I've finally settled down in my place and am searching for a permanent place to stay. Looking at real estate prices and the turmoil going on, I'm really not thrilled about buying any real estate here, or anywhere for that matter. I've already been to six different rental homes and with every one of them, my potential landlord slapped me with the "Rent to own" option and was utterly uninterested in a simple rental agreement.

As I mentioned in my journal last week, "Rent to own" is nothing but a thinly veiled sham, with terms so strict that the odds that it turns out in the renter's favor are only slightly better than winning the lottery. It's a way of raising the rent $433 a month, but forcing you to pay that premium in advance. Right now, all the talk is of people losing their homes to foreclosure, I think that next year, we'll be hearing about the crisis of people having to relocate every year due to housing scams. It's pretty scary.

In other news, I hope to post a Sailor Ranko novel chapter in the next few days, and the comic is right on schedule. I've got one more week before I start at Microsoft, and I'm getting excited about that.

My cat, Bob, is so finicky. I feed her good cat food and she looks at me as if I filled her bowl with sand. Bad kitty!