Plight of the Pacman Cup

When I was a little girl, my grandma had a pacman drinking glass, this one here. Every day after school, I would walk to my grandma's house and pour myself a beverage, usually orange juice, and often in this favorite of drinking glasses. I remember peering at the image of the game board on the back, fascinated, wondering where pacman would go next, frustrated at his inefficient pellet collection strategy. Such love for this glass!

One day, in pouring myself some orange juice, perhaps too excited to get to my peering and pondering, I knocked over the pacman glass and broke it. I was devastated! I pleaded with my grandma that we glue it back together, convinced that it could be saved! But no, it had reached its time, and was relinquished to the trashcan. Heartbroken, I moved on with my life.

Fast forward 12 or so years.

I'm working in the theater, living in New England, out shopping for props at the local antique stores, like we do. I was photographing a chest of drawers of some sort, arranging purchase with the shop owner, who was so excited that one of his antiques would appear on the stage (I did not tell him that we would be sawing it in half and beating it with a rasp and hammer. I'm still amused at the relationship between prop shop and antique store, and remain convinced that if they knew half the things we did to their wares, they would never speak to us and would kick us out of their shops.)

Anyway, after taking some measurements and notes, I looked up, and there it was. A pacman glass! Just like my grandma used to have! It was sitting among an arrangement of vintage clutter, easily overlooked by the average passerby. After hopping around in a little dance, I purchased it in a heartbeat, relaying the sentimental story to the shop owner. Once again, pacman glass was in my life!

When I had it at home, I sat down to make an important decision. Would I use this glass for drinking? And chance another accidental knock-over? Or would I use it as a pen holder, a much safer occupation where it could be constantly in my view. I chose the latter, and pacman glass held my pens and sat on my desk through many adventures and moves.

Fast forward 7 more years.

On his nightly play romp, Mr. Davis miscalculates the angle of his leap from dresser to cat tree, and pacman glass falls to the floor, shattering.

I'm contemplating trying to glue it back together.

Stupid love

So, in light of yet another incarnation of my track record of becoming very close friends with someone, falling in love with them, and having it be unrequited, I have resolved to start dating this semester.

I am, fortunately, on the cusp of the generation where the use of online dating services is not only no longer a taboo, but is actually the norm for people meeting one another. I have been assured by many a friend that dating is not as miserable an experience as I think, and so far everyone seems excited by this new prospect.

Well, everyone but me, but I'm sure that will all change once I find someone decent to distract my affections.

So far my initial exploration of the famed dating site experience has yielded:

1) Some guy inviting me to a hookah bar (who was kind of an idiot) and

2) Some guy sending me a nice little email in which every single sentence in the ENTIRE email had the EXACT same structure.

It's a start, I guess, because I'm already learning about things I want in a relationship. I've learned that I need my potential other to be eloquent, and I've learned that I'm SEVERELY annoyed by people who respond to a casual question by asking "why?"

I'm also being forced to take into account what I find physically attractive in males, versus my typical means (which is to fall in love with the brain and then become attracted to whatever body it happens to be in).

Granted, I probably won't go on any actual dates until my 2 week sleepathon is up, but baby steps count as steps.

I'm kind of miserable about the whole ordeal at the moment, but if stupid emotional brain wouldn't keep going and screwing up my friendships, then I wouldn't have to drag her through this nonsense. So it's her own damned fault!

Stay tuned for a most likely more-positive outlook on dating. Give it a month or so.

2008 Review

The first thing I learned when looking back on 2008 was that I forgot to do a year review for 2007. Doh! Oh well, such is life!

08 was a good year for me. I think I have changed into something different by the end of it, but something for the better.

- The ETC West Coast Trip: adventure and fun and education! I went to Disneyland for the first time and sniffed out more companies than I had any right to see. It was a fantastic opportunity, and I'm so excited to see this year's first-years head off on the same trip. Wee!

- I was lucky enough to land a sweet deal for my first project course at the ETC. Bandology was amazing, and I was so grateful to be on a team with such awesome people. I feel like it was a first step in boosting my confidence, and convincing me that yes, I could be a designer.

- speaking of which, GDC '08 was a pretty big turning point for me. That was when I figured out that I should be looking for a design internship, not a production one. For some reason, I'd held the role of game designer in my head as something that I couldn't do, reserved for people more awesome than me. At GDC I reached up and plucked it out and held it right there in my hand. It was some kind of magic.

- Ah, the summer. Pre-Insomniac Lisa and post-Insomniac Lisa were two completely different Lisas. Oh, Insomniac, you will forever be the incubator that hatched a new phase of Lisadom.

- Dorky though it may be, '08 was the year where I did some semblance of end-game content in WoW. Rather, it was the Year of the Tank. Confidence boosts come in more forms than one would guess, you guys.

- Imagine my luck when my second ETC project team was also awesome! Get In Line harnessed a freshly hatched new Lisa and drove her to new levels.

- I got to go to Project Horseshoe! What an awesome experience. I met cool people and stretched my brain in cool new ways and learned a thing or two about myself in the process.

- Which brings us to the most recent: ringing in the holiday season with the Tuesday Night Ballers. It was as though we'd all gone off on our own adventures, then came back to enrich one another with all that we had learned. Such wonderful friends, I am lucky!

I am extremely excited about 2009. A little scared, sure, but who isn't? It's going to be some kind of adventure, I can tell already.

Christmas Times

Merry Christmas times to all! The holidays have been really nice, if not shaken with the feeling of impending change. I think this year was a "transition" Christmas.

My parents sold their house (yaaay!) but found out that the condo they had intended to buy had been sold out from under them (boooo). This caused much undo stress, but they have found a place to rent for awhile downtown. Still, come January 31st, the house will be gone, items will be shuffled into storage, and madness will ensue.

On Christmas night we had a great get together at my parents' place. Normally Nancy would always host a dinner on Christmas night, so we decided to host a shindig in her honor. We must have lit every candle in the house (Nancy loved candles) and we had Oysters Rockefeller to toast in the New Year (another Nancy tradition). The party doubled as an official "goodbye" to our house, but in spite of sentiment, the evening was full of laughter and good times and no tears.

It was quite a practical Christmas for me, gift-wise, I got a bike mount for my car, which is exciting. I also got metal mixing bowls, which is very exciting, for now I can make meringue pies! My grandmother got me a silicon muffin tin...which...I suppose can't really be called a "tin" at all....muffin silicon? Anyway! This, along with Scott's gifts of a new grater and juicer, are indicative of much baking and cooking to come.

In spite of the rain and cold, it was a very warm Christmas. I hope everyone has had a pleasant holiday season!

Dun dun dun

Well, here I am! Special thanks to Synnabar for hookin me up, and to those who suggested, peer pressured, or used idle threats to convince me to start a journal.

In recent news, I have a nasty burn on my forearm from glassblowing, my partner accidentally bumped the steel jacks I was using, and one of the blades smacked my forearm. Ouch! No worries though. Another day, another battle scar.

I think I'm finally recovering from the Centre Plague, which seems to run rampant at the beginning of each year. I'm in the coughing/sneezing phase, and thanks to Kim providing me with tasty tea and sudafed, and for the Rhodes Hall crew for letting me turn their living quarters into a health spa, I'm on the mend.

Current Halo stats:
-Ken still reigns as undisputed champion
-I beat D Flo once, and I'll never let him forget it
-Brendan still yells at me for looking at his part of the screen, a technique I developed in my Mario Kart days and still think is a perfectly legitimate survival skill in first-person shooters.
-I'm getting better. No, really! I promise!

I think that's a reasonable first post. Stay tuned for more bite-sized pieces of life!