The afternoon temperature has dropped 34 degrees in three days in the Bay Area. We usually don't turn on the heater until November, but this year we made an exception...

And thus started early another yearly tradition in our household: The Drama of the Broken Heater.

This is the third year in a row, I think, without even counting the year the heating filter got sucked up the intake pipe and we had to hire the Pipe Sucker to come remove it.

It's freezing in here. I'm trying to be positive and realize that at least this is something to distract me from all the other stuff going on, but really, it's just freezing. My fingers are even stiff while I type this. A few more degrees and we're checking into a hotel for the weekend, I swear.

The truth? The truth is that my health issues continue, but they're of too personal (read: female) a nature for me to be eager to write all about them here. My total is now six doctor visits in eight weeks and I'm afraid, though not certain, that I'm no better off than when I started. So this has been really tough for both me and Tony. It's not the easiest time. That's why I'm not posting a lot these days.

The good news: I don't have any of the horrible things they've tested me for. And I've had lots of tests! So nothing is horribly wrong except a still-not-exactly-diagnosed (actually, diagnosed three times and proven wrong twice so far) problem that keeps me from climbing, from working out, from all kinds of fun. Not good.

Sorry to be a downer. Just trying to be honest. I'm still here, just a little distracted.

Got my first batch of revisions back from my editor. Wasn't terrible, but our visions aren't quite meshed yet -- kind of a girly vs. grrly issue, I think. Guess which one I am! Anyway, she sent a big batch of comments and ideas, and I sent back a big batch of responses and proposed compromises, and I predict that everything will be okay though I haven't heard back again yet.

Publishing is full of surprises. I hadn't anticipated the feeling of surrender, the feeling that ultimately the book is theirs now, not really mine anymore. Then again, I also hadn't anticipated how tickled I'd be when the advance checks started arriving. We'll see how things progress!

Happy anniversary to us! We took a long weekend together, spent a night at the Sofitel (our favorite hotel, just down the street) and had massages. The only bad part is that Tony started feeling sick yesterday, which means my throat is sore today and I'm NOT in the mood for any more health issues right now.

No no no no no no no no no no no no no no.

We've been needing a change for a while. We went shopping yesterday and went ape, buying a new comforter, new shower curtains, new rugs, new towels, you name it. It was awesome.

Tony has been over his ears working on the new CSI game, though. Struggling to get the scripts ready and schedule the voice recordings with the actors. Seems like we were doing this just yesterday! Lots of other projects brewing in his group also, which is great fun to hear about but means plenty of hours working at home as he chips away at his prodigious To Do list.

Okay, the world is just too strange right now.

A few hours ago I spotted a news report on CNN: Source Code Stolen for Half-Life 2. The story goes that a hacker got about 1/3 the source code through the email account (??!!?) of someone at Valve. They claimed to have no backup (?!?!?!?) and therefore said the game would be delayed for another four months while the programmers rewrote that section of code.

Now a new CNN report says that the hacker went back and got enough maps, etc. to put together a working version of the game, which is now being widely distributed online.

Something smells wrong here. Stock manipulation? Publicity stunt? Can't wait to see how this shakes out.

We read the news article about Roy Horn about two minutes before we watched the Giants lose the playoffs.

Have forgotten about the Giants until next year but still checking for updates about Roy (from Siegfried and Roy) every few hours. He's a joke to a lot of people, but he's also a great conservationist and benefactor to many of our favorite charities. I will personally kick the ass of the first person I hear making a joke about his injury. Yuck.

Tony is visiting a developer in Vancouver, but will be home tonight. He got a lot of work done, which is good of course, but he also got to ride in a 'water taxi' so I am insane with jealousy. We have tons of water here but no water taxi. It sounds very exotic, doesn't it?

We're also enjoying the playoff games -- especially the ones the Giants win. We entered the World Series lottery to try to get tickets, but there are only 1000 tickets available to the lottery and about that many TRILLION people will be trying for them so I don't exactly have high hopes.