Yeah, I pretty much never post here anymore. XD

Okay, here's some random stuff.

1. The "I never see anyone, basically dying of boredom and loneliness down here" issue is improving somewhat.  I still don't see people too often, but it's happened semi-regularly lately (as opposed to "once or twice a month.")  Ruth coming down here yesterday and watching movies/eating pizza/generally goofing off with me for 7 hours straight helped a lot, of course. XD  I really like when I actually get to spend a decent amount of time with people I really like being around, rather than just talking to people online or having quick little bump-into-someone-randomly meetings that are over in half an hour or less.
   
2. The money issue is somewhat less of a problem now thanks to Dad coming by today and giving me a new stash of spending money (which will most likely go toward food more than anything else), though I'll still definitely need a job as soon as possible.  I am still selling stuff on eBay, which helps but is a little slow sometimes and not all that consistent.  $56 for a barely-used Kirby game one week, zilch the next.  I've also signed up for this site that pays you for taking online surveys, where I've built up around $8 so far.  You need $50 before they'll actually pay you, but hey, if I can get $8 in a couple days (one of which I didn't even hardly do any surveys) then I should get there before too long.  If I can manage $50 every month (and if $8 in two days is going to be repeatable, that should be easy to pull off), then that'll take care of my electric bill for sure... which leaves the eBay money, my savings account, and hopefully a near-future job (so that I don't have to drain my savings account too much) building up toward rent.
   
3. I'm nearly done with what will hopefully be my first-ever full length Zelda Classic quest.  It's currently untitled, of course (I'm terrible with titles) but uses the tileset I made and features a few interesting little tricks (cursed items, limited air supply underwater, multi-stage bosses made entirely in the enemy editor) that I haven't seen many people pull off with ZC before.  Hopefully within the next month or two it'll be done and ready for beta testers--and after that, a public release version.
   
4. In related news, I'm also working on a shorter ZC quest for a contest coming up, where we were given randomly-generated titles and have to make a game around the one(s) we got.  The title I went with is "Frankenstein's Robot Fighter"... which of course means my game involves Frankenstein's Monster fighting robots.  Full story is basically that one of the various slightly-nutty inventors of the 1800s invented robots abnormally early, and of course the world (or at least the US) became super dependent on them for work... until one day when they started randomly going nuts.  So the inventor goes to one of his old colleagues, a doctor named Frankenstein, to come up with something.  That "something" being "Frankenstein's Monster meets Megaman," basically. XD
   
5. ...and of course, it seems I'm once again developing a bit of a crush on yet another girl I know (and of course, it's not replacing the one previous crush that I still haven't managed to get over so much as overlapping with it... so once again there are two people I like at once.  Hey, at least it's not 4 or 5 at a time again like it was during my first semester here! XD)  It seems I can't go very long without that happening around here.  I'm not sure if this more recent crush will actually last very long or if it'll be one of those that just kind of fades away within a few weeks, but I'm pretty sure it's completely hopeless anyway for two reasons.
   
   Number one: I don't know for sure, but I don't think she's really interested in dating at all.  And number two: she won't be around much longer (leaving after this semester.)
   
   On the positive side: I don't think the "I'm not a Mormon" thing would be a factor this time, at least.  I don't know for sure, but I suspect it wouldn't, and it's a stronger suspicion than the vague "well this person doesn't seem like someone who'd discriminate based on religious differences" feelings I get from some of my more intelligent friends.  Now, political differences... that may be another story.  I haven't ever brought up politics around her because the thought of it absolutely terrifies me... but then every once and a while I see things that make me think "wait, maybe she's not totally nuts when it comes to politics, maybe it's just these one or two things we'd really disagree on and other than that it'd be okay."  I don't know if I'm overlooking potential problems because I actually am growing to like her more, or if the problems aren't really as big as I initially thought and I'm just slowly realizing that.  It's hard to tell the difference when you like someone and probably aren't entirely thinking clearly...