history. Also, there's another legendary sword you can get that's not as good, but takes a ton of extra work to earn. It really should be better than the Tear of Avo, in my opinion. It doesn't have to best the evil sword, but.... Also, the story seemed too linear. I guess I'm used to Knights of the Old Republic, where there are nine different story lines intertwined into yours, and then the villains were interesting too. Jack of Blades was just sort of always out there. And then there was the final battle. It wasn't easy per se, but it certainly wasn't hard, for a game so epic. I expected the fight to be the first of many parts, though not as many as Twilight Princess had -- that bordered on ridiculous, even if it was fun. Having a wife wasn't particularly rewarding. By the time you can really afford to start buying houses, you don't need much money anymore (you rent out houses), and the only way to buy a shop is to kill the current shop owners. Also, I wanted your sister and Whisper to return. And last, but not least, it needed some HK-47.

Bellingham, right. I took my vacation that week because Hime was going to be working two weeks from then, and this past week had too many people taking vacation as it was. It turns out, however, that Hime decided to volunteer these two weeks anyway. It's certainly not that I didn't enjoy visiting everyone else, but she was certainly a major reason I went up there. I didn't get a minute alone with her, and the only time that might have been possible, was during the day she was battling through on two and a half hours of sleep, and so wasn't in the best of moods. There were two opportunities for the two of us to talk alone for a little bit, three if you count dinner on Thursday, but those two she chose to talk with Rosa instead. I know they haven't gotten to talk in a long time, but I guess I was looking at how long it would be before we saw each other again, compared to the next time she and Rosa would be able to talk. That dinner I mentioned, I was under the impression the two of us alone, or possibly a few of us, would be going out to dinner. Rosa and the Maggie (aliased for no other reason than I'm listening to a song called Maggie Mahoney, by, you guessed it, Seabird) wanted to have a barbeque on Thursday. I texted Hime saying, "Hey, where did you want to go to dinner? We could go to the bbq tonight and have dinner tomorrow." She texted back, "I can't do dinner tomorrow, but I want to go to the barbeque." At the barbeque, she basically avoided talking to me at all. Again, on two and a half hours of sleep, I can't blame her for not wanting to talk very much. I guess really it comes down to my hopes or expectations being let down.

There's always a need for balance. Do you hope and get hurt, which often leads to bitterness, or do you skip a step and go straight cynic? (Do not pass go, do not collect $200 -- which is about the price of my last vet bill.) How do we balance fairness, letting people keep the money they earned, and forcing people to give to those who need it through taxes? Sometimes I think it'd be easier had Jesus been a politician. Then there's balancing giving with making wise financial decisions with spending money on things you probably don't need practically, but realistically need in order to entertain yourself. Or others! -- I technically could probably get by without the internet, but then, how would you read my blog? And then what would you do with your life?

I had a conversation with Donna today over facebook about net neutrality. She's a big Obama fan. I'm on the fence, but leaning toward Obama. I realized I'd seen and heard remarkably few Presidential campaign ads, considering it's election season. Evidently, I don't watch much network television anymore. I'm sure when Chuck, Heroes, and Life start again, I'll get my share. I'm all for net neutrality, as is Obama, whereas McCain said he fervently opposed it and wanted to hire Steve Ballmer. Something tells me Ballmer wouldn't take the job, seeing as how he's had his own for a couple months. Who knows, maybe he's more political than I think. Either way, it sounds like he just wanted to drop a big name, and Bill Gates got out of the business, plus I don't think anyone hires Bill, you know? There are just so many political issues, and neither candidate fits my views all too well. Obama's pro-choice and wants to take more of my money so that they can pay today's old people for a little while longer, and let Social Security go bankrupt around the time I'd need it. McCain supports No Child Left Standing and opposes net neutrality. At least I don't have to worry about immigration. According to cnn.com, they have identical views.

My conversation about net neutrality with Donna led to a conversation on net neutrality with Fran. She didn't know anything about the issue or what it was, so it was fun to taint her view for her. We only hung out a couple times, but I do miss her. She always has a nice, positive outlook on things. I find it encouraging. It doesn't hurt that she has the cutest profile picture on facebook (regarding me missing her), but that's definitely after-the-fact.

For the record, as much as the record can be for'd anyway, I'm not interested in her. I've finally got to the point that I'm not really interested in any girl right now. I've been wanting to get to this point for a couple months now, but sometimes that's difficult; sometimes a girl makes that difficult. Next step: contentment in this place. It's odd to say this, but I feel too tired to be content. I'm also too tired to want anything.

On Friday night, in Bellingham, I went over to Bill's place with Rosa and the other girls in her house. Hime was working. There were about ten of us there, and then three "adults," Bill's parents and uncle. The plan was to watch Top Gun, but that quickly turned into a violent game of spoons. I left for Redmond around midnight.

One thing I miss about Bellingham is the spiritual high of being around a lot of Christians. I visited Rufus while I was there. He's getting moved in with his bride at their new place. We had a good lunch and talked about our lives, ending up on the topic of money. He seems to know a lot about making good financial decisions. I guess if you pay little enough on taxes (so it looks to the government that you're fairly poor), they had this deal where the government would match up to 50% of whatever you put into some sort of investment account. He owed $500 in taxes, so he put $1000 into the investment, and didn't have to pay the government anything. It was basically free money. I don't know that it would have occurred to me to do something like that.

I'm also not quite clear about how my mutual fund works. I was under the impression that I gave the company (Fidelity) money and told them how much, roughly, I wanted in different categories, and they did all the trading for me. The investments, though, all seem to be different companies, rather than a pot with which to buy stock. For example, one category was company stock (Microsoft), and I have so many (2 point something) shares of it. Will they buy and sell when they think it's a good time, or will it just sit there and do whatever the market is doing? Money always has a way of making you worry about it, even when you know you have more than enough. I remember vividly going to Toys 'R' Us with a family friend for one of my birthdays. I bought an N64 game, don't remember which, and I worried the whole way home that I overdrafted my checking account even though I knew I had at least $40 more than I spent. According to that friend (I'm too lazy to think up an alias right now), I inherited that from my mother.

Before and after Eureka on Tuesday, at Swood's place, we watched Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. It's spectacular, if you haven't seen it yet. Well worth the $5 on iTunes, though I'm sure you can watch it on Youtube for free. I guess it was to test the waters on this kind of comedy. I hope they make more eventually. Unfortunately, it may be too smart for network television, or maybe I'm not giving the American people enough credit.

That's something I've noticed I'm really snobby about, is humor. If it's not brilliant, it's not funny, and anyone who laughs at such a plain, overdone, typical joke really has no appreciation for the art of comedy, and therefore is stupid. I need to work on that.

It's only 12:30, but I think I've written enough for now. I'll probably go read some more WoT, or maybe start up Phoenix Wright again. I'm about halfway through the second one.

... a thing.