Title (optional)

Title (optional)

A single sentence “hook” with the topic clearly stated.

A paragraph of background info. Life history, explanations, a list in series separated by commas - with liberal use of hyphens and semicolons. Occasional five-dollar vernacular, followed by “ain’t” or “y’all.”

Sudden forward-shift to today. Application of this topic; why it applies to me. More fancy punctuation and self-reflection. Emphasis on key points. A single tyop edited several hours, maybe days later.

The main point, on a line by itself.

Mini-rant about bad applications of the topic. Edge cases and exceptions. (Exceptions to the exception.) Subordinating conjunction, observation about the topic. A generalized claim.

Concluding sentence (sometimes a joke).

That’s it. That’s all. Everyone can go write interesting posts now.

Q: Why would you fantasize about adventures (books, games, movies, etc.) when you could go out and have some yourself?

A: Because there's about an infinitely smaller chance of dying

Presence

My roommate (housemate? roomhouse? something???) was absent for much of last month due to family/work related reasons. It was nothing serious as far as I know, but it was long enough for me to notice something strange about my own demeanor in that time.

I don’t really do anything different whether he’s here or not. Most of the time I just sit in my bedroom and poke at the computer. Sometimes I emerge from the depths and poke at the television. He does the same, except in reverse (most of the time he’s in the living room). In other words, it really doesn’t matter if he’s here, I’m doing exactly the same things.

But when he’s not, I get lonely. Somehow.

We don’t interact much - I mean, we talk sometimes, but that’s not really what I miss when he’s gone. It’s the sound coming from another room, the sight of him walking by every so often... the knowledge that he’s there. His presence.

To be clear, this isn’t anything really special with him, this last month is just how I’ve become acutely aware of the fact. This has happened all my life - when my parents left the house, when I was the first one in the classroom, when my friends headed home after a day of hanging out.

Somehow, the presence of others is... Comforting? Energizing? Warm? I’m really not sure. But something’s there that can affect my whole state of being. In fact, presence is so strong to me that a lack of it is cold, lonely, and even disspiriting.

I dragged myself out of the house to go to a rather large Halloween party last year. There were at least a couple hundred people there, to give an idea of the scale. People were dancing and snacking and playing air hockey or ping pong and generally having a good time.

I sat on a couch for most of it. People would walk by and talk to me out of pity I suppose, but I wasn’t bored or anything of the sort. In fact, I was having a good time! The pleasant buzz of people talking, the the flurry of activity, the warmth... the presence. It was invigorating just being there.

I may be an introvert, but I definitely enjoy people - in my own way.

In my first year of gifted school, I asked my English teacher to look over a paper with me that I was working on for his class. We met in his office and he pulled up the paper on his computer. As we discussed it - me being the easily distractible person I am - I couldn’t help but notice he was scrolling the page using the Page Up/Page Down keys.

I asked, “How come you scroll with the keyboard and not the mousewheel?” “The what?” he replied. He seemed confused, so I showed him what I was talking about. When I finished, he said, “Oh, that’s what that does.”

He used the mouse to scroll for the rest of the time. I still can’t tell if he was joking or not.

Mazes, pt. 3

(continued from pt. 2)

Sometime in late 2010/early 2011, just before I went to gifted school, I found a larger graph paper journal similar to the one I just covered. However, this one had a number of advantages:

While I could no longer carry it in my pocket, it’s still fairly compact and suited for travel in a backpack or satchel.

The grid is quite small, allowing for larger mazes. Even my large notebooks at 5 squares per inch aren’t this spacious.

It’s really thick. Like, college textbook thick. I’ve had it for five years and filled half of it.

Luckily, by this time I had already filled the other notebook cover-to-cover and needed a new one, so I convinced my mother to get it for me.

Thick like a one-pound burger. The used half is kind of visible.

Suddenly I found myself somewhere at the intersection of larger mazes, more patience, and actual technical skill. As a result, this book (especially the second half) has what I easily consider my finest works.

Some of the more technical designs. If they look a little strange, it’s because the full grid isn’t entirely erased.

And then... I just stopped. One day I realized I hadn’t touched it in months.

I guess I just took a hiatus. Mari0 was scratching my design itch, and that was taking up what little free time I had in between bucketloads of schoolwork. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; I probably needed the break anyway. Besides, during this time, I was learning about image and vector editors. This means that while I only produced one maze in my second year of gifted school, I was also able to digitize it immediately.

I’ve been told this one hurts people’s eyes.

It’s important that I stop here and take a moment to go back in time again, back to The Big Big Book of Mazes. All of those design elements that I learned from that book so long ago are still at play here - the only thing that was really different was the fact that mine were all still hand-drawn (and maybe smaller). Now that I can make them on a computer, I have finished my ascension. I’ve reached their level, the level of the masters.

Their website, megamazes.com, is still up at the time of this writing. While you need an account to view most of the mazes available there, four mazes are available for all to view, and those four still give a very good glimpse at what my inspirations have been all this time.

———

Lately I’ve found myself interested in mazes once again, but for a slightly different reason: all of my old notebooks are falling apart. Luckily, I know how to give them the vector treatment very quickly now, and I’ve been spamming Twitter with the results.

Looks a lot better now, doesn’t it?

I’m really happy with all the positive buzz I’ve gotten from this! At least one person has been solving each one as they come (you know who you are), and a bunch more have been liking/faving/retweeting them. Thank you all so much! I’m still putting them up on Twitter and may occasionally post several at once here. I also update this Imgur album with each new maze. Y’know, just in case you want to follow my progress.

And since you’ve made it all the way through, thanks for reading. Without you, I wouldn’t be writing all this.

Mazes, pt. 1

If you’ve followed me for any length of time (especially on Twitter) then you probably know that I really enjoy making mazes. While this is a true statement, it doesn’t quite capture the whole scope. After all, I’ve been doing this for over a decade now.

I do not claim to be a photographer.

The story starts with my father, who one day made for me a little 9×9 maze. As he drew it, he explained in detail about the different paths; one that’s a short little diversion and ends quickly, one that goes almost all the way but doesn’t quite make it, and of course the real solution that leads to the end. For some reason this completely fascinated my nine-year-old mind, so my parents got me some graph paper, and I hit the ground running.

Being an avid gamer, I infused many of my mazes with elements from my favorite video games. Hidden gems from Rayman 3. Collectable items a la Chip’s Challenge. “Mazes” that played out more like Sonic the Hedgehog levels. Of course, few of these were actually mazes in the traditional sense - which, while not necessarily a bad thing, is a point we’ll be coming back to a bit later.

Fast-forward a few months to a clearance sale at a local book store. Here, my mom found a couple of Calvin and Hobbes compilations that would become a staple of my childhood. But more importantly, I found a book simply titled The Big Big Book of Mazes.

This book was not your ordinary kids’ activity book. You know those little 24×32 mazes (if you’re lucky) in those coloring books sometimes, and maybe that one “inside out” maze that was in like every activity book ever? Throw all that out the window. These mazes were the hardcore kind - expansive, tricky, and nearly works of art by themselves. There were 100 mazes total across 12 different themed sections ranging from patterned grids to distortions, freehand drawings to optical illusions. The best part was that each section had an introduction with tips on how to make similar mazes.

Newly inspired at having solved each and every maze, I went back to making my own. In fact, I spent all of my free time for many years just making mazes like a madman. I consumed graph paper like it was food - literally a dozen books of graph paper in five years. 

Normally I’d be sprinkling pictures of these old mazes in, but sadly, very few of them are actually worth the paper they’re on. Not all of what I was making was just mazes, however - I was also making the Sonic-style levels, as well as some drawings and pixel art. It was all hit-or-miss in terms of quality, but I wouldn’t say any of that time was wasted (everyone starts somewhere!).

The other issue was of completion. Many of the things I was trying to make were simply too large in scope. I would often get bored from lack and progress and turn the page to start something new. So when I actually finished something, it was either rushed (and always bad), or it was a passion project (many of which are still good).

It wasn’t until I got a little black graph paper journal that things really started picking up.

(continued in pt. 2)