That's not really a very good question at all. It always evaluates TRUE no matter what the value of Blog is, not to mention the totally pointless multiplication within a logical expression. Shakespeare obviously had no concept of logic. It's a good thing he could make people laugh. More accurately, he could communicate with people and evoke their emotions in whatever way he desired. I guess his social skills more than make up for his logical inadequacies.

I don't like to blog. I'm a very private person, and it's hard to open up to strangers. I'm quiet and withdrawn, a bit of a hermit. I like to write, but I have trouble sharing my writings with people. Only my closest friends see my works, because I don't like the idea of strangers seeing them and forming bizarre opinions about me based on the things portrayed in my writing. This is some sort of phobia, I suppose. Is it reasonable to fear the judgment of people I'll never even meet who probably won't even care to comment on my works?

A blog is a very powerful tool. Like all tools, it could be dangerous in the hands of the wrong person. Miscommunication can destroy relationships. The things you said yesterday can come back to hurt you tomorrow. Wow, I sound paranoid. Maybe I should see a therapist about this. I guess writing to random people on the internet is a form of therapy to some people. I'll give it a try here. I'm always game for new experiences. I just might learn more about myself on the way.

What have I been doing with myself lately?

Well, most of my free time has been devoted to a very special woman. Lauren gives me a new zest for life that had been steadily dwindling since my divorce several years ago. She’s a vibrant rainbow in a life that had nearly become a dreary grey drudgery. I’ve been in a few relationships since the divorce, but they were each a struggle from the get go and only reinforced the downward spiral into grey oblivion. Lauren yanked me out of that spiral, and I am eternally grateful for the love and hope she fills me with. I deeply thank you for sharing yourself with me, hime-ai. <3

Another large chunk of my spare time has gone to my ex-wife and her new hubby. Yes indeed, I am still friends with her and her new man is a great fellow. Sometimes it’s a bit scary how much he reminds me (and others) of me, but he is very much his own person. I have a great time playing Shadowrun and other RPGs with them.  They’re in a bit of a bind, and I seem to be their only line of support at the moment. Honestly, the only bad thing about helping them is that they live about 30 minutes away by car, so every drive is a huge chunk of time I can’t spend with Lauren or BYOND.

As for BYOND, I am still very much in love with her too but she just can’t be top priority right now. I’ve been trying to work out the last kinks in the new FMOD based sound features, but the reverb problems are beyond my understanding. The FMOD developers aren’t even sure why the problems Lummox reports are there. I plan to get a new sound card so that I can test things a bit more on my own.

I’ve made a number of advancements on BTG in recent weeks. I hope everyone that uses BTG is enjoying them. There have been no complaints yet!

Darke Dungeon has been sadly neglected this summer. It should have already been released long ago, but I have a bad problem with feature creep. I have too many ideas and not enough time to implement them all.

Darke Night is a year old and still unreleased. It was meant to be for Halloween ’04 but I only gave myself 2 months to complete it and some of the features pushed BYOND’s limits too far. Dan did fix my icon problem though, so maybe I will dust it off and finish the polish on it in time for Halloween ’05. I doubt it with my current schedule, but one can always dream.

Then there is Amaranth, my unpublicized project that I have yet to write code for. Even so, Amaranth already has 31 pages in the design document and several sections need to be fleshed out more. I want to finish DD before tackling that one. Amaranth will be my big RPG. Considering the tiny Tanks project ran 7 months and the mid sized Darke Dungeon project is going on 5 years now, I expect Amaranth will be done after 2025. Maybe BYOND will have direct neural interface by then.

I’ve also been kicking around the idea of a sidescroller library after playing a bit in Maple Story. I had secret plans to blow the BYOND community away with a hidden javascript keyboard interface, only to find out Loduwijk has beaten me to the punch with his very nice KeyState library. Yes, OneFishDown released the first demo for a javascript keyboard interface, but Lod gets the cigar for making it a library available to others and even including the little known trick for hiding the popup window while leaving it active. Excellent work, Lod!

Well for someone who hates to write and reveal himself to the public at large, I sure have rambled a lot. I think that’s enough for one blog. See you folks in another 3-6 months when I get the itch to expose myself online. ;p
</3>