Tag Archives: home

Personal Blog

Treasure Hunting

I have always been quite a packrat. At fairly regular intervals throughout my life, I’ve tossed all my excessive belongings into a box, shoved it away in the attic or basement somewhere. There, the contents of the box goes through a slow chemical change. When I drag out the box years later, I am no longer so attached to much of the contents, and can toss out a good amount of excess junk. What is leftover is obviously precious enough that I should hang onto it, though sometimes the same stuff gets put back in a box and shoved away to go through the lengthy refinement process once more.

To get to the point, I dragged a box out of the attic today, all giggly and a-squee, and opened it to delicately pluck out the treasures from the junk. I still have a rather packrat-ish method of rooting out the keepers.

Birthday cards from the second grade on up– toss!
Card bearing an image of a winter-phase longtail weasel containing the cryptic message, “Lisa, now you don’t have to take anything hostage anymore. Too bad I’m not your dead relative. Oh well, close enough. Peace on Earth. Jessie”–that’s a keeper

Crinkled, wallet-sized school photos of people I barely remember from the 3rd grade–toss!
Photo of my mostly-male 4th grade class dressed in drag, dancing with plastic skeletons and tossing pies during our self-written Teacher Parody play–I’ll hang onto that.

I also discovered mysterious gems, such as a form-generated postcard sent to me from Hulk Hogan saying such things as “I will strive to be worthy of your support.”

I also dug out a mysterious contraption that I don’t ever remember existing, called “The Etch A Sketch Animator.” It appears to be an electronic etch-a-sketch, with little buttons that say things like “animate”, “next”, and “recall.” Its biggest limitation seems to be the fact that it is still, fundamentally, an etch-a-sketch, and thus one of the most frustrating and difficult drawing devices of all time. I don’t know how you are expected to animate with it. Once I nab some AA batteries, I’ll find out. Muahaha!

Doing this makes me all excited to go pulling out more boxes. My plan to clean my room has failed; it will only get messier.

Games and Game Development, Personal Blog

Homecoming

Well, I’m back home in Louisville. It was a long drive but not entirely unpleasant.

Mom planned to have a gathering the evening I got home (probably so I didn’t slip into a depression, which was a good idea). My brother and sister-in-law came over, plus Brendan and Maria, as well as a few friends of the family. We had chili and played WarioWare and MarioKart, swiftly taking in Eric and Mary Beth and getting them appropriately addicted.

Since Dave couldn’t make it last evening, I went over to visit him tonight. We went to the all-famous Pie Kitchen, where I engaged in my endless struggle to decide which slice of pie to get, or maybe just get 2 slices, 1 of each flavor, or maybe I should get ice cream. Anyway, Evan was there!!! So exciting! I haven’t seen him in forever. It was nice to catch up with everybody.

In the meantime, I’ve been unpacking and cleaning, moving back in the home. I will admit, it is good to be home, although I will miss hanging out with Carleton very much. He and his brother, Scott, have promised to come visit this summer, though, which should be exciting and fun. Right now I’m just drained at the prospect of job hunting, but I have unloaded a ton of art projects onto myself to keep me busy in the meantime.

Personal Blog

Going Home

I stole this link from Scott Ruggels. It’s an awesome Dutch minimilist puppeteer. Go to “filmpjes” and watch away!

http://www.xs4all.nl/~lrvk/lejo/

Yesterday was my last day at Long Wharf. It was very nice and everyone at the theater has been extremely supportive of me and my decision to leave. Bill the props carpenter got me an AWESOME Cowboy Bebop T-shirt. It was funny, too, because I had just recently been scouring the internet searching for one, but all the ones I found were either:
a) Horrible or uninteresting designs or
b) Images of Faye in a lewd pose
I never thought to look at Hot Topic.

Anyway, these next couple of days will be full of packing and pre-moving stress. I am happy to be going home, but I am very tired and don’t feel like deciding the next step in my life. I have a web design job lined up to bring in a little bit of money, but I’ve always hated job hunting. Anyway, I probably will be fine once I get a bit of rest, I have much to do when I get home!

Personal Blog

Merry Christmas

It’s been a bittersweet holiday. On the one hand, the family gatherings this year have been more close feeling and energetic than I can ever remember. Perhaps it is because I’ve been away from home for the first time, perhaps it is because both my nana and our close family friend have survived their respective bouts with cancer and are thriving. Either way, I enjoyed the feeling (I also impressed my grandfather with the mad fire-building skills I picked up in CT, no starter logs for me!)

On the otherhand, it has been a sad time due to the unexpected death of Brendan’s stepfather. He and Brendan’s mother had barely been married a year, and I cried when I first found out what had happened. Brendan and his family are of the kindest, most generous and caring people I have ever met, and it hurts me deeply to see them have this to go through. Brendan, you are awesome and strong and I am always here if you need me.

Tomorrow will take back up to Connecticut, let’s hope my airline doesn’t go bankrupt until after that happens

Personal Blog

Books and Weather

I believe I’ve hit a new reading record for myself: A 435 page novel in less than 6 hours (subtracting some time of boarding and unboarding the plane, the drive home, and the time it took to eat a late lunch).

Also, I wanted to make a clarification. Judging by the bewildered expressions and exclamations of people I told about the heavy, 14 inch snowfall here in Louisville, it seems there is a huge miscomprehension in New England that everyplace south of Pennsylvania is a vast, burning desert with year-round heat waves.

This is not true. Just wanted to let you guys know.

Merry Christmas! It’ll be below 0 for ours.

Games and Game Development, Personal Blog

Food and Fun

Last night I had my annual/semi-annual gathering with Jaime, Laura, and Becca. We ate at Maido on Frankfort avenue, and it was AWESOME. Among the generic hibachi grills/sushi bars, it is the only “for-real” Japanese restaurant in Louisville. A little pricey, but for the amount and quality of food you get it is well worth it. I’ll be dragging people there for dinner on my visits home for quite some time now, I suppose.

We then went back to my house for a night of video game fun. We eventually played a bit of DDR, then decided to be innovative and attempt to play other games using the DDR pads as controllers.

Crash Team Racing worked very well. You could sit on the mat and hold your foot on the accelerate button, using left and right to steer and easily punching the fire button when you needed to. The difficulty came in the lack of the R1 and R2 button, so no secret hopping-over-ledges-to-get-a-boost and such.

Spyro the Dragon proved to be much more difficult. One person breathed fire, one person charged, on jumped/flew, and the other steered. Steering was really the most difficult part, and we often rotated positions to give the steerer at hand a break. We managed to clear the first world, though it took some time to do it. It is definitely something people need to do as teamwork activities at those terrible business retreats.

Lastly, we attempted Soul Caliber II. That mostly involved 2 people flailing and beating the DDR pads like the ape people in 2001: A Space Odyssey. But if you think DDR is good exercise…

All in all, it was a very fun evening. I’m mostly glad that I still see some highschool friends on a regular basis (even though it may turn out to be only as regular as once a year), it’s always a joy to gather again.

Personal Blog

Thanksgiving Thoughts

If anyone remembers the christmas cactus I rescued from the gloom of props storage last year, I’d like to announce that it is blooming like crazy. It’s ready to be re-potted, too.

A more general thought: every now and then, I am forced into some situation (being stuck in an airport lobby, for instance) in which McDonalds is the only feasible means of nourishment. I usually buy something, eat it, gag in disgust, and make a dramatic proclamation that I will never, NEVER, eat McDonalds again EVER. However, deep in my heart, I know the next time I stop at a rest station on a long trip and that’s the only food for miles, I’ll shrug off my promise to myself and eat again….only to be disgusted again….only to swear I’ll never eat it again.

What is it about us humans that we constantly and even knowingly make the same mistakes in life, over and over and over again?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Games and Game Development, Personal Blog

Day Off

In spite of the mountains of work I have to do, I decided to come home for the weekend, and am very glad I did. I probably would not have gotten any work done at school anyway, most likely would have just moped about. Coming home was instantly refreshing.

This afternoon I joined Dave, Ken, and Brad at the Cherokee Triangle Art Fair, which was similar to the St. James Art fair except more pleasant weather and less people. We actually spent most of the beginning of the afternoon resting on Brad and Evan’s porch and people-watching. The art stuffs being sold were pretty varied, as the wares in these sorts of events usually are, but it was a pleasant day to be out walking. I also got to see Evan, but only briefly as I was on my way out and he on his way in.

I then spent the evening visiting Brendan and Maria. They introduced me to WarioWare, which seems to be a game invented specifically for people with ADD, but man is it fun. (note that site doesn’t have any actual game info on it…or maybe it does, it’s just hidden in those secret doors). We also dug out my old tape of Captain Power episodes, which was fun and nostalgic, but slightly lacking seeing as we didn’t have any of the toys. It was okay, though, we shot the screen with finger guns and made the little shooting noise.

Seeing my friends and being home was incredibly refreshing, and I only hope that doesn’t immediately drain out of me upon returning to school. Soooo much work to do, so little time. I guess that’s always true, though.

Personal Blog

Mysteries Solved

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So, remember when my parents’ computer had that problem with cryptic messages typing themselves out in text boxes? We discovered that it was the speech recognition function. See, I swapped monitors with them at the beginning of the school year, and my old monitor has a built-in microphone. So all those ghostly messages were just it trying to interpret various sounds: sneezes, coughs, mumblings, etc. Doh!

Today I was compiling a list of color that I need to buy to use for pieces for my senior show, and Holy Crap for Crap! Glass color is EXPENSIVE! x_x Even when I calculated the price for just half a kilo of each color bar I need, it was still quite a hefty sum.

Maybe I should sell/auction old glass pieces to raise money to buy color to use in new glass pieces. There must be some other things I can sell besides glass to raise money… *rummage rummage* …anybody want an upside-down running hourglass?

Personal Blog

Creepy Bug! Bleeeeh!

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So I found out those horrifying little bugs with a billion legs that move like lightning are not silverfish, as I once though. They are called House Centipedes.

Check out this creepy bug

I’m not really one to be frightened of bugs, even though I do find regular centipedes to be quite creepy. But these things, I dunno, there’s just something about them that strikes fear into the hearts of mortal men.

I remember once at school I found one scurrying across my floor, so I trapped it under a plastic cup. I was intending to take it outside, far away from my dorm, but was very busy, so “left it to do later” and then promptly forgot about it.

Three days later… “hey, why is there this overturned cup on the ground?”

I was quite startled when I lifted it up, as the creepy bug continued to scurry on in the same direction, as if being trapped by a cup for three days was merely a momentary obstacle. I suppose I would have felt kind of bad if it had died under that cup, and I admit I felt a twinge of guilt for making it sit under there for 3 days. The boredom must have been unbearable. Of course, it could have used the time to sit quietly and meditate on the deeper aspects of buggy life.

Regardless, I felt bad for not freeing it, but felt okay that I hadn’t killed it either. Then, of course, I couldn’t sleep for days, knowing that horrifying thing was loose and roaming around my bedroom.

Creepy frickin bug.