Anybody out there?

So I've been considering writing something in this blog again. But first, I need to know, does anyone still read this? Let me know, because I don't want to waste my time Bloggering when I could be happily tumblring along.

That's the last straw!

I got a tumblr!

Blame Steve. I even stol-- er embraced the widget he is using for his blogger. It's somewhere over on the right or something.

Orange is kind of ugly..

That damn viral video

I know everyone is posting that viral video about the guys dancing like a fool all over the world with a bunch of other people dancing like fools. I could say I hate it, but it makes me smile lots, just like everyone else.

Well, in case anyone was wondering, I stumbled upon the website this originates from, and it has a story of Matt and why the hell he is all over the world, doing a goofy dance. Where the Hell is Matt?

You don't want to make Dani angry

Dani yelled at me. So I'll update you all on my super exciting life.

I'm really obsessed with this right now: Spore Creature Creator!

I've been waiting for Spore since like...sophomore year. I was still in the UC then! The game has been delayed way too many times. It's been in development for almost a decade now! It has a free trial. You should trial it.

In other news, summer laziness continues. On most days I'm a big waste of life. I go to work until 3 pm, go to the gym, and then spend the rest of the days sitting around my apartment playing video games. I've hung out with a lot of my game design buds this summer so far, but I hardly ever see the old diversey crew! It's in large part because I'm in Wrigleyville and they're in Wicker Park, and if it was inconvenient to get to Wicker Park from Lincoln Park, its ten fold that to get there from where I live. There's just no good way.

I got to see them Friday though, for Cam's b-day. It was a great time, and I soundly drank more than I have since before I left the old house. Funny how if we had been living together still, it would have been a night like any other, but since I know longer live with them or see them often, it felt like a grand reunion. It was a lot of fun.

Other than that, I'm going to create a game with Christian and Dave whenever I get my lazy ass in gear and get them together to think. It's going to be a point and click adventure! (like monkey island). It will be grand.

I'm working on getting another game going...but thats still a little bit of a mystery.

You never get to see pictures of my apartment, by the way. I'm withholding them from you out of pure spite. Or because I am pretty sure the software for my camera is buried in a box at the back of my closet, and I'm moving out in two months anyways! No worries, there isn't much fun I spy to play in my apartment, I never put anything fun on my walls because of how long I'm staying here. The majority of things that weren't absolutely necessary for me to live with this summer are stuck in boxes still. This place is more like an extended stay hotel than anything.

I could tell you I'll update more often, but that really depends on whether anything exciting happens. Maybe I'll start posting fun things I find on the internet!

Summer is here!

This whole week has been me taking one HUGE BREEEAAAATH. This semester was busy. One might even say crazy busy.

I made some huge leaps towards my future, learned a lot about myself, and dealt with a lot of changes. As I finally have time to look back, while this semester flew by and I was so busy I often wanted to just collapse and sleep for forever, it was probably the most meaningful semester of my college career. For the first time since the days of the UC, I felt I really grew this semester.

Things I've learned:

• Friends are the people the treat you with respect, value your company, and trust you for support, assistance, and guidance and are willing to return the feeling.
• Teamwork is hard! But rewarding and lots of fun.
• Making my future happen the way I want it to is going to take a whole lot more activity on my part than just getting good grades and getting a degree.
  
• Knowing your strengths and weaknesses are both equally important in all aspects of your life, self-improvement can only stem from that.
• It's impossible to make everyone happy, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to keep from making anyone unhappy.
  

Things I've learned about myself:

• I'm more comfortable organizing and leading people than I am following and just "doing my part", and I actually have a bit of a knack for leading people when I want to.
  
• I'm a little bit of a control freak, which is probably why I prefer to lead.
• I need to work on a team/with people, I'm given energy by the people around me.
  
• I'm way more talkative than I thought I was, as long as I feel wanted and/or important.
• I clam up and get depressed pretty easily when I don't feel wanted or accepted.
• I can do almost anything I set my mind to, as long as I keep myself motivated.
• I prefer being to busy to inactivity.
• I can't be cool or hip, I'm a nerd and that's all there is to it.
• I hate being wrong and sometimes have a hard time admitting it (I'm working on it!)
• I can be independent.

I have sort of distanced myself from some people this last semester. It wasn't totally intentional, but I think I'm becoming better off that I'm not completely dependent on them for a social life anymore. I'm not saying who, as I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea. I love all of my friends, but I was feeling less and less welcome around certain people and I needed to remind myself that I am a valuable person, and that people enjoy having me around. I made several new friends this semester and I think I've become a better, happier person because of it. I'll still be hanging out with and in contact with all of my friends, but now I won't have to feel unwelcome or like "that guy" in the group, as if they don't want to hang out, they can just make up some lame excuse when I call them!

My plans this summer are:

• get in shape (for real this time)
• take a game from start to completion (making a game, not playing!)
  
• learn to motivate myself to get out and call people!
• not go broke.
• maybe take a trip or two to see some people (I'm thinking LA, New York, who knows, maybe even Ohio!)

Oh yeah, and I tried to take some pictures of my apartment, and I lost the software to upload pictures from my camera to the computer! The search begins...hopefully I can find it. Sorry!

Quick Update

Things are still super busy for me (two more weeks to go!), so here's a quick update on my life:

• I got into Manifest! I'll be displaying a Portal level design project I've been working on with a few other designers since January in the glass curtain gallery from May 14th to Mid-June!
• I still wake up at 7 am, go to school, work/class/have meetings, and return to my apartment around 10 pm every weekday.
  
• On tuesday, I turned in my keys to the slugger household. The end of another age of my social life.
• I'm in my new studio now! I'll try to take a picture of it on saturday and post.

That's all I've really got going right now. I haven't had the chance to to any self-reflection in the past forever, so no deep feelings about anything right now.

Tibet is awesome

My Life in Forbidden Lhasa

So I don't usually use this blog to talk about my findings on the internet, but I found this incredibly awesome and inspiring. It makes me incredibly sad to know that Tibetan culture is all but dead and probably won't last more than a few more years. The way they live is/was amazing. This was originally published in a 1955 National Geographic and was just republished on the internet. It's about a man who escaped a prison camp in India during World War II and spent his years as a personal tutor to the 14th Dalai Lama.

Remember when?

So I have this one drawer in my room that I've put everything sentimental that I own into over the past few years. I know, this is probably a bad idea, as whenever I open it a great gust of notalgia pours out. But I have to put it all somewhere, no way I could throw it away!

I started going through it and found some gems from the UC. While I'll never forget the great times there, the sense of how important those two years of my life were fades over time! This reminded me of how much the UC and all of the lovelies (haven't used that term in awhile eh?) changed my life when I came to college. And how much I've changed since then (I'm still not sure for better or worse).

The first thing I found was a fancy notecard holder full of photos, letters, and memorable items that Dani gave me when she left for Wittenberg. From the double feature movies we went to with stunkel to Dani and I's great struggle with the beast that is social awkwardness, this reminded me of all of the great quirks and adventures we had. We were all so close then, we might as well have been siblings!

Next I found the the finger painting Steve made me when he left for California, followed by the letters Amanda and Dani both wrote to me before we left the UC freshman year for the summer. Remember how distraught we all were that we wouldn't see each other for THREE WHOLE MONTHS?? Looking back it was almost ridiculous, but its just testament to how close we all were then. There were also a ton of photos laying around in the drawer, from Christine's ridrunkulousy awesome parties to our awesome Christmas parties, to the Halloween Prom picture of me and Jess. There were some pictures from our dance-alicious floormals (by the way, is that still happening this year??). Quite frankly, it makes my current life of racing from work to class to projects seem dull and and a waste of life! But I know this part of my life is no less important in the big picture.

I guess what I'm getting at here is that I've lost contact with almost all of the lovelies/7th floorians! I talk to Steve on rare occasions on the internet, I read Jess's blog and respond when I have something vaguely relevant to say, I read Dani's away messages and occasionally say a word or two, I catch Ashley online for a few minutes when she's on, but I really don't know a thing about whats going on in your lives! (And I'm sure you guys have no better idea about mine!)

So what I'm thinking is I'm going to need to start finding ways to stay in contact with you all! I'm thinking road trips, I'm thinking more blogging, I'm thinking snail mail and email, and whatever else! It would be great to eventually plan a reunion of some kind when we all have our lives in order enough to take short trips! Life is so busy right now, but we can't let that make us lose touch.

Of course this will probably only reach two or three of you, I don't blog enough to retain everyone's readership. But I had to blog it. See ya guys! Miss you all!

Non Stop Dash to an Unknown Finish

Hey guys! Long time no blog. As you can obviously tell I never got around to finishing my san fran recap, but quite frankly, its nothing that would be incredibly interesting unless you were involved in my line of work (or my intended line of work I guess). To tell you the truth, after I made that post, no even before I made that post I've been waaaaaaaaaaaaay too busy to blog or even think about blogging. or the Internet. My internet cruising has decreased by at least 50% this semester! It's almost frightening.

Why so busy?

Since I returned from San Francisco, I've been behind in my classes. Well, actually I sorta caught up, but none the less I have been chasing deadlines for the past month and a half. I am working on the master design document for my graduating class's senior capstone game project, which occupies a lot of my time. I meet with my group at least once a week for 3-4 hours just talking about it, working out problems, and making decisions.

Also I have a single player first person shooter level to finish creating before the end of the semester with intermittent deadlines that I invariably never get around to working on until two days before said deadline. Then there is my Real Time Games class, which involves lots more documenting (I really am just writing all of the time). I have Intro to Management also, but fuck that! I took up a minor in management this semester, but I'm so dropping it after this semester. It's about as irrelevant to anything I want to ever do as possible. Since I am not interested in A) Fashion Retail Management, B) Music Management, or C) Events Planning, they really have no interest in me, or me in them.

Aside from that I've been working on the side on a project with a few of my fellow designers designing and creating a bunch of new levels for the game Portal, which if you haven't played you should play (even those of you who don't play video games!). That meets once a week and occupies at least 6-8 hours of time at home per week. This is on top of the 20 hours a week that I work at the school, and without it being a student worker job I really have no opportunity to do homework there and be lazy. Real life sucks.

I've also been trying to get internships. Anywhere, I'll move to fucking Antarctica if they'll give me a designer internship. Chances are I'm not going to get one, I've been barely making the deadlines for any that I apply for and they are already about as competitive as an internship could be. But its worth a try.

If I don't get an internship, I need to figure out what I'm doing for the summer. My lease ends May 1st, and all of my potential roommates leases don't end until August 31st. By potential I mean that one needs to get a job or he can't stay in the city, two need to talk to their roommates about splitting up, and the other is the only one totally on the boat at this point. Regardless, I either will need to find a cheap (CHEAP) sublet for the summer or *shudder*....move back to the burbs for the summer and commute to work/class at the school. To save 700 bucks a month or to not live with my parents again? This is a tough question.

Sooooooooo that's why I don't really blog too much anymore. Thankfully spring break has given me a short breather, but the pressure isn't off because the Portal levels deadline date is April 15th...yikes. I think I might have an ulcer and aneurism simultaneously this semester.

The worst part is, I kinda love being this busy. I get up at 6:30 every morning, work, go to class, meet with my groups, and rarely return before 8 or 9 pm then spend 3 more hours doing homework. I only get 5-6 hours of sleep on an average weeknight. I never have a chance to just relax and not think about anything. But I couldn't love it much more right now. Does that make me a masochist? I guess I just function well under the pressure.

On that note though, anyone need a room mate for the summer? No? It was worth a try.

Everything is so pretty in San Francisco

Okay, so I've finally decided to recount my journey to San Francisco. Let me see if I can actually do justice to the incredible experience it was (despite catching the flu from a certain friend whom I won't mention *COUGH*ben*COUGH*).

Sunday: We fly into San Francisco. Well, we try to anyways. Our flight is supposed to leave at 10:30 in the morning, but its rainy/snowy/icy stormy in Chicago, so when I get to the airport the flight is canceled. Even worse was the journey to the airport which I won't go into detail about (call cab, cab doesn't show up, drag bags down the street to catch a cab to the blue line, blue line doesn't show up for half an hour). But, still, luck was on our side and we (my professor Tom, external relation coordinator Tracy, and friend Ben) were able to squeeze onto the next flight at lile 12:30, so we had 3 hours to sit around. Which is where we made our first game industry friend. His name was Thom Yun. He writes for an well known game industry publication called Gamasutra and had good advice for us about networking at GDC, which we would later find out we desperately needed. Fast forward through the flight and settling into the hotel to dinner. We meet with the school crew (the professors and such), and decide to just wander until we think a place looks good. We end up happening upon a jazz seafood and steak place. The food was amazing, but even better was the gruff old black man playing jazz piano and singing in the corner of the restaurant. It was amazing. After that we were all tired and pretty much went back to our hotel rooms to prepare to hit GDC the next day.

Seeing that this was pretty long describing one day, I'm going to do this in several entries. That was one of the calmer days of the trip, which is absurd considering it was the traveling day. Anyways, until tomorrow/I feel like making the next entry, see ya!

It's Evoooooooolving

This is the flu report for the week ending February 16th. The Dark red means widespread and the light red means regional. I haven't seen the flu this out of control in my life. Scary. And I'm already one of the victims! Lame. Everyone start taking airborne!

I'll blog about San Francisco soon, don't worry, I just can't think straight enough right now to do it.

Disconnected

That's pretty much how I feel right now. I'm starting to realize how many people I just plain haven't talked to in so long. But at the same time, I don't know what to say to any of them. I hate losing contact with people, especially when I used to be so close to them all. I'm feeling pretty socially incompetent right now overall. Blech.

I was doing pretty well at getting over this whole clamming up thing, but sometime something happened and I just went all introvert all over again. I'm not even sure what's doing it to me. Maybe its the seasonal affective disorder I was always so convinced I had back in freshman/sophomore year. I even feel pretty disconnected from the roomies and Jenny and Abbi, who I see everyday. This isn't a good start to my new years resolutions.

In school, things are moving forward for me. Professionally, things are moving forward for me. Personally, I'm at a standstill and I have been for a long time. I need something exciting to happen. Something needs to change. Not sure what it is yet. I'll have to get back to you on that part.

Favorite Songs of 2007

Yeah its a list blog, but every year I have certain songs that just strike a note (haha get it!?!?) with me, whether its relevance to my life at the time or just a catchy tune. So here it goes:

10. Lo Fi Fnk - City
This song is dancy and awesome. And it reminds me how much I love living in a city (not the burbs!). Everytime I'm driving back into Chicago from the burbs I blast it while I cruise on 290.

9. VHS or Beta - Burn it All Down
Fight the system! Fuck the POlice! Damn the Man! This song makes me want to do something counterculture.

8. Islands - Rough Gem
This song makes me happy. Islands is pretty much all around just really happy music. This song is about blood diamonds. That's it.

7. Peter Bjorn and John - Young Folks
I'm really into Indie Pop this year apparently. This song is really catchy and about two people falling in love and not caring about anyone else. It sounds pretty generic when you put it that way.

6. Criteria - Ride the Snake
It's not a new song, in fact it might be from three years ago. It's pretty great though. Its about not being a follower and keeping your eyes on the prize. At least thats how I interpret it. And it argues with organized religion, which I do too!

5. Tokyo Police Club - Citizens of Tomorrow
I'm a sucker for songs about robots. This song is about robots taking over the world and enslaving the human race. Yeah, I'm a big nerd.

4. Beirut - Postcards from Italy
I just love this song. Its fantastic. I love the horns, and the crooning voice, and the east European vibe this music has. Possibly the most relaxing song of 2007.

3. The Arcade Fire - No Cars Go
The newer version though. Its a lot better than the EP version I think. Its a great song about escaping the hyper-industrial world we live in to a place where "no cars go"...even though that place really doesn't exist anymore. Makes me want to go on a wilderness adventure!

2. Architecture in Helsinki - Heart it Races
Try and listen to this song and tell me its not the catchiest, most fun song ever written. I DARE YOU. This band just has so much awesome energy, poppy catchy songs, and are still really unique and different, and this song is kind of the definition of that.

1. LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends
This easily wins as my favorite song of 2008. It builds up throughout the whole song, putting into words what its like to be surrounded by great friends and great times, and about growing up and the distance that comes with it. It makes me nostalgic and happy at the same time, knowing that no matter where life takes me I can look back on the 7th floor/Lovelies years and remember the great times we had.

San Francisco here I come!!!

I DID IT!!! I won!!!

Most of you didn't know this (in fact I might have only told Steve about it), but Columbia managed to get the money to give two students scholarships to go to the Game Developers Conference this year in San Francisco. We had to write an essay (I won't bore you with the topic) and it was blind judged. AND I GOT IT!!

This means I'm going to GDC for free. Except for food and "incidentals". But I can handle that. I seriously didn't expect to get it. I figured that I would be outwritten by at least a couple of people in my department. This makes me more excited than any of you can imagine.

Oh, in case you didn't know, GDC is an international conference where people from all over the industry get together to schmooze, booze, and talk about the industry and such once a year. Its sort of, half convention, half advertise your awesome project, half networking. That's three halves, but you get the point. Its pretty much the best opportunity for anyone hoping to break into the industry to meet some people and weasel your way into a job.

This means I need to get time off work. And I'm going to miss a week of classes. And I need a portfolio website. And a resume, and business cards. And I need to learn how to network at suchan event. And shit, I only have three weeks to do that. LAME.

Sorry for the completely self-indulgent post, I had to blog or I won't be able to sleep at all tonight!

Starting the Year (Right?)

It's been a long time, hasn't it? I don't know what it was about this last year, I just lost my blogging spirit. There was a time where if I didn't blog for two or three days straight, something was seriously wrong!

But hey, it's a new year, maybe time to start the habit again? We'll see if I can muster the dedication for it.

New Years was incredible. Well, New Years was fun, but it was really the days surrounding it that were the best. It's been so long since I've seen the whole crew at once, together. It may me realize what the missing piece in my life had been for the last couple of years since leaving the UC. Not that I'm not surviving without it, but it was such a huge part of my life before and having that back again, well, it felt just like we picked up where we'd left off. And it was awesome!

By the way, this:I do not remember. When did 24 hat jam happen?? Was it after the beer-chased whiskey? After I lost my cup and could not stop worrying about it? Who knows.

Anyways! New Years resolutions. Yes. I need some of those. How many can I have? I feel like maybe if I make more there's a larger chance I'll keep one of them.

Here we go:

• Work out at least 4 times a week (even during the school year! No excuses!)
• Get up when the alarm goes off. Not one hour later.
• Actually cook every once in awhile. Prepackaged, frozen foods are really bad for you.
• Stop worrying about what everyone else thinks about me, and just do/say what I want to. I get to worried about sounding stupid (as I often do) and ended up not saying anything...or talking so fast no one can understand me, in which case I end up feeling stupid too.
• Maybe get a date! It would be pretty sad if I went through all of college with only two dates and a drunken make out with an annoying chick. I have trust issues and its time to get over them!
• Get over my trust issues. That's a large part of the problem of the two above resolutions and why I tend to keep even my closest friends at an arms length (emotionally and socially...not physically).
• Work on making the whole getting into the game design industry thing happen. I'm already doing pretty good at this, but it never hurts to try and go the extra mile.
• Relax.
  

That seems like a pretty good list. I have to be able to fulfill at least one of those. It looks like I might be living with new room mates this upcoming year too, so I'm making it a goal to solve a lot of these problems with a new surrounding.

Well, that's about all I've got for right now. If I don't blog again within a week, I expect one of you to yell at me!

Here's to 2008!

P.S. you'll note above, no more mustache. This will make some of you very happy. A new year, new facial hair!