Normalcy.
Posted at 11:46 AM

Hello dear readers, for those of you who keep reading this, though I have the fleeting suspicion that you faithful readers are few and far between.
So lots have happened between spring break and the almost end of summer.

I've been trying to get a handle on my addiction to world of warcraft. And it's not working too well. Especially when everyone you know, and everyone around you plays it. It's so hard to tear yourself away. But I am seriously determined to tear myself away from this wretched game if it means cutting people who were once dear to me out of my life. Yes. It is *that* bad. MMORPGs are the worst things to happen to me and it shows. It has killed my inspiration for design, motivation to do well in school, need for a real life.

Had I not gone to Europe on that study abroad trip this summer, I might not have realized this, and this thought is perhaps the one that scares me the most.

On a lighter note, Europe was absolutely fantastic! The sights, the sounds, the smells - the experiences! The outside cafes, mid day siesta breaks, how everything closes after seven pm, the clubs and pubs at night, the random beggar people on the street, street vendors, flower shops at every corner, las ramblas, the beach!, the festival of San Joan, fire crackers, UPC, how time seems to run at its own pace, the sun not setting until 11 pm, how cold it was in Paris, sleeping in a parking deck like bums because we were retarded and didn't get a hotel the last night in Paris and then being chased out by the rent-a-cop, 6 am flights, flying Ryan air, how wonderful Italy was, tiramisu every night for dessert, gelato 3 to 4 times a day, not having any real meals until dinner, getting lost in the Vatican, wine, lots and lots of wine, Italian beaches, Italian boys, seeing the most beautiful sunset on a jetty and watching the fishing huts pull in their catch for the evening, driving in Rome, flash hailstorms, seeing thousands-of-years-old architecture, the 50 euro skirt, beer and sausages in Berlin, seeing the Berlin wall and Checkpoint Charlie, eating the most authentic mexican we had ever eaten in Germany, the Pink Bag that wasn't pink, The glass dome in the Reichstag, sleeping in a nice 4 star hotel in the business class floor with my roommate Katrina while the boys slept in a hostel that smelled funny, weird tasting ketchup!, piles of ticket stubs, piles of euro change, 2 euro coins!, having about 43 euros worth of change in my duct tape wallet and having it break, metros systems that actually are USEFUL and EFFICIENT unlike Atlanta's crappy old Marta system, malls with grocery stores inside them, tomato bread, hot chocolate so thick you need a spoon, a truly wonderfully wonderful summer!
There's more but if I dont stop writing now, I never will :)

And it's Been a While
Posted at 02:25 PM

Since I could say I wasn't addicted.
I dont think I can get unaddicted until I've hit level 60 on my priest, and she's already level 53.. so.. 7 more levels to go!

I did finally finish that piece on Chris from Suikoden III that I'd started way back spring break of last year, around spring break this year, I'll post a link up whenever I get around to it. I also have a nice wallpaper I traced from Tsubasa Chronicle, the new anime this season that I've fallen in love with :D and the nice person from Wing Journey: a Tsubasa Fan Site has been kind enough to host it on their site :) (scroll down until you get to 'pink' by cindy)

My biggest fear when school starts is that I won't be able to have any great ideas for studio, and end up doing mediocre in the class again.

These orange happy colors are much too perky for a floundering me, drifting in a sea of uncertainty.

Sparkles or No?
Posted at 01:57 PM

So, ever since we sparklified Lulu's cell phone to look something like:
http://www.myblingring.com/designs.asp

I've been debating or not to do mine. And if so, what color? What design? Any questions/objections/suggestions?
:D

Cindy Superglues Sparkles to her Phone.
Posted at 06:33 PM

Hilarity does not ensue.

So since I got my new phone (click here to see the phone and opens a new window) I decided black is a dull and bleh color. This phone does not come with nifty face plates or anything. I'm just stuck with blehish black.

So I had this BRILLIANT idea that I'd go and jazz up my phone with rhinestones like Carrie's in the show Sex and the City. (see link in the previous post for a visual) But instead of using real swarovski crystal rhinestones for only a mere like $400, I decided to go for the cheapo plastic ones that USED to be 99 cents at the nearby arts and crafts store, but I guess they weren't making money because they jacked up the prices of their rhinestones to $2.99!!
My sister already had a full pack of plastic rhinestones (160 count per pack) to decorate a t-shirt with that she never got around to, so I figured I could put them to good use. I called up my best friend Lulu, and invited her over to come help me "bling" out my cell phone.
You see, last december, for her christmas present, we superglued green/blue/teal/periwinkle plastic rhinestones to Lulu's cellphone. Only we put a layer of clear plastic packaging tape over the cover of hers in case we screwed up seriously and she wanted it off. (It turned out alright in the end) So we'd already had some experience with rhinestones and super glue and phones.

But with my phone, I made the decision that I didn't want tape on it, because I wanted this to be permanent. So we couldn't afford mistakes. We covered the work surface (my kitchen counter top) with newspaper and laid out the rhinestones on the paper, and set to work. I would tweeze up a sparkle, Lulu would apply glue to the back of it, and I would place it on the phone. We started on the back cover which was removable, and the first row came out really nice. But as work progressed, we goofed up here and there, ie i dropped one in the center of the phone, one slipped from the tweezers and skidded across the newspaper, etc etc. By then time we had finished the back cover, I had realized 2 things:

1. I had run out of rhinestones (all 160 of them!!) and was going to have to buy more
2. The back cover looked terrible.

So by this point, Lulu had to go home (we worked for about 3 hours on the back cover!) and I had to go out and buy more sparkles.

Two and a half more hours later, the phone was finished. I'd originally started out wanting a star pattern on the front cover, but it ended up being too big, so I tried to reduce the pattern by about 50% and it didn't end up looking like a star at all. Finally, I messed around with the limited amount of colored rhinestones that I had and came up with a snowflake/asterisk pattern.

So end result: the front cover looks halfway decent, the back still looks like crap due to all the gaps, and irregular arrangement of the sparkles, and the glue causing the plastic to frost over.

Oh btw, remember that one sparkle that skidded across the paper? Well it landed on an uncovered part of the counter top, and glued itself face down on the counter!! I tried picking at it with my nails to no avail. I tried pouring rubbing alcohol, nail polish remover, everything I could think of on it. Nothing worked. So finally, I took a pair of pliers and used brunt force. The sparkle came off... and so did a chunk of the varnish on the counter top. So I filled that in with some white out (the counter top is white) and moved the bowl of fruit that's always there over the accident zone and hope my parents wont see it!
**pictures to come soon as soon as i download some software so my compy will recognize the camera**

It's like Beverly Hills
Posted at 05:32 PM

So somewhere on the drive from Rome to Florence, the four of us in the car got into a discussion of where we ultimately imagine ourselves to be in 25 years...

So me, at 45 years young, will be at the top of the design world. Art director, fashionista, the most sought after graphic artist, design consultant; hopping in and out of my various flats in sexy places like Shen Zhen, San Fransisco, Rome; two cats (named Chamblee and Tucker (yes, they're named after the streets in Georgia)) and a dog (named Marquette or Marky for short); One marriage, one affair, and one divorce and in that order (because it's so scandalous but so glamourous to have an affair!); in process of writing a book or perhaps already written one; I will have aged gracefully, filled with the wisdom from the experiences over the years, but still retain my inner child, and always keep a mischevious twinkle in the corner of my eye.