The Pink Shoe Saga

I bought a fabulous pair of shoes at Guess to wear for a wedding this past weekend.

Shiny, pink, platform, heel -
what more can a former 90s tween ask for?

And classy with a modest skirt.

I think I will be remembered as the girl who danced for hours in ridiculous heels - if only they knew what a whiner I am, they might have believed me when I said the shoes were actually comfy.

The photographers thought the shoes were awesome, and took a few photos before we went to take the pre-wedding photos of the groomsmen. In a field.

Narrow heels + damp grass = disaster.
Not pictured: muddy tights from taking a spill after getting stuck.

So at that point, I gave up on the shoes, but not on observing the photography.

It was cold, but I was more concerned about what needing
a tetanus shot would do to the schedule.

The fact that I (of the constantly ice cold feet) did not mind wandering around almost barefoot for 20 minutes is especially incredible considering that by evening the view outside was like this:

So I stayed inside and danced.

This week, I have promised my feet I will be wearing sneakers. Unless I need snow boots.

Whiteboarded: Lizzie's Masterclass in Phase Scrambling

I love explaining things on white boards.

The incredulous animal has become a staple of the whiteboard discussions. I like this board because it complicated and sciencey.

Bonus: Type the following commands into Matlab for lots of laughs.

> why

and

> load handel
> sound(y, Fs)

Things I am doing that are not grading assignments

1. Hitting refresh on facebook
2. Looking up all the Glee cast members' twitter feeds
3. Looking up Jodie Sweetin on Wikipedia (she just had a baby, guys!)
4. Thinking about making dinner
5. Discussing the characteristics of a good spatula with Tory
6. Looking up cute cookie designs
7. Checking out texts from last night, which resulted in me finding the most incredible 404 page ever. I took a screenshot for posterity:

Smartphones! Horrifically drunk and useless! Signalling that the site is down!
The site where you can read texts people send when they're drunk and useless!

Obviously, procrastinating does not lower my standards for amusement in the slightest.

Happy Birthday To Me

It's so pretty and red, and will geotag my photos so I don't have to add all the pins in iPhoto's Places after the fact. No, I am not at all neurotic about organizing my photos. I ordered it this evening, hopefully it will arrive before I head to Ottawa for a wedding on the weekend!

Random Photo of the Day

Part of the show involved invading the audience's personal space.

This is from last February's Nuite Blanche, at a random experimental dance performance. It was free, and very unusual.

Dave updated my iPhoto to the latest version last night, inspiring me to go through and tag/place more of my photos. I'd forgotten about this until I came across an "unnamed event".

This Week's Obsession: Starcraft 2

For the past few years, the video games I love, like the TV shows I watch, have been whittled away to a few core favourites. For video games, that meant little puzzle games on the iPhone and the Sims for long train rides (or lazy Saturday mornings). 

Dave, a fan of the original Starcraft ten years ago, bought the long-awaited new version over the summer to check it out. I played the original Starcraft too, and never really liked it because I was more interested in playing the real-time strategy genre like I'd play Sim City (look at how I've arranged my structures! I have this main road, and then the courtyard here for my armies to gather!). Pro tip: you don't win often when you play RTS as if you're playing Sim City. In Sim City you have no challengers (but a "protect the civilians" aspect would be an interesting twist to Starcraft). 

Starcraft 2 (top) compared to Sim City 2000 (bottom).
Perhaps it should have been obvious that the gameplay dynamics
would be different. 

I played Starcraft 2 when I spent a week at Dave's over the summer and decided to buy my own copy shortly thereafter. We've been playing online together quite a bit since then, but I haven't gotten much better. Being bad at something, in my opinion, is more a reflection of whether or not you're practicing correctly than of any innate talent and somewhere along the line I decided I wanted to be passably good at Starcraft. Good enough to not be ashamed to play with random partners over the internet - a major component of the game (playing against the computer is notoriously boring after a few rounds). I just wasn't too sure how I should work to improve.

Jason, Dave and I played a 3v3 against the computer over thanksgiving weekend, and the two of them started talking about something called "Funday Monday" - some famous webcaster guy gives the community of Starcraft 2 players an arbitrary rule, and they submit games showing the hilarious results of following this rule (example: in a 3v3 or 4v4, your team must all announce the single attack unit you will be building to your opponents and teammates).

There is a world out there that I did not even know existed. 

My first observation: the internet and social media change network gaming SO MUCH. Young(er) Liz sucked at Starcraft and was using a crappy strategy and didn't know where to turn. Old(er) Liz can watch example games at high levels with commentary, have access to thousands of opinions on what is a good way/bad way to approach specific tactical problems at various levels of gameplay, and get a sense of what indicates that you're messing up (I like having lots of unspent money in the game, it makes me feel fiscally responsible, but apparently it also means that my army is weaker than it should be...). 

Also, this guy is really funny, and a very good "e-sports caster".

While this week has also been a week of midterm writing, grading, webCT-minding, sadly, it's been Banshee rushes that haunt my dreams.