So the sky is falling in Southern California. Flames lick at our borders, a rain of ash falls steadily, and today's setting sun was an eery bright red. I think the Apocalypse has come. The first sign was when we elected an inexperienced action movie star as governor.

Recent spending has left my finances stretched to the limit. Perhaps I shouldn't have bought that Wacom tablet from Ebay. I don't necessarily need it, but drawing with the tablet versus the mouse is like the difference between a sable brush and a crayola poster paint brush. *sigh. If only being an artist could be cheaper. My biggest expense? Entertainment. I mean, I don't regret any of the spending on that, but boy, it does take its toll.

I saw Mystic River for a class assignment. It's pretty good. We had a long discussion about who was the hero, because from the beginning, Sean Penn's character is seen as the hero while Tim Robbins's character is the villain. But the story is complex, and we had a long discussion about whether or not the hero of a story has to be a good guy.

Last week's Smallville was a letdown, after all those commercials about Clark and Lana skinny-dipping. I mean, it was classic Smallville, but I was expecting something big. Waiting for sweeps, I guess. Angel was pretty good, too. The writing was classic Whedon, with such gems as Fred pretending to be scared by Spike to spare his feelings, and Spike crying out, "Hey, I invented what-goes-bump-in-the-night." I still have a few more hours of TV to catch up on. Sad, yes, I know. This is why I shouldn't start watching new shows. X-Men: Evolution is coming along interestingly in terms of storyline. I liked it better when it was more "mutants in high school" cuz otherwise it's going to be too much like the early 90's X-Men cartoon. (I really hated the voices on there, esp Xavier and Wolverine cuz they sounded all squeaky.) But they had a preview of Rogue's new powers (it'll be interesting how she develops them, since in the comics she's supposed to have got them before she came to the Institute), as well as Jean's turn as Phoenix. I just hope they won't go all soap-opera-melodramatic-exploded-universe like the earlier cartoon. Ach, too much TV.

My schedule for this week (it's not exact as I don't have it written in front of me):

Mon -- school
Tue -- no work!
Wed -- school
Thu -- 4:15 to 8:45 am (I'm not sure about this one)
Fri -- 8:15 pm to 12:15 am (It may start earlier)
Sat -- 11:30 to 4 pm
Sun -- church, then 7 to 11:15 pm