I finally beat Oasis on Insane. Were this 2004, when the game actually came out, it would likely be much more exciting. Nonetheless, Oasis has provided me with months of gameplay, and was totally worth the $6 I paid for it. On a similar note, rumors have it that a version of Civilization will be coming to Facebook this June. Aside from my occasional Scrabble obsession (and whenever someone flings a Pathwords invite at me), I’m not a big Facebook gamer. Yoville got tedious, and I haven’t logged into my account in months now. There’s a bunch of others (Mafia Wars, Farmville, etc.) I signed up for, played once, and then promptly forgot about. I think a problem with these games is that they’re mostly about doing the same thing over and over to acquire more stuff and build your character. None of which is all that interesting to me. One thing that is immensely interesting, however, is Civilization.

Job prospects = still slow. Didn’t get the job I interviewed for this past Friday. They might have a temporary use for me for a project that may or may not happen, however, which would be nice. I’d like to get more hours at Liberty, as though the pay is meager, it’s actually pretty fun to jump around by the side of the road all day long. Also, I don’t think I’ve ever felt this healthy in the middle of winter before.

I wish another Chick-fil-a would open up out here. This is because I want to do another First 100. Preferably without the blizzard this time around. I also really just want to eat chicken constantly, because it is so freaking good.

I finished reading “Jonathan Norrell & Mr. Strange” by Susanna Clarke recently. It was fabulous, a very British early 1800′s take on magicians and magic, quite long and involving with quirky characters, I highly recommend it. I’m currently reading “Nature Girl” by Carl Hiaasen, which is quite funny.

Finished watching Evangelion. Apparently the ending was poorly executed due to budget issues, and I thus need to see a movie called “The End of Evangelion” for proper fulfillment. I really liked the concept behind the ending, and we can hopefully get our paws on the movie sometime soon. Started watching Bleach, am enjoying it but with mixed feelings. The more it veers away from the “I need to kill this giant Hollow” plots, the more I like it.

Oh yeah, I totally scored some free fabric off of Craigslist. Giant bag, some scraps and some decent-sized pieces. I’ve got a pair of black shorts with a drawstring that never really fit me right, and I’ve got this great idea to convert it into a skirt, adding some fabric to the bottom in ruffles or something. I’ve got plenty of fabric to do this, now it’s simply the matter of locating said shorts. There’s this black hole that follows me sometimes, and likes eating things I’d prefer not to have eaten. I picked up a tank top from Old Navy with the final dregs of my gift card, and as a tank top it’s entirely too long, but with some fabric on the bottom it would make an awesome dress. I need to find a fabric really similar to the tank top’a fabric to execute this, however. Now, once I have made these items, I need to find or create circumstances where I would actually wear a skirt or a dress. Pants are just such a nice default, but it’s a shame that I keep making all of this crap and never wear it anywhere for the most part.

Oh yeah, crispy chocolate in my near future. Old Towne Arvada is having some sort of chocolate festival, whereupon I will enter items into their cookie contest and, with any luck, will win a giant pile of chocolate. Which would be good timing, as our Christmas chocolate is slowly running out!

Here’s the thing: it’s pretty freaking disillusioning to spend large quantities of your time applying (and failing to get) jobs. Eventually you start wondering what the point is in the first place. My veeery sllooowly moooving job building the router site is, well, slow. Doesn’t take up a huge amount of time. And, I need money. Even if I’m earning a rather paltry sum, at least I’m earning something. There’s also the fact that winters are infamous for making me lazy and get no exercise. So, it’s like I’m getting paid to go to a gym/club. In theory, I’m also boosting my confidence, by waving at complete strangers and having them wave back. There’s the occasional middle finger, but for the most part (when people respond, at least), people are friendly and some downright bizarrely happy to see me. It’s also pretty fun to wear a costume. I would take on a job as a Chick-Fil-A cow in a heartbeat, incidentally.

I also find it easier to organize my time when it’s broken up into chunks. Now that Drew is at work all day, my day stretches before me like a vast plain, all to be spent in front of the computer doing *something*, in theory, that will propel me to the next job, or give me another thing to slap on the ole resume. With this part-time job, I *have* to get work done in the alloted time available. Also, dancing around for several hours in a row makes it much easier to sit in front of the computer for long stretches of time. I’m rather restless for the most part, and like to wander around, and the fact that I eat more then my fair share of sugar during the day does nothing to ameliorate this tendency. So, being exhausted helps with this. And, if things go well, I’ll be super-toned by springtime!

And that’s that. Here are other things going on in my life right now, in list form:

• Have more or less gotten the hang of Drupal hooks. Am looking forward to trimming up my new shiny module and maybe getting it published on the Drupal site.
• Have decided that, as we don’t have friends out here in Denver yet, it’s time to start watching more anime. I never saw Evangelion, so we just started watching that last night. And will apparently need to finish watching it very soon as well, as I’ve now got Bleach sitting at the library waiting to be picked up.
• We’ve been eating free Chick-Fil-A for several months now, at least once a week. We thought we’d get sick of it at some point, but no. I still crave it as much as ever.
• Did you know you can stick slices of tofu in the toaster? It’s pretty neat.
• At some point, I need to get a phone with decent web-browsing capabilities. I mean, how am I supposed to make sure websites are designed to look good on mobile browsers if I don’t even have a mobile browser in which to look at them?
• I got all extravagant recently and bought a cactus for $3.50. It’s succulent and adorable. There’s the best shop ever in Manitou Springs with a greenhouse-type room filled with cacti/cactuses/cactodes of all shapes and sizes. When I go in there it’s like I go into a pet shop. Even better, actually, because pet shops make me sad. I feel for the plight of those poor Betas trapped in those teeny little glass bowls.
• Grilled cheese sandwiches are the Fruit of the Gods.

My car is still in the shop. The repair place called me the other day and informed me that it’ll be around $3500 to fix the car. Which is quite possibly more then my car is worth. However, the insurance company should be covering it, so all is good. If they weren’t, I’m pretty sure I would have heard back from them by this point. I’ve not really driven the rental car at all. Part of that is the blizzard, and part of that is that it’s bigger then I’m used to and a bit clunky and currently covered in snow. Well, I can’t really say “clunky” I suppose. It’s clunky in the way that cars covered in doohickeys that are super spacious for larger people are clunky. So really, I’m just used to driving a cheap small car, and feel weird in this nicer large car. I also want more visibility. The Kia’s got me spoiled on that, I just don’t care for super-slanted windshields and rear windows.

Nanowrimo starts in two days. Need plot soon. Going to super exciting Nanowrimo launch party tomorrow.

Also, and this is important, if you dress like a burrito tomorrow, you can get a free burrito from Chipotle. You can just wrap some tin foil around your arm, it totally counts. Guess what I’m planning to eat for dinner tomorrow? And for the next several nights, if all goes well! Mmm, nothing tastes better then free.

And these ominous clouds:

So we get down from the hike, and slowly make our descent off the mountain. I was driving slow, but apparently 20mph doesn’t cut it in some areas, because I went around a curve, hit a slick patch, and drove into an embankment. Slowly though, so it was a nice fluffy ‘thud’, and as it happened I was dreading the possibility of having to get a tow truck to get my car out of said embankment. Then there was a crunch as the car behind me also hit the slick spot and plowed into my back.

It was a gentle plowing though, no injuries. Well, except to my poor car. It was unfortunate too, as the guy that hit my car was one of the people I’d just been hiking with. And as sad as I was about my rear getting crunched, I felt pretty bad for the guy, as he was feeling awful about hitting me. It was pretty minor though, I could drive home on it (slowly, to keep the back light from flying off).

So I’ve got this rental car now, and my car is in the shop for an unknown length of time, all covered by the guy’s insurance. Rear panel needs to get replaced (if I remember correctly), along with the light of course. I’ll miss my companion cube!

In other news, Drew and I are getting up very early Wednesday to go plant ourselves in front of a Chick-fil-a in Fort Collins in the hopes of being one of the first 100 when it opens. Ah, the joys of being underemployed.