I came home early today so that my front door could be painted. It is now eleven, and my door remains very much unpainted.

All apartment-owners have been asked by the contractors (who are primarily doing renovation-work on the building's exterior) to sign up for a time-slot to get our doors painted. See, when your front door gets a new lick of paint (apparently), it has to be left ajar for four to five hours. Obviously, it wouldn't be very smart to leave my door open while I'm at work, seeing as I have stuff in here -- not to mention a cat -- that I don't won't stolen. So today, even though it's (gasp!) work-out day, I returned "early" for my self-assigned slot at seven P.M. I even purchased a game (see below) to have something, uh, "constructive" to do.

No painter ever showed up, and no paint has been applied to my door.

Now I have to sign up again. Which is hard, because -- barring Saturday and Sunday -- I don't have any spare time. Monday to Friday, morning to night, I'm fully booked. It's actually frustrating; I want more time at home, but the days are packed. Hmm.

Played The Thing for another hour or so, and it did improve, although I'm currently a bit stuck, which is a shame, because getting stuck this soon is never very enjoyable. Then again, I suck at games (obviously, seeing as I design the damn things), so it could just be me. How is it? Still not great. The monsters are not as frightening as I'd imagined they'd be, and if I'd been designing this game, there are a lot of things I'd do differently, to increase the sense of isolation, desperation, and fear. The setting is great -- Antarctica, darkness, snow, nasty Thingies -- but the execution is just average. So far. I do want to play it more, though, so it's starting to hook me. Finally.  ¶ 23:16