hellloooooooo, this is how my life is now.

Waiting for numbness to set in

Today we are learning how big of liars mk and steve are regarding pain levels.

---

3 hours later

They aren't liars. It's not painful at all. Like actually maybe a 1 or 2 with the most pain the numbing needle. But it is something crazy happening to your body and you will react as you do in those situations. randomuser shakes. I sweat and get lightheaded. I haven't donated blood in forever because I'm so small that I am basically done the rest of the day.

It's short enough tho that even with anxiety and body reacting, it's over before it becomes unbearable.

I also had a really emotionally, long, long draining day yesterday, hadn't eaten anything before the procedure and, as always, am running on little sleep. I would not recommend doing it under those circumstances. Having a watered down Gatorade helped heaps tho.

---

The next day

Definitely sore. Sorta feels like if you slip on ice really, really hard except its not on your tailbone. But tender to the touch, sore and achy around, and some weird, unexpected pains if you move a certain way. I took 400mg advil mid day, with 250mg norco at 9am and 6pm. I am tiny + low tolerance though, my 200mg norco is likely your 500mg norco.

So basically, my recommendations on how to make it not as shitty as my experience:

- Do the procedure later in the day when sleeping for 15 hours won't hurt much.

- If you are a naturally anxious person, take half a valium beforehand.

- Let the doctor know UP FRONT that you are nervous and do not want to know the details or see the things they use. (Kevin apparently got a much more in depth description of the procedure than I did 😂)

- Get a good night's rest and make sure you have eaten a good breakfast (but probably a good while before the procedure because if I had thrown up, it would have been nice to throw up essentially nothing).

- Headphones + favorite music (I did this, as I always do for things like this, and it helps keep me calm). I actually posted this original photo as I was waiting for the numbing to work and texted my brother up until the first needle ("brb getting stem cells taken")

- Bring a watered-down yellow gatorade (watered-down because I find gatorade to be far too sugary and strong in general, but definitely too sugary after something like this).

- Drink a little bit of gatorade or suck on a sugar cube before the procedure to help get your blood sugar up.

- Remember to breath and that it's literally over in like 5 minutes, but prepare to spend at least an hour in the doctor's office between explanation, preparation, numbing, the actual procedure, and giving yourself 15 minutes to cool down / calm down afterwards.

- Ask the doctor for an extra gauze / tape for yourself for the next day. I'm sure most people have things at their house that would work but we're in the middle of moving so kevin got cheap-y hotel face circle + painters tape this morning

> I would argue that the hacker had done more to earn money than Coindash had, but I'm devoutly anti-ICO at this point.

Seriously! No joke, these scammers have finally got almost the same payday that they've been working on for over a year! These ICOs are like 30 days of marketing. These scammers are like up all night, buying domains, writing copy, deving crazy tools, adjusting based on user feedback. 😂

...

☹

I feel like this time around is fast tracked version of what we've seen before. At least on my (American young-adult Facebook Feed) It's been ~24 hours now and we've gone from:

- Initial reaction of shock, world leaders make statements. We listened to NPR on our drive home thru rush hour traffic. The numbers were still at 35 confirmed...then 40 confirmed. 7 locations, then 7 shooters...etc.

- Shock echoed on social media, numbers go up and down and up again, most people sharing live threads from reputable news sources (BBC, NYTimes, Reuters) and sharing prayers. (When we got home (5pm PST)). Cue misinformation.

- Started getting notifications that people I know in Paris were safe. Turns out, a whole crew of flimies I went to school there were on location for a shoot. Luckily, all safe.

- "Remember that this is happening everywhere" ... "Beirut" ... "Pray for everyone not just Paris" ... and the first sign of what I take as "too cool for the standard 'my thoughts/prayers are with those in Paris' messages"

- Muslims begin preemptively posting "remember these people are Muslim. I pray for Paris." and images about the difference between a Muslim and a terrorist. (No one has taken responsibility yet and no one official has blamed ISIS yet. But it has begun)

- People begin changing profile pics to either: Eiffel tower drawing, pictures of them in Paris, or creative Paris/France related other things to show solidarity.

- Misinformation, recaps of the idiotic things politicians have said, "guns in the hands of victims would have prevented this." (This morning (3am PST)).

- Arguing about refugee crisis. Merkel makes statement.

- Analysis on idiotic things people said the previous day. Dems bash GOP, GOP bash Dems.

- Misinformation galore (Eiffle tower goes dark!) and personal stories come out, "my phone saved my life", "this american girl was one of the victims", more details emerge about the shooters and passports are found but who knows what is true or not at this point.

- Discussions about gun laws, information collection, security, blame game begins.

- Everyone changes their Facebook profile photos using Facebook's tool.

- Refugee argument ensues again. One of the gunmen (?) supposedly arrived via refugee routes. Predictions and analysis of Merkel's earlier statement.

- Preemptive predictions on tonights Dem debate. All we know for sure is it their talking points are being rehashed for Paris.

- Analysis on design of the now iconic things we're seeing on our feeds begins. Analysis on Facebooks Safety feature begins.

- Full blown confusion of blame, more details, videos, misinformation, grief, solidarity, "we should always be solidarity with everyone!", statements, more blame, more analysis, analysis on the analysis of the analysis.

- This upcoming week: Profile pics slowly return to normal, factually accurate details emerge but are quickly swamped by other news stories so only their politicized remnants remain. No one gets nuked, but those calling for nuking make it easy for you to cull your friends list.

- Next months: politics / war happens slowly and quietly, policies change, privacy invaded, security beefed up, everything returns to the new "normal".

So it's been almost 24 hours. I wanted, and somehow expected, a lazy, lovely, hungover day with my man. No one tells you these things. That was not happening.

It's been 24 hours of phone calls, questions, screeches, screams, details and so much more. We got it from my family and a few of my close friends around midnight last night. Then the 4am messages from East Coasters starting rolling in. I could hear brother's (amazing) girlfriend scream from 3,000 miles away. randomuser attempted to tell his mother yesterday but she wasn't answering the phone. So she found out via Facebook and immediately texted, "YOU GO AND GET ENGAGED BUT DON'T EVEN TELL YOUR OWN MOTHER?!" Whoops. We are never going to hear the end of that one.

Plus, it was technically still a work day today. And we were both battling a hangover. Luckily, the engagement is an AMAZING distraction from due dates. I missed at least 3 deadlines today and they're all stoked! Who knew?!

I haven't felt more loved in a long time. People I haven't talked to in forever came out to say hi, say congrats, and say lovely things. I got to catch up with people I haven't talked to in ages: high school friends, college friends, old teachers, family members, Hubski friends, friends of friends, ex-coworkers, current co-workers, people I didn't even realize I was (facebook) friends with. I am so grateful for Facebook today -- seriously. Like I just post one thing and the whole world knows.

As hectic as it's been today, I am so happy. My cheeks hurt from the non-stop smiles. Even though randomuser and I are groaning at our non-stop blooping, buzzing, and ringing phones, it's amazing to talk to everyone and hear everyone's well-wishes. We are so thankful to have so many awesome people that are a part of our life. And like......the fact that so many people get to share our joy and our love is pretty mind-boggling.

So, to everyone who commented here, messaged me, texted me, etc --- thank you! I love you all with all my heart, and I'm so happy that we have all found this amazing little corner of the internet and we have developed these terrific little internet relationships. "Feelings n stuff" (- _refugee_). "Oh yeah...feelings? Feelings are good." (-lil)

I remember when I was hearing every detail about b_b's wedding....and then the stories from mk's and thenewgreen's and forwardslash's (who did it right, BTW) I was like "I am never doing this. This sounds like hell. Never."

I guess never has arrived. It's amazing. And hellish. But it's amazing. But also....but also....I think the real hell is approaching. Very quickly.

Someone save me.

Guys. Stop badging this post. Holy shit.

I would definitely recommend having a first "real job." There are things she can learn at a real job that will prepare her for whatever she wants to do next. I probably would be twice as good if I had worked two different jobs, and three times as good if I had worked three. Every experience gives you more knowledge, which then guides you as you make decisions about how you want to act, what you want to be, how you want to be seen, etc. It will also teach her about about how people write emails, what makes a good manager vs a bad one, what makes a good co-worker vs a bad one, how annoying a rambling 2-hour conference call is, what makes a good client vs a bad one, etc.

There are also the itty-bitty things that I didn't even realize were things. I hired two college kids to help me part time at my old job and after their first "here's the design I did" email, I realized I had to start with the basics. I didn't even realize my first manager had taught me these things, but he had -- Here is how you start an email. Here is what the email contains. Here is what your signature should look like. No, never use your personal email address for work-related business. Here is how to determine what order email addresses go in. Here is how to CC, when to BCC, how badly BCCing can go. When to call vs email, how to set up a conference call, man the list goes on and on.

It will also give her the chance to potentially be in the other person's shoes in the future. One thing I've learned since managing my own people is that managers have a thousand different things in their head, only one is your situation. Just tell me what I absolutely need to know and move on. I really don't care why something is happening...or how it happened...or whatever. I'm sure some of the emails I wrote about a bug or something would make me cringe today.

I would also tell your niece to opt for an environment that will teach her the most and give her the most opportunities to learn, rather than just looking at the money or company-name power. You obviously have to weigh the pros and cons, but a smaller company where you are wearing multiple hats will give you a lot more opportunities to step up to the plate, interact with other departments, interact with high level management, and be that much more well-rounded. There are benefits to working in a very organized company and learning a strict process, but the reality is, you will learn more about the process and internal workings of the company than you will new skills.

I think one of the most valuable things about my old job was literally where I happened to sit. I sat upstairs with the engineers because I was too young to get a real office and the cubes were full. However, I worked mostly with the marketing department and I also reported directly to the president or CEO for projects for clients or high-level internal projects. This gave me a very unique perspective on both sides of the fence. I learned the information that marketers wanted to know as well as the engineers. A lot of times I acted as "translator"/ "e-mail rewriter" between the two departments because I could speak both languages. Later, I was able to streamline some items in our process that were pissing off the engineers and the marketers, but know one knew (1) that it was really an issue worth fixing or (2) that they both felt the same hatred for it.

Okay - last thing. Jobs also give you a network of people. Companies with high turnover rates are more valuable to you (but more dangerous) because the people you meet and make friends with today will be at a different company next year and can provide you with an in or a helping hand when you need it. You never know when the guy sitting at the cubicle next to you, that annoying sales rep, the IT guys* wife, or whoever can help you get to where you want to be. Your reputation is gold in certain industries so don't talk shit, never say no, and listen more than you talk. Save for maybe one or two truly horrid people, I would move mountains if any of my old co-workers needed assistance with anything. I even liked one of the sale's reps stupid facebook page the other day!

* Always make best friends with the IT guy / gal / team. Bring them cookies and stop in to talk about whatever they are into. (1) The lock on their door and the fact that they have more free-time than they would like anyone to know means they're room is a great place to hide when you just can't take it anymore, (2) They usually have a secret room which is glorious for hangover naps and (3) they will answer your call gladly when you need them and (4) they are always the first to know everything and they usually know all the company's dirty little secrets - this comes in handy when you need advise or can't figure something / someone out.

First step. Read these. The advice in here is expansive and awesome:

edit: here's a post list w/ a few more.

Step 2: Never take a single word of advice. Take it all in. Let it simmer and stew and marinate in that brain / heart of yours and make decisions based on what you think and feel. Your decisions will be influenced by the mountains of advice but the decisions will be yours and yours alone.

Step 3: Don't make any big decisions you don't have to. Make little ones and enjoy the journey. I planned on working in television (like I did in high school) instead of going to college. I figured I would figure it out. I hated school and spent more time trying to figure out how to not go to school and keep my valedictorian status than actually going to school. Then I got into NYU Film unexpectedly. Then I dropped out of NYU film two years in because I lost my passion. Then I worked nights editing shitty movies and TV shows for next to nothing (maybe like $50/night). Then I took off to Australia for three months with some Aussies I had met at a bar while doing cocaine one night (no joke). Then I got back home, moved in with my parents, and accepted a job at $13.25/hr editing product videos. Then I taught myself web development. Then I quit my job and started my own business creating websites for people. And here I am. I just turned 25. If you had asked me where I would be at 25 when I was 16, I would have said, "Doing cocaine and producing indie films and living a rockstar lifestyle." I don't produce films (although I occasionally get a corporate video bullshit gig) and I don't do cocaine anymore. I also make websites. WTF? How did that happen?

Life changes and it changes fast. The best thing you can do is roll with the punches and make sure whatever you are doing, you are passionate about. You are never too old or too young to do something big or change the direction you are headed. There is a big difference in being non-committal and giving up, and changing directions though.

I was 100% passionate about film until I wasn't. I tried really hard to find that passion again and spent a lot of time thinking there was something terribly wrong with me and that I had some lack-of-motivation disease (there's a motivation/passion enzyme in your thyroid right?) It turns out I was just over it. I sobbed to my parents for literally an hour straight, sitting on a grimmy NYC curb, before the words, "I want to drop out of college" left my lips. Then I sobbed and tried to catch my breath for another 4 hours or so.

If you don't have passion for something right now, do what you like best and explore the surrounding areas. Eventually you will find something. You are young as shit. I have friends pushing 30 who are still running away to foreign lands and snorting coke and haven't even tried to figure out what they want to do with their life / what their passion is.

Learn as much as you can now though. Real life is not conducive to picking up new skills, FYI. Go learn to solder or some shit. I don't know. I wish I had the time to learn that right now.

However small or nitpicky, there are a number of differences between avatars and images in the sidebar of a users profile.

1. We don't make it explicit that they are allowed (or disallowed) -- the sidebar simply uses the same markup as comments. Some users have chosen to place an embedded image there but it looks and feels fine with or without an image.

2. Avatars would be their own dedicated field and therefore users would feel compelled to upload something. But, just in case they don't, we would also need to make a "no avatar" avatar, which is a more complicated decision than one might expect. Facebook --- Designer News --- Empty States in General Also, do we crop them for you, allow you to crop them, etc. etc. (FYI, if you allow avatar uploading these days, users expect to have the ability to edit/crop like they can on facebook. It's terrible because Facebook's functionality is pretty rock-solid due to years of improvements and user testing and a great deal of code).

3. Would we host these images on hubski.com (eek!) or 3rd party image providers? While imgur is pretty good about allowing users to upload images and embedding them anywhere, they have been known to shut down embedded photos for specific sites/forums if they generate an insane amount of clicks. A random forum I was on actually had imgur block all their embedded images (not just avatars) on the forum unless they were uploaded by a paid account. I don't think the forum was generating that many clicks.

3b. The weight of a page loading images would increase ~100kb (this is a v. high estimate) per image, depending on sizes we allowed and if we implemented some backend jazz to rescale/convert/compress. That means a page with 20 comments would now be an additional 4mb. Even if we say each image is 50kb, that's 2mb for 20 comments.

4. When you visit a user's profile, it is assumed that the content on their page is theirs and chosen to be shared by them. Profile pages are visited relatively infrequently and with the intention that you you want to learn more about a user. If I were to visit a profile page and see a big dong, I would blame that user, not Hubski, and I would succeed in learning something new about said user. However, when you are on a post / pub page (like this one), your intentions are to read the post / comments and interact with others. A dong photo, or any number of photos, would disrupt that experience and give users who came to read the post something that they were not looking for. This is not just for users of the site - I can also take a post page, specific comment, or global feel, email it to my mother, post it on my facebook, or do whatever I want with it without being scared that a dong might pop up in their face.

5. Additionally the content on post pages is a mixture of users and (in the case of muting) can be somewhat controlled by the original poster because it is technically "mk's post" or "_refugee_'s post". Would we see an influx of muting or dissuasion of posting your own posts elsewhere (like facebook/twitter) because there are rogue commenters with inappropriate photos? BTW, what constitutes and inappropriate photo? Dongs? Butts? KKK hoods? Girl in bikini? Hot shirtless guy? Ugly shirtless guy?

5. Photos, even not dong-shots, would be helpful in some cases and detrimental in others. While a flower may remind you who I am, would that flower cause you read my comments, even those comments which are non-gender-related, as if I were a girl? Would that affect the interaction you had with me positively or negatively? While most hubskiers know my gender, there are always a few noobs who assume I am male (because the entire internet is male). Elsewhere on the internet I am more often male than female. I never take offense to this because I don't think my gender should come into play, except when I am using my experience as a female as a base for my comments (ie: I know what it's like to bleed once a month because I am a bloody female.)

Anyways, I'm obviously not a fan of avatars. I do like Designer New's pixel art creation but I don't like that I never feel like mine is good enough or represents me enough. I've also redone it like 10 times and spent upwards of 20 hours on it. The big images were lost during the server move so I started redoing that the other day when I was hungover. I've spent more time on Designer News making pixel art than I have commenting on Designer News.

Please, no one link to Hubski on reddit right now.

Your wish is my command

It was almost good.

We were discussing last night how odd of an influx this last one as been. It's been a lot of small waves instead of one massive one, like we've seen previously.

Here's a graph:

Keep in mind, the peeks are ~2000% increase so it's a bit hard to tell our before and after traffic. The after traffic from the last influx was a bit higher than our before traffic, but not by huge amount. Also keep in mind the holiday weekend, etc.

Lastly, we honor do-not-tracks and all sorts of stuff so this is really not that accurate. For example, if we were linked to in /r/netsec or something, we probably wouldn't notice an influx via Piwik.

Interesting factoid! We got ~1000 visits from June 1-July 7 from that weird Mashable clickbait from over a year ago.

PayPal is actually notorious for shutting down accounts for anyone doing anything slightly illicit. Cam girls. Donations on sexy wallpaper sites. Forums not entirely on the up and up. Donations to wiki leaks. Donations to proton mail. Etc. Google search it. It's crazy how clean you have to be to keep a PayPal account open. They don't touch controversy with 100ft stick.

No one... And I mean no one... In their right mind uses PayPal if they aren't a 100% clean business because of their tendencies to randomly shut accounts down. I don't keep any sum of money in there even though all my international clients pay me via PayPal and I pay my international employees via PayPal.

People told voat not to use PayPal the second they started using PayPal. It's odd that they didn't head the warnings.

All and all, this is just another sign confirming my initial thoughts about voat. Honestly, I wanted them to succeed. They had big, albeit naive, ideals. Plus they took all the people who "just want to watch the world burn" and sent the good users for us. ;) . But the more I hear and see, the more announcement posts that are made, the quick flip flopping, make the entire thing seem like no one is really thought this thing out. You know that you are attracting people who DDOS. Be prepared for that. And I don't mean some massive code to prevent ddosing - I mean a couple lines allowing your site to fail fast under those circumstances. Don't use paypal. Don't make promises you can't keep. You know saying "anything goes" is impossible. You have numerous case studies of sites (4chan,8chan) who tried to do the same thing and had the same exact things happen. No one wants to host your child porn, even if it's technically on a 3rd parties server. No one wants to fund that. No one wants to touch that.

I understand that the owners are quite literally kids with high hopes, but when your user base skyrockets and you're getting media attention every single day from every tech blog, it's time to get real.

At least hire a lawyer or two. Just cause you read the Pirate Bay blog and decided Switzerland is the shit, doesn't make your any more prepared for the 8000 issues you're going to encounter for linking to nefarious sites and taking the notorious user base from reddit.

If I were them, I would start by spending every single cent of the donations on a well recommended lawyer, consults with any people who have dealt with sites like 4chan,8chan,tpb etc in the past. Then I would write out a 1 month, 1 year, and 5 year plan as to what I would the site to be. Then I would write out the steps, tone, marketing, ideas, etc that I would need to do to get there.

Then I would get really fucking real and do the same exercise for what the site realistically is going to be based on the current user base, the current media attention, the promises I've made, the tone of responses to announcement posts and so forth.

The reality is, voat wants to make a site where anything goes. That's about it. They want to please their users. Based on the actions they've taken, where they are right now is entirely expected. You could see this coming from 1000 miles away. If you want to be something different, then do it. But you better start having real thoughts and wants for your site that are fucking SOLID. Not hopes. Not ideals. Instead of trying to please your users, be realistic about the balance between pleasing your users and making a sustainable site that fulfills your goals and attracts the users you want to fulfill those goals.

The one thing I can say about mk is that he knows, at his core, what he wants hubski to be and to represent. There are no doubts about it. Anything that makes him uneasy or doesn't move towards that goal is shut down. It's a hard trait to have and one that I don't think I've seen in such a pure form before. If you look at the features and the things we do and don't do, you can start seeing how mk thinks. Even the features that were removed or didn't work out for one reason or another work toward the greater hubski goal. If mk does something, I know it's because it fits into what hubski should be. I know mk has debated it internally for days if not weeks and gotten feedback from external sources. I know this without a doubt. If voat does something, it's because someone came up with the idea and thought it was cool and managed to implement it before the "what are the consequences, however unintended?" question even came up.

Yeah. The condo I currently live in (2bd, 2bth, 1200sq ft, 1st floor, east side of the building) is 750k with $495 HOAs. The top floor, west facing, sunset view 2/2 lofts are just under a million. Fun fact about the lofts—they have balconies but no doors to those balconies for some (permitting?) reason so the owners climb through the window to enjoy their ocean view. Luckily, my roommate bought this place in '08 for 450k. That's a nice little ROI.

We don't have a pool and the rotting balcony repairs are a cost to the owner. Not sure where 36,000/month is going to. Maybe the single maid who mops the hallways and takes out the mailroom trash once a week is making bank?

The housing prices are ridiculous here. There's no doubt about it. Anywhere else would be so much better. But the reality is, we can't move out of the area yet. And paying 3k/month to rent a shitty house in "East South Bay" (Carson) or "10 Minutes from Redondo Beach Pier" (Lawndale), or "central location - beach breezes and close to freeway" (Hawthorne) or "Palos Verdes Adjacent" (San Pedro) or "East Westchester" (IngleWOOOOOOD) is silly when you can buy at that same price. (Yes, those are actually what craigslist people call their areas).

I think Playa / Westchester / Palms / Culver have been hit with the "Silicon Beach" thing the most. I just saw that fucking new apt/condo building on Lincoln with the massive "NOW RENTING: SILICON BEACH" sign. Silly silly silly.

Your building is nice, but no pets (at least for renters?) and the 1bd/1bth was like $2750 and didn't even have a door to the bedroom! Plus, holy hell does the number system ever start making sense? Why are there letters?!??!?!?!?!?!

As you know, I grew up in Manhattan Beach. My dad bought the house in the mid-80s and didn't even look at the house - he only looked at the garage...which had two garage doors so you could drive into the backyard. He was into hot rods back then. My street is one of the last remaining streets in the area that has lots that haven't been split to 1/32 of an acre. My parents and the neighbors go to city council meetings EVERY. SINGLE. FUCKING. MONTH. for as long as I can remember to prevent the people buying the lots as the owners die from splitting them.

Instead of...you know...keeping a fucking backyard...the houses that have been built are massive, .4 acre houses on .5 acre lots. .9 acre houses on 1 acre lots. People like Vince Vaughn live there now. You know who lived there before? A 90 year old guy who trekked up the massive hill walking his poodle every single day at 7:30am and would say hello to us every single day at 7:36am when we were leaving for school. I remember the day the poodle died because he suddenly didn't have his poodle. My dad walked down with him to help him bury it in the backyard. We came by after school for a little funeral. Before retiring at 65 years old, he worked a normal job, had a normal family (and like 80 grandkids), played tennis in his free time, and enjoyed tending to his lemon grove and walking his poodle. His wife was mid-level HR at TRW/Northrop. People used to be normal!

I was 12 when he died and 14 when the 3bd, 1bath, 1200 sqft house he raised three kids in with 60 years of lemon trees was scraped. Here's the house now. It has two staircases and a bathroom larger than my apartment in New York. I was a little rebellious skateboarder when that house was being built. We used to hide and drink in the massive wine cellar and fuck on the single-slab-of-granite kitchen counter that extends all the way from the massive indoor bar, through a window, into an indoor/outdoor grill / bar / entertainment area, and didn't see the transformation from "people who worked hard as fuck and have become successful enough to own a house that they bought for under 400k" to "people who have so much money they can buy a $17m vacation home that they live in 5% of the year".

Now I'm depressed.

I agree with you. I wish there was more content too. I try to post all I can but I have a problem with posting things I don't find like..super awesome interesting.

I think there just needs to be generally more people (and I'd love more diversity—I feel like we have a lot of writers and musicians but not a lot of designers...or brain surgeons...or veterinarians....)

It's sort of a catch-22. If we had more people there would be more content (even though it might be shittier?) But, if we don't have awesome content, we don't get people. We don't market or advertise (besides STICKERS!) because every time we've even thought about it, we've realized it may be detrimental to the community. I mean, if all of fatpeoplehate came here, I think it might be a bad thing.

All I can say is keep posting, keep commenting, invite people who you think would be awesome, mention Hubski around town, and we'll get there. That's what I do (and try to do better everyday) anyways.

I'm really glad you reached out to me! The final chart is impressively clean and easy on the eyes, especially compared to the original. I'm also quite proud of you for being able to take my design tips, which were pretty high level rather than "make this cell this color and this cell that", and action them. Keep up the great work and thank you so much for sharing the final!

For those who would like to also go to the insom school of design, here's the exact message I sent Cumol:

Alright so there are three things that will dramatically improve this: whitespace, color, and typography.

Type is easiest. Go on google fonts and grab like Lato or Source Sans Pro or Open Sans or Fira Sans or Roboto or something. It just makes it not look like your typical sheet. Now make the line height of the rows almost twice as big as the font. Give it some room to breathe.

Color is not as easy but luckily there are a ton of people who have done the hard work for you.

http://www.colourlovers.com/ & http://flatuicolors.com/ & http://www.flatuicolorpicker.com/

http://www.colourlovers.com/palette/462628/Blazin_Jell-O_Rainbo

http://www.colourlovers.com/palette/101556/Flat

http://www.colourlovers.com/palette/434904/espresso_rainbow

http://www.colourlovers.com/palette/3635917/Rainbow_Ghost

http://paletton.com/ & https://color.adobe.com/ can be helpful for making pallets too.

Don't use black, use like dark gray: http://www.color-hex.com/color/333333

This is also a really awesome blog on how one company expanded their color pallet. I wouldn't expect you to do this, but its good to get the idea of how colors work together. Plus, their final pallet is really gorgeous and may work for you. http://viget.com/inspire/add-colors-to-your-palette-with-color-mixing

This is an exceptional post on designing presentations - for inspiration, etc. http://visage.co/downloads/Business_Guide_to_Visual_Communication_by_Visage.pdf

Here's a demo for a table I have saved. This will give you an idea of how much space your rows / columns should have in order to look prettier and have that white space I mentioned earlier. This table uses the font Lato. http://tympanus.net/Tutorials/StickyTableHeaders/

I don't know how easy it is to choose Hex colors in excel but maybe just try to get close. There may be a plugin available or something that lets you enter the Hex code.

Let me know if you need any other help or want me to take another look. I kinda just did a brain/link dump but I hope it is helpful!

Seriously - you have a remarkable ability to pick things up and make things happen with little direction (and messy direction) – that is a seriously great skill. Be proud of yourself, keep it up. I have no doubt you are going places.

I've caught a lot of lobster off the coast of LA. We hoop net by the breakwall in Redondo. Usually they're just over a foot long at the beginning of the season and by the end it's hard to find a legal one. I always let the men deal with the killing part. They use the "knife through the skull" method instead of the boiling alive method.

They also had the same mentality as the David Foster Wallace mentioned:

...plus that a willingness to exert personal agency and accept responsibility for stabbing the lobster’s head honors the lobster somehow and entitles one to eat it.

Typically we catch 10-20 lobsters a session, so the rest of the tails get frozen in milk cartons filled with ocean water until they are ready to be eaten. Fresh lobster is better, but 2 day old lobster that's been frozen in saltwater isn't noticeably different.

It is fucking ordeal to catch lobsters yourself – which is why those lobsters taste way better than the same lobsters from the fish market. We typically get down to the harbor at 4:30 or 5, grab some scraps of bait from the fish market, untangle the nets, hope there aren't maggots in them, put the bait scraps in pantyhose, tie those to the nets, find leftover 2 liter bottles in the recycling, put glowsticks in them, tie those to the nets, pack everything and a case of beer into the dingy, and set off. Then we drop all the nets one by one, circle back to the first one, pull it up, grab any lobster, check the length, throw them back if they are undersized, add new bait if it's gone, drop it the net back down, and repeat until we've hit our limit or we are too cold, wet, and stinky to do it anymore.

I never really thought about the killing part or pain that the lobster feel, beyond the fact that I'm too squeamish to take part in it myself. I don't necessarily like it but I don't know if it is better or worse than the slabs of pink meat I pick off the shelf at the grocery store every week. I have a higher respect for hunters who hunt, kill, skin, butcher, and eat their own meat than I have for myself picking $15 steaks out of a fridge. There really is something to eating something that required effort to obtain.

I don't know.

It's easier to ignore the death or horrible shit or pain or whatever. (This applies to everything - not just lobster.) Taking a moment to think about it instead of ignoring it or forcing it to the back of your mind is probably better in some sense. But it's also fucking depressing. One thing about being human is we get to rule this Earth - for better or for worse.

I think the takeaway from this piece is that we should all be more aware and reflective about the things we do, or animals we eat, or choices we make every day. The things that are easy to ignore can be quite interesting when examined – especially when examined by David Foster Wallace in ten thousand words. Does it mean that I'll stop eating lobster? No. Does it mean I'll think twice before throwing the lobster into the dingy next season? Not at all. But I'll probably think back to this essay next time I'm trying to wash the saltwater and fish smell out of my skin while licking my lips and watching lobster tails boil magnificently. Another thing about being human is we are capable of being reflective and empathetic. Maybe we should try to do more of the latter as we are ruling the world.

Alright. So I'm going to attempt to be real without telling you to go out and rape. Let's see how that goes. (it's only 3am).

Girls like...certain guys. Call them the assholes or whatever. Say "girls don't like nice guys". It's not exactly that but it's what those statements are talking about. There are just some guys that I wouldn't ever be sexually or emotionally/relationshippy interested in. Yes they can be the nicest guy. Yes they can have everything I would ever want. But there has got to be some sexual chemistry. And I don't mean sexual as in literal penis in vagina sex sex. Just like...sexual in nature.

Whenever I hear the words "tell her my true feelings", I cringe. No guy has ever told me his "true feelings" until waaay later. There isn't like a couch scene where you watch a movie and then go "hey I like you" and then you live happily ever after. That is only going to result in awkwardness and force both of you to acknowledge the elephant in the room. In fact, I would argue that if any guy I ever dated or slept with had started with "hey I want to tell you something...I like you", I would not have dated or fucked him.

You know you like her. Trust me, she knows you like her. If the sexual relationship emotional shit isn't there, then it simply isn't there. You can't force it and trust me, even if you could, you wouldn't want it. Relationships and hook ups and all that fun stuff is only fun stuff when it happens naturally.

Furthermore, that "interested in a relationship" line is bullshit. Ignore it...sort of. I have used that phrase so many damn times when I wasn't interested in a guy. However, I have never gotten into a relationship when I wanted one. I have always unanimously (me, my heart, my brain, and my lady-bits that is) decided that relationships are bad and there are better things to spend my time and energy on. But I find myself in them anyways and, for the most part, it's been pretty great.

So, she could be saying "yo, I'm not interested in him" or "yo, this isn't the time or place for a relationship but if something good enough pops up unexpectedly I'll probably forget I said that."

So here's my advice:

1. Leave that shit alone. It isn't worth it. You are going to look back on this and laugh one day. Trust me.

Fully expecting you not to do that....

2. Stop playing the friend game. Don't be mean to her and don't ignore her outright. Simply stop chasing her for a week. Fuck the words. Fuck the over-thinking. Don't call her. Don't text her. Don't snapchat her a picture of your dick or whatever you kids are doing these days. See what she does. My current boyfriend chased me for like 3 weeks and I spontaneously replied to his texts and occasionally our free time lined up and we got to see each other. I wasn't that interested and I was really fucking busy and quitting my job and stuff. I had higher priorities. But the second my phone stopped buzzing ever morning, noon, and night... I texted him. I texted him because I missed talking with him and because I no longer took it for granted that he would text me.

3. Now, if she starts hitting you up, that's a good sign. If she doesn't -> #1.

4. Assuming you are either ignoring #3's direction to go to #1 or she's hitting you up...play it cool. Be responsive. Be nice. Forget to respond to a text or something. I don't know. Stop making her feel like she's the center of your universe for a second. I truly hate saying this because it can be so misconstrued as the "girls only like assholes" but here it goes anyways: I have never wanted to be with a guy when I was the center of his universe. Even when I'm in a relationship. I am fully aware how central I am/was to my boyfriend / ex's lives. But knowing a guy has better things to do than attempt to stick his stick in me is probably one of the biggest turn ons. It means he has found one thing more interesting than sex and that makes him much more interesting.

5. This is the hardest part. You must now force her...without forcing her literally....to get out of friend mode and into something more mode. Usually, I would suggest a nice alcoholic evening and dancing but that doesn't seem to be your style. So instead find something to do...like really do....and ask her to do it with you. And don't fucking take the pussy way out and go, "I got tickets for me and my friend and my friend bailed...wanna go?" But straight up and say, "Would you want to go to this show with me?" Now she knows there is a show. And she knows you want to go with her. If she says no...she #1. If she makes an excuse (I'm busy that day), see #1. If she says yes....then report back and I'll figure out how the fuck all that above shit worked and give you more advice. If you think her excuse is really valid, you can report back too. But I'll probably direct you to #1 anyways.

As for things to do...fuck the movies or anything where you can't talk. Shows really aren't that great as first dates but they work because you typically have a long drive and time in between sets. Fuck dinner because it's way too boring. Look for things like going to the beach (although that's easy to turn into a bunch of friends instead of the two of you) or going to an art show or something where you can engage, talk, and have things to talk about. That's another problem with dinner. There is literally nothing to talk about unless you are fabulous at small talk or happen to converse really, really well with each other.

PS: Also, I know the above was a lot of fucking and sex and stuff but it's all the same, regardless of whether you are trying to get with her or get with her. Even if you don't have sex, plan on having sex, it's still a sexual dance and human nature and stuff.

PSS: I am giving this advise solely on my understanding of the situation from this one post. Sorry if I missed some key detail last week that would make all that advice not apply. Link me to some backstory comments - you don't have to explain why I'm wrong. ;)

PSSS: Nothing. About. Sex. Or. Girls. Will. Ever. Be. Rational. So. Stop. Thinking. So. Damn. Much. ;)

Bring less stuff. Seriously. Pack your bag. Unpack. Throw half away. Pack the remaining half. Unpack. Throw half away. Then you are ready. Maybe.

Make friends.

Fall in love with Skype and Google Hangouts. Stay in touch with people stateside, but not obsessively so. Download whatsapp, chances are you'll be on a plan with not unlimited text messages. Prepare for terrible Internet prices and speeds due to lack of infrastructure. A USB dongle is a better deal than a Internet plan that you typically have stateside.

Get a world unlocked phone here if you are looking to get a new phone. If not, it's not bad to get your phone unlocked there. Kiosks in the malls all do it. I recommend Nexus 5 if you are looking for new world unlocked phone. I love mine - plus it is relatively cheap.

Drink more. Listen more. Engage more.

Flights via Hong Kong are occasionally cheaper than going directly from Sydney to the States. Keep an eye on these and you could score a free trip to Hong Kong when you come home to visit.

Order flat whites at the coffee shop. Don't put sugar in that shit.

Never say no to adventures or things that make you scared. If you are apprehensive and it's not because the activity in question is physically dangerous, it's a sure sign you should do it.

Things to bring rather than buy: make up, cosmetics, hair products, guitars, electronics, things from Victoria Secret, and anything else imported from the states. Things are just more expensive in Australia. I know the above are mostly female based but you get the idea.

Things not to buy or bring: OTC medicine (Australia's versions are better and same price range). Google us brand names to find the medicinal name or Australia brand name before you go to the pharmacy. Pharmacy workers are really sweet and will help you though too. It's quite different than here. Plus codeine in everything.

Money: I had bank of America when I was there and they partnered with one of the biggest banks there, meaning I could withdraw cash for free,rather than 2 atm fees and a foriegn transaction fee. Walk into your bank. Talk to them. If they can't offer you no fees on Oz, get a new bank. Seriously.

If you think you can handle a credit card, get a credit card with no foreign transaction fee. http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/top-credit-cards/no-foreign-transaction-fee-credit-card/ There's only a couple out there but they are worth it. If you don't qualify for them, go get a chase freedom csrd TODAY. Use ~20% of your credit every month and pay it off every month. Before you leave, walk into chase and attempt to get them to upgrade you to their no foreign fees card.

I worship this life I live. A life full of ups and downs and unknowns and knowns.

I worship the fact that I have choices. This life of choice where I have control over what I do, who I speak to or don't speak to, what I learn, what jobs I take and don't take, who I piss off, who I befriend, what I listen to on the radio, what I watch before bed, what I buy at the grocery store.

I worship the Internet as well as the people around me in real life. The idiots and the trolls and the nice people and the mean people and my family and my boyfriend. The people on Hubski who never seem to piss me off. The knowledge they offer - even the idiots - that gives me the ability to learn new things and make different choices.