Started Black Plague pretty shortly afterwards and it is easily surpassing its predecessor in how engaging it is. The first game starts off kinda slow, you’re in an old mining cave for most of the game and your major enemies are various creatures. There’s a lot of awesome puzzle elements throughout both games, and the atmosphere is amazing, but the game does start relatively slow. It ends on a cliffhanger, though, that ties directly into Black Plague. Because of all the work the first game did in building up the atmosphere and situation, the second is far easier to get into for people continuing from the first.

Though the game does take a wildly different term in what’s going on. There are clues and hints throughout the first game about what’s really going on, but you don’t really get a good idea of it until you get a little bit into the second.

And then shit gets weird.

I’m loving it a lot right now.

Owning a cat is totally different than living with a cat. I merely lived with Orangey, who belonged to Nicole. She was a great cat, I loved her, great personality. A total bitch. A really loving cat who, if you showed her she could trust you, was all over you. It wasn’t out of the ordinary to have her spend the night in my bed, stomach exposed. She was my buddy that summer.

On Janaury 6th (happy birthday, Brian!), Sarah and I adopted our cats. Hers is a small tuxedo named Pinto. He appears to be part oriental based on his face and love of jumping. Duster is my dude, a blue cat with very light tabby markings that appears to be at least part Chartreux based on a wide variety of characteristics (communicates mostly by chirping; when he does meow, it is high-pitched; dainty feet; hair on and near his spine is water-resistant and more wiry than the rest of his hair, eventually becoming almost fleece-like on his underside; green eyes (he has some green, but they’re mostly yellow.. so that’s why we suspect he’s either an undesired Chartreux (only solid green eyes are allowed in competitions) or part Chartreux); kitten like until 3 years of age (usually that behavior dies out around 1 year, he’s about two months beyond that point as just as childlike as ever); full of energy; and many others).

These guys are a part of the family. I’m usually greeted by Pinto when I get home from work and then Duster usually won’t leave me alone once he wakes up. Orangey would rub the hell out of me, very forcefully, but she was… a pet. Nicole’s pet. Duster and Pinto? They just seem like more than that for some reason. It’s weird. It’s really freaking cool, though.

The best part is that they freaking love each other. They’ve been having a few dominance fights lately, which causes Duster to emit this really pitiful sounding cry (we suspect that, because he’s older than Pinto by four months, it’s meant to be intimidating in some way; Pinto just ends up hopping on him), but when those are done they’re grooming each other and playing with each other and having a good time. I’m really glad that Pinto is challenging Duster, now that he’s old enough to understand dominance. Duster used to push him around and sit on him and Pinto usually just let him. Pinto is small, fast, and muscular. Duster is bigger, still pretty fast, and not as muscular. Duster doesn’t have a hope of winning until he begins to use his weight, but that might take a bit more intelligence… Chartreuxs are supposed to be pretty intelligent, but Duster? Sometimes we question him… I think he might have some form of ADHD, the way he’ll sit there and “watch” nothing, then run around and get distract by… nothing.. and just play with… nothing… It’s cute as all get out. Both of them are.

Man, if I’ve already written about these guys I’m going to feel like such a dick.

Work flew by today. I don’t get it.

My Chicago Card Plus finally came in today. Put the wrong zipcode on the mailing address, so that delayed it nearly a week beyond Sarah’s. I can’t wait to use it.

Working at Law Bulletin again. Same place I was at two years ago. Let’s just hope that nothing else from two years ago comes back…

Sold the Lumina. Somehow we got $1500 for it instead of like $200. That’s how I’m gonna survive the rest of the summer, and then excess money from student loans plus work study should help me out quite well each semester.

Why things are getting better, I think:

• I’m able to monetarily survive the summer.
• I’ve got my own apartment, where I can do my own things, and cook my own food, and lounge around petting cats and watching Conan on hulu.
• Nicole’s cats are freaking awesome.
• My new computer (by need, remember?) is performing great and is allowing me to catch up on some much needed gaming.
• I’m getting back into Animal Crossing (on the Wii now).
• Hanging out with good friends (Casey, Jeremy, Amber) quite a bit these days thanks to the Tai kids.
• Helping out again with the Taiwanese Cultural and Academic Exchange program.
• Got my first above 3.0 semester GPA this past Spring.
• Because of that, I am still allowed to attend IIT!
• My beautiful girlfriend comes back to Chicago in less than a month!
• In six days we’ll have been together for four months (this still surprises me immensely, to be perfectly honest).
• She’s bringing her ferrets back with her and they’re going to stay at my place! (this has me extremely excited for some reason )
• She is learning German and this is the perfect reason to brush up on my skills with the language!
• I bought a game for the first time since… forever. I honestly forget the last game I bought prior. Last weekend Frictional Games was having a sale on the Penumbra trilogy (a survival-horror/puzzle/adventurer series). It was $5 for all three games and they were on Linux. This is not something I could pass up. I love survival-horrors (as much as they get to me), I love puzzle games that make you think (as much as they frustrate me), and I love supporting developers who release their games natively on Linux.
• I’ve been following the Hundred Push-Up Program and, while I’ve had to repeat two weeks already, I already notice a HUGE improvement in my strength and muscle mass (then again, any muscle mass is a huge improvement over none ).
• Because of this I have a greater confidence in.. me and my presentation. It’s kind of surprising, really. I wasn’t at all embarassed when I took my shirt off at the beach the other day, for example (I’ve always been kind of self-conscious about my extremely skinny and muscle lacking body, but I’m actually doing something about it now, which itself is also a huge improvement).
• Summer is flying by, despite every day being pretty much me sitting in front of my computers doing nothing productive.

I apologize that this summer isn’t nearly as post-heavy as last summer. I believe there are reasons for that, though (mostly lack of generally interesting stuff to talk about that hasn’t been outlined above and lack of boredom at work. Boredom at home leads to me dicking around on the web. Boredom at work led to me writing because I couldn’t dick around on the web. Well, led to. Since I don’t have work this summer.). I think it’s also due to a lack of.. doing things. If I’m in a doing things mood I tend to think about updating the site more often.

Things with Sarah are going pretty damn well, I’d say. We had a couple of misunderstandings or little fight-type things near the beginning of the summer, but definitely nothing too serious. I’m more excited for her to come back than I am for the ferrets to come with her, than I am for everyone else to get back in the city, than I am for James to move out, than I am for.. a lot of things. I try not to let my mind think about.. much beyond the next couple of days, but sometimes it’s hard (nothing more than like.. a season or two… I’m having thoughts of us just cuddling up on the couch under a blanket drinking hot drinks and just hanging out in the winter, for example.. perhaps after ice skating or something (I can’t ice skate, by the way, Sarah.. It could make for hilarious times)). It’s a mental defense I’ve set up thanks to previous relationship failures. And, really, why think too much about the future? Obviously one has to have goals and stuff for school, work, general life things; but one does not live in the future, one lives in the present, they’re living NOW. I try to focus on what’s going on now and make the most of it. No point in worrying about the future or lamenting the past (as much as things tend to pop up and try to distract you, it’s just something one has to deal with).

It’s been really nice to get out of my apartment for hours at a time last week and this. I am going to be kind of sad when the kids leave and I really won’t have a need to leave my apartment…

Anyway, four fourty-eight is kind of a late time to finish up a post and go to bed.. My sleep schedule was good for like.. a total of two weeks this summer.. not even consecutive weeks at that…

I dunno, ever since the car sold I’ve just felt really good about things. That lifted a huge burdon from my mind and now I’m looking around realizing that I have quite a few good things going on. I am immensely happy I asked her out. It almost didn’t happen, but I forced myself to NOT think about it and just see what would happen. It was a twofold decision, really… On the one hand, it was kind of like an experiment.. in that whole “can I actually get a date with someone that I barely know? (as opposed to having been a friend for some time)” way, and on the other it was a necessary step forward, to move on. It seems like kind of a weird way to look at it, but that’s how I’ve rationalized it out in the time since. And I’ve had a lot of time to think about it (four months worth, to be almost exact ).

Gah, five oh-six. I really need to get to bed.

…I mean it.

I got the deal with newegg sorted out, newegg was still looking for my old card, but I had put in the details for my new card (the old one expires at the end of this month). He should be here tomorrow (Thursday) or Friday.

There are two cats here now. Black one is Uhura, the Orange one is Zoey. They hate each other. Orangey likes to rub up against everything in site, including me. She’ll rub her body along my legs while I’m cooking or washing the dishes, which is not the ideal time for such an activity. It’s really funny the way she leans her body when she does it, though. Also, she sheds like crazy. These two activities may or may not be related.

I just burned myself trying to light this candle with a standard bic lighter… ugh. Ow ow ow. I hope this doesn’t blister.

I was gonna write more but the cat and customizing OpenBox has distracted me so much I forgot what else I was gonna say.

Good night.