I don't know how long ago blogger added this nifty little "recover post" link, but I am flat-out amazed. Apparently, it retrieves the text of your blog sent in cookie form to your computer. While it doesn't work a hundred percent of the time, it's a real strive towards a world where a lot less of my genius will be floating helplessly around a great big blackhole in cyberspace.

Hooray for google!

Yesterday I got cable internet installed at my house, so posts here should be coming a little more frequently. Not only that, but I have just done my part of controlling the world's population crisis, as a good half of the billions of you who check my blog religiously have probably just keeled over from the excitement. May yee rest in peace.

For those of you who are still alive, I've discovered a neat little link for you, with the help of my new sleek, sexy cable modem and my dashing assistant (/husband-thingy). The Experimental Gameplay Project is the site of a group of college kids from Carnegie Mellon University who's agenda is to create 50 to 100 mini-games in one semester, each of which must be programmed entirely by one student. The site boasts that there will be new games every week, but I don't know how fresh this information is-- the semester may be well over by now. Either way, it's well worth taking a peek, as the games that are offered now are delightful. Zack's favorite is Tower of Goo, a game where you "build a gooey tower higher and higher"-- I think you have to play it to understand...not that I totally understand it yet. Other games we've played include Darwin Hill, a game where you control the evolution of a rapidly growing population of...weird-looking things, in an effort to make a generation of beautiful people (surprisingly difficult to do, I guess I better start cutting god some slack for creating Gary Busey.) and my personal favorite, A Rainy Day, a whimsical and smile-evoking game where you play a surreal tree helping a fleet of paper boats, a fusion of Macromedia and Salvador Dali.

So there's that.

Right now, I am in class, and I am supposed to be writing an illustrative (?) essay about the topic "Obstacles to Coming to College." Obstacle #1: The topics of essays my English Teacher is assigning me are, in themselves, grammatically incorrect. Can obstacles really be "to" something? It just sounds wrong. "Of" or "In" seem more likely canidates, but, for the life of me, I can't figure it out for sure-- maybe it's that a better word would be "going to college", but, because we were technically at college when the work was assigned, he thought that would be inappropriate. All I know is that I don't know anymore-- this man is draining my literary abilities like a drunk on a tap. For the most part, I've taken to fazing out the entire class, offering class participation only when the rest of the class is stuck for an answer, and otherwise watching the construction go on out the window. Sometimes I whisper to Michelle, the friendly but consummately lost 40-something mother of two who sits next to me. She is the first fellow student I've had any amount of interaction with since I started here-- I tend to quietly keep to myself, unwilling to venture into the possibility that I might somehow belong among the rest of the population of this school-- women of varying ages, all of whom are under the impression that the people around them care about the plight of balancing motherhood with getting your specialized associates degree.

Of course, they're right. The people around them do care, because they're all other people in that same predicament. All except me.

Doubtlessly, I would have been better suited for a campus full of young pseudo-intellectuals, and often have a Rory Gilmore fantasy wherein I discuss, with quick and subtle wit, the virtues of Kafka with attractive coeds who burn me CDs of little-known punk bands. But, for better or for worse, I'm glad I chose to wait, and I'm glad I chose a two-year college. My tuition cost is lower, my free time is higher, and I'm doing it my own way-- no more pressure or parental involvement at all. I'll have my degree-- my specialized associate's degree, anyway-- and by the time they've made the final payment on their student loan, I'll be on the fifth year the mortgage to some beautiful house (which I'll be absent from, taking a vacation in Tahiti or Sri Lanka or Prague.) With my charming, medical-assisting husband, I might add.

And more, much more than this: I did it myyyyyyy way!


Another interesting note: Miss Jennifer G. is soon moving into the Linda-Zack household for a undetermined amount of time, so update your address books.


On with it.