neurological dryer lint

finished up to own a dragon, don miller's new book. it was much shorter and more topically focused, which, for an author that seems to dance from subject to subject, came out surprisingly well. i read it more for his insight on the relationship with God as a father, than for the main focus of the book, and he pivoted to that subject fairly quickly and ran with it for the majority of the book. no real powerful insights from the book, but what i gleaned was more a relief that the need for assurance of 'having what it takes' was much more universal than i thought - indeed, that it's more common than not to feel that way.

he spent a lot of time talking about maturity, which gave me a lot to consider... i feel like moving out at 17, up to UC, being on my own when i was eager but feeling very unprepared, forced me to start considering responsibility when i otherwise wouldn't have, being a 'path of least resistance' type of dude. earning experience points early, if you will. i think my parents pushing me to get Eagle, pushing me to work at an early age, pushing me out the door to UC, pushing me to pay my way through school... i owe a lot there. i'm assuming they recognized that i was a fairly intelligent but incredibly lazy kid that would recliner-surf my way through life, motivated to move only by brief sparks to relieve boredom. i couldn't stand it at the time, but thinking back, i doubt i would be paying bills now were that not the case.

miller's interaction with a group of frat guys in texas was by far the most fascinating discussion in the book - discussing the priorities of these college dudes, who want more to be accepted by their peers than to desire any type of integrity, and frankly admitting it. i remember conversations i've had with God about that same thing.

anyway. a good, quick, interesting read, and something that'll probably provide a few more insights to women about how men think.

man, the west wing last night... anyone who's seen more than a handful of episodes of this show has witnessed the on-and-off relational tension between josh lyman and donna moss, his assistant. it's one of the legacies of the series - these two, with clearly intense feelings for each other, coming close and driving each other away... donna watches while josh dates another woman and gets jealous; josh watches while donna gets gushy over christian slater as a high-ranking national security officer; josh sends donna to israel as a part of a diplomatic mission and she gets blowed up real good by a roadside bomb, and josh ditches everyone and flies to germany to sit by her bed and help her recover; donna leaves the white house to work for the VP's presidential campaign, betraying josh because he doesn't like the VP; donna coming back after the VP loses the democratic bid to santos (josh's guy) and joining the campaign...

so every regular viewer has been like, fricking hook up already. so in the first few minutes of last night's new episode the cold, when santos catches vinick in the polls three weeks before election day, donna excitedly goes to tell josh the news, and they make out. holla! that thud you heard at 8:05pm was several hundred thousand jaws collectively dropping across the country.

it sounds relatively soap-opera-ish, yes, but it's worthy. so you know that by may 14th these two will hook up. or donna will die. let's hope it's the former. it better be, cause screwing the fans out of that will be a tragedy.

building my brother's new PC for his birthday... i'm silly jealous. athlon64 3200+, 1GB RAM, asus a8n-csm with onboard geforce 6150, 160GB SATA... this thing screams. or it will until he dumps a few hundred pieces of spyware on it.