I'm beginning to realize that Michigan's seemingly-schizophrenic weather patterns actually do follow some kind of predictable logic. Not in when things occur, of course, but there are definite "seasons" that begin and end, honestly, whenever the Elder Michiganians Up High designate that the season in question starts and terminates. For instance, summer is just now beginning as of May 27. Would you like to know how I know this? Because the weather forecast for the next week is all eighty degrees or greater with a minimum of 75% humidity. Perhaps you remember this gem from July of last summer? Well, I do. That's a Michigan summer for you. Sure, our temperatures may appear mild compared to somewhere like Phoenix or Houston, but we like to even the gap a bit with humidity.

Well, here's a plot twist. I have air conditioning this year. Take that, nature.

Also, about a week ago I made a deviation from my standard practice and posted a fairly personal entry and, across the gambit of sites that I generally mirror entries on, I actually received some pretty fantastic feedback from a whole crap ton of people. The summary of the last week, as far as that entry is concerned, is that a day or two after it was posted I got to thinking. Actually, I got to thinking during and around the time I was posting it as well. Either way, I did my bestest to try and fix things, coming "clean" about my own insecurities and worries about relationships in general and all that jazz. Long story short, things are going to work out.

Something that I have been negligent about pointing out over the course of the entire month is the fact that I've seen two movies in theaters which are absolutely worth telling my loyal reader-base about: Thank You For Smoking and Mission Impossible III. Just how great the former of the two wasn't really a surprise, to be honest, but it was still a fantastically entertaining and hilarious movie. The surprise of the bunch, though, definitely goes to MI3 with Tom "What Would Xenu Do?" Cruise leading the cast of the second sequel to one of my favoritist movies ever. MI3 ended up being such a surprisingly entertaining movie that my two friends and I, upon seeing the credits, had absolutely on idea that the movie was actually more than two hours long. The action was intense and engrossing, the acting was great, the plot was more like the original movie than the John Woo abomination, and it was simply a hilarious movie. Good 'ol J.J. Abrams may have absolutely no idea how to handle subplots in Lost (there were also some entertaining allusions to that show in MI3 as well), but he sure as hell did a good job with MI3.

And I don't care how batshit crazy Tom Cruise may be in real life. He's still a good enough actor that I love him in movies. Plus, and let's be honest here, the craziest actors are generally amongst the best. I mean, seriously, Sir Anthony Hopkins frickin' eats people when he's not filming movies.

Er, wait. I think something is wrong there. Oh well.

I started playing Heroes of Might and Magic V today and I came to a very important conclusion: I don't like games that make me feel like I'm playing a My Little Pony simulator. I'm sure the game is a fantastic turn-based fantasy game, but... Just, wow. I can't even think about the things that occur in that game without either being repulsed by perty little mini-horses or worried that just witnessing the game makes me level up my nerd passive ability far more than I feel comfortable with. So, for the meantime, I'm just going to go ahead and leave my "game of choice" as Rise of Legends, which is still providing me with a whole buncha real-time strategy goodness even as I trek my way through the familiar ground of the single-player campaign in an effort to get back to the start of the Cuotl campaign (the third of the three offered).

Sounds about good for an entry, I suppose. Tomorrow should involve me writing the finishing pages Chapter Four of the book. It's currently at about seven-eight pages, and it felt good when I wrapped up yesterday's writing session with confidence that it didn't suck. Well, at least, it didn't suck nearly as much as I still feel Chapter Three does. I'm still convinced that the "modern day" thread of that chapter is incredibly weak -- especially compared to the introduction of the "letter format" to the main character's wife. That kind of stuff can be ironed out down the road, though. With this fourth chapter I think I finally am getting an idea of what the main conflict of the book is. If nothing else, I know what the entry plot point into the main conflict of the book is. To be honest, I haven't really had an idea of where I was going with the book since I made the main character switch from a psychotic serial killer to a far more protagonistic kind of guy.

But that's for tomorrow. Unless I don't reach a good point for the chapter to end on, in which case I'll either post a quick update about it or I'll just wait until it's done to put it up.

she knew about those wooden boys, it's an empty love to fill the void