Attending my first PAX East!

In less than 24 hours I’ll be in Boston to attend my first PAX East!
(I’m actually pulling an all-nighter tonight since my flight leaves extremely early in the morning. )
Looking forward to seeing the familiar faces and getting to acquaint myself with others!
See you on the east coast. <3

All your ME3 Insanity run tips are belong to me!

I love making pretty things.

I first became interested in graphic and web design in middle school. I was an internet junkie for years – seriously, you can ask my elementary school computer lab teacher. I would be in there at almost every chance I had. During my various browsing, I came across a lot of hideous looking webpages. Anyone remember Geocities? Anyone remember how shit some of those sites looked?
Yeah. It was pretty bad.
One day, I decided I was sick of it. Sick of the crazy animated .gifs, the ugly makes-me-want-to-gouge-my-eyes-out color schemes, and just the plain boring.
I decided that if I spent so much time online, I might as well try to help beautify it, right?

And it all started out with GIMP.

Remember that pup?
I taught myself basic HTML and CSS while making loads of dough by creating Guild Layouts on a site you might have heard of – Neopets.com.
Hey, don’t laugh! I was young, ambitious, and made more gold than I knew what to do with. ;P
Anyway, eventually I graduated to Photoshop and continued my passion into highschool.
But for a little while, I sort of dropped it. I stopped churning out vectors, I stopped conceptualizing, I just stopped.
I don’t really know why – maybe I can just blame World of Warcraft.
At any rate, I’m back bitches. <3 (And I say that in the most endearing way possible.)
It feels so amazing to have a job where I can pursue as many of my interests as I want, from graphic design, to web development, to social media, and of course, gaming.
Gosh. Life is pretty sweet.

Anyhoo, here’s the redesign I made for our Frag Dolls Twitch.tv page.

I swear I’ll put up a portfolio one of these days.

Game Developers Conference 2012

What happens when you cross GDC with waffles, with Boba Fett?
This happens.

As said, this was my first time attending GDC and I still can’t believe I got the opportunity too. (Frag Dolls changes lives, seriously.)
During the conference, I was able to listen to Notch talk about his journey through game development while creating Minecraft and I saw the transformation of the Art in Diablo III. I partied like a rockstar at Google’s, WarGaming’s, Minecraft’s, and IGN’s GDC parties and found myself at other various hangouts and meetups along the way, all while being in the most amazing company! (Love you guys and gals. ;])

And now for some fun photos! You guys like those, right?

You can find the rest over at the Frag Dolls Flickr.
I will also be updating the original blog post on the Frag Dolls website with information from the talks. Because, you know, GDC isn’t all fun and games – there’s lessons to be learned, too! ;]

You know what fucking sucks?
Having nothing but respect for someone only to find it means absolutely nothing on the receiving end.
To be lumped into some group of assholes – and actually, hold that thought.
Maybe this bunch of assholes doesn’t even exist.
Sure, some people are real dicks, and they shouldn’t be called friends. Fine. But I doubt 99% of that room looked down on you or talked shit.
When I looked around for you a few minutes after you engaged in conversation elsewhere, I was bummed to see your presence was nowhere to be found.
And here I thought – SCORE. Finally a night where we can hang out, catch up, liven up this dance floor, ectect.
But nope, not so much.
When I saw that check-in, I immediately knew something was up.
But do I text?
No – what if I’m just reading in too deep. We aren’t even “close” friends – we barely hang out! I’d come off as weird! Waah.
Maybe I should have.
Tbqh, I wasn’t feeling the vibe either – perhaps not for the same reasons – but I definitely didn’t feel “with it.”

Could have just been sick of explaining my occupation to people.
At any rate, I recognized the lack of flow was my fault, not theirs.

But anyway, whatever.
None of this matters in your exodus and I’ll stop babbling ranty nonsense.
I’ll just be over here – a part of the 99%.

Why I suck at YouTube.

One comment read, “Btw this YouTube video is awesome, why keep saying it sucks? Its really good IMHO!”

Okay, so yeah. Maybe the video doesn’t suck, but I sure do!
Reason being?
I can’t post videos consistently to save my life.
Well, maybe if it was my life.

But I’m trying, gosh-darn-it, to get in the swing of things.
In fact, I recorded a video today that, at first, was going to only throw up on Facebook, because, quite honestly, I’m a huge, hyper goober in it. I felt the crazy uncontrollable mass that is YouTube was going to throw virtual tomatoes at my face.
But you know what, LET THEM.
BRING IT ON, DISLIKES, BRING IT.

So here you go. <3

Looking back at a month of veganism.

Welp, it is officially a new month, and I freaking did it.
I went all thirty-one days of January without the consumption of any animal products.
And for those less informed, that includes meat, dairy, eggs, honey, ect.

Before this whole ordeal began, I would definitely say I was in the majority of people that believe going vegan would be an extremely limiting and difficult process.
This was before I did any research and discovered there really are a lot of substitutes out there for items such as milk, icecream, and even meat, that don’t suck.

So in the past thirty-one days, I corrected my misconceptions about veganism and learned a bit about food in general and without further ado, I’ll impart this knowledge unto thee.

Being vegan ≠ salads 24/7

In fact, I’d like you to guess how many times I had a salad the entire month.
‘Kay, is there a number in your head?
Good.
Was it two?

I’m actually being generous here. One of the salads was presented without my knowledge at a restaurant, so reeeaaaally, I only purchased, with the intention of eating, one delicious kale-full salad.
“But isn’t salad like… the ooonly thing you can eat?”
No bro – this isn’t some crazy raw foods, trail mix, squirrel diet.
Let’s continue.

Rice milk and vanilla soy milk rock my socks.

No joke. I’ve never had either of these on a regular basis before, and I don’t think I’m going to quit now.
I’m not a huge fan of regular cows’ milk – straight up, either, so maybe this was a bit easier for me.
But seriously, vanilla soy milk in my Frosted Flakes? Yeah-yuh. Frankly, I think it’s tastier than the “real” deal.

Vegan diet = Cholesterol free diet

This might be a “no-brainer” for some of you, but personally, I never paid attention to where this came from.
Or I totally snoozed through health class.
Regardless, cholesterol only comes from animal products – a fact I feel is so simple, yet not well known.

Just because it’s vegan, doesn’t mean it’s bland (and always made out of tofu).

It means you can’t cook. ;]
In fact, some of the best food I’ve had period came from fully vegan and vegetarian restaurants.
Take this spot for example, “Thai Idea Vegetarian.”

Before January, I would have NEVER stepped into a spot, willingly, that self-proclaimed itself to be vegetarian.
Note: This place actually is fully vegan, with vegetarian options, such as egg in your pad-thai. :]
I would have never known I would actually be denying myself some of the best yellow curry I’ve ever had.

Oh, and that brown stuff? That’s faux lamb. Yeah. That exists.
Also, sorry, I totally demolished the display – I decided to dig in before snapping a photo.
So here’s a prettier picture of their amazing Thai samosas!

So next time your animal-loving vegan friend invites you out to dinner, don’t say “no” because you’re scared of a lack of meat.

Presenting the new Frag Dolls Shorty Awards video.

Happy to say I can now add video editing to my resume. :3

My hair in a year.

Early January

Late January

March

May

June

August

September

Early October

Late October

November

December (Ümloud!)

December

December

December

Now scroll all the way back to the top, then back down.
Is that the same girl?
Didn’t think so either.

New Year, No Meat. Going vegan.

Yeah, you probably think I’m crazy.
And I am, a little bit, so don’t fret.
In fact, I think I’m starting to get a feeling for what it’s like when a smoker puts down his light.
Last night I dreamed of food.
Juicy, meaty, delicious food.

Shit.
It’s only day three.

Alright, so I’ll come clean. I’m really not that extreme. My vegan adventure will only last a month, but perhaps more if I so choose.
In fact, this whole thing wasn’t even my idea.
One evening in November, I Netflixed a documentary called Forks Over Knives, not because I was dying for lifestyle change, but because I am strangely addicted to watching all kinds of documentaries. (Economics, North Korea, Food, Culture, and Science being my favorite topics.)
Anyway. In pops my boyfriend, home from a day of video game making.

“Whatcha watching, babe?”
“Oh, you know. Some doc about veganism. They say it can help deal with cancer, diabetes, and such.
Ah, and it’s called Forks Over Knives. Clever, huh?”

He only got to watch the last half of it, if that, but was far more fascinated with this documentary than I thought he’d be.
In fact, I didn’t think he’d be that interested at all.
Turns out it was enough to throw out a personal challenge to ourselves to be vegan for juuuust a month starting in January.

To be honest, I feel like a month is too short. I want to experience these energy gains that so many vegans claim to have and I’m not quite sure a month is a sufficient amount of time for that.
But like I said, it’s not as if anything would force me to eat meat again, other than myself.

Sooo, yeah. These first couple of days have been interesting! We shopped at Whole Foods for the first time.
And yes, yes, I know, so cliche, but when you’re noobs like us, and have an empty-ass pantry and refrigerator because you just threw out all your food, it’s a really good starting point.
I found Vegetable Pho broth and rice noodles to make some noms, curries, non-dairy icecream (ALMONDS!), and slew of other goodies.
I had my first taste of imitation chicken. It was some orange chicken thingie you can stirfry when in a pinch to make dinner.
And holy crap. It was GOOD.

So far, being vegan isn’t really hard it’s just different. There are actually a TON of products that are vegan, that most people wouldn’t think of. And obviously, if you look at that list, you’ll see that just because it’s vegan, doesn’t mean it’s healthy.
But it is nice to know I can indulge in some of my favorite snacks once in a while. ;]

Also, huuuuge thanks to my friends that have been sending me helpful tips, links, and recipes. Because of them, I found out there’s a vegan bakery ONE block away from our apartment.
I COULD THROW A ROCK AT IT.
Or have all the vegan chocolate mint chip cookies I can buy.

Also, also. What’s up with these corner stores in the Mission?
NO ONE CARRIES TOFU.
Sadface.