What's happened since my last post here... Also: Adventures in beer

Well... looks like I've forgotten to consistently update this thing again. XD  A lot has happened since then... I've been continuing to have a job (and like it fairly well), and in fact have actually gotten a slight pay increase (from minimum wage to $7.50/hr, with the possibility of a further boost to $8/hr if I finish some more training videos.)  Two of the three coworkers I didn't get along with have quit, Richard Nixon style (...basically they knew they were going to get fired so they quit first) and I'm waiting on Douche #3 to finally decide to actually quit rather than just ranting about how he's going to quit but not actually doing it.

My car has had a couple of issues (first a near-dead battery, which was replaced, and more recently a broken shifter linkage and some messed-up motor mounts... which were fixed/replaced over Thanksgiving break, so I have a car again) but isn't giving me any trouble at the moment.  I've managed to make another visit out to the Roanoke area which went really well (...though I could've done without the drive home afterward... driving on back roads at 2 am with a fogged-up window is a bit scary), as did the day when I managed to convince a friend to come see me in Buena Vista.

I've finished a couple more paintings for people who are leaving soon (most recently, I finished one just in time--she's leaving today, and I just so happened to bump into her in the library yesterday right after I'd finished the painting! huh? me actually having good luck? weird!)  I've also finished my first OHRRPGCE game since high school, Okédoké! La Leyenda Mexicana, which can be downloaded here if you'd like to try it out.  And last month, I did NaNoWriMo and actually managed to "win" for the second time in my life (and do so early for the first time ever--I started a day late and still somehow managed to go over 50,000 before the end of the 28th of November.)

And, on a completely unrelated note, I've discovered that "beer that I actually like" is something that really does exist after all.  Maybe I just needed to try it a few times to let my taste buds adjust to "beery" tastes, or maybe my first attempt at trying some years ago just ended up with bad circumstances all around (beer wasn't cold due to fridge being off, I tried to drink it with a chocolatey granola bar which probably wasn't the best choice of food, I had tried one of my dad's dark German beers first because that was what was readily available rather than trying something lighter, etc...), or maybe some combination of both... but either way, I now drink beer semi-regularly and actually like it.  The rest of this post will be talking about beer and my experiences so far... just a warning for those among my Mormon friends who might not want to read about beer.  I know not all of you are offended by the very mention of mild barley drinks, but I haven't brought up the subject with most of you guys so I figure I'd slip in a warning ahead of time before going right into a big ol' beer post. XD

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Anyway... the history of me actually having positive experiences with beer goes back only as far as September, when I tried Blue Moon's Harvest Pumpkin Ale.  At first I didn't like it much at all--it was "too beery" for me at the time, though it tasted better to me than what I remembered of the beer I tried first years ago.  But then I tried some again a few days later, with some food (spicy pasta!) this time rather than by itself, and I actually found it to be decently drinkable so long as the food lasted.  After having one of them with dinner a few more nights, I was left with a six-pack that only contained two beers.  I had one of them with a meal, and found that... I was actually kinda liking it even after the food was gone.  So I went ahead and had the last one, and was surprised to find that I now could drink the stuff even without the accompaniment of food.

A few days later, I was in the grocery store and saw one of the Blue Moon variety packs.  I figured that'd be a good thing to try, what with the fact that it had six different beers in there rather than just one (like a six-pack) or three/four (like most of the other variety packs that were around.)  Over the next week or two, I tried one of these beers every night, and was somewhat surprised to find that I didn't really dislike any of them, though there were some I liked more or less than others (the pumpkin one I tried first, oddly enough, ended up being one of the three in the pack that I didn't care for quite as much as the others.)  The regular Blue Moon (a Belgian-style wheat beer) has been consistently pretty good every time I've had it, and the Cinnamon Horchata Ale from the same variety pack was nice too (though unfortunately the cinnamon/horchata-ness of it seemed to fade away a lot after about half a glass.)

My first "wow, beer can taste like that!?" moment came from the first time I tried this one...

...the Farmhouse Red Saison/Flanders-Style Ale.  This one (well, the first bottle of it I tried, at least) had some really interesting flavors to it that I haven't had in a beer before or since... it was actually kind of "tomato-y" along with more general sweetish fruit-esque flavors and the bready flavors that you get in a lot of beer.  The second bottle, unfortunately, wasn't the same as the first--it wasn't bad, but the fruit/veggie-ness of the first one was almost totally absent (the "tomato-y" flavor in particular was nowhere to be found in the second one.)  That inconsistency is probably the main thing that would keep me from buying a full six-pack of these--I'd be worried that they'd all be the less-good version, or that I'd only get one or two of the tastier version.  I'm not sure which version is the way this was "supposed to" taste, but I definitely liked the first one I had a lot more than the second.

After the variety pack was gone, I went without buying any more beer for my fridge for a little while.  I did, however, try some at Mexican restaurants whenever I ended up eating out at one.  The first I tried was Pacifico, which was not bad (and seemed to make my food taste even better, somehow) but not amazing either.  Didn't have a great deal of flavor to it at all as far as I could tell.  I also had Negra Modelo, which had much more flavor along with retaining the food-enhancing properties (I'm just going to figure that Mexican beer in general does this, as all three that I've tried so far seemed to.)  I think it might've been better without the lime they served it with, though I'm not sure as I haven't had a "lime-free" version yet (they do sell it in stores around here, though, so maybe that will change at some point in the future.)  My favorite of the Mexican beers so far, though, was this one...

...Bohemia, which I found after looking up some information on it online is apparently made to resemble a German-style Pilsner.  This one was another "huh, beer can taste like that?" moment--I still am not sure exactly how to describe the taste of this one, except that I occasionally noticed bits of lemony flavor in there (even in the one I had without any lime juice squeezed into it.)  I actually liked it enough that I ended up ordering a second one, since my food was not gone yet by the time the first one was empty and I felt like another drink.  I probably could have emptied out a third, too, but by the time the waiter asked if I wanted a third one I figured that since my food was gone (and I was starting to feel the effects of two beers' worth of alcohol...) it might be a better idea not to. XD

The next beer I ended up trying (actually before Bohemia, but I decided to put all the Mexican beers in their own segment) was one I picked up from Wal-Mart during a visit, which was also my first "craft" beer (which basically just means it's made by a smaller company, rather than the big advertising-all-over-the-place corporations like the guys who make Budweiser and such.)  It came in a 22-ounce bottle, and so I ended up drinking the whole thing in one sitting... so I got a bit drunk.  Not unpleasantly so, thankfully (I've only been "dizzy, sleepy" drunk once and I don't intend to repeat that experience... and I definitely do not plan go any further than that! making yourself sick just doesn't appeal to me at all), but definitely "warm and fuzzy."  Anywhere, here's a picture of that one:

Blonde Hunny from Wild Wolf Brewing Company, located in Nellysford, VA (apparently somewhere in Nelson County.) This one was really interesting, and at the time I had it was probably my favorite beer so far (and is still up there, though one that I've had more recently has bumped it down from the #1 spot.)  Like the regular Blue Moon, this was a Belgian-inspired wheat beer.  There were definitely a few differences, though--this one was brewed with honey (which contributed to the taste of it and also gave it a bit higher alcohol content) and still had the yeast in the bottle rather than filtering it out or otherwise removing it.  It basically had all of the features I liked about regular Blue Moon (like the "wheaty" taste) plus a bit more (I could definitely taste the honey here and there), and without the one thing I didn't like so much (...I'm very sensitive to smells, and Blue Moon tended to smell a bit funky if you let it sit out very long.  There was no noticeable effect on the taste when that happened, thankfully, but still.)  This one was really good.  Only comes in canned six-packs and the big 22-ounce bottles, so I haven't gotten more yet (I'm still a bit wary of cans, for some reason...), but since it costs about the same as Blue Moon for a six-pack I'd most likely get this instead if I really wanted more wheat beer at some point.

Shortly after that, I ended up stopping in to a local beer/wine store in Lexington, where I wandered around a bit and then ended up asking the guy at the front for help picking something out since there was just too much to decide from.  He ended up pointing me toward a six-pack of Leffe Blonde, which was imported from Belgium (my first beer from another country! well, aside from that one of Dad's I had years ago, heh.)  I somehow didn't end up getting any pictures of this one (or the next beer I tried after it), but it was pretty good.  "Bready" sorts of flavors were there, along with banana-like flavors, interestingly enough.  Apparently that's a common thing in Belgian beers, and has something to do with the type of yeast they use.  Unfortunately, only half of the six-pack was really good; I'm not sure what was wrong with the other bottles, but I noticed a kinda iffy "smoky/greasy" sort of flavor in them (faint in the fourth bottle but very noticeable in the other two) which pretty clearly did not belong there.  It wasn't so bad that they were undrinkable, but those last few were definitely not as good as the first few.

After those were gone, I tried the Vienna Lager from one of Lexington's local breweries, Devil's Backbone.  Their six-packs are available just about everywhere around here (they're even in the gas stations... though more expensive there than in regular stores), so I picked up one.  That was also pretty good, and I didn't have any trouble clearing out the six-pack over the course of a week or so.

The next beer I tried was George Killian's Irish Red, from one of the local Italian restaurants where my dad took me during a visit over here.  Was pretty good, but seemed to clash oddly with something in the pasta I was eating--when I was drinking it before the pasta came to the table, it had a sweeter sort of taste to it, while afterward it was completely different and not as good.  I've had this one once again since then (from the same Italian place) and it didn't seem to have the same issues with pizza--so not sure if it just doesn't go so well with pasta for some reason, if I had a somewhat iffy bottle that first time, or what.

And after that, since I was running a bit shorter on money than usual, I started looking for something a bit cheaper than what I normally bought.  Most of the beer that goes for $5-$6 a six-pack around here seems to be  the cheap crappy kind, like Bud Light and such, so I was hesitant about buying a full six-pack of any of those.  Then I noticed that Yuengling (which my sister has mentioned liking) sells for the same price as the aforementioned Bud, so... I went ahead and grabbed a six-pack.  Also pretty good.  Kinda similar to the Kilian's overall, though different enough that you probably wouldn't get them mixed up or anything.  Next one I tried was over Thanksgiving break, also at a restaurant with my dad (and sister)--Guinness! Which was pretty nice.  Definitely had a noticeably different taste to it than the lighter-colored beers I've tried, more of a "toasty" sort of thing rather than just "bready."

Also during Thanksgiving break, I found a partial six-pack of old pumpkin beer...

Jack's Pumpkin Spice Ale, apparently made by Michelob (and also apparently not being made anymore at all--from what I can find, new packs of it haven't existed since 2012.)  I was expecting this to be undrinkably disgusting since it had been sitting in a cabinet back home for 4 or 5 years, but the first bottle I opened actually wasn't that bad.  I could actually taste some of the pumpkin-pie type spices and everything.  The second bottle, on the other hand, kinda tasted like dirt.  So... I'm thinking I probably won't be drinking the rest of these too quickly, if at all. XD

After the break, and after returning to Buena Vista, I ended up spotting a variety pack that I'd never seen in the stores before...

I had heard from some friends that Fat Tire was pretty good, and I liked that there were 5 beers rather than just 3 or 4 like most of the variety packs, so I went ahead and grabbed this one.  A couple weeks later, I've tried at least one of every beer in the pack, and (somewhat surprisingly) I still haven't found a beer I just plain can't stand (...though the second bottle of old pumpkin beer, tasting like "pumpkin spice dirt," came very close.  Blargh. >_<)

The first one I tried was Fat Tire...

...which was nice, had a bit of a toasty/almost nutty taste to it.  I had the second bottle of this one along with some pasta just last night.  Next up was...

...their Abbey dubbel, which was really good and has risen up into the "favorite beer" slot. XD  This one had, in addition to the dark toasty bread sorts of flavors, a good bit of banana and occasionally something that I can only compare to tropical fruit gum and/or cotton candy.  As far as I'm aware, these flavors are all results of the particular strain of yeast used, along with possibly some sugar added (something that some of the Belgian-style beers apparently do to give the yeast more "food," apparently.)  But yeah... I haven't had the second bottle of this one just yet, but the first one was the best beer I've had so far.

Next up was...

...2 Below Ale, which apparently was made in the style of an English bitter (an ESB or "Extra Special Bitter" to be specific.)  This one was also pretty good.  I have no clear recollections of what I thought of this one, except that I didn't find it to be especially bitter (though apparently some who tried it did--the first review that came up for it when I searched on a beer website I'm on was basically just complaining about the bitterness!)  Which leads into the next beer from the pack I decided to try, which was definitely more than just a little bitter...

...the Ranger IPA (India Pale Ale.)  This basically tasted like liquid pine tree! I was honestly kind of afraid to try an IPA before this point, since I'd read that they're extremely bitter and most people who are new to beer won't like them (...and even some people who're more experienced beer drinkers still can't stand IPAs.)  Apparently this one ranks at 70 IBUs (the scale that beer bitterness from hops is measured by), which is pretty high up there (...the scale basically breaks down after 100, and most above that only list their IBUs as "100+.")  It was noticeably bitter, but not unpleasantly so.  The piney taste was definitely a really strong one, though.  I have to wonder how this sort of beer would work with food--so far I haven't tried it.

And the last one from the pack was...

...the Rampant Imperial IPA.  Which I was expecting to be "like Ranger but more," though it actually ended up being a bit more complicated than that.  The pine flavor was definitely still there, but didn't seem quite as overpowering as in Ranger--there was a bit of something fruity in there as well, and I could sometimes even taste some of the more usual "bready" flavor in there.  This one also didn't seem noticeably more bitter to me than Ranger, despite being 85 IBUs rather than just 70.  It was, however, noticeably more alcoholic--definitely a "just one at a time" beer for me!

And most recently, I noticed a sale going on at the local Food Lion--a 12-pack of beer for only $8.99 (plus a 2-dollar mail-in rebate.)  Since it was Yuengling, which I've already had a positive experience with, I went ahead and grabbed one...

...but not a regular Yuengling 12-pack, instead getting one of the Black & Tan (which is a combination of the Yuengling Porter, a darker beer, and Yuengling Premium Beer which is basically Yuengling's version of the lighter yellowish lager like Bud, Miller, etc.)  Pretty good.  Tastes similar to regular Yuengling but with a bit more flavor and hints of "dark beer" type flavors (more toasty bready-ness, occasional bits of chocolate) every now and then.  Going by this, I figure I'd like the Porter, considering that it's the "black" in the Black & Tan and would be the beer responsible for the "darker beer" flavors present in this one.

Attention, people of the Internet

"Preggo" (pronounced "preg-oh") refers to this:

"Prego" (when pronounced "pray-go") refers to this:

And finally, "Prego" (when pronounced "pree-go") is this:

In which I take a metaphorical sledgehammer to a list of utter stupidity

This is actually something I've been wanting to post for a while: I stumbled across this list on the Internet at some point months ago (I honestly can't remember how I found it--I want to say I was reading a list someone else had linked to, then stumbled across a link to another one, and then THAT one had a link to this one... but it's been a while so I honestly don't know)... and, well... it was just embarrassingly stupid, full of terrible advice and generalizations about how people work that are rarely actually true unless you're dealing with a walking stereotype (and if you are, RUN AWAY and never look back.)

The list is here: "50 Things Every Woman Should Realize About Men."  If you know a thing or two about how people actually work (or at least know enough to know that differences between individuals are what matters, not lame assumptions made about entire groups), you should probably already know it's gonna be a load of crap with a title like that... nothing in the history of the world that started with the thesis of "men and women are, like, sooooo totally different!" has ever been remotely accurate, after all.  But anyway, if you're smart you knew that already.  So... onward, to the part where I point out exactly how it's a load of crap!

If I don't say anything about an item on the list, either it's just not worth saying anything about (either it's dumb, but in a fairly harmless way... or it's just not something I can say much about) or it didn't get any more of a reaction out of me than "eh."  Things that I don't mention might be "true-ish" or at least true for enough people that I can let them pass, or they're just... not really worth saying anything about because they're not saying much of anything in the first place.

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#3 -- This is not as much of an unconscious reflex as this list seems to think.  A guy's first reaction to seeing ANY female is not "check her out," unless that guy is the type of guy who should be punished with enforced celibacy for his crimes of aggravated douchebaggery.  Just briefly noticing someone's presence does not amount to "checking them out," by the way--it's one thing to notice "oh hey, there's someone walking by" and it's another thing entirely to spend 30 seconds staring at her butt as she passes.  One of these is a natural reaction (not noticing the presence of another person when you're looking right at them is weird), the other is a conscious choice.

#4 -- Depends.  If you're actively trying to get rid of my friends, then yes, you are in trouble.  But a general "will always pick friends over girlfriend if I have to choose," no.  My friends are wrong about things sometimes, too--they are people after all.  Also, why are you acting like "friend" and "girlfriend" are two mutually exclusive categories, stupid-list-on-the-Internet? I would need to be friends with someone first before dating/etc. becomes possible at all.

#5 -- Criticize my mom all you want, as long as it's a legitimate criticism.  She is not some holy being who can do no wrong.  And I seriously hope that anyone I end up dating won't have many things in common with my mother, or we probably wouldn't be together very long...

#6 -- Wait, what? Actual good advice? On this list? It's a miracle!

#8 -- If I walk in and you are being all quiet to "let me stare at the TV for half an hour," I will assume something's horribly wrong.

#9 -- If you're trying to say that I'll lose control, run off, and screw some random girl just because I'm not having regular sex for a while, then you are an idiot, Mr. List-on-the-Internet.  Yes, trying to manipulate someone by withholding sex until they do something you want them to do is pretty messed up... but sex is not something I can't go without.  I have 28 years of practice after all.  Also, masturbation freaking exists.  There are ways of getting rid of those urges that don't involve infidelity.

#10 -- No, I'm not.

#11 -- Honestly, the other hole appeals to me FAR more than that one.  I'll try it (with a condom) if you want, but unless YOU actually like it, please don't push for it.  Especially if you're only doing so because you think I want it because some dumb list on the Internet said so.

#12 -- No, I don't.  I probably don't even know them.  Also, "90% of the women I've ever met?" Good lord, what kind of mindless sex-robot do you think I am?  I've only had serious thoughts of so much as *kissing* ONE of the women I've ever met, and only vague fantasy-type thoughts (but only that--there was no thought of actually attempting anything) involving maybe a dozen or so more beyond that one.  That's not even close to 90% of the women I've ever met.  That's not even close to 90% of those I'm currently friends with.

#13 -- I don't give a damn about pool, or who can beat who in whatever.  Competitiveness is not a part of my being.  Yeah, I'd rather win at things than lose at them, but I don't really care enough to make a big deal out of it either way--whether the thing itself is any fun is infinitely more important.

#14 -- I probably won't be the "instigator" most of the time.  I don't know for sure, what with the "never had sex before" thing and all, but I can't imagine that would be easy for me to do, considering that initiating ANYTHING is hard for me.  So you'd better make this more than "every once and a while" unless you only want sex slightly more than "every once and a while."

#15 -- I probably won't notice that, actually.

#16 -- I suck at opening pickle jars, actually, so please don't hand them off to me unless you've tried and loosened them up ahead of time first.  I'm also kinda awful at changing light bulbs (though the fluorescent ones are oddly easier to screw in than the old incandescent ones), so please don't think I will be magically better at that than you just because of my Y chromosome.  It doesn't actually give you superpowers, y'know.

#17 -- My liking you is not dependent on how much you weigh.  Hopefully you never had the "I've got to stay under whatever weight to find a boyfriend" mindset in the first place so this won't be a problem for you.  Yes, try not to balloon up to the point where it's unhealthy for you... but don't be obsessive about it and don't think that if you gain 5 pounds I'm going to suddenly not like you anymore.  Unlike the so-called emotions of the sort of people who wrote this list, the feelings I have toward people I truly care about are not fragile little soap bubbles that bust into a million pieces in a light breeze.

#18 -- Not necessarily.  Not everyone gets to the point of considering marriage at the same speed.  Some people are Mormon and think you need only a few months, while others legitimately might need 3 years or more to get to that point.  I know that's all you know how to do, but please--don't make generalizations, Mr. List-on-the-Internet.

#19 -- Hallelujah, a double-decker miracle: TWO good pieces of advice hiding among the garbage heap that is the rest of this list! Yes, trying to force people to do something is a TERRIBLE idea (...not just guys, but anyone.)

#20 -- No, I don't.  I will be okay with adopting, but only if YOU want kids.  If you aren't sold on the idea of kids and want me to be the "tiebreaker" then guess what, we probably won't be having any kids.  And I don't give a damn about "leaving a legacy behind" and you'd better not go off the birth control, especially if you don't let me know about it first.

#21 -- Only if it's obvious.  I'm not a mind-reader.

#22 -- Shared interests are nice and all, but don't force yourself to be involved in stuff you don't like for my sake.

#23 -- As someone who doesn't care about clothes (note: not caring about clothes is independent of gender! there are guys who care way too much about stuff like this, too), this one is actually probably true.

#24 -- See above.

#27 -- Having to guess stuff is terrible.  So yeah, this one's probably actually good advice too.

#28 -- Depends.  Some girls look nice with short hair, or at least shortER hair.  Sometimes even those that I think will only look nice with longer hair.  You may or may not be one of them.

#32 -- False, there are most definitely things I will NOT do.  I won't go into them here, however, because they're gross and some of my Mormon friends are probably reading this. XD  Just ask if you want to know what they are, don't assume something's going to be a "yes" or "no" automatically.

#33 -- Talking about feelings is most definitely not "the girl's thing."  I can and will talk about mine.

#34 -- If that "big piece" has bones in it, you can have it.  I'll take a little one without bones, thanks.

#35 -- I'm unsure what this even means.  Probably some bullshit that only "wannabe super-macho-man" idiots care about.

#36 -- I'd rather know a few vague details than a flat "this many" number, actually... if all you're willing to say is "there were this many before you" then you'd be better off saying nothing at all.

#37 -- Don't lie about this stuff.  If there's something I can do to improve, let me know.

#39 -- ...if I'm walking ahead of you and happen to get to a door first.  Don't expect some "running to doors to open them before you get there" crap.  Or opening car doors, that's just dumb.

#40 -- My own moral compass works just fine, thanks.  If, however, you think that ALL guys just inherently have malfunctioning moral compasses, perhaps you should get your own checked out--it sounds like somebody has sabotaged it.

#41 -- I don't have this strange ego problem that you're assuming I have, Mr. List-on-the-Internet.

#43 -- Actually, I have little-to-no interest... so if YOU want a threesome this one will be reversed.

#44 -- Quiet sucks.  Quiet worries me.  Please ignore this list's terrible, terrible advice.

#45 -- Compliments kinda creep me out, so go easy on them.

#50 -- I am probably complicated enough to be at least two of you.  simplicity is overrated and I want no part in it.

Monogamy is "unnatural"... unless you're Eddie?

I've actually had an idea to do stuff like this for a while now (posting my reactions to articles that I stumble across on Facebook here, rather than just real-lifey stuff), but ended up never getting around to posting my first one a while back when I originally got the idea.

But anyway... this is a pretty long ranty post, and may not be "Mormon safe" (in the sense that sexual stuff is discussed, though not explicitly or anything, and a blogger who some of my Mormon friends seem to frequently share posts from is called out as being full of crap... though for the most part, this post isn't about him.  It's about a really awful misconception that's taken root across much of society, which both he and the person he's arguing with both somehow agree on.)  So those who are easily offended and prone to posting angry, insulting comments on anything you disagree with, run away and never look back.

Anyway... those of you who are still reading, this post refers to this blog post.  All that you really need to know, though, is that both of the people who say some stuff in said post agree that "monogamy is unnatural" and humans (especially male humans) are naturally predisposed toward screwing everything that moves.  The difference being, one of them is a college professor who you've probably never heard of unless you're in one of his classes (taking the "we're all naturally non-monogamous so let's go ahead and mindlessly screw everything that moves!" stance) and the other being a religious/political-ish blogger that you've probably never heard of unless you've seen your religious/political-ish friends share his posts on Facebook (and his stance, of course, is something along the lines of "monogamy isn't natural, it's a commandment from the Old Man in the Sky and his son White Jesus to test our righteousness by making us do something hard!")

And now that you have that much information, there is no longer any reason to read that article I linked, so you can continue on to the rest of my rant. XD

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Okay, a lot of this Matt Walsh guy's blog posts are full of crap from what I've seen (this one included, honestly; I only included a link to the article for context purposes, not because I'd actually recommend it! XD)... but this professor claiming that "monogamy is unnatural" and trying to say that all men are just inherently geared toward wanting to have sex with as many people as possible might be even worse.

...Actually, scratch that--Professor Widespread McMisinformation is definitely worse. The "all guys are pre-programmed to be ravenous sexmonsters" line of thinking is probably one of the most horrible untruths to become accepted "fact" by a depressingly large segment of society in a loooong time.

If monogamy is "not natural," how the heck do either of these guys (who somehow agree that it is "not natural" even if they don't agree on anything else) explain ME?

I'm only interested in monogamy when it comes to relationships. I've only ever been interested in monogamy. There was no "party phase" earlier in my life that I've since grown out of--I just have never seen any appeal in the typical "go out (drunkenness optional but encouraged) and have sex with as many people as possible" thing a lot of people (especially guys) get into starting around high school. When other guys would brag about stuff like that, it always seemed so strange to me that they would think that was a GOOD thing. While other guys were being all "aw man, when will I lose my virginity?" my concern was always something more like "when will I find a girl who actually likes me?" instead--losing my virginity is something that'd be more of a nice bonus that would ideally come along with finding someone who actually felt as strongly about me as I do about her, not an end goal in and of itself (even now, the only concern related to that is "if I DO actually find someone, will she reject me just because I'm still a virgin at age 28 or will she actually be a decent person and try to understand and work with me on that instead?")

Oh, and that's not all. Just having strong feelings for one person (even if they're one-sided feelings which that person doesn't share at all!) basically blinds me to all others, to the point where I'm pretty sure by now that I've missed a few people who may have actually liked me because I just couldn't turn my attention away from someone else long enough to notice. Even on the rare occasion that I start to like multiple people at once, that only lasts until one of them manages to push ahead of the others in my mind and become the lone person that I end up mildly obsessed with. I can't imagine how much MORE focused I would be on that one person if I actually was in a relationship with someone, rather than just an "I like her but she doesn't feel the same way" situation. This is literally the exact opposite of the supposedly "natural" walking stereotype guy who can't help but have his eyes drawn to any nice-looking girl he stumbles across, even if he's already taken.

And I'm pretty sure at this point this is something that's built in for me, not something I've learned. I haven't gone to church (occasional visits alongside friends at SVU aside) since I was 12, and even then I barely believed most of what they said in church, so I definitely didn't pick it up from religion. My old church rarely (if ever) talked about what they thought was right or wrong in relationships anyway from what I remember, so that makes it an even less likely source. And I'm not a "traditional" person at all, either... so it's not like I was taught that monogamy was the only way or anything (I wasn't taught hardly anything about relationships, actually--I didn't even have a clear concept of what a date was until I was in my 20s.)  And it's not even likely that I just sort of unconsciously absorbed it at a young age, because I remember hearing a lot of stories about historical figures who had both a wife and mistress, or wives and concubines, or various other "more than one person" sorts of situations for at least as long as I've been hearing about monogamous relationships.

Maybe it's not the same way for everyone else; maybe some people are "programmed" to tend toward some polyamorous sort of thing and have difficulty only being seriously attracted to one person at a time.  But it seems to me that, for me anyway, monogamy is indeed "natural." Am I just this rare weird sort of person that's "programmed" for monogamy? Or are a lot of us like that to start with, before society manages to reprogram the majority with that "as many as possible, as often as possible, as early as possible" mindset when it comes to sex/relationships?

It's hard for me to even guess about how it is for other people... but I know how I work, at least, and that alone blows the "all guys are like this naturally" nonsense out of the water.  I mean, what are the chances that I'm literally the only one like this, out of 7 billion humans? I'd say not that high.

Yep, I think I've recovered from summer now.

As the title says--all the awfulness of summer seems to have pretty thoroughly disappeared at this point.  I'm pretty well settled in at my apartment here in Buena Vista, with all my stuff unpacked and set up and September's rent paid so I won't have to worry about that again until the first week of October (which is... still a good ways off.)  I'm also no longer suffering from the horrible boredom/loneliness/lack-of-motivation stuff that was hanging over me for most of the summer, and have actually gotten more work done on Okédoké! (not enough for a late-August release sadly, but early/mid-September should still be doable) lately, to the point where I should be out of "actually adding new stuff" stage and into "final playtesting before release" stage within the next week.  Speaking of Okédoké, here's a few random screenshots of new stuff:

Gravestones in El Pueblecito and Frogbucket now have readable text, rather than just being scenery.

A new scene added to an early part of the game if you do a certain specific thing.

A little preview of an optional boss boss battle later on.  Yes, those are maids. XD

Hmm. Wonder who lives here...

A new feature added: you can now talk to people from the other side of tables.

This guy only exists to keep you from getting to that trash can from the roof. XD

The "Wizdum Guy" hands out somewhat vague advice for only a few pesos.

Also, some pretty big news: I've got a job now!! As of... last Thursday, I've been working at the Papa John's in Lexington.  Did training for answering calls and operating the computer system on that Thursday, then worked a few hours this past Monday... and then immediately got a second day (Tuesday) added on to my schedule, during which I did some more training (for topping pizzas) and got to practice answering the phones and taking orders a bit more.  And then right near the end of my original Tuesday shift, I got more hours added on--coming back in around 5:30 and staying until 8:00ish.  Thursday was another "short day that turned long," since I was originally signed up for 10:30 to 2:00 (was supposed to do training before the store opened... but it was the training I already did, so I didn't have to be there until 11) but somewhere along the line that transformed into 11:00 to 7:00!  Long day, but it was nice to have something to do during the day for once that isn't "sit around alone on the computer and I hope I actually get stuff done."  Actually managed to get some drawing done during that long shift's slow periods; I sketched up some of the gods from the ancient K'hyurbhi religion (...which hardly any K'hyurbhis believe in anymore) on the back of some napkins.

Yikimahn -- believed to be the creator and/or ancestor of K'hyurbhis and all other round-bodied creatures.  Hamhu revision added the nameless mother goddess drawn below him, while older versions had Yikimahn himself laying the original K'hyurbhi egg (which contained a lot more than just one K'hyurbhi, as the species wouldn't last otherwise. XD)

Gatadz -- generally seen as the god of death and cold weather, who watched over the frozen cave-like afterlife known as "Lahnan."  Hamhu revision made him out to be the bad guy, but originally he was just doing his job (much of which involved deciding how much ice to freeze the actual bad guys in when they ended up in his place after death.)

Zhingaru -- seen as the god of Kihlah, who was originally the only being with that power but decided to hand it out to K'hyurbhis and various others so he could share it.  Hamhu revision claims he gave it to K'hyurbhis ONLY, and that all others are using some form of "false Kihlah" or somehow stole actual Kihlah energy from a K'hyurbhi.

Mozzu -- the god of war, and sometimes also of metal and stone.  Minor earthquakes were thought to be caused by his footsteps, and thunder was the sound of him fighting somewhere in the distance (usually by throwing his mace up into the sky to hit some unknown attacker.)

...yeah, I just posted all of the drawings there.  The old K'hyurbhi religion (along with a lot of other Nummorrian cultural stuff) is getting a lot more fleshed out now, and I'll probably continue to add more onto it over the next few weeks/months/years until I can finally say "okay, this is pretty much the whole thing" like I can with the Blurby religion I came up with a few years back.

I also ended up actually making some pizzas (well, putting the sauce, cheese, and toppings on them anyway--can't do the dough just yet) on Thursday, and after a few somewhat shaky attempts (which were not quite shaky enough to be rejected when they came out of the oven, thankfully!) I think I've pretty much gotten it down well enough to do it consistently as part of my job in the near future.  I suppose the next step in training will be either preparing toppings (chopping up the veggies, filling the containers) or getting pizzas off the oven line and into boxes (which seems fairly simple aside from using the pizza cutter to cut the slices out right, which I haven't done anything really similar to before.)  Apparently there's a chance I might be able to become a fill-in manager eventually once I get through all the training, and the more training I do the more my pay will go up, so... overall I think doing the full training is probably a good plan. XD

Oh, and I finally got to meet one of my formerly-online-only friends last week!  Which means that I now no longer have "friends that I've talked to online but never met" (though there are still quite a few "friends that I unfortunately haven't seen face-to-face in pretty much forever.")  I drove over to the Vinton area to meet her as she got off from work and then we headed into Roanoke to get some Mexican food (and my first ever margarita, which was pretty good.)  Also stopped in to the Goodwill nearby before heading back, where I found some of the khaki shorts that I need for my job.  And also... some kid's drawing in a book:

Apparently somebody forgot to check the book for loose papers before donating it to Goodwill... whoops. XD

But yeah, that worked out pretty well.  Only issue was related to the traffic on the way back, which was pretty nasty (and made worse by me accidentally driving off in the wrong direction at first and having to turn around before I went into a city-ish area where it would've been even worse.)  But aside from that slight detour on the return trip, I didn't have any trouble with the driving... though there was a lot of driving and I was a bit worn out when I got home.  Still, it's always nice to actually see my friends (and hang around with them and talk and goof off for hours) and not just type messages back and forth online.

And today, my work schedule for next week rapidly expanded--first I was only signed up for Monday and Wednesday, then Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday got added to the list, and then finally I ended up on the phone with my manager while on the way back home for a dentist's appointment today and got a few hours each on this Saturday and Sunday.  Thankfully, my three hours on Saturday don't butt up against the Doctor Who club meeting later (it's just noon to 3), though next Saturday's shift goes from 5:45 to 10:00 so I'll end up missing that week's episode.  However, as a friend (who I hadn't heard much from in months, so it was nice to get to talk to her again--unexpected messages from people that turn into hours-long conversations about half a dozen random things are always appreciated!) just reminded me of today, there's probably places to find and watch these online... so I may actually manage to get caught up on Doctor Who at some point.

I've escaped! (hopefully it's permanent this time!)

I've finally escaped from the Middle of Nowhere, VA boredom/loneliness deathtrap!  Back in Buena Vista now, in the same apartment I was living last time around actually (though I may end up moving in October, assuming I can find a job before then so I don't run out of rent money.)  The little blue car is now parked outside (with apartment sticker so I won't get towed, heh), my furniture's set up, my cabinets and fridge are loaded up with enough food to last me a while, and unpacking... well, I'm still kind of in the process of doing that right now, heh.

I've only been here one day, but I can tell that my body's starting to adjust back to a normal sleep schedule already... despite my mom's paranoia that I wouldn't be able to get used to getting up/going to bed earlier.  For some reason, she just can't understand that living back home is part of the reason why I go to bed (and get up) so late in the summer, and why I have so much trouble sleeping.  It's not a good environment for me--other people stay up super late (making it very hard for me to not stay up late), cats thunder around the house at odd hours of the morning (I love the kitties, but they do make it hard to sleep sometimes... especially when I don't get to bed until an hour before they start), air conditioners sometimes don't get turned on when they need to so the house stays too hot for me to sleep comfortably, privacy does not exist (half the reason I stay up so late is that "downstairs in front of the computer, after everyone else goes to bed" is the closest to "my own private space" as exists there--my actual room doesn't have a door and is right next to the stairs, and the extra bedroom next to it is in a similar situation)... I just don't like living there anymore, especially now that I'm not going to Dabney anymore and most of the few friends I had before have disappeared off to who-knows-where, or I just don't ever see them or hear from them much (if at all!) anymore.  As far as things that matter to me, Alleghany County is basically an abandoned wasteland where I will eventually shrivel away if I stay too long.
Here at my apartment it's completely different.  It's only a little after midnight right now and I feel like I probably *could* go to bed if I really wanted, as opposed to "go to bed NOW? why?? I could never get to sleep this early!"

Hopefully the constant lack of motivation to do anything that kept hanging over me for most of the summer clears up pretty soon too (...I've already got a job interview with Papa John's lined up for next week and sent in another job application, so... I guess that's a "maybe" on that front until further notice. XD)  Speaking of lack of motivation... yeah, I completely forgot to ever post that "stuff I did over the summer after Camp Shenandoah" post I said I was going to.  Whoops.  For the most part the later-summer was pretty uneventful, though, aside from learning how to drive manual (so I could actually drive my car.)  That, and of course the weekend when I left camp, when I had an unexpected little "mini-vacation" to Staunton! Probably the best memories of the summer, really--got to go to a west coast swing dance in Charlottesville with a friend (and managed to learn some stuff, and didn't have any trouble at all with the crowdyness or anything!), swam in the hotel pool, ate some really good food (including once at a restaurant in Staunton I'd never been to before, Baja Bean Co., where I had some really delicious shrimp tacos), and just... walked around and saw lots of neat old buildings and such.  Wish I had more days like those this summer, rather than the usual "sit around the house alone and bored to death, being unable to get stuff done even though I have a lot of stuff to get done."

My 9 days working at Camp Shenandoah

This one's a little different from my usual posts--instead of writing it up for the first time right now, the entries about my time working at Camp Shenandoah are actually taken word-for-word from a notebook I had with me while I was there.  I'd originally planned to do blog posts while I was there, but lack of frequent Internet access at camp (at first because I didn't know the password, and later because we weren't supposed to be online for long periods of time if we could avoid it to conserve bandwidth) meant that they went into my notebook instead of onto here... until now!

I'll post another one of these about the stuff from after Camp Shenandoah some other time, but for now, here's my Camp Shenandoah wasn't-online-for-a-while blog stuff.

Day 1
------------
Lots of work (setting up tents, carrying beds to campsite, loading tents/cots for the kids' campsites into the truck and unloading them at the sites), but seemed like a pretty good start! Lunch was okay (ham/turkey + cheese sandwiches), dinner was pretty "eh" (I only had chips, peaches, and pudding... "meal food" was green beans and those weird-ass chicken cordon bleu things.)  Good thing I brought muchos snack-os.

Turns out I will need to come home this Saturday... or Friday night.  Maybe.  I'm still not 100% sure.  Schedule throughout a normal week seems doable; if I can manage to wake up in the 7am -- 7:30 range I should be fine.

Got my own tent, muddafuggaaaaas!! It's a new one, too.  Sadly, the staff campsite currently has no TP for my bunghole... so pooping will be happening in other places.  It does have flush toilets, though! So does the dining hall, actually... that's new.

Randomly felt like drawing Numnums.  Which I guess makes sense considering where I am.

I can hear frogs/toads from camp.  And also thunder, at the moment.


Day 2
------------
Staff showers are kinda ghetto--built into the same almost-building as the latrines.  Hot water works well, though!

Breakfast and lunch--more "eh" food.  Fortunately there was cereal there at breakfast, but lunch had me on the "snack food diet," since the main "meal food" and the side dish were both inedible for ground beef and bacon-related reasons.

More work--moving up tents and cots.  Left shoulder + upper arm are super sore now so I can't do much with those.  Right wrist briefly started to hurt, but that seems better now.

Some random goofy drawings from the first few days.

Day 3
------------
Camp is much less empty now that the Junior Staff and CITs here here.  There's only barely enough space for everyone in the staff lounge... also, I now have an extension cord if I need to charge my phone or laptop.  Lunch was once again "eh," and I ate nothing but chips and applesauce.  Good thing I wasn't all that hungry.

Still a lot of working, but less exhausting than the first two days.  Don't think my arm will be sore tomorrow.  Wearing the shorts I sleep in as underwear might be cutting down on the legs-rubbing-together soreness somewhat, which is nice.

Also, found out that I won't need fancy-schmancy clothes for the swing dance thing I'm going to with Angela this Saturday, which is good since I don't have any!!

SALAD BAR!! The savior of camp meals has arrived!! (Dessert is good too.)  Also, apparently I like bacon bits... even though I hate bacon.

..."training" was actually more like "dinky games that went on for waaaaay too long" this time.  Almost got into a borderline crowd-freakout situation.  Some of it wasn't so bad, like the "this is a booger" bit... but the awkward "hey, let's get to know each other... except not" games were really dumb.  Hopefully that crap thins out or stops over the next few days.


Day 4
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 ...Staff showers are a lot less nice when you're not the first/only one using them.  I haven't had such a shitty shower in YEARS.  And that was after maybe two or three other showers... can't imagine how much it must suck if you get in there right after "shower rush-hour" or something.

If  the other showers are open already, I'll probably be walking over there to get showers from now on... at least if I'm not up early enough for a decent one here.

...And I just found a tick on my stomach.  A little one, kinda dark brown... and it had already bitten on.  Was able to get it off pretty easily (and its head didn't come off inside the bite or anything) so it probably wasn't there for long.

Also just realized that I seem to have forgotten to bring my comb back... that kinda sucks.

Breakfast slightly less "eh" this time--biscuits were good so long as you didn't contaminate them with gravy.  Plus, there was cereal (as always.)

Went on a tour of camp, and got a map!  Also: actual Assistant Ranger work started today.  And lunch! Way better than previous meals--salad bar AND pizza! Supper was closer to "eh" again (unnecessarily beef-infested spaghetti), but salad/breadsticks/pudding saved it.

I got to drive the camp truck today.  Took a bit of getting used to, since the shifter (from drive/reverse/park) is in a different place and the parking brake is completely different... but once I was used to that it wasn't hard at all, I just had to drive slowly + carefully on the bumpy camp roads.  And they were very bumpy.  Made a trip up to Archery to drop stuff off, and then to Scoutcraft and Nature, before back to Maintenance.  Also, had to pick up cardboard boxes from the trading post and dining hall, to drop off where the recycling stuff goes.

Also: Got to play Munchkin! We didn't actually finish the game because it got too late, but still.

The map.  With drawings and terrain detail added by me, of course.

Day 5
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 Woke up to find mysterious bugbites on some of my toes.  At least, I assume they're bugbites... they weren't there last night and just kind of appeared overnight.
And finally--good breakfast food! Pancakes!! Lunch not so much... pale, suspicious-looking chicken nuggets that I definitely didn't trust enough to actually try.  Just had stuff from the salad bar, since the salad's always good.  Dinner also repugnante, menos la ensalada.

Suggestion to any super rich people who want to donate stuff to camp: new washer/dryer for staff campsite.  My bedsheets (the thin flimsy things that always get dry) were still soaking wet after a run through the dryer on the setting I usually use.  That is bullshit.  Also bullshit: showers.  How the hell are you supposed to get a hot shower around here!? What on Earth did I do right the first time I used the staff showers to make it work so well? Even the other showers sucked today...

After-the-fact edit: The dryer actually wasn't that bad, I had set it wrong the first time... it works differently than other dryers that I'd used, and in attempting to set it to a normal setting I actually set it to only dry for 10 minutes or so.  When I tried again later making sure to set it for 30 minutes, it worked fine... I just forgot to mention it in here, I guess.  The washer, on the other hand, actually broke later in the week...


Day 6
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First thing we did this morning: practice putting up/taking down flags.  I got to put them up once, or at least help put up one (the camp flag.)  Wasn't nearly as complicated as I thought it might be.

And things went horribly wrong.  Water at Andrews is out, so no showers or washing clothes.  Everyone's going to use the shower house until Andrews' water is fixed, which means no showers there for me either... just some cold rinse crap, if I can tolerate the cold water long enough for that.  To make it even worse... this is the day when I really needed to wash clothes.  I have zero clean shirts now.  One is maybe tolerable, but the other two I have with me... no way.  They stink.  Not sure about the one I'm currently wearing.

Crisis averted, maybe--water is apparently fixed ALREADY, so I will be able to wash shirts tonight after all.  Showers still suck, but... at least I'll have clean clothes.  Also, some really good banana pudding for supper.  Along with salad, as always.

Yep, washer/dryer work again.  And actually talked to people (and showed off Okédoké!) later on today! Today actually turned out good, despite early problems.  And I may have introduced a kid to the OHRRPGCE, too--he wanted to know where to download it and everything!


Day 7
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 Internet works again! Last night it was being weird.  Also, I have a motel room booked for the weekend.  Was surprisingly easy to get set up, and like I thought, a room was around $70 rather than this "over $100" nonsense my mom was assuming.  Of course, she was probably thinking of rooms with two beds.

Lunch was great today--they had this fish with potato-strip breading and I ended up eating three of them, plus my usual salad.  First meat-based food I've had (other than a hot dog and bacon bits... which probably aren't real bacon) since coming here.

Supper: also great! Best mac & cheese I've had in years!!

And got my swim test out of the way today, too.  "Beginner" test was very easy.  Will probably go back for "swimmer" later on in the summer.
And we had a campfire!! Went pretty well.  I need to find out when Troop 2's going to be here so I can do the Poop Skit.  Mwhahahahaha...


Day 8
--------------
Work continues as normal.  Weather's nice today--cloudy and not as hot, but also not raining.  Plans for Saturday are pretty much set, so the weekend should go well.
Kinda scary for a little while there--had a "Code Green" (someone missing) which turned into a "Code White" (medical.)  I'm not sure what happened but I don't think it was just a drill this time... one of the girls was lying face-down in some leaves near the showers and not moving, and they brought the medic in on a truck to pick her up, or check on her at least--I didn't see her get loaded onto the truck or anything so I'm not 100% sure what happened.  I think she's okay now though (she just walked back in), so it might've just been a drill, but... it was unexpected and very convincing if it was.

Yep, apparently that was a drill.  I'm glad they sprung it on us--the "Code Blue" drill was kind of lame in comparison because we knew it was a drill ahead of time.

It rained.  A lot.  Like Outpost-level rain for hours.  My tent got rained in a bit, but everything seems fine... except possibly my power strip.  Now, my laptop charger still works (and presumably so does the phone charger) so this isn't the worst-case scenario or anything, but still sucks.  Hopefully it will work fine once it dries out... otherwise I'll need a new one in August when I head back to BV.


Day 9
---------------
Last day of Staff Week! Should have plenty of time to wash clothes, dry them, and pack up stuff I'll need for the weekend... but just in case I don't I went ahead and packed some of it this morning.

...and it turns out this isn't just "last day of Staff Week" but "last day for me period."  I've been "let go" for vague reasons.  The only thing specifically mentioned was my driving, but... I specifically mentioned many times that I'd never driven a truck before (and I didn't go driving crazy or running over stumps or anything) so I'm not sure what the big deal was.

Almost time to head off to Camp Shenandoah...

Yep... Thursday is the day that I leave Middle of Nowhere, VA (...okay, Alleghany County, but close enough) and head... north... east... ish? I think? toward Camp Shenandoah, where I'll be working for 8 or 9 weeks this summer.  I've already started (well, almost finished) packing my stuff at this point; all that's left to cram into my suitcase are the two Boy Scout uniform shirts (only not in there yet because they need to have a couple of extra patches sewn on, one of which I don't have... the other, I just haven't gotten around to yet), my toothbrush, razor, and comb (...because I still need those for tomorrow), and this solar-powered flashlight that I got for Christmas this past year and haven't actually used yet.  Some other stuff (drawing supplies and maybe a couple books) will be coming to camp in my backpack, and these two huge packs of bottled water will probably just sit off by themselves since they're sort of self-contained already.  I've stocked up on snack food (peanuts, Pop-Tarts, and granola bars) and drink mixes, so hopefully I'll be able to have a decent amount to eat even if the dining hall's food is iffy some days... which it probably will be, going by what I remember of it from way back when I was still young enough to be going to camp as a Boy Scout rather than camp staff.

I'm still missing some of the clothes I'll be needing, unfortunately.  I have 4 pairs of the Boy Scout socks, but they're the excessively long ones that my dad insisted on buying when we were at the scout shop in Roanoke a while back, claiming that the camp would make me wear the long socks rather than the shorter, actually-comfortable-enough-to-wear kind.  Turns out that Dad was completely wrong on that one--the guy who hired me outright said that sock length doesn't matter, all that matters is that they're Boy Scout socks of some type.  I should've went ahead and gotten some shorter socks along with the awful long deathsocks Dad wanted.  Fortunately, the trading post over there sells Boy Scout socks, so I should be able to get actually-wearable socks once I get there.  I also only have 4 pairs of the Boy Scout shorts we'll be required to wear (and only two of those actually fit me, rather than just sorta fitting... those smaller ones were hand-me-downs from Dad), but I figure that those can be worn more than one day in a row (unlike socks) so I won't need to be buying more of them.  Only two uniform shirts should be fine, since I'll only need to wear them at dinner and on Saturdays/Sundays (...or more accurately, "Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon," since Saturday nights are generally going to be off-work days.)

But yeah... I don't think I'll be bringing my laptop, so computer/Internet access will be only occasional during the summer.  I may be able to access Facebook and such through my 3DS, since I know the dining hall has wireless Internet access now, but I don't know how well the 3DS will cooperate with that just yet so it's hard to say for sure.  For the most part, it looks like I won't have much contact with people through my usual method (Facebook chatbox messages), so I may end up text-messaging some people more often than usual.  I've already added another number to my phone just today, and I might attempt to track down another one or two people's numbers tomorrow so I can actually have some contact some of the people I talk to pretty frequently (or would like to talk to frequently but haven't really been in touch with that much lately, in some cases.)  So yeah... people I've talked to at least semi-often, don't be too surprised if you see text messages from me a bit more often than usual this summer. XD

On an unrelated note... the OHRRPGCE game I've been working on since 2009, Okédoké! La Leyenda Mexicana, is pretty much finished at this point.  In an odd coincidence, the date when I finished working on the game at last was the exact same date that the first released version was last edited before being uploaded (June 8th.)  A public release hasn't happened yet, but I have sent the game out to three playtesters (who, amazingly, all showed interest within a day or two of me first making an official call for playtesters) and will be hearing back from them over the summer as they play through the game and point out any bugs/errors/etc. that they happen to find.  If all goes well, a complete Okédoké release will finally happen in early to mid August.

And, I'm doing more painting again.  Got one painting (for a friend who's going away on a mission soon) finished today and will be delivering that to her tomorrow; I'm also taking my painting supplies with me to camp and will attempt to get at least one or two more paintings done while there (one for another soon-to-be-missionary, and another for an SVU graduate which was already started earlier this spring but just hasn't been finished yet.  Possibly another one for another graduate if I get those two done and still have time for another one while I'm there.)

I'll probably continue to post on here throughout the summer, probably on weekends when I'm back home from camp.  Which means the next post probably won't be coming until the 28th--I don't think I come back home this Saturday, and the 21st is going to be a different situation than usual due to neither my mom or dad being able to pick me up from camp or take me back the next morning.  So far it looks like a friend is going to pick me up from camp, we'll go to a swing dance event in Charlottesville, and then she'll drop me off at a cheapo motel somewhere so I have a place to stay for the night (before picking me up the next morning and taking me back to camp.)  I'll need to bring it up with her again before that weekend to make sure everything will still work and iron out the specific details a bit more, but so far it seems like she won't have any problem helping me out with that, so hopefully that doesn't change (...otherwise I'll be kind of stranded over there at camp with no way to leave and no way to get back the next day if I do manage to find a way to get away... and I really don't want to have to try and mess around with getting rides from other people who work there and whatnot.  I basically hate trying to get rides from complete strangers or people I don't feel like I can even remotely trust... which is basically everyone else who will be over there, since I don't know any of them! Yeah, I would not make a good hitchhiker. XD)

And this is completely random, but... earlier tonight, the entire downstairs area of the house randomly started to smell like a dentist's office.  That sort of latex glove smell, pretty much.  Really weird.  We opened a window down here just to make sure there's good ventilation in case this smell comes along with something we don't want to be breathing in too much of, and it seems to have gotten weaker since then... but I still don't have a clue what caused it in the first place.

Last post for the summer?

Well, I'm back home now!  Well... have been since last Wednesday, but I only just now got around to actually posting something on here again.  Whoops... XD

Anyway... the past couple weeks have gone pretty well! As mentioned in my previous post, graduation went well (no crowd-freakouts, got to see a bunch of friends before they disappeared off to who-knows-where.)  Also managed to get a storage unit in town for my stuff without any real difficulty (turns out that the indoor units were actually $1-per-month cheaper than the outdoor units, oddly enough.)  Oh, and the Sunday before last (the 11th), I did end up meeting someone that I'd been talking to on OKCupid for a while... and that went really well too! We went and got lunch at Don Tequila's in Buena Vista; I showed up several minutes early and waited, and before too long she showed up as well.  Of course... I didn't recognize her at first (her pictures on the site were older ones, I assume--she had shorter hair in both of them, while when we actually met her hair was longer and in a ponytail), but when she walked away from her car a bit, looked over toward where I was sitting, and asked "Eddie?" then I was pretty sure that she was the right person and not just some random stranger. XD

But yeah... I was slightly worried that "talking on and on forever online" wouldn't carry over to "talking on and on forever in person," somehow, but it turned out that wasn't anything to be worried about after all--we got along really well in-person after all, and started talking almost immediately.  The waiter in the restaurant had to come back a couple times before we were ready to order because we just kept getting distracted talking and forgot to decide on what food we wanted (...which, now that I think about it, is a lot like what happened on the first date I ever went on in my life, actually!)  After a couple hours of talking (and eating--chimichangas, the usual free chip basket, and this dessert thing that we got for free because they were doing some kind of special thing that day) we finally left and walked around town a bit, seeing the random junk robots and other random stuff.  She had to go around 3:00ish, but she gave me a ride back to my apartment first.  And of course, there were hugs.  So... yeah, I'd say my first attempt at actually meeting someone in-person after talking to her online for a while worked out pretty well! XD

Moving out (which happened last Wednesday) went okay too.  Took a lot more time and work than I had been expecting, though--I knew my dad was going to help me move some of my stuff out to the storage unit, but since his hippievan wasn't working he had to use a rented pickup truck instead, which took two trips to get everything up there.  Here's some pictures:

Yep... there's my storage unit, the truck crammed full with (the first load of) stuff, and finally the way the unit looked AFTER I'd moved all my stuff into it.  It was a 10x10 unit, so probably a bit too big for the amount of stuff I actually needed to put in there... but I'm not sure if all my stuff would've fit into something much smaller without piling things up to the ceiling (and plus, this was the smallest unit they had available), so it works.


Also have gotten more of my stuff for my summer job at Camp Shenandoah figured out; almost all of the paperwork is done at this point (just need to get the direct-deposit form filled out with my bank information, then get a physical so I can fill out the medical forms... that's all that's left at this point), and I now know exactly what stuff I'll need to bring with me.  Which includes a ton of Boy Scout clothes (which I currently don't have... so unfortunately I'm going to need to buy a bunch of them. two full Class A uniforms, plus several pairs of scout shorts--no long pants needed, thankfully!--and a few other shirts... the camp will be giving me two camp staff shirts, so I won't need to buy a full week's worth of them at least)... and even the absurd socks (they recommend having 8 pairs.)  Hopefully they have shorter-length socks, because I can't stand to wear the kind that comes way up on your leg.

Have also been working more on Okédoké! La Leyenda Mexicana lately.  The playable portions of the game are 100% done at this point, and I've made some good progress on the ending credits and the little scenes that go along with that.  Here's some bits of Okédoké-related stuff:

George W. Bush: President for Life (...he wishes, anyway. XD)

Yeah, you didn't do anything.  Except help build that giant robot...

From left to right: Schnee McBoobs, El Garbanzo, Señor Rialgo, Alejandro, and Señor Death.

Once that's done (probably will take another day or so?), all that's left is some short scenes that happen after the end of the credits (showing what various characters ended up doing after the game ended), and then the game will be completely done and ready for final "for somebody else's eyes" testing before the final release.  This means that complete Okédoké will be done before 2014 is over, and I'll finally be able to say that I actually finished one of my games for the first time since 2003!

Well... looks like I've graduated now.

Yep... today was the graduation ceremony for SVU, and (somewhat surprisingly) I actually managed to get through it without any problems at all.  Even though three of my least-favorite things (getting up early in the morning, extreme heat, and crowdedness) were all involved, none of it really got to me that badly and I was actually feeling pretty good even by the end of it.  Well, I was a bit overheated (which I suppose was unavoidable considering the combination of black graduation robes, black button-up shirt, black long pants, and sun+heat type weather!), but not to the point that it was making me miserable or anything.  I managed to find someone who was okay with sitting with me during the graduation, and (after a bit of work...) managed to convince the school's people to actually let that happen rather than being alphabetical-order Nazis and shoving me into a really uncomfortable position (surrounded by people I either don't know or barely know, in the middle of a row.  ugh.)  And after the graduation, I found out that my mom, dad, and little sister had all managed to make it out to Buena Vista this morning, so I got to see all three of them for a while (and lots of hugs happened, of course.)  After getting pictures of/with a bunch of friends and talking and goofing off for a while and eating some random fruit they had at the reception afterward, Dad took me and Julia to eat some Italian food (I had stuffed shells... and a salad... and cheese sticks... XD) and I think we all ended up pretty much stuffed.

And now, going in backwards order again--before graduation! I actually managed to finish a whopping thirteen of those gift paintings that I was making for people before graduation day happened and everyone disappeared.  And even though I got three paintings done in that last day, my hand only briefly felt funky; it was only the "slightly uncomfortable stretching" feeling when I moved it certain ways and not actual pain, nowhere near as bad as it was toward the end of last semester.  So I should probably be able to paint again after the weekend or so without any risk of things getting worse.  I only have 8 more people remaining on my current list, though I'm sure I'm missing at least a few that probably should be on there.  I won't be just letting those people go without paintings this time, though--I'm planning on getting all of these done and then mailing them out to people over the summer.

Oh, and speaking of paintings, here's a few that I did:

Those were probably my three favorites of the bunch, at least as far as the ones I managed to scan before giving them out.  The last two I finished turned out really well too, but I forgot to even get a picture of them first so unfortunately, I no longer have any record of their existence.  But eh, the people I painted them for have them, which is the whole point of this anyway, so I guess that's not a problem. XD

But yeah... things in general have been going pretty well lately.  Got to say goodbye to a bunch of my friends before they disappeared, got a ton of paintings done, graduated with no problems, got to see my little sister again for the first time in a loooong time... and this Sunday I'm going to actually meet someone from the online dating site, which will be the first time that's ever happened.  Well, I suppose there's a chance that I'll actually end up meeting two of them this weekend depending on whether the one girl who basically asked me on a date actually ends up going through with it or not (apparently "I don't have a car" wasn't a problem for her, but I haven't heard back from her after the last message--it's been days--so "I don't have a car, and I also don't know where any places to go get coffee are around here, maybe in Lexington or something?" might have scared her off. XD)  But anyway, the one I'm really looking forward to meeting is the one who I've actually set a specific day, time, and place to meet already, so it's pretty much a guarantee that it's actually going to happen at this point.  Hopefully that goes well; I know we seem to get along well online, at least, so that should transfer over to real life.  I can't imagine getting along with someone better online than I do "offline," anyway (it's certainly never happened before!), so things should go pretty well.

Should also start looking into the possibility of renting out a storage unit for my couch, table, chairs, mattress, and other random junk I won't need back at home over the summer.  I know there are a couple of places around here like that, but I don't know how much they cost off the top of my head or whether or not they'd have enough room for all of my stuff.  I suppose I'll end up putting things like my TV, whiteboard, and such in there too along with the big stuff, so I don't end up having too much stuff to take home with me.  Of course, I'd probably need to find somebody with a truck who could help out with moving the couch and bed out of here, because otherwise I don't know how I'd get those bigger things to the storage units in the first place!