Happy Leap Day. I spent mine working on an essay for class, and compiling data for my six-months-overdue "Select Button's Top 25 Games of 2007" project. Speaking of projects, I also have an Interactive Fiction work-in-progress I've been making background notes for since, like, 2004 that I've finally started working on. I imagine I'll finish that around 2012, at this rate.

This should be a good month, discounting the time my girlfriend's in Belize.

So: if you wanted to let some quiz make your decision for you, which presidential candidate would best represent the positions important to you?

84% Joe Biden
84% Barack Obama
82% Dennis Kucinich
82% Chris Dodd
81% John Edwards
80% Mike Gravel
79% Bill Richardson
77% Hillary Clinton
41% Rudy Giuliani
36% John McCain
28% Mike Huckabee
27% Mitt Romney
24% Ron Paul
18% Fred Thompson
16% Tom Tancredo

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Only one more day before my girlfriend Julie gets back from Michigan!

I started house-sitting for my uncle and aunt two days ago. (3 dogs + 3 cats) x 8 days = one tiring week. Pretty much any time I'm not at work or hanging out with my girlfriend, I've been over there, and since I've got the rest of today off, I thought I might come back to my apartment for a bit. Recharge my phone, check my e-mail, maybe play a few videogames. (I got to the end of Super Mario Galaxy. Still about 59 stars to go, I think, but I feel like I've seen enough to know that I don't like it as much as Super Mario Sunshine. Too much was sacrificed for the sake of accessibility, I think.) It's been nice--the place is still a wreck, but it's good to be here to see Steve making progress in Galactic Civilization II and to hear Emit's guitar skills improve.

I think my phone's probably finished charging, now, so it's back to the animal house for me.

Pretty busy lately. Got a car, got a girlfriend. The former's kinda crappy but the latter is AWEXOME.

This new house is obviously a work-in-progress, but I keep missing my apartment. Tonight I'm missing my ceiling fan, because it's too hot.

Will current events keep me from updating here? Yes, I'm afraid they will. (Not that I was updating frequently anyway, mind you.) I crashed my car on Thursday, and until I can afford to get a new one I'm going to have to share the use of one of my parents' cars, so I probably won't be spending that much time at my house. I've also committed to not-insignificant projects with a couple different online groups, which, when taken together with homework in my one online class, should keep me pretty busy.

On the plus side, maybe one of those online projects will culminate in something I'll be proud to be associated with.

A quick meme to change the pace: what follows is a list of the 106 most unread books on LibraryThing. I have no idea what LibraryThing is, what it means that these books are "most unread", or where any of this information comes from. Anyway, you're supposed to use bold type for the ones you've read, italics for the ones you couldn't finish, and strike through those you couldn't stand.

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I play Magic: the Gathering. It's fun.

Three or four times every year, a new expansion to the game comes out--somewhere between 250 to 350 cards. These cards are structured around several new game mechanics, some mechanical themes, and a new setting or story within the world of the game. During the lead-up to each new expansion, there are several weeks of previews, unofficial leaks, speculation, and rampant rumormongering.

I mention all of this because just two days ago, the rumormongers at M:tGSalvation completed the spoiler for the upcoming expansion (called [i]Lorwyn[/i]; it's set in a bright world of perpetual summer, inspired in part by the folklore of the British isles). In this context, a "spoiler" refers to a list of all the cards in the set, along with the rules (and often the flavor text) printed on each card.

Some people will tell you they avoid spoilers religiously. In a perfect world, I'd be one of them... but our world is the one where guys will shout the surprise twist at the end of a Harry Potter book to the people standing in line to buy it. When the likelihood of accidental spoilage is so high, I figure the only way to control when and how I learn the secrets of the new expansion is to spoil myself as soon as possible, so I often read spoilers ahead of time.

That's true outside the context of Magic, as well; I'd read the entire translation guide for Mother 3 weeks before I'd get to play it. It's kind of an ugly habit, now that I think about it. I hate the idea of someone having the power of privileged information over me, though, so while I try not to search for spoilers, if I come across them, I'm going to read them.

On April 20, 2006, a GameBoy Advance game titled Mother 3 was released in Japan. I had been waiting 11 years for this game; imagine my disappointment when it was confirmed that Nintendo of America had no plans to localize and release it in the United States. While some devoted fans of the series soon announced that they would release an unofficial translation of the game, many people just elected to play the Japanese version with the aid of a translation guide. One year later, the translation team hadn't announced enough progress for my liking, so I decided to take the latter route as well.

Upon finishing the game, I came to the following conclusions: Mother 3 is my favorite videogame. I will go to drastic lengths to get my game-playing friends to play Mother 3. However, no one who plays videogames should allow him or herself to be spoiled with regards to Mother 3.

On Friday, Masahiro Sakurai announced that the Franklin Badge (an iconic item in the Mother series) would appear in Super Smash Brothers Brawl this December. This was fantastic news; while the previous Smash Brothers games have included elements from the Mother series, this was the first proof that the tradition had been continued. It also strongly suggested that we might get a Mother 3 character or reference in Brawl, which is so high-profile that Nintendo might be more inclined to localize Mother 3 afterward.

This remarkable turn of events put the translation in the forefront of my mind, so I went looking for the website. What I found was both good news and bad: Super Smash Brothers Brawl will include major references to Mother 3 which will spoil events in the latter game for anyone who has not played it yet. (That link is spoiler-free.) While the translation team would like to have their patch finished in November so fans of the series can play it before Brawl is released on December 3, they've still got a lot of work ahead of them.

If you have any affection for EarthBound or the Mother series and you haven't played this game yet, I cannot encourage you enough to do so before December 3. This may mean grabbing the Japanese version and using one of the many translations to work your way through. Having done so myself, I can tell you that while it's challenging, it isn't as difficult as you might expect, and pretty much all the plot sequences are easy to figure out even without the accompanying translation.

One way or another, you really ought to play this game.

Oswald von Brand

Third son of the Baron Gottfried "Golo" von Brand, Oswald followed the life of a soldier for six years after coming of age. As an accomplished swordfighter and leader of men, Oswald's career sparkled--until the Army of the South swept through the von Brands' holdings, as they did through so many other nations. Despite his unit's utter destruction, Oswald survived the Battle of Brokenshore and the subsequent sacking of Castle Eisenamboss. Now that the Great Southern Army is in retreat, Oswald wanders aimlessly, searching for word of his sister.

Characteristics
16 STR (6 points)
21 DEX (30 points for 20 + 6 points for 1 above Normal Characteristic Maximum)
12 CON (4 points)
15 BODY (10 points)
12 INT (2 points)
10 EGO
18 PRE (8 points)
14 COM (2 points)

5 PD (1 point)
2 ED
3 SPD
5 REC
24 END
30 STUN

Characteristics: 69 points

Skills
Defense Maneuver IV (10 points)
Fast Draw (3 points)
High Society (3 points)
KS: Ehrerleague Culture (3 points)
KS: Ehrerleague military tactics (5 points)
KS: Army of the South military tactics (3 points)
MA: Fencing (see page 266) (28 points)
PS Field Commander (2 points)
Rapid Attack (HTH only) (5 points)
Tactics (3 points)
Teamwork (3 points)
Weapon Familiarity (Common Melee and Missile Weapons) (6 points)

Perks
Reputation: Nobility (known in the lands of the Ehrerleague, 11-) (2 points)
Fringe Benefit: Nobility (5 points)

Skills and Perks: 81 points

Equipment to Acquire
An Ehrenrapier, 0 OCV, 1d6 Killing (15 points), Reduced END (0 END; +1/2), STR Min 8 (-1/2), Focus (OAF, -1), Requires One Hand (-0), Real Weapon (-1/4). A/R Cost: 22/8
Brigandine helm, breastplate w/ scale drape (guarding stomach & vitals), leather leggings and boots of brigandine.

Character Disadvantages
Hunted by Golo's men (More Powerful, Frequently 11-, Watched) (10 points)
Code of the Ehrenleague (Must protect the life and property of the commonwealth from foreign threats) (Uncommon, Total) (15 points)
Searching for Sister (Must investigate rumors of Amalia von Brand) (Uncommon, Total) (15 points)
Obligations of Nobility (Frequently 11-, Major) (15 points)
Famous in the lands of the Ehrenleague (Very Frequently 14-, Major, Only in the Ehrenleague) (15 points)
Reputation: Deserter (Frequently 11-, Only among the Ehrengefallen) (5 points)

A minute ago I looked at the clock, and it was 3:29. That's a number I really like (and not just because it's the date of my birthday) although I don't think I can articulate why. The particular significance of 3:29 tonight is just that it meant I'd been sitting at the computer for about three hours now and had yet to do anything meaningful.

That's not entirely true, of course; I double-checked my Royal Caribbean application and sent it in, and then popped by the Gamer's Quarter forums and read some threads about embarrassing childhood game design and somewhat less embarrassing (if no more successful) game design as adults. I checked Facebook and The Seven Deadly Forums and my LiveJournal friends list. I listened to the new Star Fox track at the Smash Brothers blog and read Mark Rosewater's article at magicthegathering.com. I drummed my fingers on the keyboard and wondered what I could be doing; I randomly refreshed Achewood and Scary-Go-Round and fourhman.com even though I knew none of them had updated since the last time I checked them.

This past March I came up with a grand plan for this journal. On March 8, 2007, I was going to begin with a new regimen of writing about one aspect of myself every day for the next 387 days (starting with an essay about how and why the number 387 is so significant to me). Not only did that mean I'd be STARTING on 03-08-2007, but 387 days of entries would see me finished on March 29, 2008--my 26th birthday. That's just the sort of meaningless coincidence of significant digits that makes me grin.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me well that I didn't quite follow through on my plan as I'd originally hoped. I am an inveterate procrastinator. I was unwilling to put my plan into words; I didn't feel myself ready to start the project until I'd accounted for every element of its implementation. Should I have a different theme for every day of the week--maybe attach each day to one of the seven aspects of the self I'd once read about? Every Monday I'd discuss some aspect of my physical self; on Tuesday, my mental self; on Wednesday, my emotional self; on Thursday, my social self; on Friday, my spiritual self; on Saturday, my occupational self; and on Sunday, I'd talk about the environment of my self.

Ridiculous. Even considering that I could find about 54 things to write about "my occupational self", I had no idea what something like "the environment of myself" mean. There's much to be said for working within restrictions as a means of fostering creativity, but one can go too far.

I was also afraid of being boring. I certainly have the capacity for that, though, and if my self-summary is boring, then I am only being accurate.

Today is Monday, July 16, 2007. It's now after 4 o'clock in the morning, and my project's underway.

It's good to be 25.

I'm updating this journal at the moment. Please wait just a bit more--I'm starting to backlog entries, but there's something important I need to take care of before I relaunch this journal. Sorry again for the wait!

Say what you will about Tim Rogers's qualities as a journalist, a writer, or a human being: he had one hell of an arresting LiveJournal. I will say (after, admittedly, many minutes of hesitation) that reading Tim's journal was the best thing to happen to me in 2005. I am both telling the truth when I say that and very, very wrong.

Let me digress for a moment. Seven years ago, I graduated from high school, and my life changed utterly; five years ago, I flunked out of college, and it changed again. My gmail records tell me that three years ago yesterday I e-mailed Tim a long and rambling message that announced, among other things:

"If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then
revision is the sincerest form of imitation."

Revision, huh?

TIM ROGERS, I'M GOING TO REVISE YOU.

I never quite got around to that, unfortunately, and now, three years later, I'm going to simple imitation. Just as Tim had his "108 secrets about the number 108", I am going to 387 things about Jason Love, the first of which is: I attach great significance to the number 387.

It isn't coincidental that I'm writing this on 03/08/2007. (Although I guess I should repost this on August 3 for any non-Americans in my readership, huh?)

Forgive me as I skip back to what I was saying earlier: I know I'm wrong when I say that 108.livejournal.com was not the best thing to happen to me in 2005. That was two years ago, though, and without spending undue time reconstructing the events I know must have happened that year, I can't really recall anything else that happened. I worked, I went to school, and I spent a lot of time on the internet, much of it at insert credit reading Tim's essays. It galls me that I don't have better recollection--so I'm going to strive for more frequent updates, and the sort of stringent structure this project suggests seems as good a method as any for guaranteeing that.

I suppose I'd better mention why exactly the number 387 is so significant, before I end this first entry. So:

I'd memorized the first eight digits of pi early in elementary school; when I was in fourth grade or so, my friend Jared and I decided to make a contest of seeing who could memorize more. Then in sixth grade I finally found myself in the same class as this girl Jill that I had my first crush on, and when the whole class was put in alphabetical order, my name came right before hers--I was the seventh student, and she was the eighth. That was the same year I first tried making QBASIC programs with some sort of username/password functionality, and for my username I took the last five letters of my middle name (which happens to be Alexander) and combined it with it with the 3 from pi, Jill's 8, and my 7: "ander387". Four years later I'd use the same username when I made my GeoCities web page.

I still use that username for my alternate Yahoo! e-mail address, which may be why, as much as I've loved the number 387, it's starting to get a little old. I get a bit more thrill out of 329 these days, not least because it's the date of my birthday: March 29. Speaking of which, since this is March 8, 2007, what date do you think is 387 days from now...?

I'm going to go out more. I've just made plans to meet up with all the midwesterners from Select Button early next month. Hopefully I can visit some people from Pyoko and the IF community as well.

March 29th is my 25th birthday. I've lived five years, five times over. That's an important milestone, and I plan to celebrate with a new website, possibly. I spent the morning fiddling with some relevant software.

Next time I'll post my results for that quiz turandot tagged me with.

I hope DCA works as well as they say it does.

I made my Werewolf custom game notes public. They're probably incomprehensible.

My cousin died.

Lady Duke - DHS Hacker - one-time 24-hour moratorium on death
Geothermal - Terrorist Sympathizer - nightly ability disruption
SpoonyGundam - Terrorist Mastermind - nightly murder
Lee-Ham - Vector of Fear - one-time evangelism
Rygaron - Ethnic Expatriate - immune to affiliation exposure
ZedPower - Operative - appears to be terrorist
Detonator - Triple Agent - nightly affiliation reversal
McDohlnalds - Guantanamo Admin - nightly ability detainment
moctobot - War Correspondent - nightly affiliation exposure
Keiro Ghost - Weapons Inspector - nightly ability exposure
Niku - Jack Bauer - one-time murder
Kazz - Undercover Neurosurgeon - one-time ability destruction

Two teams: US and terrorist (wolves).

The AGENT has an ability that goes off every night.
The HERO has an ability that goes off exactly once.
The TECH gains information.

1. The Terrorist Mastermind is the leader of the terrorist team. This agent's ability is the traditional werewolf action: he chooses a player every night; that player then dies. However, this killing action has a caveat: the TM must kill the player the terrorist team votes for; if he kills someone other than this player, the terrorists get no action the following night. The Terrorist Mastermind is the only player who knows the identity of all the terrorists. In the event the TM is killed, his underlings gain total autonomy and now there are TWO murders every night.
2. The Vector of Fear is a hero on the terrorist team. In addition to reporting to the TM and nightly votes, the Vector has the ability to give up his voting rights to convert another player to the terrorists' side, who then assumes the Vector's voting obligations. Should the Vector die, his killer is automatically converted.
3. The Ethnic Expatriate is a tech for the terrorists. In addition to reporting to the TM and nightly votes, the Expatriate appears to have ambiguous loyalties. Any attempt to determine the expatriate's team affiliation indicates he is an ally; the Expatriate is also informed of such attempts.
4. The Operative is an agent for the US. The Operative appears to be a terrorist: he reports to the Terrorist Mastermind and participates in votes. However, he is a member of the US team and does not win unless the US wins.
5. The Triple Agent is an agent for the US. The Triple Agent has the power to change one player's team affiliation every night; this change takes place the following morning and is not reported publicly.
6. The Guantanamo Administrator is the leader of the US team. This agent has the ability to detain one player every night; that player's ability will take no effect until the following night. A single player may be detained indefinitely; should the Administrator wish to detain another player, the first will be released.
7. The War Correspondent is an agent for the US team. This agent has the ability to identify one player every night; that player's team affiliation will be broadcast the following morning.
8. The Weapons Inspector is an agent for the US team. This agent has the ability to identify one player every night; that player's ability (but NOT team affiliation) will be broadcast the following morning.
9. Jack Bauer is a hero for the US team. Once per game, Jack has the ability to kill another player. The death will occur at the beginning of the first day after the ability is used.
10. The Undercover Neurosurgeon is a hero for the US team. Once per game, the Neurosurgeon has the ability to permanently nullify another player's abilities. This is a public event that occurs immediately. While this will not remove the last terrorist's ability to murder, it WILL remove the voting ability of a redundant terrorist, as well as his other abilities.
11. The DHS Hacker is a hero for the US team. Once per game, the Hacker can put a moratorium on death. For 24 hours following the Hacker's action, every time a player would die, instead players learn all the information they would have learned had that player actually died--but the player in question remains in the game.
12?. The Terrorist Sympathizer is an agent secretly on the terrorist team. He does not know the identity of the Terrorist Mastermind; nor does the TM even know of his existence. Every night, the Sympathizer may choose a player. That player's ability malfunctions until the following night.

I was browsing Pyoko's old Random Images thread. Most of the images have broken on the earlier pages, but I did find something interesting.

Highlight the following text and copy it with Ctrl-C. Paste it into the URL address bar of any page with a lot of images--say, a Google Image Search results page. The results are impressive.

javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI=document.getElementsByTagName("img"); DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position='absolute'; DIS.left=(Math.sin(R*x1+i*x2+x3)*x4+x5)+"px"; DIS.top=(Math.cos(R*y1+i*y2+y3)*y4+y5)+"px"}R++}setInterval('A()',5); void(0);

I do. I now also have Wi-fi in my apartment, so: let's exchange codes. Mine's 6581 5997 4423 3467. Post yours in the comments, and I'll add you!

Observe!

11:01 PM: The Wal-Mart Lawn and Garden Center. The situation is tense: Wal-Mart was supposed to get a minimum of 20 units of the Nintendo Wii in; at our store, three units have been destroyed in the shipping process. A group of five hispanic teenagers in front of me claimed to be getting the 17th console. I shrug and hold my place in line, hoping for someone to bounce a check or enter cardiac arrest. (Well, maybe not hoping for someone to have a heart attack, but at least prepared should that unfortunate circumstance come to pass.)

The hispanic guys are talking amongst themselves; I don't really pay much attention. A couple of them walk off, and somehow I wind up talking with one of the remainder. He's wondering how much he might be able to sell his Wii on eBay for.

I laugh. "Not as much as you'd make on a PS3, that's for sure!"

"Oh, yeah? How much are those going for?"

"Well, when they were launching, people were selling 'em for over five thousand dollars." A couple guys in front of the hispanics nod at this, grinning. I pause, thinking. "Of course, we only had six of those to give out, so scarcity drove the price up."

The kid considers this. "Well, how much do you think the Wii will go for?"

"Uh, maybe $500?"

After discussing it with his friends, the kid gives me his spot in line and leaves the store.



Thirty minutes later, somehow I've gone from being the 17th customer to the 19th customer. I'm still not sure how it happened; apparently some people in the middle of the line had come in later, but they assured management that they'd been there all along. Customers number 15 and 16 tried to argue in my favor, but in the end it didn't matter. All of the newcomers got rainchecks.

I was going to write up the rest of the sordid adventure, but let me spare us both the unpleasantness with this summary: I went to two other Wal-Marts and nobody had any left. Then I spilled ketchup on my slacks and drove home.

Tomorrow, it should be noted, is the official release date for Square Enix's Final Fantasy XII. Anyone who follows the videogame industry and has a passing interest in the Final Fantasy series should know this; I don't think there's ever been a bigger gap of time between the release of one game in the series and the next. If you don't follow the videogame industry, you might be wondering what the fuss is all about--and you can be forgiven if you frankly don't care.

Unfortunately, there isn't really any review of the game that explains its appeal to non-gamers. Luke Albiges's review over at eurogamer.net almost comes close, but it's more interested in selling the game to people who've already played it than to those who don't even play videogames, let alone RPGs. (I admit to doing something similar in an e-mail I sent to Tycho over at Penny Arcade--it's behind a cut at the end of this entry.)

If videogames don't even appeal to you, you might think me crazy for my plan to stand in line outside my local GameStop at 11:00 tonight so I can get the game at 12:01 and then spend the next eight hours or so playing it. (And then the fugue shall be broken, and life can return to normal.)

The thing is, with a lot of games, the experience surrounding the game is as important as the game itself. Final Fantasy games have a reputation as something special--they're the summer blockbusters, the sci fi and fantasy epics, frowned upon by the intellectual elite while they're adored by the masses. A Final Fantasy game is reason enough to own a console for many gamers. And then there's the release ritual: the anticipation, the build-up of excitement and rumors and media hype and screenshots and trailers and misinformation, a final countdown, the (mostly futile) search for early copies and stores that are breaking the street date, that final glorious moment of retail transacting and then the game's in your hands. Admire the wrapping, the box.

A word about boxes: you can tell whether a game's supposed to be high- or low-profile based on the box. Most low-profile games have to sell themselves on their boxes; they have to have appealing box-art that jumps out, grabs you, gets your attention. With the high-profile games, they already know you're interested. They can be subtler. The box for Final Fantasy X had nothing but the game's name on the front of the box in that classic font; the back had a piece of concept art and, like, three lines of text.

Still, the box isn't as important as the first moment of opening. Tearing through the security plastic--an irreversible act, you know; stores aren't allowed to exchange or refund games once you've taken the wrapping off now--and popping that box open, looking at the manual, seeing if there's anything else in there. Big role-playing games like Final Fantasy used to come with maps in them. They don't do that any more; they're superfluous to the guide they inevitably want you to buy. I did actually get a game with a map in it not too long ago, though: Rockstar's Bully. That was satisfying. Remind me of this again, several weeks from now; I've got more to say about Bully.

Other things you're likely to find in game boxes: advertisements. Mail-in subscription cards or order forms. Warning pamphlets--these have multiplied as game systems get more involved, more moving parts, and more player activity. None of these box contents (well, other than the game itself) are as important as the manual. Some players will ignore the game manual, choosing to dive right in to the game itself; figure out how the game controls by controlling the game. Final Fantasy X's a great game for this; I bet XII will be, too. I'd rather peruse the manual first--I like to sit down at a restaurant, the game's box open on the seat beside me, and read that thing cover to cover while I sip my drink and finish the last of my fries. Sometimes I'll skim a bit, since you tend to figure out how games are likely to work when you play them for twenty years.

And then, in the end, you put the game in.

You turn the console on.

If the game is good, you spend the next several hours in another reality.

I could go into further detail--how I always let the pregame demo run all the way through once before I start the game, how the presence of a guidebook will alter the experience, or the presence of other people--but that's really the gist of it: at their best, games expand the world in directiosn it didn't go before. You can get a similar feeling by immersing yourself in a book or a movie, although it's never as effective. In a videogame, the fourth wall is behind you. You may not be represented in the story in any way; you may not get to make any meaningful choices. But simply by having a hand in making things play out the way they do, you are drawn into the confines of the game world.

If the game is good. Final Fantasy XII is one of the best.


* * *


Penny Arcade has been quite dismissive of Final Fantasy XII. When they did their little parody on September 7, I was compelled to argue in favor of the game--although I probably didn't need to bother, since Jeremy Parish was doing the exact same thing. Anyway, I never got a response, so I thought I might as well post the letter here in honor of the game's impending release.

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In a week or two, I'm going to be running another game of Werewolf on Pyoko. I've decided on some new rule adjustments inspired by Kazz's fantastic mutations; I wanted to make a note to myself somewhere. I was going to just save it to a text file on my desktop, but why do that when I can puzzle people here?

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Just what it says, actually. I'll be out-of-town, starting tomorrow; I'll be back by the first. Expect more then.

I just wrote the following for my Myspace blog, but it's hardly appropriate. So. Here it goes.

"Generalizations" are an instance in a broader category of things that interest me. This category approximates the practice of--well, of characterizing or approximating something. Generalizations, summaries, groupings, trends, tiers: if you can look at a couple of things and draw a connection, make an inference, somehow interpret that data and assign a value to that, or otherwise construct an artificial representation of that imagined relationship, I'm intrigued. This is the most abstract way I can word it, which probably doesn't help the appeal. Let me try again.

Let's pick a subject at random: say, Cubism. It's easy to say things like "Cubism was an important form of abstract art in the early 20th century." Cubism, however, is just an amorphous term referring to the specific artists and the works they made in a specific style; it's a social fiction like the value of money, or Douglas Adams's belief in "the idea of a god."

Whenever someone declares an opinion on things like this, be it baroque architecture, punk rock, object-oriented languages or "these kids today", I'm fascinated. I start to wonder about the individual components of the broader category being discussed, and more often than not, I wind up missing the point... but it's rare that I find that I care.


Anyway. Now that you've seen the kind of drivel I generate when my girlfriend isn't able to keep me distracted, I should probably mention that my current relationship isn't the one I mentioned back in April. In fact, it's hard to find an entry as misleading as that one for describing the current state of affairs; I've been dating Angie for 17 days, I've been able to drive again for two, and I've got fencework to do in the morning, so I'm going to bed.

I suspect I have been conditioned by videogames to believe Weird Al's Hardware Store is the best song ever composed.

This time last year, I went to the wedding of the first girl I ever dated. Her name's Amy Ruth Knock.

This time last week, I started dating a girl for the first time in five years. Her name's Amy Lynn Bazil.




I was tempted to end the entry there, since the two lines are almost perfect in their parallels. It's mind-boggling. Still, further explanation couldn't hurt. First of all, it hasn't really been five years since I last had a date, but what few dates I've had in that period seem kind of irrelevent by comparison. For example, I've always thought long-distance relationships are for fools, but the transition from "mutual interest" into "a couple living an hour apart" was pretty much instantaneous. Now I'm aware of the dangers of overconfidence; I'm also aware of the unique personal histories that she and I are going to have to work around. Even if this doesn't work out, it'll still be the best thing to happen to me all year. (One unfortunate downside: this did nothing for my sense of initiative. Things never would have gotten off the ground if she hadn't taken the first step.)

Last tuesday I picked up an Xbox 360 (gamertag "JALove") and an official, genuine, store-bought copy of Windows XP, so the computer I got for my birthday is finally functioning. I'd probably have written about this sooner, but for the past week, the time I'd normally spend on the internet I've spent on the phone.

If I don't have obligations the following morning, then staying up late somehow loses much of its appeal.

I'm going to bed.

It's later than it seems. A guy on my Friends page just posted an enormous locked entry about the crazy life he leads. He's got so much stuff in there it's almost hard to read. That's not a bad thing, though. It could even be admirable. Sitting here, after I'd almost read it all, I wondered how it'd moved me. After a careful inventory, I determined the only emotion I contained was a little bit of misplaced pride about something ridiculous and pointless I'd once done. The particulars are irrelevent; all you need to understand is that I once spent a great deal of time and effort to accomplish something frivolous, and somebody else was impressed enough by it that he pointed it out.

That's all I've ever aspired to, with this journal: I wanted to do something inconsequential that nonetheless interested people. It's hard to dedicate time and energy to an activity with that attitude, and so the nature of this journal's various failings should be easy to predict.

I want to do something more with this space, though. I started suggesting that I had a plan months ago; I did have a plan, but originating as it did with my original motivations, it had little chance of success.

I think now it's simplest to just say what I have to say, and stop making overtures toward unnecessary complexity. I'm getting around to it, now.

The most dissatisfying thing about life is the variability of its contents. I have a hard time committing to any path whose requirements are such that alternatives are no longer feasible; if I must choose between two directions to move in, I will postpone that decision until the last possible moment. Even once my decisions are made, they tend to be the choices that are the easiest to recover from: either they're easy to undo, or they're somehow more neutral than the other alternatives.

What's disappointing me tonight is the recognition that this approach to decision-making still fails to solve the fundamental problem, that it's still impossible to take every path. With that awareness, I find I'd rather commit to a more extreme position--but force of habit is preserving my neutral attitudes.

This is cropping up all over the place: whether to move in with new roommates, whether to move out of the city, whether to commit to my current job or look for a new one, whether to wear certain clothes or behave a certain way or respond to a coworker's flirting or to continue holding out forever. Hell, even my writing style--particularly my writing style--maintains an even tone, downplaying what's bothering me and lifting up the irrelevent in an attempt to give equal weight to every issue.

At least I'm getting a raise.

I don't know how well this link will work for other people, but this is the computer I'd like to assemble.

I may post something of greater substance over the weekend. We'll have to see how it plays out.

Let me tell you something personal about myself: I'm thinking about spacing out my ellipses. I'm a little bit against it, because I'm worried that people will notice, and they'll wonder why I did it. Maybe they'll assume it's peer pressure, or an attempt to... I don't know... curry favor. I don't want to change it, because I don't want to look like I'm spending this much time and energy to consider how my text appears; I don't want to seem self-conscious. But by analyzing this and determining that I shouldn't change the way I space my ellipses, I am in fact becoming self-conscious, even if I no longer seem this way.

Now I've got to compose a wish list for computer parts.

Today was March the 5th, 2006. That's twenty-four days away from my twenty-fourth birthday. (This seems like a good opportunity to bring up my Amazon.com Wishlist.)

1982 was a good year for me; at least, I assume so. Reports indicate I was a good-natured baby. I can't really claim to have many memories of the time. I do have some vague recollection of a concrete stairwell in an apartment complex, but that doesn't seem useful.

There's this thing circulating where you click on this link and select about six more-or-less positive traits you believe I exhibit and after you check that out you follow up with this link and select six generally negative traits. I've really enjoyed seeing the relative perceptions of some of you guys; for mine, I'd rather you be honest than complimentary. I'll be curious to see how accurately I guessed my public perception.

quarantine was right. The current Achewood story, where Ray's mom accidentally convinces him to enter "The Great Outdoor Fight", is awesome. The level of sophistication Chris Onstad employs to tell such an absurd story has pretty much ruined newspaper comics for me.

People in my immediate family occasionally complain that I'm hard to shop for. Apparently they haven't seen my Amazon wish list yet. Worth noting: this list contains some items I've been hoping to get since May of 2003! I've even changed the shipping address, so that ordered items arrive at my parents' house where I won't necessarily see them!

I've been accused of being an LJ tease. I guess that's about right, really; I have enough vanity and opinions to want a weblog, but not enough energy or attention to maintain it. Ah, well. archschnitz tagged me with this meme thing, so I guess I'll do it, too.

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your LiveJournal along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they're listening to.

1) Beyond the Bounds (full version) by Maki Kimura (from Zone of the Enders: The Second Runner)
2) Call of Ktulu by Metallica
3) I Walk Alone by Green Day
4) Waiting For You ~LIVE AT "Heaven's Night"~ by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn (from Silent Hill 4: The Room)
5) Here Comes A Special Boy by Freezepop
6) Ending Theme (from Earthbound)
7) Once Upon A Time in Transylvania by Jake Kaufman (remixed from Castlevania 3)

I refuse to do any tagging, myself. Okay, I think we're done here! See you in March!

Look! An update! It's not dead! It's not dead!!