Happy Monday, everyone! As you may recall, Friday is the much anticipated, very delicious group breakfast. It's always a treat, and last Friday morning, in addition to scrumptious bagels and very labor intensive coffee (specially produced by Maurice - more on that later!), we had an extra surprise: a new Actual Sizer!

Indeed, my very esteemed title of "the new kid" has been usurped by Chris, a Penn State graduate (continuing the trend of PSU domination in the ASC office) from Aliquippa, PA. I sat down with Chris to interview him (not haze him - I would never do something like that) so all of you could get to know him!

I asked Chris some exciting (read: really lame, unimaginative) questions about how he became interested in design. Chris first became interested in graphic design his freshman year of college, saying "It seemed like art with a job." He mentioned that he had always liked art and doodled, though his primary interest before he learned about design was music. In fact, in addition to studying graphic design at Penn State, Chris played guitar in a bar band as well as trumpet in the marching band. He also plays the keyboards, and it seems that musical talent runs in his family - fun fact: his dad played the sax for The Temptations!

I also asked Chris if he had any favorite graphic designers or graphic design websites (not including ASC, because that's obviously a favorite - I mean, who could really compete with our level of awesome!?), and he referenced FFFFOUND!, an image based website, and Sandstrom, a West Coast design firm that does some pretty cool work.

I also asked Chris if he preferred Apple or Windows, to which he replied, "Are you kidding me?" So, yes, like every other graphic designer in the world, he prefers Apple products.

Alright, now on to the fun part. I have a friend, Maura, who has four questions she asks people when she first meets them. She claims that they really help you to get to know someone, so I threw them onto the end of my question list. Plus, I figure that you all are always up for some good fun. The questions are as follows: 1) what is your favorite color?; 2) what is your favorite food?; 3) if you were to get a tattoo (assuming that you don't already have one), where would you get it and what would it be?; and 4) what was the worst injury you ever sustained?

I think I have to conclude that Maura is correct - these questions allow for some very interesting and informative answers. Chris' favorite color is lime green (which is fortunate, because the office that he is working in is in fact lime green) and his favorite food is applesauce. Some people hesitate for a moment when you ask them the tattoo question, but Chris actually plans on getting a tattoo and answered quickly - song lyrics from Ted Leo (his favorite musician), on his side. Finally, for the final question - worst injury - I'm going to pause for a moment and warn all of the squeamish people that they should stop reading here. Just skip to the next paragraph, because this is going to get ugly. As I mentioned before, Chris was in the marching band at Penn State. When he was auditioning for drum major, one of the requirements was to do a front flip into a split. Well, it didn't end well. Chris ended up fracturing his hip, doing a fair bit of damage to his hip socket, and yeah...let's just say that it really didn't end well.

So there you have it! I am no longer the newest Actual Sizer on the block. Chris is pretty cool. I (probably) won't stuff him into a locker or anything of that nature. Welcome to Actual Size, Chris!

BUT WAIT. What about Maurice and the coffee, you ask? You thought I was going to forget, didn't you? False. My mind is a steel trap. As you may have read in the ASC Twitter feed, Maurice was responsible for bringing in the beverage for breakfast (which was not blue) last week, and he really went above and beyond. He didn't just bring coffee, he woke up at 6:20 in the morning to SIPHON it. I don't know know what that means. In any case, everyone in the office seemed to really enjoy the coffee, and you can read about the interesting process of siphoning coffee here. Thanks, Maurice! Sorry, individual responsible for bringing in the beverage this coming Friday! There's no way that you're going to top that.

If any of you siphon your coffee and/or have any questions about the new Actual Sizer you want answered, let me know!