Brain Tithe

So its finally starting to dawn on me that my camera may not be simply misplaced and may actually be gone for good.  I went home for Christmas with the realization that upon packing up myself my camera-and-bag weren’t among my possessions moved to my new place, and tried to ignore the problem so I wouldn’t depress myself all Christmas over it.  I just kept telling myself that I probably packed it into one of my number of boxes and forgot that I’d packed it, and that when I got back I’d be pleasantly surprised to discover my camera and once again be able to take high quality pictures.

Well I’ve searched my stuff and as far as I can tell unless it found a way to meld into the side of a cardboard box its not among my possessions.  So now I keep wondering what could have happened to it.  The most annoying part is I don’t remember ever really USING my camera this last quarter.  My motion project was all illustration-based with few photos taken, and most of my interactive photos were taken in my room because I’m lazy.

As we know, I am the kinda guy who analyzes things to death, and when I lose something I try to figure out what kind of lessons I should be learning from this loss (especially something as expensive as a camera). So here’s a list of all possible locations that the camera could still be in. I’ve included the % chance that I think that this is a possibility, which won’t be proven unless I find the camera and if that happens then that means I won’t care about it any more.

A. Among my possessions at home.  Though I’ve searched all of my boxes and bags etc, its hidden in some secret compartment I didn’t know about, just waiting to fill me with joy on my 57th re-search (1%)
B. In Tyler’s room at my current living arrangements.  When I moved in I put all of my belongings in the room I wanted to stay in because it had bigger desks and better internet, and while I was in Texas all of my posessions were moved to another room because the landlord wasn’t willing to rent out said room since it had a lot more things in it and therefore would be a pain to move, and he was probably coming back to live in it sometime near the later half of the quarter.  When I came back and was talking to Allie in said room I found my tripod, which she’d left in the room accidentally away from the rest of my possessions.  Therefore there’s still a chance my camera could be in that room, though the fact that I don’t remember it being among my possessions moved in (unless it was packed in a box that then fell apart or something, or the box its in is still in that room, which is unlikely) this doesn’t have a great chance (3%)
C. Kelly’s place (my old resident). I had to move out at the end of the quarter with a lot of deadlines breathing down my neck and my flight home a lot sooner then I’d hoped, and therefore I may have left it at my previous place. This is somewhat more likely, though i did notice it missing and searched the place as best I could, but I can’t say that I searched everywhere it could possibly be.  (15%)
D. My car.  See above excuses, but with moving out quickly meaning I left the camera in my car upon moving into Allie’s place, though since as I said I don’t remember packing it, this doesn’t seem likely. Plus my car isn’t exactly huge and I haven’t found it on looking (.01%)
E. Chris’s car.  He helped me move, and therefore his car also contained many of my items, and I don’t have a chance to search it since its not my car (1%).
F. At Brian’s place.  During the Halloween party I believe I brought my camera over to Brian’s home thinking I would take it with me to the Christmas party, and then decided against it for one reason or another, and I don’t remember if I took my camera home or used it after that point.  Brian’s house so I haven’t exactly searched it all over.  could be making up this memory. (4%)
G. Borrowed by a friend, and either lost or stolen (they kept it or misplaced it), and intentionally (don’t wanna pay for it/admit they have it) or unintentionally (think they returned it via bad memory, and don’t realize they’d lost it and are thinking of an earlier time they returned it) haven’t told me this fact.  The intentional one seems a bit absurd, assuming my friends are as trustworthy as I believe they are, but I can see merit on the unintentional side.  The quarter where the camera lost Allie specifically was borrowing it almost every other day, and returning it and reborrowing it enough to make my memories a jumbled mess of receiving and giving back.  She says she returned it in the end, and thats entirely possible, but I can’t say its impossible that she is thinking of an earlier time and had lost it/left it among her piles of crap (given she’s even messier then I am).  I am hoping it turns up at some point, but I’m not seeing it as that likely.  Another possibility in this group is she returned it to me at DAAP like she did a few times and I left it in that damn room, where it was later stolen, since I have enough trouble remembering everything I have when I’m not given things on the fly (2% unintentional, .005% intentional, 13% lost in room). I have vague impressions that Wes or Amalia might have borrowed it as well, but I might be thinking of earlier times/made that up so its hard to say. If there is anything I’ve learned from this experience its never let anyone borrow anything you don’t mind losing forever (even if that isn’t the cause it just adds to the problem) which is ironic since after this point I might be begging people to let me borrow their camera if I don’t want to plop down the cash to buy another one.  I’ve learned the borrowing lesson the hard way a few times with less important things so I suppose at this point I can only blame myself.
H. Someone whom came over to my place walked away with it.  I had a buncha people (mostly Wes’s associates, but various others) come through my place with my camera just sitting out whom could have stolen it if they had the will.  Doubtful since none of them seemed like the thieving types, but sometimes its hard to judge people especially those you barely know and know they’ll probably not run into you often enough to cause a program. (2%)
I.  Left it somewhere.  While I don’t believe I took it anywhere I can’t really be sure of that, meaning that I could have in fact left it somewhere during one of my very infrequent (and if memory is accurate, nil) adventures out with it.  (3%)

Obviously I can’t be sure which it is if I don’t find it, and only about 1/2 of the options have any chance of resulting in me getting my camera back, and my % has to be too low given that ONE of them has to be correct which means something must have a 100% chance of being right, but at least I can type this out so I’m less inclined to go into fits of anger/sadness at the thoughts of losing it.

Still, really sucks.  Hope it turns up.

-David

So I drink a lot of water at work.  Its amazing how a water canteen being magically filled so all I gotta do is stick my cup under to get refreshing water every day can increase my water intake.  I never was big on soda, but in Texas its either soda, paying just as much for water, or drinking the pipe water that has more copper in it then most pennies.

The food is doing me in though.  Despite my longer walks to the bus stop which is further away from the starting location then it used to be since I moved, and the fact that I am once again eating healthier with turkey sandwitches, the ‘free food’ demon of being able to go and get some sunchips whenever I want plus at home Allie’s left over food being allowed to munch on has been annoying.  There is a reason I don’t buy chips… they’re just too damn tempting.  I wish I lived closer/safer so I could go to the gym. Sometime I need to learn to not be annoyed by driving.

I remember this one time during summer school where I was taking speech to get it out of the way so I could take Art and Newspaper during the year an announcement came on saying that Crime Busters would be paying money to anyone who has any information on who rubbed poop all over the walls in the Boys bathroom, and he explained that the amount of Poop on the walls suggests they BROUGHT poop in in large plastic garbage bags in order to rub it on the walls.  This is not a crime I would admit to knowing anything about no matter what Crime Busters says.

Owning a Tom-Tom makes me think what it must be like to have a good internal map… just be able to KNOW where places are.  Must be nice.  I still get some lag on the thing and my lack of a vehicle still limits my abilities, but as soon as I convince Brian to jump my car I may start driving around to places just for practice (at least on non-rainy weekend days).  I don’t really want to drive with anyone else yet though in case I suck hardcore from lack of practice, though driving alone is kinda boring.

I need some way to get exercise on the weekends that doesn’t require the use of a gym that I don’t want to pay for.  I wish I had a bike and a bike rack because then I’d just drive out to some place to bike around, but as it is I might start researching places to drive and go run around or walk around that is at least passably interesting to run around.  Its either that or the UC track, but having free time and not using it constructively is gettin to me a little (though i do enjoy sitting around watching rescue rangers).

I’m progressively dressing more and more lax at work with my ultimate goal of being able to show up in my Trogdor PJs (the ones with footies) without anyone batting an eye.  And oh man it would be sweet actually owning some Trogdor PJs.

You know what I hate? Freakin website designers who don’t save the illustrator files they used to make various graphics so I have no idea what font they used.  I do not have an eye for fonts (and I doubt I ever will) and its damn annoying.

On the way to work today I saw a car crash out of the corner of my eye and must have jumped like 30 feet.  The whole front of the red car got torn off while the blue car (the one that got rear ended) didn’t look all that bad.  Sucks for it to be your fault AND your car is the more damaged one. If I get in a wreck and its my fault I at least want to kick some ass.

-Nyaa