Frutration. I’ve been frustrated lately, and it’s getting to the point where I’m getting cynical. Again. Cynicism is when you lose trust in the whole world, right? I spent a lot of today talking to Joe’s mom (out from Davenport, IA, to attend a Broncos game Joe won in a contest at work). It was

Read More »

Santa Claus. Maybe this is just too much sugar-coated goodwill for you. What are you, some kind of Nazi? I was six or seven when I found out that Santa Claus wasn’t “real.” Two bullies a grad older than me spent a day tracking down little kids and mocking them for believing in such a

Read More »

Early Christmas present. I took a look at the pile of presents on the table (ostensibly out of reach) for our daughter, and said, Oh, the hell with it. We unwrapped this toddler’s computer game and loaded it up: almost everything is set up so you can make something happen just by banging on the

Read More »

Review: The Paths of the Dead, by Stephen Brust. No spoilers, but…you might want to think twice before proceeding. The Paths of the Dead is the first volume of the book The Viscount of Adrilankha–i.e., the first third or so of a novel. It is not, in any way, designed to stand on its own.

Read More »

Plotting. When you read a scene in which someone is describing something that happened somewhere else, what you’re reading is twice the work of your regular, it’s-happening-right-now scene. You have to plot out the events that happened elsewhere, you have to plot out the here-and-now. Both sets of events must happen in your head as

Read More »

Gifts? Lee’s mom sent us a box of stuff. I guess…I was a little embarrassed. It’s not that my family doesn’t give gifts, it’s just not so enthusiastic. Ray can climb up on chairs now, so keeping her away from the packages is a little hard.

Read More »

Car Notes. So after all that with the IA DMV, we’re not getting the car we were looking at. Following a couple of suspicious conversations with the seller and the financer, we decided to call it off. Sales price: changed from 7900 to 8900 to 7995. Loan amount: changed from 500 to 7500 to 5795.

Read More »