When life gives you lemons...

Hi all, Christian here, for those of you who don't know me, I am the webmaster for the UIUC Social Gaming Club. For those people, and people who know who I am, but not a lot about me, if I get left to think, I think on tangents. My thought process would go something like: "I have free time, I should catch up on How I Met Your Mother, I saw a commercial on TV with Neil Patrick Harris about the Emmys, (I think) I wonder when that is, Survivor starts on the 23rd, I want to be on a gameshow, I'd probably have the best luck on The Price is Right, Bob Barker is better then Drew Carry..." Then I start rambling about Whose Line, ect ect, I hope you guys get the point. These thoughts will eventually stop at something for me to google, or youtube (like Whose Line clips), but this time it's a blog post, I cannot remember how my thoughts got here, but that's not uncommon for me.

WARNING: Not video game related, just thought I'd let you know right off the bat, to not waste anyone's time.

...make lemonade

Lets start with what this phrase conventionally means. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. If you ask anyone, they will, more or less, say that life has given you something unexpected, and you should make the best of it. A similar phrase would be "If you can't beat them, join them." This would be something like, you dropped your phone in the toilet, instead of getting mad, and upset, you could be like me 2 years ago and think "I finally get to upgrade my phone." This would be the glass half full thought, or optimistic view. 

So what about my ramblings, well, don't say I didn't warn you.

...(literally) make lemonade

Yep, I thought, "What if a ball of light came down, and literally gave me some lemons." How would you feel? My first thought was mad, or angry. Life has just given me lemons, now I have to go buy sugar, and figure out how to make lemonade. Life has just inconvenienced me, in my already buys schedule, and now it wants me to make lemonade? And the worse part is having to explain this to my roommates, or anyone that might have seen it happen. I can just image someone thinking "That guy just had life give him lemons, of all the things life could give him, it gave him lemons." Honestly though, think about it, I could use a quarter, or even an apple, I could at least eat it right there, but no, lemons. 

This view would probably be classified as the glass half full, or pessimistic view, which fits for me, because I often think that the worse is going to happen, which on the plus side, it's pretty easy to make my day.

...make life take the lemons back!

So, this would be the above thought, if I was a mad scientist. 

Cave Johnson, Portal 2

Just in case you haven't played Portal 2, which is a real shame, at one point in the game, Cave has a rant about life giving you lemons. The full quote can be heard here, potential spoilers  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELkgiJD9KuM, if you are reading this in class and or don't want the spoilers, here's the quote:

All right, I've been thinking. When life gives you lemons? Don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! 'I don't want your damn lemons! What am I suppose to do with these?'  Demand to see life's manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I'm the man who's going to burn your house down! With the lemons! I'm going to get engineers to invent a combustible lemon the burns your house down!  -Cave Johnson 

I'm not keeping this section spoiler free, it doesn't ruin the game, just some info on some characters, plus the game has been out for awhile now, I would hope if you were planning on playing it, you have. Cave receives his own "lemon" from life, he is deathly ill, and he says the first quote, being optimistic, but then develops the above quote. Now I know it's just a video game, but it has a neat idea. At the point of this quote Cave is dying, if memory serves, you don't hear another recording from him after this.

The view Cave has is "mad" because he is on his last breath, and life had given him a lemon, instead of something useful, I decided to split the two because in the first, the situation is possible to deal with, yes, it's not the best, but can easily be fixed by throwing away the lemons, or moving to a town where people won't know you because your known as "lemon boy." In Cave's situation, it's the last straw, this lemon is such a problem, that he gives up.

...make orange juice.

I heard this from somewhere, probably on a T-Shirt, and I love it. The full quote is "When life gives you lemons, make orange juice, and make people wonder how you did it." The symbolism here would be instead of making good out of a bad situation, like getting a new phone after destroying your old, you make the bad situation a great, or fantastic situation. This might make you look crazy, because in my phone example it would be like "Yes! now my phone is water logged and I can't hear anyone! This is exactly what I wanted out of my phone!" Unrealistic, but fits the quote. The whole idea isn't unrealistic though. Other people would see you getting hit by a lemon, maybe you do too, but you either ignore it, or make it good, not simply making the best out of it, and make people wonder, how did that not affect you like how it would effect me? 

I could go on, but this will be my last one, this is slightly inappropriate, but hilarious, and not at all philosophical like the above.

...trade up!

Those of you who were on University Ave. sometime last year, might have seen this billboard

Not my picture, but that is billboard I am talking about.

I know the quality is bad, but I found a picture of the actual billboard, so I have to include it. If I were to attempt a philosophical approach, it would be like, dropping your phone in the toilet, and pulling out a brand new one, and like the billboard, I doubt you can get it done for free.

Thoughts?

I'd like to know your guys thoughts, on the article, and format, and your personal thoughts on the subject matter, either personal message, or comment section below. I am currently getting hit with a couple lemons right now and am verging on the Cave Johnson approach.