I'm going to relate a quick tale about the lessons ones learns in the course of writing... Oh, let's say the course of writing a blog. As someone who has been writing some kind of personal stuff on a site of sorts for over four years now, you'd think I would have learned about the dangers of writing about any personal issues. The problem, of course, is that no matter how hard you may try to keep things out of the "standard" viewing area of people you know... There is still that ever-so-reliable Google to help people with determination find sites that you knew, or in this case thought, none of your real-life buddies, pals, amigos, or what have you knew about. Anyway, the lesson that should be learned is this: if you, say, have a tendency to vent via blog entries, I would highly recommend that you never underestimate the Internet's mighty search engines. They are a force that even the Roman Gods would think twice about starting shit with.

Anyhoo, if you're an avid reader then you can put the pieces together between the not-so-subtle previous not-so-false fable and an old emotastic entry. Nothing like a good bit of dramadramadrama to really, you know, relish the simplistic single days of yesteryear. And though I can say that, it's both a blessing and a curse -- I'd think of less melodramatic terms, but those two sound so good together. The positive aspect comes from the fact that it was, all things considered, not the greatest situation for me. The negative aspect is that it was a really nice change in my daily routine for a decent chunk of time. I had a really fun time for a few weeks where things were just... Different than the ever-consistent daily routine I keep for myself most of the time. I met a bunch of new people, I went to a whole ton of new places, and I had a feeling of companionship which I was actually comfortable with... And so on and so forth. I can, if prodded, create a Top 3 list of things that went wrong, but those aren't the kinds of things I'll be writing about in any sort of public eye for a long frickin' time.

I will pass long one piece of my sage wisdom, though. If you're going to break up with someone (and it's not the kind of break-up that makes you all warm, fuzzy, and wanting to hold celebrations in the event's honor) then, for the love of all things holy, keep a nice, busy routine planned for the days proceeding the deed. It feels like crap to get broken up with, I know, but ending a relationship because you think it's best (for the pair or for yourself, whatever) and don't hold even a single hostile feeling for the person... Then the last thing you want to do is do it over the course of a fairly lengthy weekend with not a darn thing else to do besides think about it.

Thankfully for me, I have some awesome friends. One of them brought chips and salsa at random at one of the low points of the whole ordeal for me and, as is a well-documented fact throughout world history: chips and salsa fixes everything for a solid hour of the day. There were another couple of fantasmic amigos who recommended that I watch Veronica Mars. And, sure, the show may appear to be wrapped in some kind of WB clone presentation... But the show is, surprisingly, spectacular. My reaction was lukewarm through the first three-four episodes of the first season, but after that I was completely hooked and watched the rest of the season in two short days. I've only seen the first episode of the second season thus far, but it's shaping up to be a good remainder of the week for my Veronica-obsessed self.

And a quick note for the almost unnaturally adorable Kristen Bell: I'm totally down for a spontaneous marriage. Just, you know, say the word.

Continuing my penchant for a complete lack of transitional material between completely unrelated subjects, I've gone on record with my views on Half-Life 2. And Half-Life: Episode 1 is receiving critical praise that can be considered in the same ballpark. And I still maintain my general feeling of meh about the game. Though, I will give it the fact that it is extremely pretty (especially this shot). I was going to write some kind of positively ground-shattering review where the experience in HL2: Episode 1 made me completely rethink my pessimism in terms of both the general HL2 experience and the idea of episodic gaming... But that's simply not going to happen. Between that and SiN, I'll gladly take my "Get Out of Trend" free card on episodic gaming like these examples handle. As far as I'm concerned, MMORPGs are the only games that should have something like this (and, even then, it'd have to be pretty extreme to be outside the subscription fees).

As a final note before I head out, I should have Chapter 5 of the book done sometime this weekend. The main plot of the thing is done, I just need to get some unnecessarily emo music going, dwell on the idea of losing a beloved wife, and write the flashback segment of the chapter. That shouldn't be as fun and exciting a prospect as it actually is. Us writers. We're just silly folk.

when i smile, tell me some bad news