CourtneyP

You probably wouldn’t have recognized me just a few years ago.

I’m not speaking in a physical sense, although my appearance has changed only slightly, I speak in terms of some personality changes that I have gone through in recent years.

I used to be fairly introverted… the in a sense, the typical weird, quirky and eccentric artist type. Okay, well, even more so, the weird, quirky and eccentric geek type. I was definitely more quiet, soft-spoken, and sometimes even bordered on anti-social.

I took it upon myself when I moved back to CA from HI to meet new people, going to meetups as well as attending cultural and art events. Blogs and blogging became a big driving force in my social life, introducing me to all sorts of fun and interesting people, both OL and IRL. Face to face meetings slowly replaced these mostly online interactions, until it got to the point that I was meeting people in meatspace before getting to know their blogs and other online incarnations. I kinda like it this way, because I really like people. I like meeting new people and getting to know them, getting past the acquaintance stage and feeling like I can genuinely call someone a friend.

Moving to SF was definitely a huge boost, naturally. With most of my friends living within The City, and with the amazing amount of interesting things going on, it was like a feast the day I moved in, and hasn’t really slowed down.

Of course, once can’t deny their geeky tendencies. Technology continues to be a big part of my social life, with Dodgeball playing a huge part (it works as advertised: “See your friends more”), as well as Upcoming.org for keeping up on events, Plazes for keeping up with where your OL friends are physically, and also connecting with others over SMS, IM and IRC. I’m also hopeful for the newly revamped tribe.net to contribute to the already long list of things to do in SF. All of these are useful tools that I used in my socializing here in The City.

So like that, suddenly I was strangely labeled as “the popular girl” with her own effing fan club. It’s kinda surreal, and the attention is definitely something I am *not* used to at all. My friends that are not within the circle I socialize with regularly are amazed at how many people we know. I really like how small this city is, and that I know enough people to regularly bump into them, randomly on the streets and in our favorite places.

Aynne recently tagged me with Sanfransocialite. I guess it sticks.

Our house is properly warmed, thank you to everyone who came by this Saturday to partake in our glittering view of the city on a lovely night.

We were concerned about the high number of RSVPs, but it turned out well, with attendance spread out over many hours. I think the most crowded that it got was perhaps close to 30 people in the room at once?

Lots of fun was had, with gaming of both the digital and analog sorts. Tons of good food, thank you to everyone that brought a munchable! My homemade tiramisu was a hit and disappeared very quickly. Many bottles of red wine were opened and finished (did everyone forget that all the bottles of white were in the fridge?)… we are SO set for wineCamp, I tell ya. All of the beer was consumed with great gusto.

We were having fun from mid-afternoon, into the wee hours of the morning… so with full stomachs and a good buzz going, we happily passed out in bed, saving the housecleaning for the next day. Ahh, good times.

Fling93 has posted an awesome set of photos, to make up for my slack… I only took two pictures that night, shame on me!

For anyone blogging or flickring the evening, the tag is “geekAerieHousewarming”.

Jake truly knows how to make a girl look good. First, the lovely portrait that he took of me at Lap-pop (with my D50, nonetheless!), then this elegant shot of Eris and I at her birthday soiree on Friday. Who knew my skin could look so good?

If you haven’t ever perused Jake’s photos, I highly recommend taking a look. He brings out the best in people. I find many of my favorite photos coming from him.

Tonight is the night! Lap-pop starts at 8PM, and is sure to be a creative and geektastic event of epic proportions.

Presenting a night of performance & readings & photography from notable APA bloggers and artists. Lap-POP! will be an intersection between geekery, personal expression, and pop culture. Wifi a plenty. BYOG = Bring Your Own Geekery. (laptop,digital camera, camphones,etc etc)

Guest MC & Curator of Lap-POP! is Min Jung Kim of minjungkim.com

Featured Performers:

Ernie Hsiung, Writer of www.littleyellowdifferent.com
Glenda Bautista, Writer of www.agendacide.com
Robynn Takayama, Sound Artist of www.nongirl.com
Courtney Patubo, Visual Photography of endofthetour.com (that’s me!)

AND Annie Lin, Musical Performer of www.annielin.com

above graphic by amy lam | mobilerepublic.net

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Hello to everyone from Lap-pop visiting here for the first time! If you are looking for more images, you can see more of my photos on my Flickr Photostream.

The lazy-blogger’s posts is typically bullet-pointed, but I feel like it is worth sharing my thoughts on my first E3 (attending *and* working)…

• My team from work runs like a well-oiled machine. Set-up and Teardown were a breeze because of all these great people. I really enjoyed working with everyone, and meeting people from our worldwide offices. Over this past week, having spent more time with my co-workers than I ever have, has helped me feel more like a part of the team. Spending personal time with them as well has helped glue us all together a little bit more. It’s definitely a good thing.
• When the lights and sound go on, E3 is sensory overload. It’s nonstop noise and flashing lights, with every major booth trying to outdo the other. Seriously worse than Vegas, but heck, I enjoyed it. It makes one feel like a kid again.
• Even though I didn’t get to linger at many of the booths, I was fortunate enough to be able to walk the floor and skim the booths. It’s really great to see so much creativity at work.
• Working the booth was actually pretty fun. Compared to all the work and stress we endured leading up to this point, booth duty was a piece of cake. Absorbing the energy of all the fans is fun and makes me remember one of the major reasons why we do what we do. I certainly had my share of snobby and pretentious fanboys, though, but that didn’t get me down at all.
• Attending the closing reception of the 8 Bit Weapon (the first band on the Intellivision Music label) perform and drank cocktails poured by the Suicide Girls, while sampling old-school game ports to modern consoles. I also made Pink’s. When in Rome…
• The company party was a freakin’ blast. Working for an entertainment company has its perks, I suppose. They really know how to entertain 5,000+ people, with the party taking place at the Dodger stadium mesa. With Jimmy Eat World kicking things off, to the Mexican wrestling (Lucha!), the neverending (and everchanging) buffets, to open bars with killer kamikazes, life was quite good that evening.
• My favorite part about these events is for definitely meeting and hanging out with people. Meeting a few of the LA Metblogs crew at the most excellent Golden Gopher lounge; sharing booth duty stories with Caryl; meeting and chatting with Tom‘s friends at Mind Candy & learning about their Perplexcity project; hanging out with Ernie, Ryan and the Gaymers; grabbing good cheap mexican food with my friend Cecil and seeing EpIII; and of course, rooming with Nicole.

I’ve put all my E3 photos into a Flickr photoset, so please feel free to peruse my E3 experience in pictures. My only (minor) regret is that I didn’t have more people pictures, more pictures of and with my friends, but I guess I was just using that time to actually be with and talk with them.