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    The snow from last week has turned not to water, but directly to fog. As a player of videogames I’ve long lived with the concept of “draw distance,” which is the most distant object a videogame will display at any one time.
    A low draw distance means that objects, such as trees or buildings or people, simply burst into existence as you near them. This can provide a jarring reminder that you are playing a video game and ruins whatever simulation of reality the publisher was attempting to convey. Covnersely, a good draw distance may allow a game to display objects which are persistent and appear in the frame from the same point that a real object might have been visible under the same circumstances.
    Unfortunately, draw-in is sometimes inevitable, and so a game designer will try to hide the sudden manifestation of objects that should have been there all along by reducing the visibility of the environment. By simulating a natural cause for your restricted vision the author seeks to match your expectations to his limitations.
    In other words, you don’t expect to see an object that is obscured by fog or smoke, so the game fills in the draw distance with fog or smoke.
    My neighborhood is like an ice level from Turok, Dinosaur Hunter. As the snow and ice melt it seems to pass directly from a solid to a gas, and the look makes me feel as if the neighborhood is desolate.

    In a year or so perhaps this neighborhood will be desolate. How many of my neighbors have crazy mortgages? How many people are trapped owing more than their home’s value? Am I one of those? I’m afraid to get my house appraised for fear I may be in the same camp. I’ve never borrowed against the equity, but what little I have from my original downpayment and the principal paid in the last four years may have evaporated in the last few months. There is already one foreclosed house on my block (about a quarter mile south of mine) and another on the next street over. In addition there are about three houses for sale that have been on the market for more than two months.
    One of those is owned by Home Depot (the original owner was a Home Depot manager who was relocated to Traverse City), but what of the others?

    This week’s been rough on Heather. Holidays are the times when some people reflect on the things that aren’t right, or how they don’t match expectations of self or situation. She is frustrated with her unemployment, her limited social life, and having Samantha home for Christmas vacation has her frustrated multiple times on a daily basis.
    I try to help, but I have no job to give her and while I can (and always have) been her friend I can’t provide her the sort of companionship a woman friend (or circle of women friends) can. Not even in my best dress and finest pumps.

    Which brings me to Christmas. Those pumps were a present from my Mom. Thanks, Mom! I feel very pretty. I’ll bitch about how spoiled my relatives are making my girls next time. Just consider: they have no first cousins, and second cousins are all pretty distant. Everyone gives each girl between 2 and 4 presents, and there are about 20 people giving them gifts. So there’s between 40 and 80 presents each. How important is gift number 30 versus gift 29? How much gratitude can a little girl really be expected to show?