Despite rather expensive efforts to the contrary, I'm no more excited about a new Tomb Raider game than I would be to fish a quarter out of a urinal. It's not even that I have misgivings about it. I have nothing about it.

It's sort of funny, because if I were going to like a game now would be the time. A couple weeks away from daily gaming has made me crave and scrape for electronic entertainment. I tried to keep up with news when I'd make my updates, what game news there was at least - it was like gazing into a beautiful world suspended in a snowglobe. When I left, my passions were held by Raven Shield and Rise of Nations, each trying to crowd the other out and claim supremacy. Since I've been back, I've played only one game - Carcassone. You might already be familiar with the board game, but it is clear after a day or so of playing it that the computer is its natural home. It turns out that I met the product manager for the game years ago at E3, he comes over from Germany, and when I found out in a Munich sushi bar - over beer number 6 - that this was one of his projects, I began to approximate dancing. It was really only my left pinky that committed itself to the activity. In any case, he was able to scam me a copy and I've been playing it a lot.

I do apologize for having been gone so long. I did try to ameliorate this fact somewhat by posting each update, but I know that it is not exactly the same. I have a conception of you that I write to when I sit down to do these, it's a strange amalgamation of all the mail and forum posts I've read, plus my own insecurity and a B-Movie monster, maybe Mothra. So when I when I compose these, I always ask myself - would a furious, considerate, enthusiastic, violent moth appreciate it? I think you know what I'm getting at. I hope my absence has not been too much of an inconvenience.

Brenna is constantly stealing my Hiptop to put her own stupid dayplanner shit in there, navigating her complex life of Yoga and Millinery with my phone. I told her that she could have the color one when it came out, and this has appeased her for about four months, but she didn't understand that "When the color Hiptop comes out" is the same as telling a child "When pigs fly" or something to that effect. It may sound superficially as though I were acquiescing, when in fact I was denying her in the most absolute way possible. It's out now, of course. There's a lesson to be learned here, about money, or girls, but learning lessons has never really been my thing.

(CW)TB out.

if i never hear your name again
it's all the same to me