Secret Spotify

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Meg

In this month’s piece for Dialect, I admit to naming playlists after crushes and ex-boyfriends, having embarrassing musical taste, not reading the fine print… and still end up feeling smarter and superior.

When someone’s online activities come back to embarrass them offline, I always just roll my eyes. It seems silly that anyone could be surprised that tweets, blog posts, or photo sharing comes back to bite them. You put it on the internet, man, of course it’s public.

When I got my Spotify invite, I was so excited to share mixtapes with long-distance friends that, well, I didn’t think through how I store my own music. The concept of Spotify, with the ability to make and share playlists, seems like a stunning cyberpunk future.

Here’s my confession, internet: A lot of my musical taste is boyfriend-influenced, and, even more embarrassingly, most of my music is sorted by guys’ names and place names.

Via Songs About Steve: Spotify

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Future

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Meg

“Oh, you know,” I tell Eric, after a long discussion about our lives and our future plans, “I just want to work in games and not be worried about money.”

“Yeah, well, I want to be an immortal sorcerer,” he said, “I’m glad one of us has a realistic goal.”

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Why I Majored In Classics

Posted on November 7, 2011 by Meg

Arachne's Dilemma

I snapped this screenshot while testing my new missions the other day. This mission tells the story of Arachne, a young Greek woman who needs the player’s help to make a special garment for Athene, set in the Ancient Greece realm, in the MMO Next Island. This story is one of the areas where I had a bit more creative control, and I’m really pleased with how the dialogue reads, how the mission flows, how the quest reward works, and most importantly, how I got to use hubris and xenos at my day job.

(Crossposted to my dev blog)

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Missing Lightsaber. $100 Reward.

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Meg

Just in case you can’t read all the text, it seems the New York Jedi lost his custom lightsaber to a nefarious criminal described here as “Mr. Jerk”, but he will forgo the expected Jedi vendetta if the thief brings the lightsaber back to the local bar.

via my post on I Heart Chaos.

This? Is why I’m moving to Brooklyn.

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Why I Wear Headphones At Work

Posted on November 2, 2011 by Meg

Caitlin: Hey Meg? I had a question for you about your *system proposal*.

Meg: Sorry, what? I was evacuating the dance floor over here.

 

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Bohnhoff

Posted on November 2, 2011 by Meg

Stick lived in Germany for a couple years before we met, but he was on an American base, so the only German he knows is Where is the train station? and potato. (Ed. note: Stick would like you all to know that he can ALSO say Mein auto es kaput) This is plot exposition more than second-language mocking, I mean, I lived in China for two years and my Mandarin taps out at reading a menu and ordering dinner. (But, Stick, Mandarin is MUCH HARDER! Compared to Mandarin, German is practically English!)

Empire State Building I love my walk to work, through Koreatown, commuting though tourists taking pictures of the Empire State Building.  (Plot exposition. Really. Stay with me here.)

The other day, I was walking in, when a German man stopped me to ask if I was from here, and if I could give them directions.

“Could you tell us the way to….” The husband stopped here and turned to his wife, they had a rapid discussion in German. I recognised the facial expressions and body language from my years teaching ESL, they were stuck on the next word.  Actually, now that I think about it, German isn’t practically English. I couldn’t make out anything they were saying…except….

Bohnhoff.

Which means train station, and is therefore, one of the four German words I could possibly know.

So I told them where to go, and then called Stick to ask if he just pulled a really elaborate prank.

 

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Communicating By Voice

Posted on October 30, 2011 by Meg

Harold recently switched to an iPhone, because he really wanted to get Siri, the voice-activated assistant. He set it all up, and then showed me how well the voice commands and speech recognition work by sending me a voice-activated text message. While sitting next to me.

In case you’re wondering, a voice-activated text message from someone right next to you is a lot like, well, talking.

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LitStack Reviews In the Snake’s October Issue

Posted on October 27, 2011 by Meg

Just heard that LitStack reviewed the October issue of In The Snake (and used my favorite pullquote):

“The Age of All Nighters” by Meg Stivison was perhaps my favorite; in it, a muse remembers her youth and the many men she loved and inspired. She wistfully reflects on how they parted; sometimes she abandoned them; often they left her to pursue more upstanding, middle class lifestyles:

She didn’t mind the presence of girlfriends and wives in the lives of her men — she was a muse, she didn’t pick up socks — but she felt her age as the poets and playwrights of her youth turned practical and became mid-level managers, talking about maintenance of cars and lawns. Once she met an old lover, and when he mentioned his insurance deductible, she felt she was slipping slowly from a statue back into a block of marble.

The selections are brisk, delightful reads, each capturing something simple yet resonant about our human experience. With solid and straightforward prose, neither the language nor the intent are so stylized or esoteric that the reader need puzzle his way through to find meaning. It’s all right there to be enjoyed…so go enjoy!

via In the Snake Magazine, October 2011 Issue | LitStack.

LitStack’s Jennifer Kaufman has thoughtful and positive comments on Keith Apland’s Daisy in a Sandbox, Marlene Caroselli’s Vittorio, and Frances August Hogg’s Cherish (my personal favorite) as well. I’m so pleased and flattered to be in this group!

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Not Entirely Flattering

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Meg

Stick and I are on the phone talking about work, which is a lot better for both of us now than it was in Raleigh. It’s better because we’re both working in games now, instead of stopgap jobs, and also because we’ve regained the ability to have a real conversation, without underlying hostility and annoyance. He mentions that his game’s community manager ends up working with QA a lot, and he starts to explain about the particularities of a persistent multiplayer situation.

“And I told my community manager what you do,” he ends.

“What’s that?” I grumble. “Listen to the players tell me how much they hate the game, triage the players with valid problems from players who just like to complain, format that into a concise summary, and send it out, so that management can tell me that other projects take priority, and my programmers can tell me how many weeks my quick fix will take?”

“I said you make things happen.”

“Oh, Stick.” I tell him, “Only you would make ‘my ex-girlfriend doesn’t know what she does for a living’ into a compliment.”

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Squad Eli

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Meg

I’m at a pub with some friends, when I find myself chatting with a girl near me about sparkly vampires. She shares my views that the Twilight leads showed up to film so they wouldn’t get cut slips, while the supporting cast, the human high-school kids, Bella’s father, etc. acted circles around the supernaturals. She also shares my views that the last book read like Twilight fanfic. Which means…. we’d both read all of the books….

There’s a lull in another conversation, at which point we totally get caught talking about teen vampire romance.

“Twilight! Seriously, ladies? But are you Team Jacob or Team Edward?” we’re asked.

“Team Bella’s Dad?” I suggest.

“That’s who you think she should end up with?”

“Oh, is that what the teams are? I thought we were voting for most believable character.”

“I thought it was who would win in a fight,” my new friend says.

 

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