So I'm 25 now.  I can rent cars.  Pretty cool, I know.  Now all birthdays are the same except first baby, second baby, etc., then 50, and then last.  Although because it's my first married birthday things were different.  For example, I had sort of a celebration; it was just me and my wife and her family, but it was still more than I'd had in the past ten years or so, it feels like.  I'm just not really big on people making a fuss over me.  It feels unfomfortable.

But anyway, it gave me money via parents and grandparents, which so far I've used to buy Spenser's Faerie Queene (the people at Barnes & Noble had no clue), an iPod car charger/FM tuner, and the first two Starslip Crisis books.  I've got some cash left, and I'm thinking FF 1+2.

Did you hear about FF5 and FF6 coming out on GBA this fall?  To me, this news is even more important than the DS FF3 thing.  Slightly.  Because I don't have a DS.

I finally got my iPod to "just work" on Linux, thanks to Listen music player.  It's Gnome/Ubuntu Dapper exclusive, but it works nicer than GTKPod or *shudder* Rythymbox.  It makes listening to podcasts easy.  Except for On The Media, which is totally their fault: their podcast RSS names their files "onthemedia.mp3?=XX", "XX" being the show number.  So Listen can't understand that it's filetype MP3, not MP3ANDSOMESTUFF.

So...  When will I read The Faerie Queene?  Good question.  After I finish Left Hand of Darkness, which I'm reading now, and probably after finishing Dante's Heaven.  Yes, I use the English titles.  I speak English, and read it in English translation, so that's what I do.  I also call Boethius's work The Consolation of Philosophy, not De Consolatio Philosophico or however it's spelled.

I might screen Pirates tonight at midnight.  Or I might not.  I have that freedom.

What are you doing me not much.  YES!

Okay, in things a little less pretentiously surreal, I got a new phone.  It is an LG camera phone and I love it.

Leah and I have been looking at jobs in North Carolina, thinking about sneaking me into UNC during the summer.

I haven't yet seen Da Vinci Code or X-Men 3 other than, of course, about 10 minutes throughout each from my projectionistly duties.

Finally, I've decided that the real fun in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance begins precisely when your main guy learns Doublesword, Steal Ability, and Steal Weapon.  After that, it's great.

I get tomorrow off, but Leah doesn't.  And I only found out Friday.  Sorry we couldn't be there, Rylan.

My life so far:

I've been tinkering around with two story ideas.  It's been like five years since I thought about writing fiction, so this is a big thing for me.  One's sci fi and the other's paranormal.  That's what I think about when I wait between movie times.

I've also gotten back into reading Purgatory, and it's really good.  Mr. Aligheri knows how to describe stuff, I'll tell you.

I plugged my iPod into my computer to update it yesterday and iTunes erased all my podcasts.  Here's my setup:  Computer at home with all my music, laptop at my in-laws' place down the road with all my podcasts.  Both are set to automatically update, but only their respective parts of my iPod.  In other news, computers remain stupid.

I would really like to play in Spike's (forever) upcoming D&D game, even if it is in a PBEM-style way.  I think I might make a character this weekend when I'm home with my stuff.  I might just use the Book of Exalted Deeds to make a thoroughly non-combat character, because combat is just annoying to do long-distance.

I work 3:30 to 10:30 today.  Tomorrow we ain't leavin' till six in the mo'nin' (six in the mo'nin') and I can't wait to meet my brother Will's girlfriend Lauren.  She's apparently very cool, so says my parents.  Leah and I might also do our married couple-ly duty and try to set up her little brother with a girl at church.  Couples are like viruses, you know?  But happy viruses, don't get me wrong.  With dinner parties and movies nights and games and such.

Okay, I'm going home.  My iPod is finally finished updating all 500-something podcast files on the stupid USB 1.0 connection, and I think I'm going to go wash dishes and do laundry and pack until I have to work.  Or play Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.  One or the other.  I mean I just got "Steal: Ability" here, and just unlocked the Fifth Totema.  I'm on fire.

Note to Tim:  Can we link up our games sometime this weekend?  I want to see if I can get new trade goods.

I am so addicted to that game.

Guess what?  I got a GBA SP on Ebay last week.  It's blue and it came with Final Fantasy Tactics Advance for sixty bucks.  Parents and Grandparents gave me money for Xmas and miser that I am I hadn't yet spent any of it. So far I'm 16 hours into the game and it's so very awesome; I'm only now past the first Totema, but I've done a whooooole lot of clan battles.

Isn't it funny that the sun and moon look just about the same size in the sky?  I mean, particularly that the moon isn't so big that you can't see the corona in a total eclipse, or so small that it's not utterly blinding.  They're alarmingly different sizes, and they're both just so far from the earth.  Weird.

And my friend Spike, in one fell blog post, almost makes me rethink MySpace.  I mean, it is a horribly-designed piece of crap, but I guess it might have some social networking use.