I've been reading Eggers' Staggering Genius, and it's cleverly written in a stream of consciousness style. I often feel, though, as if he's using it too much, masking the really poignant story of how he's charged with the raising of his younger brother after both parents succomb to cancer. Many positive reviews revolve around his writing style, which is certainly catchy, but to be fair, it's no different from any email or conversation we've ever had.

Brian, angelic as he is, came and visited me at the Facility, and after a rousing couple of games of set, the topic of this writing style came up.

Ron: I suppose for anyone else it's avante-garde, but really for all of us in our circle, it's just de rigeur. It's almost passe.

Brian: Touche.

See what I'm talking about? Literary gold, or as they say in Spanish, oro de la biblioteca.

The turkey that Brian brought knocked me the fuck out after the 7pm headcount, which is an extra long one on Thursdays for Narcotics Anonymous. I awoke at 10pm, fully rested, and I had to inquire about who won the second game of Risk 2210AD (I won the morning game). The game itself is fun and interesting, but by no means does it supplant the original. There is one mechanic in particular that makes it easy to win, and that is the notion of bidding resources for turn order. One person, thus, can gain control of Asia at the end of one round, bid to have the first turn in the next round, and gain its corresponding resources, which easily offset the resources used to gain the privilege of first turn. Like I said, it's fun, but it doesn't beat the original. It did make the day go by, and no we didn't get a turkey dinner here furlough, silly. Only those in County Jail got that. We got baloney sandwiches.

There was a cool moment ("I love this moment so much I want to have sex with it") during the noon headcount. Manny, the infinite Raider fan, walked by, and I gave him the lo-five followed by the fist knock. That transitions perfectly into the elbow bump from Rafael, walking behind him. It gives me just enough time to do a mock baseball swing to the gut to Sam, who greeted me with a mock football tackle. It was almost like getting introduced during a basketball game. Definitely a cool moment. I love this moment so much, I'm going to cheat on the first moment with it, marry it, and raise a whole family of moments.

I like being here at the end of the hall where more of the long-timers end up residing, since it's been much of the same people for the majority of my ninety-plus (see how epic it sounds when it's written out?) days here. Of the original crowd around me, there's still Roger, the Ram fan, down the end. There's Mtua and James next door. There's Brant down the hall, who's leaving soon, and there's Alvaro nearby, who'll be here until March. Across from Brant is Rudy, and in fact Rudy's whole room is fully of single-digit-ers, meaning people whose time left is measured in, guess what? I quipped that my time remaining was more than everyone in that room combined.

But we're expecting the Furlough population to drop to the 90's over December, only to spike back up after we round up some New Years DUIs.