The following is the unedited text that will appear in my weekly column at the paper called TheReporter's Notebook. I inserted the links for this post. Normally my columns are more Charlotte-centered, so that's why I don't post them here very often.

A month or so ago I was in an article in USAToday about student loan debt. I had a small quote about my overwhelming student loans and how they crush all my hopes and dreams (or something like that). Last week, I received a call from someone from The Take Away, a morning show on NPR. They were going to do a segment on student loans and thought I'd like to participate; apparently they saw my quote in USAToday.

On Monday I was on air for a couple of minutes speaking with finance expert Beth Kobliner. Beth was there to talk about the new income based repayment program that started on July 1 (visit www.ibrinfo.org ). The program, in theory, will decrease the size of your payments based on the money you make. After 25 years in the program, even if you don't have your loans paid off, the government will forgive the rest. My wife and I owe more than $100,000, which will take a long time to pay off either way, so that seemed like a pretty good deal.

What did Beth tell me to do? Nothing. Apparently the program still has some kinks in it. Because we filed jointly in taxes last year, the program will base our individual payments off our combined income, not our individual incomes. Beth told me to stick it out one more year and sign up next year when they adjust to accommodate folks like us. I can still sign up this year; I just won't save as much as I could.

This is what really bothers me about student loan repayment. I've already made peace with the fact that I'll be paying them off for a good chunk of my life (unless I win the lottery, or one of my children's books sells really well), so why can't I just make manageable payments? Why are there always kinks, technicalities, and complications? Why don't the lenders consider income, cost of living and location?

I don't have any other debt with car payments or credit cards, but if I did, at least those lenders would give me the option of paying a minimum or something. True, their collectors are ruthless-they'll get their money from you sooner or later-but they aren't without mercy.

Student loan lenders on the other hand, are evil to the core. Sure you can defer your loans, you just have to jump through several flaming hoops to do it. Yes you can lower your payments, but only for a limited time, and they can only be lowered enough to deliver a fragile sense of security and comfortableness-true financial peace is strictly forbidden.

I write about these things because I know I'm not alone. I know there are some of you out there older than me still paying for your education. Will something ever be done about our nation's crazy student loan practices? I don't know. But the way I figure it, since my loans keep getting me in the national news, it won't be long till I end up on Oprah. If anyone can make some changes Oprah can.

Today is my golden birthday! Some say your golden birthday is supposed to be the best year of your life. I don't really believe that, but that's not going to stop me from making this my year. My theme for the year is "Leveling Up." At 23, I started a slow level grind, and I'm starting to see some results two years later. Not yet ready to move out of my current dungeon, I'm going to spend the bulk of this year revisiting old caves, fighting the same foes, and retrieving some nice loot. Already I can see the item drops are growing more valuable, and my stats are slowly rising. Soon I'll return to town, loaded with extra potions and unneeded plates of armor, and sell them off to get the good stuff. Hopefully, by the end of this year I'll be at a high enough level to take on the beast of self-employment. I hope my augmented weapons of writing and illustration don't let me down.

I got a great haul for my 25th. First is a new 8GB iPod nano. Brooke and I bought two of the original nanos like a day after they were announced and we've held on to them for years. They were only 2GB, and at the time that seemed like plenty, but it soon got to the point that if I wanted to add a song I had to take one off, plus the battery charge lasted about 40 minutes. So last week Brooke asked if we had the funds because she wanted to get me one and I said sure. The next day I hit up craigslist and found someone selling one for $100, brand new. I sent in an email and we met later that night at a gas station and made the exchange. It was my first craigslist purchase, and I was very pleased-you never know with craigslist, there's that exciting element of stranger danger in every transaction.

These are actually the colors I had and have, but these aren't mine...I don't have Duke Nukem

A couple of days after the nano I got a great CD to put on it. Regina Spektor's Far, the special edition with bonus DVD. If you've been reading the blog for any amount of time you know I'm madly in love with Regina. Her new album is more polished than her previous four and I love it. She's reigned in some of her weirdness a bit, which I miss, but overall I think it's great. There isn't a weak song in the bunch to me.

My parents sent me a visa gift card from Italy with enough cash for a fun weekend. We'll probably catch a movie, eat some dinner, and then I think I might pick up RE4 on the Wii on the cheap. Funny how my enjoyable experience with RE5 coop has brought me to this point. I normally hate anything considered survival horror. I could only play Bioshock in the day time...

The folks at the office got me a gift card to Nothing But Noodles, a delicious noodle place a couple of blocks from our building. Some of my supervisors are wearily watching me from the corner of their eyes. It's no secret that I'm striving to leave the suit and tie life behind-you can't hide a trip to Yuma. In fact, just recently I found out they've been googling me to see what I'm up to. If you guys are reading this, you can stop worrying, I learned the hard way during my 24th year not to quit your day job when you don't have something else lined up. Plus I hope I've shown that I'm a decent enough human being to not only give two weeks notice, but also train my replacement. But like I said above, I'm not ready yet, I'm still experience grinding.

Ahem...anyways, I won't actually be celebrating until this weekend because we have to babysit Brooke's niece tonight, but who needs a single day of celebration when the whole year is mine? Level up!

So I got Resident Evil 5 in this weekend and I played through about 75 percent of it with my brother. I hated the controls in the demo, but they've grown on me. It's still not easy to get to an itemfrom your inventory (in a diagonal or center slot) in the heat of battle. The last game I played in the series was RE2, so I have no idea what is going on with the story, though something tells me that even loyal fans have no idea what is going on.

The zombie battling is fun and the graphics and big budget action sequences are phenomenal, unfortunately they are often bookended with boring and simple exploration. We just finished a long sequence in some ruins yesterday that felt less like Resident Evil and more like Tomb Raider--except without the ability to jump, climb, swing, or crouch.

Overall though, I'm having a good time with the game. It really is an amazing looking game, and the weapon upgrading system is addicting. It's got me interested in checking out RE4. I watched my brother play through a bit of it a few years ago and last night he told me he enjoyed that one better. The Wii version got some favorable reviews, so I think I'll add it to my Gamefly queue.

I hope everyone had a happy father's day. We talked with my parents over skype and they took us on a tour of their cool little apartment in Italy. It was good to see them and get an insight into how they are living.

Last night we went to Pops at the Park (the Charlotte symphony puts on a free concert every Sunday in June, and thousands attend with their picnic blankets and lawn chairs)with some friends and it was great. The weather was muggy, but the music was excellent.

Also, last week I discovered Dexter. I have the first season on my instant play queue at Netflix and I love it. That show is crazy! I'm on episode six right now. I wish I had more time to watch it, but I get in an episode whenever I can.

If you're interested, I have the second installment in my digital painting series up over at Staying Afloat.