Plans to Destroy the Universe & Other Secrets

Bold means I think it would be awesome to work/live/study there. Strikethrough means I’ve already lived there. Everywhere else would at least be cool to visit.

North America

• Boston, United States
• Chicago, United States
• Montreal, Canada
• New York City, United States
• Pittsburgh, United States
• Portland, United States
• San Diego, United States
• San Francisco, United States
• Seattle, United States
• Sequoia National Forest, United States
• Toronto, Canada
• Vancouver, Canada

Central America, South America, and the Caribbean

• Havana, Cuba
• Panama City, Panama
• Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• San José, Costa Rica

Europe

• Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• Berlin, Germany
• Berne, Switzerland
• Brussels, Belgium
• Budapest, Hungary
• Dublin, Ireland
• Edinburgh, Scotland
• Florence, Italy
• Helsinki, Finland
• London, England
• Moscow, Russia
• Paris, France
• Prague, Czech Republic
• Rome, Italy
• Stockholm, Sweden
• Vienna, Austria

Asia

• Bangkok, Thailand
• Beijing, China
• Hong Kong, China
• Jakarta, Indonesia
• Kyoto, Japan
• Macau, China
• Mumbai, India
• Naha, Japan
• New Delhi, India
• Seoul, Korea
• Tokyo, Japan

Africa

• Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
• Algiers, Algeria
• Antananarivo, Madagascar
• Cape Town, South Africa
• Casablanca, Morocco

Middle East

• Cairo, Egypt
• Doha, Qatar
• Istanbul, Turkey
• Jerusalem, Israel
• Manama, Bahrain
• Tel Aviv, Israel
• Tripoli, Lebanon

Oceania

• Auckland, New Zealand
• Brisbane, Australia
• Canberra, Australia
• Christchurch, New Zealand
• Melbourne, Australia
• Sydney, Australia,
• Wellington, New Zealand

Mason inspired me to get back to writing tumblr entries for all the countless people interested in keeping up with my life you.

I’ve done blog reboots a few times before, and each time has been with the promise to take it less seriously than the time before it. Continuing with this fine tradition, I’ve decided to adopt a theme. From now on, all my posts will end with some explanation about how the post’s topic relates to the cartoonish supervillain’s goal of destroying the universe.

So anyway, school is still a big part of my life that you probably don’t care a whole lot about. Basically, it’s going really well. I’m taking lots of classes, I enjoy all of them, and I’m getting great grades too. The only thing uncertain right now is whether or not any of the teachers will pick me for a “design award” either at the end of this year or next year. There is no criteria for earning the award, so I just have to sufficiently impress somebody. If I do, then I get to graduate with college honors. That’d be swell.

My fitness situation has been bittersweet. I saw a nutritionist at the beginning of this semester, and found out that some of the medications that I need are catabolic, which means they destroy muscle. All my aspirations for being an underwear model may go sadly unfulfilled. In spite of this, I’ve continued to work out, and I feel really proud of myself. I swim five days a week and lift weight three times, and I intend to start running outside five days a week for about half an hour. (Outside is important because if I must be lanky, then I’ll be damned if I can’t at least be tan and lanky.)

And for the romantic possibilities previously mentioned? Over the course of the semester, I’ve tried to get to know two different girls (WOAH, WHAT A PLAYA, RIGHT?), but they both turned out to be very busy, or they are just both very nice and tried to come off that way when they realized I was trying to get closer. Unfortunately, being busy all the time is as much a hindrance to forming friendship as to investigating romantic interest, but I completely respect that it’s up to them what they want to make time for. I certainly don’t feel entitled to anybody’s company. Anyway, I think I’m going to throw in the towel this semester unless somebody suddenly reaches out to me like I’ve reached out. Hopefully something will work out this summer or next semester.

How This Helps Me Destroy the Universe: My key weapons as a final boss will be intelligence, strength, and seduction. Oooooh yeaaaaah.

1. An internship that will let me skip straight to having a full-time job after I graduate, since I’m refusing to give up my last summer semi-responsibly working/playing at Montecito.
2. Doing design research so that I can try to be the guy who discovered something important while still an undergrad.
3. A design project where I make creative posters (and possibly more merchandise) for each of the schools because the posters sold at the bookstore are starting to look dated.

I may not do any of these things. Or, maybe I will, but on my own time instead of for credit. I’m already getting plenty of credit (or “units” here at CMU), so that’s not actually a concern.

How This Helps Me Destroy the Universe: Option 1 could let me infiltrate and usurp some organization sooner (e.g., Northrop Grumman), option 2 could let me discover how to literally weaponize visual design (e.g., sending letters that cause the viewer’s brain to melt), and option 3 could be subliminal propaganda to get experts from diverse fields to join my army (e.g., mechanical engineers to construct me an invincible powersuit).

I really, really, really want to put a bunch of these up around the floor of my dorm. They’re 99% wonderful. The other 1% is also wonderful.

fakescience:

You love it too. Don’t even pretend you don’t. Sooooo goooood.

Gotta call out Clients From Hell on this one. Lots of fonts do have semi-bold weights. In fact, it’s common. Sure, things got ridiculous at the end, but the client’s request just doesn’t seem unreasonable, unclear, or — assuming the headline was set in a professional, industry standard font — difficult. Just sayin’.

clientsfromhell:

Client: “Can you make the headline semi-bold?”

Me: “Semi-bold?”

Client: “Yes. Bold is too bold and unbold isn’t bold enough. I think it needs to be semi-bold.”

Me: “… I can bold every other letter.”

Client: “I don’t need to know the technical details, as long as it’s semi-bold.”