Before I begin, I’d like to set your mind at ease: this review contains no spoilers. It’s hardly even a review, in the strictest sense. For those who have read the book, and would like to discuss particulars, I’d be happy to do so through email. Otherwise, enjoy!

When I was in sixth grade and living on Tanglewood Drive in Tacoma, I woke up one day and felt different. Puberty? No, that happened a while ago; my family has a long history of reaching that state of development very early. Truly, I only know it felt like a permanent activation of my fight-or-flight response system. How does one react when detached from reality by a impenetrable wall of chemical fortitude?

For those of you who tried visiting my website earlier, we had a 2-hour long power-outage here. As soon as the power came on, I rebooted everything and got it all running again. Unfortunately, regardless of the assurances Reiserfs gives for file integrity on an unexpected filesystem unmount, my Apache server mysteriously segfaults on all page requests. I just finished recompiling everything involved, and remain highly irritated that Midamerican Energy seems unable to keep the power working in the complete absence of inclement weather.

2c water

2c milk

1c Japanese calrose rice

4 strips bacon

2 large eggs

2 tsp vinegar

1 tsp sugar

1/4 tsp salt

Wash rice in strainer until water runs clear. In 1-quart pot, bring water to a boil. Add rice. Reduce heat, cover and simmer 20 minutes.

Last Tuesday, my preorder for In The Groove reached my humble abode. Having heard good things about this game, despite being tired, I shambled my decaying ancient carcass to a fan-driven version of DDR for a couple hours. Now, being a rather accomplished player with millennia of experience, I’d assumed the difficulty espoused by fans was as overblown as Bill Clinton’s penis. Not only was I horribly wrong, but my highly developed abilities were rendered irrelevant, outdated, and similar to a monkey executing spasm-laden flailing due to constant jabs from a cattle-prod. I’ve gotten better since that initial experience, though my pride is a beaten and tattered husk which may never recover. ITG constantly underrates song difficulty, further accentuating that their scale goes up to 13 instead of ten. Ouchy.