Finally, the one million mark. My PS2 can finally rest. *whew*

I also took a video of the momentous event…kuiki users can find it on files/uploads.

I’m not exactly sure why but in the last while I haven’t really felt like writing proper entries. I guess in a way I don’t really feel like I’ve done anything exceptional…and when appropriate, I’ve left a mini-entry whenever something exciting has happened. But that doesn’t leave much room for emotional content, does it?

Well, the most significant occurrence was gaining employment. Last week I signed the contract for the job I’ve been trying to get for the past month, which was really exciting. The contact I had at the company was really good with communication so I always knew what was going on, so that made the waiting a bit easier to bear. The first place with which I interviewed never got back to me other than one response to an inquiry email telling me they’d keep me updated. Oh well, their loss really. (Although that would have been a fantastic job!) So yeah, contract signed. Then later in the week one of my work colleagues from my last job emailed me and asked if I’d be interested in rejoining them in an email tech support position, and of course I was thrilled to say yes. They’re still working out the details on that one, but it seems as if I’ll be able to do both jobs simultaneously due to the flexibility of schedule.

Essentially, I’ll be able to work almost entirely from home, which has both positive and negative aspects. Working from home allows me to wear whatever I like, listen to my own music at any volume, eat whenever I feel hungry, take a break when I need to rather than when assigned to, and be productive without boredom because I’m in a place where I want to be and I’m choosing to do the work. Since the contract job is paid hourly, I’ll have to keep track of my own hours and pay attention to my productivity so I won’t have a boss telling me to work harder, I’ll only have myself to answer to. I’ll only be paid for hours that I actually work, and with that in mind, I’ll not be able to waste time. The biggest downfall to working at home is the fact that I’ll be alone all day and I won’t be forced to meet new people and get outside. I’ll still have to force myself to leave the house if I want to see anything other than the inside of the apartment. And while that’s only a single downfall, it’s incredibly major. I’ve been really lonely in these months that I’ve been without work and while it’ll be really nice to have something important to focus on, to keep my mind occupied, I won’t be any less lonely. I’ll just be distracted.

Anyhow, I’m *really* excited to get going on these jobs…I’m really itching to have something to do. As you might have noticed, I’ve spent a lot of time working on projects of my own, namely the Prince blanket. I still haven’t gotten that completely done, as I still have a lot of loose ends to sew into the back, but I find that I get tension headaches if I work on that any longer than an hour at a time. I don’t think I’ve let my body rest long enough since I finished the crocheting part of the project and it’s rebelling. I carry a lot of tension in my shoulders and neck. If you’ve been reading this lately, you’ll have noticed that the blanket got exposure on several outstanding websites, and I got a lot of traffic on my site because of it. It was a bit of a strange experience for me for several reasons. First of all, Will said one of his coworkers thought I should submit the photo to boingboing, and to be honest I didn’t think it would get accepted. I submitted it anonymously with a pretty brief but emotionless description of the link, and just before I went to bed that night I looked back on the off-chance that it had been posted. I was astonished to actually see it there, so astonished I rushed up to Will’s door and knocked on it and excitedly told him to check it out. When Jules saw it the next morning he asked me if he could submit it to insertcredit, so I laughed and told him to go ahead and try (this seemed like even more of a long shot.) But, lo and behold, it ended up there as well. More astonishment. I, however, seemed to be the only person who was surprised over it. I kept a tab open in Firefox with my website’s statistics on it, and refreshed it every few hours to see how many people were visiting and from where. The sites it got posted on were kind enough to have avoided hotlinking the image, so Jon’s servers didn’t suffer the onslaught, for which I was grateful (and I’m sure he and the rest of his users were as well!)

There was a period of about 3 days in which my site got a significant amount of attention. I got three emails from people either interested in buying the blanket itself or the pattern. That was to be expected, since the game is very popular and people really want merchandise related to it, especially if they know it’s one-of-a-kind and handmade. There were at least two references to buying anywhere from 10-30 of them as Christmas gifts! I politely turned down the offers and explained that legally I’m not allowed to capitalize on someone else’s intellectual property, besides which I need the blanket to keep me warm at night. They were all really understanding about it, so that made me feel pretty good. Some people can be nasty when they don’t get what they want, but it seems that the fans of this game are a lot more mature and relaxed than others (like Halo, as Chad knowingly pointed out.)

I felt slightly saddened at the idea that I’d gotten this attention because I’d created something based on an image that was already recognizable and popular rather than something totally original. Of course I hadn’t done it for the purpose of gaining attention, my concern was making a blanket so I wouldn’t have to keep borrowing Will’s blanket at night, and I thought the Prince would be a fun blanket to make. I can see how someone could look at it and think that I’m a poseur or unoriginal or just doing it because it was popular, and that upsets me. I suppose the fact that this bothers me so much should be some consolation to myself that I haven’t sold out. Still, I want to be seen as a legitimate artist, not someone who coattails on whatever is popular at the moment.

Otherwise, I was obviously excited to see the way in which my work was received by others. Looking at the hostnames of some of my site’s visitors, I saw Microsoft, Macromedia, Nintendo, Konami, and Namco, which is the company that made Katamari Damacy. Which, of course, means that someone in each of these companies has actually *heard* of me now. That’s thrilling to think about. While I was basically watching this happen, I realized that for this brief period of time I was gaining some notoriety, that my site was actually worth talking about. Surprisingly, I let this all go on in the background, and still managed to go on with other tasks in my life without getting stuck on what was happening. I realized it was significant but rather than getting all full of myself, I watched it with a more curious eye. If someone had asked me how I would have reacted to the situation before it happened, that is *not* what I would have predicted about myself.

My friends all seemed pretty happy about the whole thing, and after getting linked on insertcredit, Will told his coworkers about it. I’d given credit to OmniGraffle in my description because the application had saved me a TON of time and annoyance and had produced the exact result I desired when it came to the pattern–I felt it truly *deserved* to be mentioned even though the final product gave no indication I’d used any kind of software to assist in the design. The Omni guys seemed pretty pleased about that, so that made me feel good. I could tell that Jules was really proud of me, and I think that, above everything else, made me feel the best.

Since then I’ve really felt the urge to go on with my next project, so I created a Totoro pattern, followed by a Jack Skellington pattern (both posted in previous entries.) Will came with me to the crafts store to buy yarn for Totoro and I began it immediately (and immediately developed a headache.) Sigh. I hope when I go home for Christmas Mom is able to work some of that tension out of my back.

Which leads me to the next big announcement…I’ll be able to go home for Christmas! I talked to my parents several times last week about how and when I’d be able to come home and in the end I was able to get tickets for December 19-January 5. I’m really happy about that because I was so convinced I wouldn’t be able to go home because of time and money, but it seems to have worked out quite nicely. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone again and being with people again (strange that I say that when I’m in an area with a population of nearly 4 million.) I don’t look forward to the cold and snow and the not having a car but it seems like Jon will be willing to lend me his car while he’s in California.

Also on the job front, Rayme had an interview at Infinity Ward in Los Angeles (the studio that makes the Call of Duty games) and he’s been offered a job with them (a paid internship, I believe) so he’ll be moving down there at the beginning of December. I am both thrilled beyond belief and deeply saddened by the situation, as this is an *unbelievable* opportunity for him but he’s such an amazing guy I don’t want him to leave. I feel like I’m really starting to get to know him and his wacky personality and getting comfortable being around him. :( Besides, he has so many books I want to borrow. I told him I’d return one of his Sandman comics to him each time he returned to visit, so if he really wanted them back he’d have to visit a lot. :D

So, in a way, I’ve become the loser of the group on the job front. I’m the only one of us without a super awesome job in a high-profile company. It’s quite ridiculous, really, that among the four of us, we represent Bungie, Infinity Ward, and the Omni Group. That’s like…unheard of. o.o I guess it’s a little ridiculous to call $50/hour a “loser’s wage” but dayam…

Will went home to Chicago for Thanksgiving. I keep feeling nostalgia lately as I remember what I was doing last year at this time in Australia. I go through my photos which are labeled by date, and I can remember just what I did on each day. It’ll be another Thanksgiving away from home but this time I’ll be alone. :\

While Will was packing on Friday night I went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire with Chad and Rayme. Despite never having seen the third movie or read any of the books, I still enjoyed it quite a bit. As expected for opening night, the theatre was *packed* and we had to sit near the front. Afterwards, we walked to the grocery store so we could get some snacks, then we went back to their place and watched 5 episodes of season 2 of Scrubs. By the time we finished the first disc it was nearly 3 AM and Rayme wanted me to stick around and watch more but I didn’t want to leave Jules waiting too long so I decided to go home.

Jules went through a really rough time recently as a ridiculous situation caused him to lose his job. Since this happened basically while I was having a financial crisis, there was a period of time where we were both feeling really frustrated and irritable and we both succeeded in upsetting each other quite regularly. But he’s in the process of looking for another job now so we get to talk a lot more than we did while he was employed. Now that I have found a job and he’s not under so much stress, things have been a lot nicer between us and I’m not constantly breaking down when he tells me he needs to leave for awhile to get food or hang out with people. I always felt rotten about doing that to him, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that I felt totally alone and worthless.

Well, call me a cheat, but I decided to give up on legitimately rolling the roses in We Love Katamari. I got up to 200,000 and I decided to give the “rubber band trick” a try. I should probably explain what I mean first. In this game, once you’ve collected all of the Prince’s cousins that are scattered throughout all the levels of the game, you are given a level where you roll up nothing but cousins. Once you’ve completed that, it opens up the “Rose Level,” in which the goal is to collect 1,000,000 roses. There is *nothing* in the level but roses; single roses, bunches of roses, roses galore. (Oddly, the bunches are in groups of 10 rather than 12…not sure why.) So, as one might imagine, this task becomes rather repetitive and mundane after awhile, especially considering there are only three different areas to roll in (around the town, racetrack, and ice rink), each loaded randomly when you choose the level. You are allowed to choose which music you want in the level, but that too becomes repetitive and can easily turn a song you like into one you can no longer stand. Each of these levels is contained in a small area and you are limited to where you can go…the roses will respawn as you roll around so that by the time you’ve rolled around the level once the roses at the beginning are already reappearing. So yeah, very little variety. At any rate, the ice rink level is special in that it contains a circular rink contained by a fence, with a snowy hill in the center. Because there is very little area to roll in, the roses must respawn faster than the other levels. You are, essentially, just going in circles around this thing. There are other people and animals skating around near you, so there’s great chance of you smacking into them. Well, someone got the idea of rigging up the analog sticks on the PS2 controller with rubber bands so that you were always moving forward in a circle without having to touch the controller. Of course, if you just left it going in a circle, it would just follow the same path forever, but because there are other things moving around the rink, there are many collisions occurring, which set the ball on a different path. So basically, the trick is to leave the PS2 on overnight with this rig in place and let the game play itself while you sleep. I tried it last night and was able to get about 100,000 in 6 hours, which isn’t exactly efficient, but sure beats the hell out of sitting there doing it manually for even half that time. I was planning on doing it legitimately over a period of months, but I just got tired of it. Right now I’m up to 421,368 (well, the *game* is up to that now XD) and if I leave it going for the rest of the evening and overnight I might make 600,000 by morning. God, I’m such a geek.

Also, to go back to the idea of forcing myself to leave the house, I’ve been trying to get myself out of bed at a decent time lately, and take a walk for at least 45 minutes each day. I’ve been going to Sunset Hill Park a lot because of its stunning view of Puget Sound. It’s about 2.5 miles away so it makes for a nice distance to cover. It’s getting a bit too cold now to linger too long without freezing, but I still enjoy leaning against the fence and looking out across the water. I *love* this area of the country…it’s just absolutely stunning. When I think about my decision to move out here I know it was the right one to make. This is the place for me.

And on that note I think I’ll go out for a walk while my katamari rolls itself. :D

I had so much fun creating the pattern for the Totoro blanket that I decided to go ahead and make one for the Jack Skellington blanket I plan to one day create. This is based on a drawing I did about this time last year which I intended to get as a tattoo (maybe one day…)

I’m having fun playing around with OmniGraffle but I’m running into some really messed up shape union errors along the way. I think it’s really important to learn new software but in doing so it makes me pine for features in other applications like Illustrator.

Totoro blanket pattern created in OmniGraffle over the top of a pencil sketch I scanned in.

“There is no ‘why’ in a world that would be perfect in itself.”

–Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

More good news today: I was offered a job! Still have to work out the details and get the contract signed, but it’s a go! Yay!

Soooo…Jules sent an email to the Insert Credit guys and the Prince Blanket got linked there too. :O Wow, this is unbelievable. o____o

Tonight Will suggested I submit my Prince Blanket to Boingboing so I did, not expecting much. Less than an hour later, there it was. o.o

Here’s my Prince of All Cosmos (Katamari Damacy © Namco) blanket, finally complete after 3 months of hard work! I still have to sew in all the loose ends on the back but at least it’s ready for presentation! And I can sleep under it, which is becoming necessary now that it’s getting cool out. Now to finish the momo blanket…