Five Years!

So, as bethje said, yesterday was the fifth anniversary of the first time we met in person. We had been talking on the Internet for several months before that, but our first actual meeting was during my spring break, when we went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art together. We had planned on going back there around the same time next year, but there was snow in the weather report, so we ended up having to cancel. Next week, we're finally going back there to see the Salvador Dali exhibit. So I guess it all comes full circle, or something. I love Beth, and I'm glad we found each other. I'm horrible at making friends, let alone girlfriends, so there's a good chance I would still be totally alone if I hadn't. And I could never have found anyone else as wonderful as Beth, anyway.

I made a little bit of headway on my new Oz story yesterday. I have the main conflict set up, but I'm not quite sure how I'm going to resolve it. I think I generally have more fun setting up locations and backgrounds than actually developing the plot and characters. I suppose the only way to get better at that latter part is to keep practicing, though.

I still haven't found a Gold Slime or defeated the Master Monster Tamer in Dragon Warrior Monsters, but I DID manage to uncover another traveller's gate, and defeated an evil lord named Mirudraas. For some time now, most of what I've been doing in that game has been building up my monsters' levels, and then breeding them after they've fully grown. The breeding system doesn't really make all that much sense, when you think about it. For instance, one of the monsters in my current party is a live female lamp, and her parents were a robot and a MistyWing, which is a sort of misty dragon. I have no idea how those two kinds of beings would procreate, let alone have a lamp as a child. I suppose mine is not to wonder why, but simply to play the game.

I'll have to remember to buy new razor blades sometime soon.

@!!!**! There's nothing wrong with adultery or lying!

Thanks to bethje for informing me about this new Chick Tract. It's mostly more of the same, but there are a few interesting things about it:

1. I'm glad Chick informs people that our parents aren't big, hairy, smelly chimpanzees, since that's what evolutionary biology has been teaching us.

2. People coming out of the Ark include Osama bin Laden, another radical Muslim guy, and a Pope who looks to me kind of like Dubya. I'm sure that's not intentional, though, since I think Chick LIKES Bush.

3. The forbidden fruit looks like some kind of hot peppers or something. The Bible never actually SAID it was an apple, but this is a bit on the odd side, as far as artists' interpretations go.

4. Nice arrows to Heaven and Hell. Check out the "I accept Jesus as my Lord and Saviour" and "Forget it...It's all nonsense!" pillars, too.

5. One of the hellbound sinners is saying, "I LOVE being nasty..." Is it just me, or does that sound dirty to anybody else?

6. Another sinner says, "We've been shacked up for years..." Apparently Dr. Laura has gotten a job with Chick.

EDIT: Also, Chick's latest newsletter includes the complaint (on this page) that "public school curricula is laced with the lies of evolution, sexual perversion and the 'political correctness' of socialist and humanist philosophy." Okay, what school is it that teaches "sexual perversion"? I'll bet a lot of people would be disappointed that they didn't go there. :P I also love how Chick equates things he doesn't like, even when they don't really have anything in common. Apparently "political correctness" (Does anyone even USE that term anymore? I sometimes get the idea that Chick is living at least ten years in the past) is somehow related to socialism. And witches, vampires, Satanists, and Catholics all have essentially the same beliefs.

Oh, and Jack? I realize criticizing grammar isn't generally looked upon all that kindly, but "curricula" is a plural noun.