Whew! I've been bad... ten days of pure laziness. I have no real excuse. I suppose I could blame Final Fantasy IX but that's just rationalization. Anyway...

...

The shape of my world seems to be changing around me in interesting ways. I can't put my finger on it, but, for some reason, things seem unstable in my life at present. I'm interested to see where this is going. My life changes a lot less from day to day than I might like so it's novel to actually feel something coming up. *shrug*

...

I'm going to my grandfather Parsons' house for Thanksgiving. I can't say that I am exactly thrilled. My grandmother passed away a little while ago and continuing the thanksgiving-at-grandma's tradition this year seems ill-advised. I hope my grandfather can cope... it's going to be hardest for him.

...

When I read, play games, listen to music, etc. I do so for two reasons. Sometimes I am trying to learn something or better myself in some other way. Other times, I am simply doing it for pleasure. Fortunately, these two goals are beginning to coincide more and more frequently.

For me, one of the hallmarks of the best examples of the latter are that they evoke in me a strong desire to, in some way, be a part of that world. Some examples of this would be J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit or Van Morrison's In to the Mystic. In some cases, I would go as far as to call this a longing. Final Fantasy IX is the first video game I have found that has been able to produce even a glimmering of this longing. It's not much but it's there and I'm impressed. I would love to have seen this game before the translators mangled it. Major Kudos to Squaresoft.

(Yes, I did list a song amongst my escapist favorites.)