I downloaded a program and played a few hands of belote last night. Not that hard to pick up, though it's a little disconcerting to play anticlockwise. I think I may prefer euchre for a fast 4-player game, though. Less counting up stuff. Also, German games are better than French games. For a slightly more complicated game, hearts. For more complicated stuff, there are lots of options. Speaking of German games, skat might be worthwhile to learn.

The cafeteria doesn't seem to have anything good today (they're closing up stuff), but I want somewhere to sit for half an hour while reading my book and none of the places around here are very good for that.

Wooo Christmas almost here. I hope we're having ham.

Wooo almost done with Boat Books. I think the objective quality of the books has waned slightly, this one is fun genre fiction rather than good literature, but generally by this book you would have been expected to have caught boat fever (not to be confused with gaol fever), so are willing to read something fun. I do have a severe dislike for Napoleon.

I am going to take I-80 instead of I-88. On the one hand, it's maybe 15 minutes slower (by the map), but it's a rental car on a toll road, so I wouldn't have an I-Pass thing and would lose 5-10 minutes slowing down for tolls and crap, plus the slight inconvenience of making sure I have small bills or change and what-have-you. We go back and forth between the two, but I think this wins this time. The directions are also slightly simpler, which is of prime concern for my navigatrix. Of slight concern is the light snow allegedly coming through.

Spaghetti tacos: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/foodwine/2013081614_spagettitacos06.html?syndication=rss The horror?

I almost forgot: today is Festivus. MERRY FESTIVUS. We will have the airing of grievances and the feats of strength this evening. Apparently my neighbor, in his former official government capacity, erected a Festivus pole in the Capitol and started airing grievances. Not bad.