Thursday, August 14, 2008

Tidings and Felicitations

Well, yes it's been a while since I did any life-blogging. This is because I've been very very very busy with many many many things, and also because in general, life has been kind of going along in a steady fashion.

Of course, that means lots is happening. However, a lot of it I can't really talk about for a number of reasons, so those items will have to wait. Meanwhile, there's some important stuff that needs bloggin', so here goes.

First and definitely foremost on the list is that The Girlfriend is now officially The Fiancee. Yes, that's right, we're getting married. I know some of you already knew this but consider this the official announcement. We are engaged. We are betrothed. We are intended. We're getting married in September 2009.

Believe me, I'm as amazed as you are. I could probably gush on all day about how awesome she is, but that's more like what chick flicks are for, so for the sake of retaining some semblance of manliness (if I ever had such a thing) suffice it to say she is The Right One and being married to her will be the best thing ever in life so far.

The Parents seem to be pleased by this, which is good. The Father has less-than-begrudgingly given his permission, with only a small caveat - that I finish inking the comic in which he appears, which I left in rough pencils for some months. Now, that task, being but a simple one for a veteran of many Zelda games, is complete, and thus nothing now stands in the way of our future wedded bliss. For now, we'll ignore the approaching dissolution of Western Civilization; indeed we probably won't notice it happening, so lost in our little world of happy will we be.

There is the small matter of integrating the living arrangement of a little tiny dog with two much larger and somewhat cantankerous cats, but this is mere logistics, penny ante stuff in the matrix of life events.

Meanwhile, in other news, some major purchases past and future. A short time ago, The Fiancee took the MSF RiderCourse, got her M1 Motorcycle License (which qualifies her to ride even big ol' Harleys, or my Honda even), and bought herself a fine little scooter. (It's the green one.) She is, of course, having a wonderful time with it, and it also gets well over 100 miles to the gallon. Since her new teaching job - did I mention she's switching to a different school? - is a bit less than 2 miles from home, her fuel bill is going to be payable from my spare change. I'll be amazed if she has to fill it up more than once every 2 months.

Unfortunately, her car is not doing as well. It's getting pretty long in the tooth - a '92 Civic 4-door with over 265,000 miles - and is starting to feel its age. It has been a completely reliable car up until now, but we can see this will be coming to an end soon. So, we're in the market for a car. It will most likely be a 3- to 5-year-old Honda sedan; you simply can't go wrong with a Honda car. They are extremely well-built and long-lasting. I will be bringing my considerable post-Edmunds.com employment resources to bear, so dealers, this is fair warning: I am ready for you.

Also, as shown in this week's comic, it's time to replace my couch. This is actually a bigger deal to me than the car, even though it won't cost anywhere near as much. The problem is that this couch was the biggest pain in the ass to move into this apartment - it was nearly impossible and required disassembling part of my building's hallway - and that means that it's going to be at least as difficult to move it back out. Not to mention moving a new one in. Also, my budget isn't really good for buying a new couch right now, so most likely it's going to have to be something from IKEA or Living Spaces. Well, nothing for it but to grit my teeth and head up to Burbank to try out some fine Swedish cushionery. Sigh.

Um, what else? I don't get to play video games much, but Boom Blox is pretty awesome, so if you have a Wii you should buy it. We had dinner out last week with friends at the Tam O'Shanter restaurant, which was most excellent.

I finished the Environment art class that I was taking. Here's the class blog, some of my stuff is posted in it. Sadly I was not able to complete the homework by the end of the term, but of course the class isn't graded. I will finish it over the next couple of weeks. The reason I wasn't able to finish was actually a good one: I got some freelance work doing concepts for a television show pilot! It's still in development so I can't talk about it until January 2009, but I think it's a pretty cool show and it's right up my alley. I hope the show gets picked up for a series and that I can do more work on it.

I think that's about it, really. I guess that's plenty for now! I will do this more often, though.

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