I haven't felt like updating lately. OBVIOUSLY!

As you may recall, in the last episode I told you about my room mate Oskar. He has been pretty good but we have some differences of opinion. I have made a flowchart for what I assume happens in his brain:



I bought a PSP about a month and a half ago, with the intention of hacking it so I can play PSP games for free and also run emulators on it. Last week this dream became reality and I am now BALLS DEEP in even more free video games.

And I am selling off the last of my Playstation collection. Minus a few games I was either too lazy to sell or do not think are worth anything. I've been kind of sad to see it go, but I really love not owning physical copies of media. I need to put my money where my mouth is, get a Kindle or something similar and switch to ebooks entirely. Baby steps!

So here's what's up with me lately.

Friday night this guy came to live with me:

http://twitpic.com/6pgu0

Tiny orange kitten, quarter shown for scale. He was without a name for a while, but I have since settled on Oskar, after the kid from Let The Right One In. Both blond, both whiny. Both friends with an inhuman predator! Amanda got him from a dude at work and brought him to my door and into my heart. FOREVER!

Jessica and I went to the pet store this weekend and I got him a little kitty condo, a mouse and a ball. He is fucking bananas for the mouse and neutral at best for the condo and ball. Typical!

He is pretty good, but I have to spray him with water when he does things like try to chew on electrical cables. Mostly pretty awesome. Loud motor, loves to sleep on me, full of energy. I am cutting back on his food intake because he is eating way too much. You hear me, boy! Your fat ass is going on a DIET.

Almost done with Persona 4, I think. I'm in what I believe to be the second to last dungeon. My interest in the gameplay of Persona 4 goes like this:

Ranking up my Social Links > Fusing powerful personas and filling out the compendium > furthering the plot line > maxing out my social stats > actually playing through the dungeons

Talk about TEDIUM. And I lied earlier. I managed to max out quite a few social links. Chariot, Priestess, Fortune, Empress, Star, Devil, Justice, Heirophant. I think that's it. I might actually beat this game which is almost unheard of for me, specially these days.

I've continued playing Persona 4. Picking up where I left off in January, which is right before Naoto's dungeon. My favorite party continues to be Chie/Yosuke/Yukiko, though I switch Teddy and Kanji in because I feel bad for neglecting them.

I doubt I'll actually max any S-Links this play through, but we'll see. I'm mostly just trying to get through the game.

I also refuse to do any more goddamn fishing. I am absolutely totally done with fishing minigames in RPGs. FUCK THAT

I love the Persona series so much that if Persona 5 is on the PS3, I will buy that machine just to play it. This is a fact. Also is that Devil Summoner 2 game worth playing? I played the first Digital Devil Saga, but did not like it because it was almost but not quite Persona. There is some kind of Shin Megami game coming out on the DS soonish and you know I will download that so fast my DSL will get whiplash.

I've been reading a lot lately. And watching a ton of TV. Jessica and I are (slowly) getting through Battlestar Galactica. I'm watching the Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya by myself. Kind of getting back into an anime thing here.

My computer is almost paid off. All right!

I was born in 1981. Raised on the Mario Brothers.

I've had this journal for a long time. Since 2001. And I've been thinking about deleting it, or just not updating any more or whatever. It all means the same thing. An ending. Putting a period on it.

But I found an interview with Christopher Walken and for the first time in a long time I feel like saying something in more than the 140 characters Twitter gives me.

Maybe it's good practice to write something now and then. Do you know that I use a pen so infrequently now I have to stop and think of how to make certain letters? Or I have to remember how I make certain letters. Whatever. It's the same thing really.

I am chilling out on my couch, listening to the rain outside (and I am so goddamn sick of the rain) about to watch Battlestar Galactica and thinking about video games. I used to buy so many video games. For a long time at least one a week. At one point, before I starting unloading Playstation RPGs on ebay, I estimated I had around 400-500 games. Now it's down to maybe 50-60 games I can't or won't bring myself to get rid of. They will have to pry The Misadventures of Tron Bonne and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (black label) from my cold, dead hands. Nevermind that I will probably never play either of them again.

I haven't bought a video game since Fallout 3 came out last year. My girlfriend brought it to me at work and that's when I knew it was love. I had an idea before then but that's when I knew for sure.

There's something about the rain that reminds me of being in first grade. First grade, in Mrs. Newell's class and it's raining outside. Raining and I am inside, cozy, safe and warm and I don't hate the rain as much as I do now. If you could talk to a younger version of yourself, what would you say? What advice would you give yourself?

I haven't bought a video game since Fallout 3 came out. I mostly just download DS games because I don't have to pay for them. Not because I am all that up in boners to play most of the games I play but they're ok for what they are. Nothing's grabbed me since Fallout 3, really. And the Fallout series is one that has my undying loyalty. I will neither pirate nor borrow nor steal. I will pay full price, I will preorder, I will thank my lucky stars that another game even remotely tied to that gloriously depressing wasteland has seen the light of day.

And now that it's been on the 360, Fallout is the new Grand Theft Auto. And that's sad, but at least it's not dead.

Other series that have my undying loyalty (in various degrees of purity) may include: Bioshock, Mass Effect, Zelda, Castlevania, Megaman, Persona and the goddamn Mario Brothers.

Happiness is sore muscles, hot water, a locked door and a dark, quiet house.

Inspired by my girlfriend, I bought a jump rope at Target today. I have never liked nor have I ever been good at jumping rope, but it's a good, easily portable, pretty serious cardio work out and since halving my bicycle commute to and from work, I want a way to get into and stay in better shape.

So I jumped rope for 5 minutes tonight and now the big muscles in my legs are all F U, WE GET ENOUGH OF THIS SHIT ON THE BIKE

Jessica introduced me to Half-Price Books a few months ago. Since then we've been there 4 or 5 times. I sold some old graphic novels and picked up some CSS books. I bought a lot of science fiction. You know.

Today I got The Princess Bride, Stardust and All Tomorrow's Parties for something like $11.62. This almost but not quite beats Amazon in my book. Less selection, more fun browsing and immediate satisfaction.

Now I am torn between starting one of these books, playing Tenchu: Fatal Shadows or continuing Angela's Ashes. I am trying to get back into reading and while I will never recapture the rabid hunger for it I had as a child, it's good to know books still do it for me.

I like being in my cold little apartment, late at night, barely able to hear anything at all.
I like being tired. Sleepy in a way that feels comfortable and comforting.

So this weekend I got a new (used) couch, a tv stand and a rug. Next weekend Jessica and I are picking up my desk and I'm planning to buy a chair for it. Then I will be DONE buying furniture for a while. This place is finally starting to look like someone lives here.

The tv stand took about 2 hours to set up, including building time and getting all wires sorted for my video game systems. This couch is better than the one I had before, but I need some pillows for it I think.

I've been pretty against the idea of buying a lot of furniture and stuff, but I spend a lot of my time outside of work here, so I should be comfortable when I'm here.

Jessica and I saw Adventureland last night. Pretty good. Not as hilarious as I had expected, though still hilarious. Jessica didn't like it as much as I did, but I'm more into feel-good movies. The guy who played Bill on Freaks and Geeks was good. So was Freego, who really reminded me of Eric Simpson.

I pronounce this day DOA and I am going to hit the sack.

This is the background of my work computer.