First off, I had a great birthday. I have aquired from a wonderful individual, GTA: Vice City, and season three of Family Guy. Who would have thought an elementary school teacher could be so subversive?

The party I threw for myself on the 20th of September was also a nice relaxing bit of fun. Justin made an appearance, as well as Patrick and his girlfriend Sara – and of course, Jen. Rob came a day early and had to go to a date, but I’ll forgive him this once. Jello shots were consumed, pizza was ordered, and Family Guy was screened.

Man am I lazy. Anime Iowa was back in August and I just wrote the writeup for it yesterday. But I did it.

I found a house and made an offer. It’s a two story with no basement and a garage in the first floor, has a huge double and a half lot with trees around the whole back yard. The second story has a balcony and deck that overlooks the nice forested back yard, and it looks great. I managed to get it for $67,000, but we’ll see what the bank’s appraisal says. If all goes well, I’ll be moving at the end of October. Yay! Well, moving is not yay, but getting out of here is!

No, literally… That huge lump-thing on my back that I noticed two years ago is apparently Dermatofibroma which is completely benign. But I had it removed anyway just out of spite. ^_^ So of course, now I have a inch long set of stitches down part of my back while it heals. Ouch. I haven’t gotten much sleep lately since it’s on the side I usually sleep on. I guess I never think these things through very well.

Well, I think I’ve finally lost it. In the interests of saving a whole chunk of change in taxes, and to ride out the economy, I’m going to be buying a house in the QC area.

Yeah, I hate the Quad Cities, but this is about saving money, my friend. Since Becky is moving out to go to seminary soon, I realized my rent would shoot up to $575 a month. Gross. After a few preliminary calculations, I found that if I can get a 30 year mortgage on 70k, my monthly payments would end up being $400 - less than my car payments. Furthermore, after figuring in tax savings due to interest and property taxes being deductible, the adjusted monthly cost is about $290! That’s practically free!

Well, three torrid days of reading later, and I can say that the latest Harry Potter book has been quickly consumed. Now I just have to wait three years until the next one comes out. Hahaha.

On the DDR front, I’m going to have to stop for a couple weeks. It appears I’ve irritated a tendon in my right foot, and it hurts to walk now. I think what I’ll have to do when it heals, is build a metal DDR pad so I can wear shoes and play - so my feet don’t take so much direct impact. Well that, and not play for three or more hours at a stretch.