What's for lunch, Bento-chan?

Dragon Con 2011

2011-09-13T00:25:00.004-04:00

Dragon Con was overall pretty good.

I missed pretty much every panel I meant to go to. I didn't bother to dress up- I sortof half had a costume going, but in the end I didn't finish it. I went to drum circle three of the four nights I was there. At one point, while I was hanging out with Jason and Lisa, William Shatner walked right past us and I was only about 20 feet away from him while he scurried from the freight elevator to his hotel room.

There were some things I meant to do there that never got done. Not the panel stuff, but people stuff. I'm guessing it's a moot point by now.

Things for another year: stay at a hotel that's actually at the con itself. We stayed at the Holiday Inn and I thought we had a pretty good rate for it, but my god the walk. Especially at two am. I called Dad one night while I was walking it and got my ear chewed off even though I was walking right past the police station right then. It wasn't that I didn't feel safe or anything- the area I was in was brightly lit and well trafficked. It's just it was a hell of a walk. Fifteen minutes to the con, fifteen back to the Holiday Inn, ect. It got old.

Gareth David-Lloyd was his usual awesome self. Jenn and I went to a commentary he did on Countrycide- which isn't one of my favorite episodes- but he was really funny while he was commenting. And he played to the crowd, which was anti-Gwen. (Some days I want to feel bad for the character, since everyone (everyone I know, at least) hates her. She started out so great and brave and not all helpless and I really liked her then and then she cheated on Rhys with Owen and then brainwashed Rhys and it's even worse if you read the Torchwood novels and arggg. And then most days I remember exactly why I hate her too) After the commentary thing we had like, twenty minutes to get to another hotel and up some stairs and into line if we wanted to meet Gareth and as soon as Jenn and I went outside it was pouring. We did get over to the autograph place in time and rather than get an autograph I just told him that I remembered how nice he was the con before and how great he was in Torchwood and tried not to talk really, really fast or shout at him.

He laughed and said he's a jerk now and to go away. And then he let Jenn and I get our picture with him.

We all look goofy as shit, but whatever.

In other news, I'm almost done messing about with my Halloween party invites. Finding a calligraphy font that is readable under 18pts is a nightmare. They're either so freaking bland and everyone uses them, or you need to be the person who wrote whatever it is because you can't read it without already knowing the words. Siiiiiiigh.

ALSO I HAVE ORDERED SO MANY BOOKS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES PASTICHES I COULD BUILD LIKE A LITTLE COUCH CUSHION HOUSE OUT OF THEM. AND THEN GO LIVE IN IT UNTIL THE NEW BBC SHERLOCK OR THE NEW RDJ MOVIE. EITHER OR.

London Dreams

2011-08-12T01:47:00.003-04:00

The day before yesterday I dreamed I was in the West End- I have this friend here who always wants to travel and for some reason I dreamed she and I had gone there- we were wandering around the West End (which looked less like itself and more like a futuristic shopping mall) and I ran into another friend of mine. We all decided to get dinner and then after that to walk to Oxford Circus to Beard Papa and get cream puffs.

Somewhere on the way I noticed things weren't right- there was supposed to be a bookstore somewhere and it wasn't there and that jarred me out of the dream before we'd made it anywhere near Oxford Circus.

I spent two and a half months living in Italy and I've never dreamed about it. I spent six weeks in England- mostly in London- and I almost can't believe how much I miss it. I miss the Tube. I miss my Oyster Card. A few weeks ago there was some site doing a bookstore review and the place was somewhere in Soho and I kept thinking I must have walked past the store at some point and never noticed it. I keep thinking the Chinese food I had in Brighton was the best I've ever had- even though I know it's a lie.

Ugh.

I picked up Andrew Grant's Even the other day- it's this pretty badass spy novel- that I first found out about on the Tube. They do these massive posters on the walls there about this week's book and David Trevalyon- the spy in the book- gets his life stolen and he's going to get... Even. Pretty Jason Bourne-ish. Turns out there's a sequel out now for it. Picked it up for my Kindle.

And back to the morose stuff. I saw this guy at work the other day- just one of the customers milling about- a doppleganger for Andy. It took my breath away. To some extent things like that make me angry. That there's only so many bone structures or hair and eye combinations amongst all of us. Other times I see something like that and, I mean, of course it's not him reincarnated- the time is all wrong for that, this guy was like, 20 or something- but it's spooky. It made me think of all the things we don't wind up doing or saying. I used to work at this pizza parlor and we'd get free pizzas all the time and I used to take them over to his apartment. I always thought how uncool it would be to tell him how much it meant that he let me in and I never said anything. I kept meaning to make him a pair of gloves and never settled on a pattern and every time I start to think about having cold hands in the winter and making myself just one more pair I remember I never made him any.

This is easily my favorite ad on tv

2011-08-03T13:25:00.001-04:00

Sherlock 2 John Watson Scarf

2011-07-17T23:26:00.005-04:00

I went and saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2 Thursday night and it was great- there was a preview for Sherlock 2 that looked like a lot of fun (technically I'm still more excited about Sherlock season 2 on BBC, but whatever). RDJ looked horrific in drag. Jude Law had an amazing scarf- blue and brown and cream colored.

Sherlock 2 John Watson Scarf

I'm using Vanna's Choice yarn from JoAnn's. It's worsted weight. I'm having to guess at the amount but I bought:

3 skeins Colonial Blue
3 skeins Chocolate
1 skein .....that oatmeal colored yarn with the brown threads in it. I lost the ball band already :(

CO 40 stitches. I did it long tail, but whatever you like.

Oh, right, size 9 needles.

CO 40 stitches in chocolate, then knit, purl, knit, purl all the way across. next row knit the knits, and purl the purls. The scarf will shrink in width but be thicker.

This brown section, make it 16 rows. Then start with the oatmeal color and do 2 rows. Then start up the colonial blue and do that 10 rows. Then the oatmeal again for 2, then go back to the chocolate. Make it as long as you need to and be sure to end with a brown section.

Now that you're done knitting it and ready to go solve some mysteries get out your trusty copy of... (i was going to say Half Blood Prince, but...) Sherlock Holmes Collected. (if you don't have that in some massive edition, go buy one. but until you've got it, use your massive Harry Potter books) Watson's scarf has really big tassels and I've only got one decent-ish picture of them so I have to guess a bit how they're done. Wrap the yarn around the book- all three colors- and cut it when you think you have enough. In the pic I've got that shows the tail of the scarf, it looks like you take two strands of a color together, use a crochet hook to pull them through, then slip the ends through the loop of yarn you pulled through. Pull it tight. That's one tassel. If I squint really hard it looks like the order of colors of tassel are oatmeal, chocolate, then colonial blue. Repeat it across.

It looks like it hits Jude Law at the knee so make it pretty big.

(also, Charles, I saw an ad for Disney's John Carter of Mars, and at the bookstore there was what looked like a movie tie in novel for Solomon Kane, and there's Conan at the end of the year. WHAT JUST HAPPENED?)

Camp Nanowrimo and crochet armor

2011-07-07T16:21:00.003-04:00

Nanowrimo has started a new event that can take place any time of the year. It's called Camp Nanowrimo and it's got a kid's camp sort of theme to it. It's still got all the tracking features, but there's no forums or regions or anything for an ML to do (thank god, honestly- the last two years as ML have been hard).

There's a link to the side if you're interested in looking at it.

I have no idea why but even though my DVR is set to only record new episodes of Ancient Aliens it records ones that are old. But only sometimes. So sometimes I'll come home and there's a new episode, but it's really an old one. Oh well. Sometimes they get confused about actual history in it- I seem to recall some allusion to the crown of Egypt being designed to hide an alien's head- but there's things they bring up that there aren't answers to. Like how the Egyptians built anything when we can't find any of their tools. Or some of the South American monolithic sites that are just preposterously oversized...

I put down Sherlock to read Conan and then wandered off into the horrible sea of trash that is known as Anita Blake. It's so bad in such a... guilt pleasure way. (oh god i can't believe i made that joke) The early evening was so nice I went to sit on the porch and read The Case of the Dancing Men. I didn't quite finish it but the people are dead and Sherlock is hiding behind a door about to capture the main suspect. Sometimes when Sherlock is at his most didactic I just want Professor Snape to show up. Then they could have awesome smart people adventures.

I picked up some kind of spin off Conan novel this morning about a guy named... Anok? I can't wait for the movie to come out. And I keep waiting to get to the story about Sonja- I keep looking at knitting patterns for bikinis and thinking how to modify them with little crochet armor bits into her costume. It's like comics/crochet/fiction madness.

And I accidentally got mom addicted to True Blood. No, not the books. The tv show. "Can we watch it? Are the dvds here yet? What's going to happen to Sookie now?" I'm going straight to hell.

(Forced) Bachelorette

2011-06-06T21:18:00.003-04:00

I'm not the kind of person that watches things like Bachelorette or Bachelor- it's just blah pukey fake relationship bs. I can't stand it.

But that doesn't stop Mom from loving it to death.

But this new season- the one episode that I've caught while making dinner- one of the guys on here is the most incredibly horrid person ever. His name is Bentley- he can fake cry on command, uses his daughter as an excuse to bail on the Bachelorette, and he keeps telling the cameramen he's only there to promote his buisness and get attention back home. Another girl told the Bachelorette what Bentley's MO was and she confronted him about it and he managed to spin the whole thing that it was his ex-wife's best friend telling lies...

I don't even understand guys. What was the point of all thhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifat? The Bachelorette bawled for like ten minutes of what was on air and who knew what that was in real life time. And they kept cutting it with him talking to the cameramen about how annoying she was and how much he was "so over" her tears and how ugly she is.

IN MUCH BETTER NEWS I've been reading the Conan stories like crazy. I found a complete collection for my Kindle. And it's like every story some waifish Princess is throwing herself and her billowing irridescent veils into his arms. It's great.

And I've been looking for a pattern to make a Harry Potter sweater. I think I'm gonna go with the Incredible Custom-fit Raglan Sweater pattern.

Outlander and Sleuth

2011-05-26T13:23:00.003-04:00

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. Work and School have taken over all my spare time again. And I haven't cooked anything that fancy lately or knitted anything really spectacular (i mean, besides the shipwreck shawl from knitty that I'm in the middle of- I've just got to the beading part and it's making me crazy).

Just kind of blah and busy.

Anyway, now that it's the small little break between spring and summer semester I've been catching up on movies. MovieStop keeps having these four for three sales and I buy terrible movies- I bought some nightmare of a movie called Doomsday that's about a plague in the UK where the government decides to build a huge wall to block off Scotland and the plague. Oh god is it bad. It has a certain amount of punk rock Mad Max thing going on, but god is it horrid.

Outlander was a bit better- space man crashes in the viking times and the space monster he's got in his ship gets loose and then he's got to hunt it down. Honestly I felt bad for the Moorwin- the space monster, more than the vikings.

And now we're watching Sleuth, the remake with Michael Caine and Ewan McGregor. The dialog is so fast and sharp you can tell it was a stage play before it was ever a movie. So far nothing much has happened but I'm riveted.

I'm about half way through the complete Sherlock Holmes and I picked up a complete Conan because I've got one of the books and the new movie looks pretty. My Kindle is wrecking my life. New book, new book, new book.

GQMF

2011-03-27T14:35:00.004-04:00

This cupcake is not messing around. Dark Chocolate Fudge cake batter + Creme de Menthe frosting. Tastes like excellence and diabetes.

Should have been Monday

2011-03-09T12:22:00.002-04:00

For some reason I've decided I'd like to run a 5k. Or a marathon. Probably the 5k though since I've never really done any running in my life. The bad knees and the asthma are a strike against me getting it done but then again I'm never going to make it on the TARDIS if I can't run. And runners are always these slim, insanely fit people.

I've seen a bunch of "Couch to 5k" apps on my Ipod- it's basically a voice-over that coaches you while you listen to music, and you run then walk then run some more, over several weeks until you can run for half an hour straight. I gave in an bought one Sunday night and went running the first time on Monday and I didn't really expect to finish the run. Like I said I've never run before and I know what my problems will be if I do. Also since I don't run I don't have real running shoes- which was the problem I didn't think of before I went out.

Surprisingly I made it through half the run. Somewhere down at the bottom of my neighborhood in the middle of run four of eight my left ankle started aching, and then my lungs went crazy. It was like they all conspired to stop working at the same time and I had to sit on the curb for a few minutes before I could walk back home.

I planned to head out first thing this morning for a rematch but it's freaking raining. It would have to considering I actually went and bought running shoes (I'm certain that's what hurt my ankle Monday). Hopefully the weather will stop before I have to go to work...

The Last Supper was Straightedge

2011-02-17T18:06:00.002-04:00

My classmate asked if "Jesus was lighting a smoke".

Sigh.

Meta Tv: Doing it right

2011-02-14T13:47:00.003-04:00

A couple of years ago there was this fantastic summer murder mystery show called Harper's Island. Basically this serial killer had been to the island years before, killed a bunch of people, and some of the kids moved away after the serial killer was killed by the sheriff. They all come back years later for a wedding only each episode about three people die and you're trying to guess who the killer is.

This is Abby and Henry. Her mom got killed by the serial killer. Henry is the groom at the wedding.

Anyway MASSIVE SPOILERS Henry is one of the killers (there are at least two in canon but I think there was a third) and in the end Abby takes him out.

If you skipped the spoiler go rent the DVDs, it's excellent.

Last summer there was a new show called Covert Affairs.

This is Annie and Auggie. They do CIA stuff. She was backpacking across the pacific and fell in love with some guy and then they decided they were soulmates and then he ran away in the middle of the night. Two years later she's all badass and in training when her teacher gets the call they need someone who can speak Russian and pass as an escort so she's sent to Washington. Auggie is a blind soldier who now does tech ops stuff. He's the voice on the headset telling her which exit to take.

In my head Henry (oh look spoilers again) didn't die on the beach. Section One operatives came out of the water like Navy Seals and took him away for training. He learned how to do computer stuff from Berkoff, and how to fight from Michael, and Nikita made him stop being a sociopath just by being herself. And then Red Cell blinded him or a mission went wrong and now they're using him as a deep cover operative in the CIA.

Oh if only I had never discovered TV. If only.

MOAR SHERLOCK

2011-01-25T09:51:00.003-04:00

So I had a dream this morning I was at the Trafalger Square Waterstones looking for Sherlock tie-in novels. I was like oh god... Amazon.uk says there aren't any so at least my bank account is sighing in relief.

No, no, I don't want this one because it's got a pretty cover. Nope.

BBC Sherlock vid

2011-01-18T17:38:00.000-04:00

Probably helps if you've seen the show. God it's amazing.

Cute Song

2011-01-06T02:22:00.003-04:00

Every time this comes on Capitol 95.8 I'm like yessss. The dance he does on the traffic stops reminds me of Edinburgh- the tour guide we had kept jumping up on those things, even after he started drinking.

It's funny the things I think of that I miss in Europe- mass transit is almost always number one. I still can't get over the fact that when I was in Montepulciano I could get the bus to Chiusi, then the train from there to Rome Termini, a bus from there to the airport, the plane from there to London, ride the tube... I was in Trader Joe's tonight and they had some wine from Montepulciano- it's weird to think that's the winery at the other end of town from where I lived. I miss the ice cream trucks all over London- practically the same as you see in the music video. I miss low tide on the Thames, when I'd climb down some algae infested steps to muck around in the clay and old bricks and mussel shells- one time I found a two pound coin and spent it on boiled candy ten minutes later at some place that makes it from scratch.

And we're back on air

2011-01-04T02:50:00.003-04:00

Thanksgiving through January is the worst time to know someone in retail. I swear I drop off the face of the earth. No hangouts, no movie time (unless it's midnight or something), no phone calls unless I'm at the grocery store.

My family knows this and deals with it. What I feel bad about this year is my other family, the biological one, which I don't think does. I feel like a jerk- I haven't spoken to my sister in a month or so. I called my biological mother for the first time back in early November or October or (OMG I DON'T REMEMBER WHAT DAY D:) and I said I'd come down and visit and I haven't called her back.

And now it's January and work is finally slacking off and I'm getting things together for the new school year and realizing I really, really need to call and explain myself.

1. I did not like this snow business this year. It was cold and wet and it made the roads scary.

2. Next year I'm starting all the Christmas knitting in June.

3. Thank god I have a new novel to work on or I'd go bonkers.

Worst. Nanowrimo. Ever.

2010-11-29T22:36:00.002-04:00

This year's Nanowrimo has been a disaster from start to finish. I couldn't think of anything to write til day one- too much school work- no time to plan events- the story I picked up ended halfway through. I started another story as soon as the first finished but by god there's only so many weekly papers and final papers and Livy a person can cope with before defeat happens.

Besides the not winning part- which I've done before, just not in years- the worst part is feeling like I can't write anymore. Nothing is as good as it used to be, I don't think of the story unless I'm sitting at the computer (no time to think up conversations while I'm at work or driving, apparently), everything just feels blah. I looked at last year's Nano which was a romance novel and I swear to god it's brilliant in comparison to anything I wrote recently but it's no For the Glory of Rome.

Sometimes I'm scared I cranked out my Penultimate Life's Work.

I hate feeling like this.

In other, happier, news:

I've talked to my sister about five or six times on the phone. She's really nice. She has two kids. She wants me to visit.

My seamonkeys are doing great.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson is even more awesome than the movie. I cannot put it down. Even though I know what's happening.

In comparison Michael Crichton's Pirate Latitudes is no Jurassic Park. I think he must have still been working on it when he died, like it's draft 1.5 or something. It's just not as long as usual.

My friend Lisa has a bunny that she let me petsit. I've never really seen a bunny up close besides in pet stores. They're not very friendly but they are soft. I guess you just hold it?

A 26 year wait, over.

2010-10-17T20:28:00.003-04:00

A lot of you probably know I'm adopted. Since I was twenty I've been looking for my biological family- with no luck. I made a lot of phone calls and sent a few letters but it all amounted to was disconnected numbers. Thursday afternoon I tried googling again, trying some new numbers. The first one went to a disconnected line, the next rang and rang and then someone answered.

I asked for my biological mother and the she said she'd go look for her out in the yard. About two minutes later she was on the line.

It's still blowing my mind. I looked for them for six years and it was just as easy as calling the right number at the right time. I talked to my biological mother for an hour that day and a few hours later my sister called- I have a sister and three brothers- she lives in Hawaii and is in the Navy, two of the brothers live here, and another is in the Army. One of my brothers who lives here has called me a few times. I'm supposed to go down to see them soonish...

Right now it's so much. Every time the phone rings I jump up to grab it- who's calling now? Who's texting? Is it one of them?

Late

2010-10-12T21:21:00.003-04:00

I used to know this guy named Andy Zebrowitz. He was one of those people that looked like trouble, but he was always a good friend to me. Not in the overly friendly, I'd do anything for you way, but in a quiet way where he'd do it anyway, while acting gruff. The best way I can describe it is like Dr. House. He was smart and cool and I didn't have a crush on him, just sort of hero worship. He was that guy that you knew that was so cool you'd tell people you knew him. That kind of thing.

He used to fix my computer for me sometimes, when I couldn't figure it out myself. And I used to bring him cookies and pizza (when I worked at a pizza place) and Thanksgiving Dinner leftovers... I never heard one way or the other if he had Thanksgiving plans but he never turned down the food and always gave the Tupperware back clean. One time I randomly asked him if he'd like to go to the Renaissance Festival and when I went to pick him up in the morning he'd gotten a new computer the night before and stayed up all night playing with it. I think he'd gone to bed about half an hour before I showed up and when he answered the door it was clear he'd forgotten about the whole thing. I felt like this goofy kid- like I was bothering him- but he just said he needed a shower and a cup of coffee and we could go.

Before I went to Italy I asked him if he wanted anything from over there. I don't think he ever got back to me, and I didn't pick anything up for him. I remember a winter or two ago I said I'd knit him some gloves and he sortof said what kind he'd like- fingerless, black, long cuffs- but I never did get around to making them. We didn't talk all that much.

And then before I knew it it was this summer and I was going to head to London and it struck me if I hadn't gotten him anything from Italy I could get him something from London and we could hang out at least once more. Something like that. And at the time I was thinking it I also thought it had been a while since I'd seen him online. And he's one of those people, like me, always on.

I checked IM and he wasn't on. I just sort of thought he might have shut it off or was doing something to his computer but when I checked his blog I saw his obituary. I thought it was a joke for about fifteen minutes- I had to do some googling to see what was going on- we mostly knew each other online and didn't have any mutual friends. He'd died a few days before my birthday, about five months earlier. It was like a gut punch. I know, sort of a bit much of a reaction to an internet friend dying who I hadn't seen in years- but- Andy was one of those people... Who make a difference for you even though they don't do much of anything. He was a decent guy when I didn't seem to know any of that variety.

Books, books, books.

2010-10-06T12:31:00.002-04:00

I picked up Anne Macaffrey's Crystal Singer last week at Book Exchange. Normally I give books the 50 page test that I learned from Charles- the first fifty pages were just kind of... Sleepy isn't the right word, but I wasn't excited about anything Killashandra was up to either. But I couldn't stop reading it either. I think I'm about 3/4 the way through it and I don't want to read it anymore, but I do. I guess Killashandra isn't very interesting, but Anne's writing is very good.

Then I picked up Dracula, My Love by Syrie James which is a retelling of Dracula from Mina's POV. I'm only about a hundred pages in, but it's a good read. Not YOU HAVE TO READ THIS yet, but it's amusing.

And last night I noticed that Clive Barker's Absolute Midnight which is the third book in the Abarat series was supposed to be out last month. I think it was also supposed to be out last month last year. Come on Clive, put the book out- there's not even any fanfic I know of to bridge the gaps.

Why I Don't Like Apple

2010-09-17T14:26:00.002-04:00

Ok, I have some good news about the whole iPod Touch thing. After about forty minutes on the phone with tech support- who I do have a warranty with, despite what the website says- and much troubleshooting and reinstalling we both admitted the iPod was probably bricked. Then Felix, the tech support guy, made me an appointment at the Lenox Apple Store so I could get it looked at, just in case.

I drove down to Lenox today and went to the jampacked Apple Store. Forty-five minutes after my appointment time I finally was called up to the bar to have my iPod looked at. The man at the counter implied it was my Windows computer that was the problem twice before he'd actually plug in my iPod and see how bricked it was. After about three minutes of it plugged into his MacBook he finally did a restore on it- thankfully it restored and now my laptop is updating it.

The part that got me was after he'd restored it he told me two more times that the iPod might not work with my computer, then asked if it was a laptop so maybe if it didn't work I could bring it up. I told him, yes, it was, and then he sneered.

"Well, I can't say I'll be happy to see your computer in my store, but, I think I can try to troubleshoot it."

I just stared at him.

I have worked in retail for about ten years now, and I hate going to people's managers and making a scene. I have had costumers I've done nothing to do it in hopes of free food or gift cards or whatever. I didn't go to his manager, I didn't even say anything to him, which I'm sort of regretting.

Yeah, you know what, I have a Windows Computer. And it works really, really well. I love it. And you know what, if you have an Apple and you feel the exact same way? Good for you! I'm not going to try and change your mind and talk to you like I'm a Superior Human Being.

Mike, at the Lenox Apple Store, you're not better than me, you're just rude.

Not that anyone probably cares

2010-09-16T13:15:00.003-04:00

But I think the last update of iTunes bricked my iPod Touch.

I'm torn between misery and a sort of righteous fury- I've only had it nine freaking months. My iPod I had before lasted something like four years. Maybe it's just some kind of thing that Apple is going to shortly patch and it'll go back to working, but if not... Nine months. Come on, Apple.

iTunes had a new software update for my iPod so I installed it. Ever since then the iPod has either been on the "please connect to itunes" screen or off. If I turn it on it'll show the logo then go to the connect screen. Nothing else. It doesn't show in my computer, and it doesn't show in iTunes. But the computer sort of sees it because it keeps telling me it could connect to the iPod if only I could find a driver that worked. The computer

Three days later I'm still in search of a driver.

I've reinstalled iTunes 10 twice, went back to 9, found out 10 did something to the library so 9 can't use it, went back to 10, trolled the Apple Forums, googled, and tried to update iTunes 10 countless times in hopes of a patch of some sort. Nothing.

Contrary to the "it's just the driver" thing is that the iPod itself isn't making any noises inside. Which is what my old iPod did when it died.

$300 for nine months of iPod is pretty sad.

Dear Customers #1

2010-08-23T13:19:00.004-04:00

Please do not ask me for things when you're on your cell phone. It goes like this:

Customer: Yes, Cindy I did ask her to bring the pie, no the other pie- Excuse me miss! No, the other pie, obviously.

Me: Yes? Can I help you?

Customer: Look, I'm looking for- No, Cindy, you're bringing the green beans- Can you find me a blue shirt? No, no, not for the picnic, for that other party Cindy.

Me: What kind of blue shirt?

Customer: A blue shirt. Look, Cindy, you know how I feel about that guy, do not bring him to the party.

Best. Story. Ever.

2010-07-22T06:29:00.000-04:00

Ceroc

2010-07-21T23:08:00.003-04:00

I was at a BBQ last weekend in Surbiton and after it got dark suddenly people started dancing in the kitchen. Really good dancing- like on Dancing with the Stars! I asked what they were doing and it's called Ceroc. It's a huge craze over here in Europe. If I check the main Ceroc site here there's about five different places I can go most nights of the week to take lessons and dance after. And they're all different places.

Monday night I went to the O2 center which is like a mall, I think, and I took my first lesson. I wish we had this over in America!

This isn't exactly the same dance I learned Monday, but it's pretty close. They had in a few arm things I don't know how to do yet.

You get a really good workout doing it, too. And you meet a lot of people- When I went to my second lesson/dance on Wednesday night there were about four people I recognized from Monday and I'm terrible with faces...

I really, really wish we had this, but I know why we don't.

Wow. Ok. Sorry.

2010-07-08T18:57:00.005-04:00

I didn't realize I'd gotten so far behind on blogging until Mom mentioned it.

I spent a day in Oxford last weekend- no really outstanding pictures from that but it was really something seeing the city and walking around it. We payed extra to see Christ Church College- part of that was used for Harry Potter- and it was really beautiful. I can't really picture people going to school there, but then again I didn't see any classrooms either.

The day after that was when it got really awesome...

We took the train out to Salisbury, then from there went on the Stonehenge tour. Imagine a somewhat curvy country road, riding in a doubledecker bus at alarming speeds. Yeah, scared me too. And then we're driving through a big open area of fields and the driver says, Look Forward, and there it is. And then we actually get there and get out of the bus and walk under the road and onto a little sidewalk and right up to the stones. I couldn't have been more that 20 or 30 feet from the stones at one point. THAT CLOSE. All that was keeping me from them was this little, tiny, chain on some posts about a foot high and not a guard in sight. If we weren't all thinking the same thing I'll be surprised but no one jumped the fence. I think I took about a hundred pictures right there.

It was an audio tour too, which was interesting. It needed better writing but it was about an hour long and really informative. Except for the part that said "...and then the stones were levered up ramps of dirt and lowered into holes in the ground, upright, like teeth into the gums of the earth.". You could see the moment where everyone got to that part of the audio track. The looks of horror.

After that we went to Avebury which is... A big hill. A gigantic hill with trenches and such. And while we were climbing it we took a wrong turn and walked about 3/4 the way around the hill instead of straight to the top like everyone else. Let's put it this way, I explained two years of Days of Our Lives plot lines while we walked, that's how big the hill is. Finally we found a way up and played with some whippets on top of the hill (Fergus and Alfie) and watched one of them climb a ten foot stone wall like a spider or a goat.

From there back to Salisbury and the market (where we bought freshly made donuts and dried apples) then to the Cathedral which has the most incredible baptismal font in it. It sort of doubles as a reflecting pool and gets a large portion of the stained glass in it. I took a picture but it was pretty dark in the cathedral. It's not worth posting on here.

This is Brighton, where I went on Tuesday night.

It is the dodgy capitol of the world. (Dodgy = Skeezy). If you have seen The Lost Boys and/or a pier by a beach with amusement park rides on it, you have seen Brighton. We hopped the train after our field trips were done and an hour later we were at the seaside. Which is another reason to love the train system here. An hour that I spent eating a sandwich and writing in my journal, then knitting a glove, and there is the freaking ocean! I think we spent two or three hours in the town, laying on the beach, throwing rocks in the ocean, riding a carousel, walking on the pier, then eating the best Chinese food I have ever had in my life. And then we came home.

Oh, and I threw seaweed at Sarah and she screamed.

Tonight we went to see WarHorse which probably the biggest play in all of London. It's about this boy named Albert who has a horse named Joey who gets conscripted into WW1 and then Albert joins the war even though he's 16 to go track down his beloved horse. All of the horses are done with these incredible wicker frame puppets. There is no moment you do not believe you are seeing real horses.

Tomorrow I leave for Cardiff!

Lost in Translation

2010-06-30T18:30:00.002-04:00

For future reference "Quiet Hours 10PM to 8AM" actually means LETS SLAM THE DOORS AS HARD AS WE POSSIBLY CAN EVERY FIVE SECONDS UNTIL SOMEONE ACTUALLY COMES OUT IN THE HALL AND STABS US IN THE EYE.

Very English

2010-06-28T11:01:00.007-04:00

So. Before I get to all the "what have I been doing" stuff I have to tell you what happened this afternoon. I go to school in two buildings- the dorms I live in and one I have to walk about four blocks to that looks like it's Hogwart's In London Campus. Really it's just the UCL Cruciform building, but it's pretty badass looking. To get to my class I have to walk down a hallway which makes a sort of left hand curve around a stairwell. But you can see into the stairwell from the curve because there's windows- open arch style. When you get around the curve you make an extreme right hand turn to get on the stairs.

As I'm walking to class I see someone coming up the stairs and I think I've got to be careful coming around the corner because I might collide with the person and knock them down the stairs. So I sort of pause a second coming around the corner so they have time- only no one comes up. I peer around the corner and there's no one on the stairs. Or in the hallway.

NO ONE.

I even turned around to look behind me. I'm the only person in the hall at this point. And I kept looking around for a second before I was like ....was that a ghost?

On the way out of the building my friend Sarah made me ask the desk people if the building is haunted and they looked very grave and said ...did you see something? And I told them in the stairwell, and they started to tell me about people they see in the classrooms after everything is locked up at night, or noises. The building is over 300 years old. Of course it's haunted.

Saturday we did go to Camden Lock and it was just as punk rock and awesome as it was last time I was there. And everyone here in London has colors in their hair so I decided to get some too. And some stockings, since that's also the thing. After the Market I came back to the dorm and got in touch with my friend Steve who lives here and we planned a pubcrawl. That was a blast! And Steve is hilarious and the night went on just long enough to be really really fantastic and still let me get up early Sunday for...

The Battle of Hastings! Which was hot, and miserable, and sunny. But the abbey was beautiful and something right out of Highlander (which I've been rewatching) and the countryside makes you want to lay down on the grass and take up painting. Or fishing. After, I had this enormous Full English Breakfast at the restaurant we went to called... A Taste of Battle. da da ching!

Then we headed home on a rather mysterious train. See, we went to the train station at the right time for our train but there was no train there. And we waited and found out the next train we could take was in an hour. Then the digital signs at the station change and say the next train coming down the line (not the one we're waiting an hour for) is not for civilian use. About all of us ran out onto the platform to see if it was nuclear weapons or cattle or what, but the train stopped and looked normal enough. There were people on it so we all ran around like crazy people getting our bags and jumping on the train. And inside the train the intercom was like NOT FOR CIVILIAN USE and we were like "oh no do we get off what's happening" and the train conductor yelled at me to get back on when I hopped off. And then the train started up again and we were all asking each other what was going on.

I pointed out if the train was MI-5 only they were probably going to come down to our carriage and shoot us. And we all nervously laughed.

No one shot us. Thankfully. And then nothing happened last night- I thought about doing more mudlarking but decided not to go when I realized I'd have to go alone. Then class today, and then a ghost.

DOVER BTW

Lazy Day

2010-06-26T04:56:00.003-04:00

The last few days have been really busy. I haven't even uploaded the pictures from them to the computer, but when I do- probably tonight- I'll make another big post full of pics.

Thursday we went to the Globe for a tour of the museum and it was sort of at lowtide so before the tour (we got there early and then the museum opened half an hour late) I went mudlarking. It's basically when you go on the shores of the Thames and look for stuff. Coins, spoons, pottery- anything that might have been dropped into the river since people first showed up in the area can be found on shore.

Thursday night we went back to the Globe for a performance of MacBeth which was super gory and had this sort of canopy thing coming out from the stage with holes in it. If you wanted to stand with your head in one of the holes you were one of the severed heads in hell. Guess where I stood? You also had a higher risk of being bled on or terrorized by the weird sisters.

Friday a group of us went out to a place called Folkstone which I guess is the boonies. I think it's about an hour away by train and it's within seeing distance of the White Cliffs of Dover, if you don't mind hiking all the way down the rocky shore we were on, then climbing onto an abandoned wharf/lighthouse base/nuclear instalment. The view was incredible.

Today it looks like Sarah and I are going up to the Camden Lock markets. I think she's looking for a dress and I want boots. Who knows what we'll really find.

Anyway, update later.

d'awwwww

2010-06-20T17:15:00.002-04:00

More London

2010-06-20T16:22:00.007-04:00

This is a cute video. This one is more OMG.

Ok, back to London news. I'm still really tired, but it's not jetlag or anything. I'm pretty well adjusted to the time here and when to go to sleep. It's that all this weekend we've been walking. Friday we had a tour of the part of town we live in so we can find the grocer's and the tube stop and school. Saturday we had a photo scavenger hunt all across London. We rode the Tube a lot, but there was so much walking. Today, Sunday, we went to Hampton Court and walked up and down it.

(btw that's a foot and a half step up into the train. gap indeed.)

I feel like I've mastered the tube system though I've only rode a train once so far (up to Hampton Court) and I still don't really understand the buses yet. Apparently it's a matter of understanding the layout of the city, then finding a bus going mostly the way you want to go, then hopping off when you get close. I'll have to use it Tuesday night though, because...

I have a ticket to go see Scissor Sisters!

And apparently I can't just take the tube there, I need to use the buses too. Very exciting.

In more scholarly news I have done all of the work due for the first week of classes, which starts tomorrow. And despite the pub food I'm still eating healthy. Tesco has cheap apples and carrots. On the way to Hampton Court I ate an entire box of grapes. And they do have macaroni and cheese over here- only it would be better to label it "macaroni in nutmeg cream sauce". Yuck. Glad I brought four boxes of it from Kroger at home.

SHIELD COINS COLLECTED: 5/7

Also London has a vampire problem. (besides all the twilight posters everywhere). Really I think it's a PSA for car accidents but...

Really really tired

2010-06-18T16:10:00.005-04:00

This sums up everything I have ever learned about living with other people.

Yawn. Fighting jet lag by staying awake as long as possible is soul crushing. I woke up on the plane this morning at... 9AM brit time or something and ate this delicious cinnamon cake they gave me in my breakfast box. And I have been awake ever since and it is... 9PM brit time now and I feel like it's the longest day there has ever been. Midnight sun, six month days, kind of long.

The dorms we're in are nice. From the outside they look like brutalist architecture but it's more soviet looking than that. I'll take a pic tomorrow when it's not so drizzly outside. On the inside the dorms are yellow. And the windows open. Window. And I have a sink.

Earlier we went to a pub to see the england/algeria (?) match. There's nothing like standing in a mad crush of people who are all shouting at each other about work today then howling like werewolves when the ball gets close to the goal and realizing you have no idea how football/soccer is played.

Ok. Super tired. Bed now.

TOMORROW: SCAVENGER HUNT

SHIELD COIN COLLECTION: 1/7

Oh, I also forgot to mention the 50p of custard I bought at Tesco's. It was more custard than a Ben and Jerry's carton could hold. For 50p. So good.

A Hell of a Life

2010-06-17T01:14:00.002-04:00

You know a person had a rollicking good time being alive when their obituary containes the following:

His personal humour often whirled into the surreal, as his fellow journalist Peter Tory learned to his cost. One night, in a Blackpool restaurant during a Conservative party conference, Waterhouse inveigled Tory into a bet which resulted in Tory losing his trousers. Waterhouse made off into the night with the item of clothing and Tory had to borrow a pair of the chef's pants.

Back at the bar of the Imperial hotel, he made himself busy introducing Tory's trousers to various Conservative party grandees, insisting they shake a proffered leg by way of greeting. In later weeks, Tory would receive sinister, late-night calls, claiming to be from his trousers, relating, in a falsetto, northern accent, the various risque adventures he was enjoying with his new master.

Copied from here. Found it while doing a paper for theater class.

This Just In From The Newsroom-

2010-06-02T12:07:00.002-04:00

I am somewhere in the AJC. No, really. It's a one week long contractor job typing up address on raffle tickets, but it's still a newspaper building.

I went on a tour the first day I was here and got to see the big presses, vats of ink the size of showers, rolls of paper half the size of my car... There's actually this miniture train type thing built into the floor to drive the reams of paper around and load them into the presses. And the coffee machines they have here...

The one down in the bullpen area is the most amazing. It autobrews three 12-cup pots at a time, with warming plates and everything. When you go down there to use it all the journalists make growly faces and sort of lunge towards you, like maybe you were sent there to break the machine.

It's adorable.

Unfortunatly unlike on TV the journalists do not appear to be friendly. None of them have spoken so far besides glaring to communicate when you go near the coffee machine.

In other news, it is sixteen days til London.

All the books in the world.... except one

2010-05-31T12:47:00.001-04:00

Scan of some comic.

Found this randomly, it's really great.

meh

2010-05-31T01:55:00.003-04:00

Wow. I was sort of expecting about fifty flames over that last post.

Sorry I haven't written much lately. Spring semester was a nightmare and there's been some personal stuff going on. Nothing worth writing about though.

Right now it's seventeen days to London. Still have a lot to do before I can roll out. Like pack.

I finally saw Iron Man 2 today. Despite all the "it's not Iron Man 1" hype I thought it was pretty good. I feel a little gypped that Iron Man and Warmachine didn't fistbump in costume- but that was pretty much my biggest complaint. The movie didn't suck and for a sequel that a miracle, right? Tony did his big self-destruct thing which was fun to watch on the big screen. No matter how much they told me the Russian guy was a physicist I couldn't believe it- silver nail polish, dyed streaks in his hair, the prison tattoos. All I could think was "world's smartest hooker". He did have a good villain laugh, though.

On another note I saw Prince of Persia. (Spoilers) I don't even know what to say about it. Lots of parkour stuff and sharp objects and a princess. Mostly I think I feel cheated for the Prince guy since he lived through the whole movie and then went back to five minutes in.

Back to Iron Man- Jarvis could have talked 5000x more in the movie and it would have been awesome. Likewise that Jason Hammer dude could have stopped talking three hours before the movie started and I'd have been happy.

Scapegoat

2010-05-27T14:55:00.002-04:00

I'm not really into politics. In the sense I have no idea what is going on most days or what things mean. Some guy was on the tv the other night howling about the oil spill in the gulf and the anchor covering it was like "this DEMOCRAT says this about the oil spill.... even a DEMOCRAT feels this way..." and I had to ask why they were stressing the word 'democrat' like maybe they hate the environment or can't see oil or something.

Basically I don't get it.

Anyway. Not that I know anything about politics but I have noticed one thing that I don't really get. I know a lot of people don't like Obama because they think he's not an American or he's secretly Muslim or something- but there's moments where they're talking about the economy on tv and they get really angry he hasn't made more jobs yet.

Like he's the Cadbury Bunny and he lays jobs instead of Creme Eggs.

I don't know. Maybe presidents have powers like that, but I have no idea. I don't think they do.

What brought this to mind was the oil spill press conference thing this afternoon. It seems like everyone is like "you, president guy, why did you let the oil spill happen? how could you do this to us?!". Even when he was saying that we've never had an oil spill accident on this level and that people weren't prepared for it because we didn't know a spill could be this bad- people seemed to be blaming him for not being psychic. Or people are wanting to know why he hasn't stopped this yet, or hasn't cleaned up the gulf yet- and it's BP's fault and problem as far as I understand.

Don't know. Like I said, I don't get politics.

In other news, is anyone else completely freaking out about the Bones season finale? CAN'T. WAIT. FOR. FALL.

Sigh

2010-04-20T00:41:00.002-04:00

I miss Torchwood.

I have no idea what the point of COE was besides ruining the show. Yeah, sure, it was pretty, and dramatic, and whatever- but seriously, admit it, it pretty much canceled the show. And I really, really wish I could understand the logic behind that. It was making tons of money, I loved it, I know a bunch of people who loved it; wtf.

And since COE I haven't wanted to watch the show, or read the books, or pick up the magazine. When I saw John Barrowman on Desperate Housewives it felt like a punch to the gut.

Sherlock Holmes Defends London from Dinosaurs!

2010-04-13T00:53:00.003-04:00

Ok, Sarah and I watched the Sherlock Holmes movie last night and... It was pretty good actually. I mean, seriously dinosaurs! And a kracken! And power suits! It was sort of horrible and awesome at the same time, in a low budget way, thought the CG bits were more charming than in Clash of the Titans. (I mean the cityscape specifically- Every time I saw the temple on the hill all I could think was video game graphics while Parliament looked pretty in the fog and nighttime lights). I did think Gareth David-Lloyd was pretty good as Watson- sort of bumbling and determined. And that guy who played Sherlock was alternately awesome and hilarious- startlingly effete, though. And I got the distinct feeling that it was much less plot coupon-y than the Robert Downy Jr. version.

And now we are watching Nicole Kidman in The Invasion which is setting off every horrible hypochondriac feeling in my body. Space plague spores. *shudder*

Sherlock Holmes versus T-Rex versus Kracken!!!

2010-04-11T13:09:00.003-04:00

When you're this guy...

And you're fighting this guy...

And this guy...

You might need this guy...

Nope. Not kidding.

Oh right. I forgot Rodan is in it too. I'm pretty sure this movie is going to be awesome.

The point of watching Bones summed up in eight lines

2010-04-07T10:48:00.001-04:00

(only the vaguest of spoilers for the last episode)

bentochan: woah woah what the
bentochan: brennan is in her jimjams
bentochan: and booth just showed up in the middle of the night
bentochan: and now they're drinking scotch or something
bentochan: OMG AND THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT SOUL MATES
bentochan: and now they are referencing hedwig and the angry inch
bentochan: OMG THEY ARE GAZING AT EACH OTHER
bentochan: IN THE EYES

Books, Books, Books

2010-03-26T02:42:00.002-04:00

Sat down and read all of the recently released Lord Sunday in one sitting. Last book in the series and it manages to put a new spin on what's been happening in the previous six books to the point I think I have to reread them. The Keys to the Kingdom series is pretty young adult and the books are pretty thin- it's one of those series I'd love to see rewritten as doorstops for a more adult audience.

And before that I read The Steel Remains which was on a blog post about all of the remake movies they're doing this year and next and what they could be making from books instead. Apparently there is going to be a new Highlander movie and that's my childhood so when the blogger said "make steel remains instead" I had to see what was so special about the book that it beats out my beloved Highlander. And as much as I love Highlander I'd rather see Ringil hacking things up on screen right now.

The Cobb County Library Book Sale yielded up an almost complete set of hardcover Vampire Chronicles (only need two more) and I've been rereading Interview with the Vampire. It's the book that besides the Narnia books owned my childhood. And its funny- there's moments I remember almost word for word in it, then there's parts I can never recall- like Babette. I always forget who she is. Louis is still very emo. I wish Vampire Lestat had been one of the other hardcovers I'd picked up- I'm almost done with Interview already and ready for Lestat to start behaving badly.

Clive Barker's Abarat series was supposed to have the third book out last summer (also the original release date for Lord Sunday before it was moved back) but I'm beginning to suspect it's never going to come out.

And I picked up but did not start rereading the first book in the Bloody Jack series. I read the first five in three days when I checked them out of the library a few years ago- Jack is actually Jackie whose family dies of plague (i think?) and she joins the Royal Navy while passing for a boy, fights pirates, becomes a horseman, gets sent to a boarding/charm school for young ladies, joins a whaling ship, falls in love with another sailor, ect, ect. Crazy nautical awesomesauce.

Look at the second to last job title in the subtitle of the novel. I'm pretty sure when I read to book five I'd only gotten to the soldier/sailor part. Now she's a mermaid. Or she was book before this.

MERMAID.

And I thought the book where she's a horseman was going to be badass.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT

2010-03-11T02:38:00.002-04:00

Curse of the ADD knitter

2010-03-03T14:23:00.004-04:00

Having seen Jean's post about knitting I feel the need to blog about it too.

I have come to realize over the last few weeks of knitting that I am hardcore ADD about it. I have at least ten projects going at the moment, and I sort of move between them depending on what I'm interested in working on at the moment. Give me something I'm inspired with and I'll work on it day and night and get it done in three days.

Give me something I am not so inspired with and it will sit in my knitting crate for a year.

And lately (much to Mom's horror) I have been frogging those uninspiring things. Frogging is where you pull the needles out of the project, then rewind all the yarn out of it, then do something else with the yarn. I used to be afraid of doing that because of all the hardwork I'd put in. Now I'm just like, urg, I can use that yarn on something else. Or I want the needles back.

Which is nice. It saves yarn. And Mom makes this face like :O only so much better. You can tell she wants to take whatever I'm frogging away from me.

Anyway, long story short, I have two shawls going at the moment, a pair of gloves in sock weight yarn (oh god all of those tiny little stitches), a pair of gloves with cables, at least two scarves... And I have a pair of gloves to finish for one of my WriMos.

And then today, knowing all of that, I found a pattern for fingerless gloves where you embroider words on the knuckles and it made me think of one of the sailors in Master and Commander who has "HOLD FAST" tattooed on his knuckles. I go to look at the yarn, see there's some I have in my stash already, but they're in some gloves from two years ago that I have never worn or finished. When I get home those things are getting frogged. Now if I only knew how to embroider so I can do little ships and Here There Be Monsters things all over the rest of the gloves...

I can't believe I am going to admit this but...

2010-02-24T23:42:00.003-04:00

I watched Bachelor this season. You know, On the Wings of Love.

God, this is so embarrassing.

Anyway. It's reality tv which doesn't mean it's reality. Which some people can't seem to understand. It's all cut and pasted and high drama.

For instance there were several commercials this season with Tinley in them crying and telling Jake, the Bachelor, that she's pregnant. Only *gasp* she had previously told him that she hadn't had sex with anyone since her ex-husband some impossible-baby-making time in the past.

Only it was never in the show. Seriously, she's not pregnant.

Who knows what it was, originally, but once it's added to the commercials and everyone is all OMG about it it cranks up viewers which is all that reality tv wants.

Now, on to the Rozlyn scandal. *Heavy Sarcasm* on the "scandal" part.

Supposedly the contestant Rozlyn got into a relationship with one of the producers and she was thrown off the show for it. You know, since she's supposed to be there for Jake. Only, where's the pics? Where's the footage? Oh gosh, there isn't any. All there is are what the other contestants saw.

Granted, I don't know any of these people so I have no idea who's lying, but...

Women are catty. Especially when they're in a group together. And that's what you have in the Bachelor house. And worse they're competing for Jake and that's a pretty good reason to back stab one of their own.

Part of what bothers me about what the girls have to say is a lot of it's over the top. Apparently Rozlyn and the Producer were making out on some stairs. And then another girl says she was Rozlyn's roommate and one night Rozlyn never showed up to sleep. And another girl says that Rozlyn was crawling around in short shorts telling the girls that if they saw the Producer they should tell him to come up and "tuck her in".

If you're carrying on a clandestine relationship when you're supposed to be fighting for the attention of another guy wouldn't you be a little more... clandestine about it?

And seriously, crawling around in short shorts?

Anyway, apparently I'm being naive about this, and sure, I'm totally willing to say it's possible the whole thing is true. I'm just saying it's funny there's no facts, no proof. And that there's a seemingly endless supply of sites online refuting the whole story as made up by The Bachelor to get more drama and attention for the show.

Anyway, whatever. Reality tv. It's crazy stuff.

Part of the reason I wanted to spend half an hour blogging about it is something else, another article I read online. Don't Confuse Them With Facts. I was going to blog about how good that article was before all of this, but hey.

In completely separate news I couldn't find any Bay Rum at the store so I've decided to make my own. Should be ready in two weeks.

Blah

2010-02-23T02:09:00.004-04:00

Sort of stuck in writer's block. Even for blogging.

School isn't going well. In one class I keep having to change seats because mine is constantly taken. I started in seat a, for instance, then someone took it so I moved to seat b, which was then taken, so I moved to seat c... This happens every class. For two months now.

In latin we're learning very differently from how my latin 1 professor taught us which is causing problems.

My art history professor can't get things right. He seriously told us the Roman Empire began in year 0.

I didn't say anything because I'm sure I'd say it wrong- but the next class he'd gotten the dates right, so I guess someone did.

I have hit this stupid diet and excersize plateau. Work more = nothing happens. It's frustrating on a level only writer's block can compare to.

Saw this. Was instantly eaten up with envy.

Hrm

2010-02-08T11:45:00.002-04:00

Things I learned yesterday:

-Watched Legion and Book of Eli. Book of Eli is a better movie, but I liked it less than Legion.

-Apparently I can't tell Paul Bettany apart from Jude Law.

-I guessed the plot twist in Book of Eli the first time I saw an ad for it. And I was right.

-The last thing you want to do is get in a wing fight with an archangel. Wings count as bladed weapons AND armor.

-Something went terribly wrong with the Superbowl ads.

-An iPod battery can become so empty it won't charge. Because it's empty and the iPod wants to boot, but the battery is empty. Repeat x10,000.

-The new Clash of the Titans looks so good I would sell a kidney to go see it right now.

Still Ghostwriting for Shakespeare

2010-02-04T02:39:00.004-04:00

I had this crazy dream this morning that a lost Shakespeare play had been found. It was called "To Wit" and was about... This young man who was getting married and took all of his friends out to his country estate for revelry before the wedding. They were going to hunt for a week, and drink, and boast about things, and then the bride would show up with her family and friends, and the play would end with a wedding. Only the friends of the bride were going to marry the friends of the groom, and the play was much funnier than it sounds.

Part of the reason it was a 'lost' play was that Shakespeare had written it in secret and had half the men played by women, and half the women played by men. Most of the boasting and jokes had to do with gender roles and sexism.

I remember in the first part, once they'd all just arrived at the country estate two of the men, Gracen and... this guy who's name I can't recall, they get drunk and start boasting about how they're both such good hunters they don't have to stalk their prey, they just hide so well it comes to them. And Kiera Knightly was playing Gracen and I think Karl Urban was playing the guy who's name I can't remember. And they wind up in the yard of the estate, pointing to trees and barrels saying they could hide behind them so well no one would ever find them. At one point Gracen is hiding behind a lone wagon wheel he's propped up in the middle of a field and it's after dusk and they're drunk and the other guy can't find him in the dark so he wins the boast off...

It was the most hilarious thing I had ever seen.

And then Nikki started crying and hopping up and down on the bed wanting breakfast and you have no idea how furious I am I did not get to see the rest of the play.

Cake in Wonderland

2010-01-07T03:12:00.003-04:00

So I was watching the SyFy Alice miniseries the other week (it's actually pretty cute) and Hatter has this great line, where he's trying to make Alice feel better about liking a guy who's been kidnapped. He tells Alice that,

"Trust me - I, I know a thing or two about liking people. And in time, after much chocolate and cream cake, 'like' turns into 'what was his name again.'".

Oh, and this is Hatter.

I like the quote. But then I was like 'what's cream cake?'. Is it like Cream Soda? Just plain vanilla cake? Apparently, after trolling some recipe sites, it's cake sliced thin with a pudding/custard inside.

Can't be that hard to make, I figure, and pick up the ingredients. And it's not.

Not until you get to the slice the cake thin part. Thank god Amie was over. First you pop the cake out of the pan, then slice it in half with a huge bread knife, then lift the top off without breaking it, then put the bottom back in the pan, then add pudding, then put the top back on without breaking it.

In hindsight I think if you're trying to make it look pretty you should probably let the pudding set up then spread it on the bottom slice, and put the whole cake on a platter instead of back in the pan. But whatever.

Chocolate Fudge Cake Mix + Vanilla Pudding + Light Cream Cheese + Strawberries = So much better than it should be. I expected this to be good. I wasn't expecting it to be one of those things you have to sit down to eat. It's over the top good.

Definitely 'what was his name' good.

Reply

2009-12-23T15:11:00.003-04:00

Dear Anonymous,

Sorry it took me so long to reply to this- it's Christmas and I have a lot of holiday hours. But I have been meaning to reply since the day I saw your comment.

I don't want you to think I'm a heartless bastard. I'm not. But I also lived through the whole McDonald's Coffee In My Lap thing and it was one of those moments I knew the world had gone crazy. Someone put coffee in their lap and spilled it on their junk and sued McDonalds for a gazillion dollars. As if they didn't know coffee is hot. Seriously?

And there's this "who can I sue?" billboard on 75 Southbound.

And you're right, I don't have kids. I probably won't ever. But I do have dogs. I have had dogs for going on a quarter of a century and I've also worked in retail for over ten years. I'm not saying dogs and customers are the same as having kids, but they're the best I can go with, really.

And before I get any farther, I feel really bad for the parents that they lost their kids. Any death is sad and important and meaningful. I'm not trying to take away from that.

But what I meant in my blog entry is where has personal responsibility gone? Kids drown in swimming pools and you don't see pools getting closed down- they get gates and locks and I've even seen these wrist band things that sound an alarm in water. Kids put things in power outlets and the power company doesn't issue a recall- you buy those little plastic things that go in outlets. Kids eat stuff under the sink- you call poison control and get lock things for drawers or put rubber bands around the knobs.

Now, what I saw on the news for this blind thing was this weird roman blind where it had loops of string at the bottom to draw the blinds up. I have never seen blinds like that in real life. I also saw normal style blinds with strands of cords- they weren't linked at the bottom and weren't long enough to reach the windowsill. In my house we have some sort of cordless roman blind.

My first thought seeing the regular blinds with the hanging strands is, 'can't you just tie the cords in a bow higher up?' because I have been to houses like that. It never occurred to me why, but hey, there you go.

The other thing that bugged me about this case, which you pointed out in that parents can't be everywhere, was where were the parents and where were the kids? Say you left your kid in one of those pen things- there's a loud thump from the other room as the kid climbs out. Then the kid has to toddle across the room a bit until he happens upon the unknotted blinds, and then there's the loud rattling of blinds while the kid plays with them before something bad happens. This is easily ten to fifteen minutes, in my mind.

When I hear a noise upstairs and I don't see my dogs the first thing I do is yell their names- at which point you usually hear them panic and tip over the garbage can. Or I go look to see what they're up to. When I hear a noise I find out what it is, immediatly, because they're dogs. They might be up to anything. I don't wait several minutes to go investigate.

Other story about the dogs- I took Bailey to the petstore and because she was well behaved I bought her this sausage style dog food. And while I was trying to break it into pieces she ate the whole thing in one bite and you could see it get lodged in her throat. And she looked at me like oh my god and started choking and I reached into her mouth and grabbed the sausage and pulled it out. And she promptly tried to eat it again.

They're dogs. They have no idea what they're doing. They'd probably eat laundry soap if it was on the floor. That's why you have to keep an eye on them.

And what I can't fathom with these kids and blinds cases is what the parents were doing. Sleeping? Sure, I guess so. I'm a pretty light sleeper though. In the other room? There are those little walkie talkie things. At my Dad's house when my little brother was kept in a pen, we just dragged the pen to whatever room we were in.

Or when they buy plastic outlet blockers and things to keep drawers shut they could tie the cords up in a bow.

War of the Worlds

2009-12-18T17:40:00.002-04:00

Finished "Days of Grass" this morning- it'd been a long time since I'd been to a used book store and found a Tanith Lee novel I hadn't already read or owned. Found this one over at Book Nook about a week ago and only just picked it up last night. It's pretty much War of the Worlds, if she'd written it first- aliens come down and take over the planet and humanity goes to hide underground and the heroine sneaks up now and then to see what surface life is like. And then she gets captured by the aliens and taken to a city they've made. It's good, but it's not Tales of the Flat Earth.

Logic? Lolwut?

2009-12-15T20:21:00.002-04:00

Apparently there is a gigantic recall on blinds today. Because... Get this...

Kids can strangle themselves on the cords.

I WAS UNAWARE THAT CHILD PENS HAD STOPPED BEING MANUFACTURED. OR THAT PARENTS DIDN'T HAVE TO KEEP AN EYE ON KIDS.

Who knew?

Ennui

2009-12-15T04:33:00.003-04:00

Sorry blog, haven't been able to think of anything to write about so it's been a slow month.

I did this big knitting project the other way and misread the directions (which weren't that clear) and two days worth of work is all wrong. Mom made a scene while I unwound the knitting so I could redo it- it was like I was painting over the Mona Lisa.

Haven't done any Christmas shopping, though two knitting projects are done. Two more to do, I think. Or three. I should probably make a list tomorrow.

Made up a character to play in my friend's Blue Rose game. Blue Rose is called Romantic Fantasy- I'm not fond of that name, but whatever- it's the difference between most Dungeons and Dragons games and most fantasy novels written in the last twenty years. More abandoned moonlit temples and court intrigue than undead vikings coming over the mountain to kidnap the mayor's daughter. Drew my character on the back of my sheet- it's amazing how well I can draw for someone who can't actually draw.

Saw Ninja Assassin and The Princess and the Frog. I don't know if my childhood memories of Disney are just rosy colored from that age- I don't watch Disney anymore- but when I heard that Princess and the Frog was the best since Lion King I was a little excited about seeing it. Went and saw it with Amie and Joel and I don't know what reviewer made that comparison or what they were on at the time, but they're not even in the same league. I can think of songs from Lion King (The Circle of Life, Can you feel the love tonight, Hakuna Matata) or Aladdin (A Whole New World) or The Little Mermaid (Part of Your World)- I can't recall any songs from Princess and the Frog besides "Almost There" and I've got nothing other than the title. I guess it was ok. I don't know. It was pretty. It wasn't Miyazaki.

(On that note, Ponyo rocked my face off. And now I really want to go watch Spirited Away again.)

However, Ninja Assassin was everything it promised- fifteen gallons of blood in the human body and it's all under high pressure and the ninjas have lots of sharp pointy things. It had a neat story too- though I think I thought it'd be a bit more since I saw JMS in the credits. There was a lot of back flipping, too. And the ninja hero guy spends a lot of time working out in his apartment in sleep pants.

I had a weird thought at the used book store the other day. I was over at Book Nook since some friends live near there, and I wanted to see if they had something I couldn't find at Book Exchange and I realized there's some things you just can't find. Oddly enough, there's about eighty something Outlanders books by James Axler and at least that many Deathlands books- you're lucky if there's more than five in a used book store. Where do they go? I have no idea. I never see them anywhere. However, there's usually at least one Zecheria Sitchin book and so far I've managed to collect nearly the whole series from Book Exchange alone. And I realized no matter what used book store I go to I pretty much always find something really interesting sounding that is book three in a five book series- and you are never ever going to see the other four books. It's like they don't exist. There's something called the Silver Thorn or Silver Throne series written by someone with a last name that starts with "Mc" and I see it every used book store I go to, and it's never the first one.

COYOTE!!1!

2009-11-29T14:22:00.003-04:00

SAW ONE OF THESE LAST NIGHT! BUT IT WAS NOT ON AN AIRPORT TRANSPORT TRAIN THING! IT WAS IN THE ROAD! ALSO, I DID NOT HIT IT WITH MY CAR!

Little Red Riding Hood

2009-11-25T03:41:00.000-04:00

"Find My Family"

2009-11-23T22:52:00.002-04:00

Despite the hokey tree on a hill this show made me cry miserably.

This episode they're trying to reunite a family in Wisconsin- the parents gave up their baby because they were teenagers and now it's 29 years later and they've tried everything they could to find their baby, but nothing has paid off. ABC manages to find the girl and sets the family to meet on a random lush hilltop with a huge oak tree at the top.

It's tearjerker enough, but I haven't been able to find my biological family either, so it doubly got to me. The last time I tried really hard was a few years ago- it's not that I don't love my family, but I'm curious.

New Waterhouse

2009-11-16T02:10:00.002-04:00

I thought I knew Waterhouse's paintings pretty well, but apparently there's always at least one more of anything.

Sorry for the crazy hugeness, but it's such a great painting.

Anyway, one of the guy's in this year's Nano, he's a painter. So I poked around online a bit to find things in the style I thought he'd do, found a few good portraits from the era. And right now he's working on a portrait of Ophelia, using the heroine as a model, so I went to look for more art. And I found that, which is pretty astounding. In the book it's Ophelia sitting by the lake, on a bench. As for the real life painting, I really like how Waterhouse did her hair, and expression.

Crazy Success

2009-11-07T02:12:00.003-04:00

Nanowrimo is crazy this year. I'm on Day 7, I'm on Day 17's word count. I haven't been able to write much of anything since I finished Rome, and this is just... Going like crazy. I sit down and move the mouse and there's 1,000 words, I get another Diet Pepsi and there's 1,300 more words.

I wrote something like... 9,000 words today. Er. Yesterday. Friday. Whatever.

My hands hurt a little, but other than that this year's Nanowrimo is like cutting butter with a hot knife.

The only thing I'm worried about is how long it'll be in the end. It does not feel like I'm in the middle of the story (I'm at 28,344 right now, if you're reading this in the future) even though I'm in the middle of the words required.

Meh. Sleepytimes.

Tanith Lee's Night's Master

2009-10-28T00:02:00.003-04:00

Seriously, doesn't this look cool? It's the new edition of the first of Tanith Lee's Flat Earth series. I've got it in hardback, in a collected edition but this is so nice looking it makes me want to run out and buy it.

Nanowrimo Starts in... Ten days!

2009-10-21T17:46:00.004-04:00

I'm totally psyched! Except about all the school work I need to get done between now and then. *sigh*

Ok, well, I was poking around the Nanowrimo website and I found this thing about sponsorship. If anyone wants to help the organization out, just click on the link. Thanks!

(And the Kennesaw region is at war with the Cornwall region and the war is counted by word count and donations)

In other news I can't seem to get any writing for school done. I have two papers that need fixing before tomorrow and I just keep staring at them and the teacher's assignments wondering what exactly needs fixing. They're kind of horrible. Blah. One of them, the assignment he gave us has about three different topics in one paragraph and I don't think he wants ten pages to cover the entire thing.

And we're having our first Nanowrimo meeting tonight at the Woodstock Coffee House. My excitement over that might explain the lack of huzzah over Grendel's Mother. Or Charlemagne. Or the Secret History.

Cobb County Library Book Sale

2009-10-18T00:31:00.003-04:00

This is probably going to be the last big booksale of the season... Kevin and I got up really early and went to wait in the cold for the doors to open, then rushed around looking for things from 9am til 1pm. Found a few grocery bags worth of stuff, some records. The records selection was practically all Vivaldi this year, just crates and crates of it, no big band.

Well, having Kevin along was great because he's big enough to fight his way in amongst all the grannies at the craft table (I'm too scared to start pushing) and he came out with a few knitting books for me. The first was like, 80's colorwork for children (SCARY) and the second was... Alice Starmore's Aran Knitting, which is one of my favorite knitting books of all time. I never thought I'd get a copy since it's price is usually somewhere between 200-300 dollars but this was ONE FREAKING DOLLAR!!

Other than that I got a Cole Porter bio, a few really old Horatio Hornblower books, a comlete set of Kate Elliot's Crown of Stars, a couple of good history textbooks, some King Arthur fiction. One of the records is "Monster Concert" which has like, 20 pianos and sixteen players- it has to be cool.

And, not adding in the real value of the Alice Starmore book, I bought $445 worth of books for $26. Best of the season so far.

ALSO DO NOT TAKE KIDS TO WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE. IT'S MADE OF AWESOME AND NIGHTMARE FUEL.

Random Holidays

2009-10-06T01:09:00.002-04:00

Today was weird. Went to study with Sarah and left with five spider plant babies. And then on the way home I stopped to get a donut- I bought one, the guy gave me ten. How awesome is that?

It's like it was a Holiday just for me.

And to top that off, James Marsters was in Lie to Me. And he looked horrible! Blah hair, blah floppy accent that was English sometimes, blah camera shots, blah suit. Everything was horrible. And then at the end of the episode (SPOILERS) he got shot! Can't help but be a little gleeful about that.

Eager

2009-10-01T17:47:00.002-04:00

So, I put up a bunch of Nano fliers around campus Tuesday, and by the time I was heading off campus there were a few of the little tear off bits missing.

I come back Thursday and the one in the Parking Garage has zero tear offs left!

AWESOME!

So I replaced it with a fresh one and checked the others around campus. In a about two days about twenty people took little tear offs. And there's still a month until the contest starts.

Third Book Sale of the Season

2009-09-23T13:50:00.003-04:00

There was a booksale this morning at Perimeter Mall- to benefit the American Association of University Women. I've never been to a booksale in a mall before- If the Cobb County sale can use Exhibit Halls in a park, I'm astounded one taking place in Atlanta can't find something similar. Meh. Food was right there, since we were next to the food court, so that was cool.

Now, as for the finds...

There was a writing book I used to check out of the library all the time on characters. I need to figure out what the other one was- same topic but it had all these lists of hobbies and names by region in it.

Several history books: AD 1000, The Waning of the Middle Ages, Life in a Medieval Castle, Courtesans, The Great Mortality, and The Last Madam.

Two Arthur books: The Quest for Arthur's Britain and The Mists of Avalon.

Simple Knits with a Twist which has knitting with wires and plastic bags and the like. Milk, Eggs, Vodka which is a collection of lost and found grocery lists. I did find a textbook about Joseph Campbell's work, but none of the actual Joseph Campbell books. Batman and Philosophy was found over in the Religion section. Something on the origins of words. And a nonfiction book about vampires.

It was a pretty good haul. That first booksale got me $160 worth of books for $14. This one came to $320 for $30.

As for scanners? There was a lady with a suitcase (the giant size, going away for a month style) scanning books with her PDA. She and her bag blocked the classics table so long I didn't get to look at it. Some guy stood with his phone scanning romance paperbacks so long I gave up on looking at them either. I haven't decided if they or the people with the kids who scream, have no interest in what's going on, and block the shelves are worse.

(In case you're wondering about the numbering of booksales- The second one was in Newnan but I didn't go)

GREAT MOMENT OF AWESOME

2009-09-22T02:31:00.003-04:00

On the way back from Waffle House I spot a possum in the road. And of course I'm driving right at him. And I think "Don't move don't move don't move" because he's mostly in the middle of the lane, but if he runs for it, he's going to die. And he just sort of hunkers down, and the car passes right over him and I'm like "YEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!" because I didn't kill the possum and I could see him scurry out of the road in the rear view mirror AND IF QUEEN'S WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS HAD COME ON THE RADIO I COULD NOT HAVE FELT HAPPIER!

DID NOT KILL THE POSSUM! YEAH!

First Book Sale of the Season

2009-09-12T10:26:00.003-04:00

Northside Branch Library is having a book sale this weekend- just one of those small, in-the-lobby type sales, but the ad said something about 8,000 books so I went to go see. I don't know it if was 8,000 or not but it didn't look it.

Got some good stuff, though.

I thought since there was the fourth Joseph Campbell book there, the others would be too, but if they were I couldn't find them. Mom wanted to know what he was about, so I started to explain the monomyth, but without the actual book I don't think I really got the point across. And the "Art of War in the Middle Ages" looks cool. No diagrams on how to build a trebuchet but perhaps "Backyard Ballistics" can help with that.

Another bonus to the small book sale, there was only one guy with a scanner there. People with scanners are the bane of book sales. They push. They're not even there to get books for themselves, just for their amazon stores. So you'll be looking at something and the person with the scanner will start leaning into you to get to the books in front of you and then if you don't get the hint they'll start pushing you- and if you say something about them scanning they start yelling at you. Especially if there's "no scanner" signs posted.

There's four more book sales in the next month. The next is in Newnan- I'm not sure if I'll go because it's so far, but they also said it's a swap, which makes it more interesting.

DragonCon and Triops

2009-09-04T22:54:00.004-04:00

OK, so I finally went to Dragon Con. It was fun. Mostly.

Got up hella early, took Marta down, waited in line FIVE MILLION HOURS for a badge, and then the fun began. I went to the Torchwood Panel, which had Gareth David Lloyd and James Marsters at it, which was hilarious and great. They told a lot of cute stories and we all laughed al ot and I took a ton of pics of them. And then the panel was over and the guys went to the celeb signing thing so I went there too.

So the first one I get an autograph from was Gareth and he's so nice and genuine and awesome (OMG TRYING NOT TO GET ALL FANGIRLY HERE BUT OMG SERIOUSLY HE CALLED ME SWEETHEART LIKE TEN TIMES!! EEEEEEEEEEE! IN HIS ACCENT!) and he talked to me for several minutes. Like a nice, normal person. Which was great. It kept me from getting all fangirly and screaming incomprehensible things at him. (WELSH ACCENT IN REAL LIFE = 10,000% MORE AWESOME THAN ON TV 4SRS)

Getting James Marsters autograph was significantly less awesome.

Anyway. I donno. I had a good time at the convention. There was lots of neat stuff to look at, and people in costumes, and I ran into seemingly every person I know. I think it would be more fun if I was there longer and had a hotel room, but it was a blast, all things considered.

This is like... Day 10? 11? Those are the two survivors at this point. Sort of a small hatch out of this batch of eggs. The larger one is Tank, and the smaller is Motoko. There was a third, but he was really small and I haven't seen him in a day or so. Tank probably ate him.

BAKED APPLE DONUTS

2009-09-02T13:53:00.005-04:00

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

TOTALLY AWESOME AND DELICIOUS! And somehow they're even better cold.

Recipe here.

Day 4

2009-08-29T11:01:00.001-04:00

They've hatched, an are finally big enough to (sortof) show up in pics. If you look at the main castle gate there's a white spot against one of the black lines.

Day 1

2009-08-27T23:43:00.001-04:00

Nothing has hatched yet.

wait what

2009-08-20T15:00:00.003-04:00

in midieval europe class this morning my professor started explaining about the mystery cults and how the romans were suspicious of them because they didn't quite follow state religion and met in secret where the romans couldn't keep an eye on them.

and he gets to this point about the cult of mithras where he's explaining they met once a week, and had a sacred meal, and the meal was led by a priest, and they drank sacred wine and ate sacred bread, had baptisms, and what does this sound like...?

and you could just feel the sudden hostility in class when he asked that question.

i donno. i thought it was really funny.

Fall Semester

2009-08-20T00:03:00.003-04:00

Oh man, second day of fall semester tomorrow.

The first day was kind of a bust- my cell phone has this battery saving feature that if it's plugged in long enough it shuts off, which is really great when it's your alarm clock. All my favorite coffee mugs were in the wash. Parking was a nightmare, and when I got to class it was so full there were no seats so I had to sit on the floor. Some guy showed up about five minutes after I did and the teacher laughed and told him to "pull up some carpet and start taking notes".

However, the classes themselves were great, whatever snags there were. Medieval Europe, Gender in Media (it's a Gender and Women's Studies class- sort of on interpreting books and tv shows), British Literature until the 1600s, and Latin. I've got the BritLit one with a teacher I had a few semesters ago, so it's good seeing her again.

The other thing that was really great? I'm sure some of you have heard how angry I was about the meal plan business the school started up- it's mandatory even if you live off campus and expensive and I don't really like the campus food. Well, they built us a new dining hall which is named the Culinary Center or something pompous sounding like that. To get in you walk under this roof that looks like Lady Liberty's crown, and swipe your school ID card and you're let loose in this mall sized open space that has all these kiosk restaurants. The only thing I can think to compare it to is a really good Vegas buffet, minus the high end seafood. There's a place that does southern food, a coffee bar, breakfast bar, international food (THERE WAS GOAT ON THE MENU ON TUESDAY CAN YOU BELIEVE IT), a diner type place, Italian, and a salad bar... Oh, and a Chinese place. I'm probably forgetting about half the places in there. And there's a bazillion tables and booths and lots of windows and some sort of space age robot dishwasher where you put your plates on a conveyor belt and they disappear to the future to be cleaned.

Only con: I think I saw TWO power outlets in the place. They designed it to keep you from camping. Which isn't really a con, I guess. I donno. While I was eating in there I wanted to work on a story and couldn't.

ALSO THEY HAVE CHEESECAKE.

CHEESECAKE. OMG.

Anyway, I only get to go there eleven more times this semester... Unless I want to buy more visits or something... So I'm going to try and save mine til November, and remember to bring a powerstrip.

Speaking of November, I already put up two Nano fliers on campus. Yay!

Nostalga

2009-08-08T10:22:00.004-04:00

I miss the good ol' days of the internet when every webpage had gifs of flickering candles and a final fantasy midi playing.

Knitting Terminology

2009-08-03T11:17:00.002-04:00

That is a kimono. The huge belt around the middle is an obi.

So, I'm teaching a friend to knit and she's asking me about some yarn she got that came without labels and how to find out what it is, but what she really says is, both skeins "had their obi removed".

I CANNOT STOP LAUGHING.

Choose Your Own Senior Thesis Topic

2009-07-13T23:10:00.003-04:00

It's probably the six cups of coffee I've had tonight but I saw this picture and it's one of the funniest thing I've ever seen- to the point that I now want to write a thesis paper on it. With a title like "DEATH FROM ABOVE: SHARKNADOES IN THE SOUTH DURING THE RECONSTRUCTION ERA". I could even make up lots of primary sources- letters from Plantation Owners about the how the Great White Sharks that year had bitten the corners off the house and the high winds had damaged the old oak tree.

Heeeeeee.

(Pic is a shopped 'Choose your own adventure novel' in case you didn't recognize it. Shopped by iconzicons)

So...

2009-07-03T13:24:00.005-04:00

I found this really fantastic shawl at the Thrift Store. Like, really, really fantastic. It's purple and soft and knit with boa feathers in some places, and it has tassels.

AND SOMEONE HAND KNIT IT- AND WHOEVER IT WAS HAND KNIT FOR, THEY DROPPED IT OFF AT THE THRIFT STORE.

*sigh* I mean, before I took up knitting I'd never have been able to tell the difference between machine knit and hand knit, and I'd never have thought anything about seeing something hand knit at the thrift store. But now I'm like "do you have any idea how long it took to knit that? how much it cost? do you have any idea how much someone cared about you to make it?". Of course, the person who dropped it off can't hear me- but I wish they could.

Oh well. It's *mine* now. ^_^

I was going through these Alice Starmore knitting books- they're like knitting sudoku in russian with a blindfold- brilliant, beautiful patterns but Alice even admits to how insane they are... There's a quote near this one shawl pattern about how "some of my cable patterns are too big for sweaters" so you need to make something larger than a sweater to hold the whole cable design- and this shawl is the size of a small blanket. I really want to do the shawl but you need a mountain of yarn for it. But look at this thing- it's art.

The Harry Potter scarf I'm working on is coming along pretty well. It's... about half done, I guess, but it doesn't seem like it's as long as it needs to be. Because it's circular it's almost half an inch thick- I'm not going to die of hypothermia this winter. ^_^ I should have some left over yarn from the project, so I might do a pair of gloves to match, or just add more stripes until I think the scarf is the right length.

It's Been Weird

2009-06-24T23:51:00.005-04:00

Sorry for the long break, things have been a bit crazy.

Started my second summer class which is a snore-fest. It's a history class where we spend most of the time discussing where commas go and "coordinate adjectives".

Began working on a Harry Potter scarf. You know, just in time for hellish summer temperatures and the movie. ^_^

Built an epic lego castle- which isn't epic in a huge, or turrets sort of way, but wins in sheer fury and creative use of clear red 1x1s as blood. (KSU did something wrong with my financial aid that day)

There's this study abroad next summer to London out of Valdosta State and I'm seriously planning on going. It's six weeks and there's a class on Shakespeare and another on London as a Setting in Novels (seriously, that's the class name)- think I'll get an extension on the ticket and stay an extra week or two so I can go to Cardiff and do all the stuff I couldn't do in the two days when I was there last fall. I just spent the last two hours reading stuff for class and babbling in IRC to my friend in London (who's asleep) about all the stuff I want to see/do.

(narg. it's still bugging me. i mean, i write stuff, and i never think to myself, "gosh, i'll put the coordinate adjective here." who names these things?)

London. London. London. It's going to be awesome. Did you know I only took about three pics while I was there? Remember when I dislocated my knee in Florence? That was about two or three weeks before London so I was hobbling around by myself on these crutches and it was like a bad comedy putting a crutch aside without dropping it to get in my bag and get the camera out and take a shot. I think there's one of a "do not put your bike here" type sign in the brownstone-y type part of town I was in, the Gloucester Street Station of the Tube, and me at Platform 9 3/4. The hostel I stayed in, the first night I got there, it was about 4AM when I wandered in and when I got up to my room there were like, six bunk beds and the only bed open was on the top of one, and everyone else is asleep and I couldn't even switch the light on while I hauled myself up the ladder with the bum knee. In hindsight it's insanely funny.

Somehow international travel is much funnier than local travel. I can't think of anything particularly funny about this last trip to Florida, back in May. But I think of Italy and there's the night where we were so punch drunk happy to be heading home from Pisa that we danced in the train. Or the demonic killer cherubs painted on the wall of the hotel room in Pompeii. Or my bum knee and climbing up a bunk bed at 4AM. Or this really nice older lady I met on the Tube while I was heading to Kings Cross and she asked me what else I was going to be seeing in England and I said I wanted to go to Wales and see Cardiff and she got so angry with me she started yelling in the train and I thought she was going to punch me. (Wales is like the boonies to people in London) And she wanted to know if London wasn't good enough for me? Couldn't I just go see Oxford instead- Or was I too good for Oxford?!

Heh. Travel. It's awesome.

heartless

2009-06-02T21:41:00.004-04:00

mom and I were at the bank today and as we're leaving the teller says, "is there anything else i can do for you?"

and mom bitterly laughs and says "can you get me a job?"

the teller sadly laughs and says she cannot, which is when this gigantically tall woman behind us with a big white bouffant and way, way too much eyeshadow calls out, "i have a job you could do!"

my mom turns to her, hope shining in her eyes for a second. "really?" she asks, almost breathless.

"you could go dig ditches!" the woman says and scoots past us to the counter.

first of all, wtf.

secondly, fml.

third, what is wrong with you you crazy evil woman?! my mom nearly broke down in tears in the parking lot! since september my mom has been out of job- because she didn't come in during the gas crisis! what was she, living under a rock? there's million of people out of work and she takes the chance to make a joke of my mother! all my mother does, day in and day out since september is fill out job applications, send off her resume, and ask everyone she knows if they know if anyone is hiring- and she never hears a damn thing back. the absolute worst thing about being in a situation like this is the people that will jerk you around- oh, just one more interview, we're looking over your papers, we really need someone and you're perfect (but two days later you're too nice (to balance the books!)), what hours are you available? to get someone's hopes up and know they're doing it with no intention of following through... utterly inhuman.

Why do people listen to these guys?

2009-05-19T12:24:00.002-04:00

Howard Stern on the Columbine Shooting:

"There were some really good-looking girls running out with their hands over their heads. Did those kids try to have sex with any of the good-looking girls? They didn't even do that? At least if you're going to kill yourself and kill all the kids, why wouldn't you have some sex? If I was going to kill some people, I'd take them out with sex."

By 'kids' he's refering to the shooters. He's wanting to know why they didn't rape their classmates while they were at it.

Rush Limbaugh on Feminism:

“Feminism was established to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream.”

Yeah, if by mainstream he means the right to vote, which is where Feminism started, and went on to equal rights like getting paid the same and not having to hand the money over to your husband or father and hope he'd give you some of it. And when he says the quote on film everyone laughs and then he starts mooing and calling women cows.

All things not being entirely equal

2009-05-13T11:20:00.003-04:00

I'm taking a MayMester class on Gender and Women's Studies. Right now we're still back in the Women's Suffrage movement era learning about the struggle to get the vote, but today we watched a film called "Killing Me Softy 3" which shows a lot of magazine adverts on how women are sexualized to sell things. To go along with the film we had to bring in a magazine so we could analyze adverts ourselves.

With a choice between Torchwood Magazine and Knit.1, I went with Knit.1. (the Torchwood Mag only has ads for Lost Mag, and Supernatural Mag anyway...)

And after the film I had a chance to flip through Knit.1 with an idea of what we were looking for... And was actually really impressed. Especially since Vogue runs it, and after a movie worth of scrawny models half dressed, Knit.1 was really refreshing.

There's young ladies, old ladies, blonds, brunettes, a college girl in pj pants, some guy from SNL, a guy designer in a clothing warehouse/design shop, a guy in a tie, guys in hats; you get the picture. There's everyone.

And that world famous model pose, with the girl in a chair sprawled with her legs spread? That's actually a guy in this magazine. And it's more sensual than sexualized.

So, anyway, long story of analyzing magazines short, there's obviously guys in the knitting magazine. Modeling stuff. But they're also in there as designers or talking about themselves knitting. The guy from SNL knits. Two of the knitting blogs I like to here go to guy's blogs. Then there's this article. I know two guy knitters on IRC, and one of them is teaching me to spin.

So, we're in class learning about equality and objectification and rights and my female classmate leans over my shoulder to look at my knitting magazine and scoffs. And I'm like 'what' and she's like 'they're knitting'. In the sort of tone where you'd say 'they're eating. WITH THEIR FINGERS!'. And I'm like 'so?' and she says guys shouldn't knit, or guys don't knit, or something equally insane. Clearly they do. And she says she knows, because she saw a guy on campus knitting the other day and she laughed at him.

Part of me is like THERE'S A GUY KNITTER ON CAMPUS?! and the other part is like aren't we in equality class? Aren't we all equal? I forgot how men knitting is a sign of the apocalypse and madness... I know sexism goes both ways, but part of me really really wants to stand up for the rights of guy knitters. Not that John Brinegar really needs me to fight his fights for him, he's kinda big and grrr looking.

Happy Mother's Day!

2009-05-10T11:35:00.002-04:00

Notice the expensive knit bag?

I made that. ^_^

My Knitting Birthday

2009-04-30T12:03:00.005-04:00

Sometime in April last year was when I started knitting. I can sort of pinpoint the date because the November before I met this super awesome girl and her boyfriend at a Nanowrimo event. Or it might have been the year before's Nano, but we didn't really get to be friends until the 2007 Nano. Her name was Amanda, her boyfriend was Owen. We all sat around at WriteIns talking about our books or his plays, and eventually I was like you guys have to come over and watch Torchwood or Doctor Who or Garth Marenghi's Dark Place- whatever it was, they did and we all started hanging out here and while we'd watch TV Amanda would knit, and I'd ask what she was working on, and she'd offer to teach me, and I'd say, nah, I'm good.

And then they got engaged and he got a job in Chicago and in March she was gone. And as soon as she was gone, I was like, actually, I do want to knit.

That's Amanda and Me at my birthday party, which is why I'm so tarted up.

So, April comes and I... don't actually remember how I learned to knit. I think I looked at some sites on the internet, or checked a book out of the library, and wasn't entirely sure what I was getting myself into, so I didn't want to buy a bunch of stuff and find out I didn't like knitting, so I posted a want ad on FreeCycle for knitting... anything. And someone behind the Marietta Square was like, I have a bag of yarn you could take, and someone near Roswell behind Sandy Plains was like, I have some needles.

I go to the Square, pull up at their house, and I'm looking for the bag, only all I see is this hugenormous yard bag- like for fall leaves, and I'm like, no way is that my bag. Only I peek in the top and it is. It's so much bag-of-yarn that I have to lay it down in the backseat because it won't fit in the trunk. And over in Roswell there's a freezer bag of needles- mismatched dual points, cables, circulars, straight. Enough needles that for a while I had about five matching sets in each size.

So, I start learning to knit from a book or whatever, and it just all constantly goes wrong. Casting on is a nightmare and everything I try knitting just gets wider instead of going straight up like it should...

Which is where I get to my first teacher, my best friend Kevin's Mom, who's from Germany and knits really fast, so at first you're always like "wait, how did you do that?". She showed me how to do a long tail single hand cast on, which is so easy- and what I was doing wrong- the book wasn't clear about what happens at the end of the row, so I kept adding a stitch. So, she sets me straight on what I'm doing and I'm so excited about being able to knit without the thing getting wider that I just start knitting a four or five stitch wide scarf and it's about ten feet long before I realize I don't know how you finish it.

Anyway, around this time Mom has to go to some doctor appointment down at Perimeter so I go with her because there's a knitting store there, and it's really the first place I've ever been to for yarn besides seeing it at JoAnn's or where-ever. We go to Strings and Strands which has so much yarn stacked up you sort of feel as soon as you open the door it's all falling in on you. I find a couple of nice skeins there, and ask what I do to get the scarf off the needles, and she's like it's called a bind off, and this is how you do it. And then I'm able to get the long thin scarf done and move on to something else.

I do a scarf with two colors all at once, a pair of armwarmers in July which I was so proud of I actually wore them right then, and Kevin's Mom shows me how dual point needles work, and I start a pair of gloves.

And you know what pattern I used for those? I didn't. I totally made that up in my head, based off what I learned from Kevin's Mom. I mean, yeah, they're totally shapeless and not formfitting, but I made that up. I didn't know anything about increases and decreases then or cables or anything.

So, I go to Italy which is where really nice wool comes from but no one knits there and I was living in what might have been the only city in all of Italy to have a place that sold yarn and needles. You hiked out of the town, down a hill, turned down a neighborhood street, and next to a Laundromat there was a store that was sometimes open and it sold buttons and pantyhose and beads and they had about twenty skeins of wool there and a few boxes of needles.

I finished those handwarmers the same day I dislocated my knee in Florence. So at least my hands were warm while I huddled miserably in the Florence McDonalds while everyone else went and saw the museums and I had to wait for the bus home so I could lay in our flat's front room and watch Doctor Who on my laptop all weekend.

The only other place to get yarn there was the weekly market- I still have some of it, and boy is it loud. And strange.

I got home and hadn't really gained any new knitting knowledge since I'd learned to use dual points. But while I was in Italy I'd fallen in love with Anticraft's Swamp Witch pattern, and I'd never done a pattern before. I decided not to buy the yarn for it until I had a job, and so it wasn't until late November, mid December that I finally got all the things I needed. Started the project, was super proud of it, took it up to my Uncle's, got done with it and started putting the tassels on. Which is where it all went terribly awry.

I'd screwed up counting the pattern somewhere and one side was about six inches wider and I didn't have enough tassels for it. And Mom was convinced that even though I couldn't finish it and it was lopsided and lacking tassels it was the greatest. thing. ever. Which only made it worse, because... well. I mean, it's broken. I didn't have more tassels. I had to hide it in the garage to get her to stop talking about it.

And it wasn't for... Oh, four or five months before I took it out, used something else for the tassels, and wore it. And everyone was like OMG THIS IS GREAT WHERE DID YOU BUY IT. Which is sort of a riot. One of the guys in my History class was talking to me about it and I admitted the screw up and he was like *rolls eyes* oh, well, I noticed that, I just didn't want to embarrass you in front of everyone by pointing it out. And then everyone at our table laughed.

That's sort of an extreme close up of when I started it.

And somewhere around that time I learned to cable, too, which is so much easier than it looks.

The funny thing is how many guys are interested in knitting. I mean, yeah, knitting. I've met guy knitters, but this time I mean like, oh hey what are you doing? that's neat looking, kind of stuff. I was working on this pink and brown shawl in class during a movie and the guys at my table kept reaching over to sort of pet the fabric. At the end of class they were all asking if I was going to put tassels on it, and maybe they should be bright red, and shaped like this...

That's the shawl. No, it doesn't have red tassels. But then again JoAnn's ran out of the yarn and can't get more at the moment so I'm kind of screwed until I get more.

And here's a hat I made.

And in that year of knitting I've had a bunch of teachers. Kevin's Mom. Jean. The nice lady at Strings and Strands. People at The Whole Nine Yards. And I actually taught people how to knit, too, which is the most astounding to me. Kayla, while we were in Italy, Mom when I got back. I've even gotten to the point where I'm planning knitted Christmas presents this year, and some for birthdays, too.

One of the other things that gets me as a history student is the strange and mysterious history of knitting. Egyptians knitted, only it was more like advanced knot tying. No one is entirely certain where knitting came from, other than probably the Mediterranean, since it's found in every place that had a port that shipped to, from, or through there. It's even in the Bible- the part about the soldiers dicing for Jesus' seamless garment. I always kind of thought that was a metaphor- that Mary was so badass she could sew something without seams, but it's actually dual point knitting.

Basically I am super happy to be a knitter.

Immortality can be yours....

2009-04-28T12:49:00.002-04:00

For the low, low price of stinging the living daylights out of innocent beach goers.

That's right. There's an immortal species of jellyfish. How unfair is that? They don't even have brains. I mean, they do, but you know what I mean. It's not like they understand Shakespeare.

And they're not immortal like they'll come back if you cut them up, they're more like immortal until something kills them. But that's still really awesome.

Good Knitting Lunch

2009-04-24T14:08:00.003-04:00

Knitting outside on lunch break:

Pros: The weather is nice, there's squirrels, male classmates tanning outside shirtless...

Cons: Bees are wayyy, wayyy too interested in knitting in a i-must-get-a-much-closer-look way.

(cursed) Amish (chain letter) Friendship Bread

2009-04-21T17:06:00.002-04:00

Saturday afternoon I'm driving Fred back from dropping off his car for some work and he tells me someone at work gave him this secret Amish bread that you only know about if someone gives it to you and only the Amish know what it's made out of, and because all the batches go all the way back to the first Amish person who passed it off on someone who's not Amish they're all really the same loaf.

My response: what?

He tells me you get this letter telling you to do certain things on certain days to the 'starter' that comes with the chain letter (a Ziploc freezer bag of goop) and then on day ten you divide up the goop into other freezer bags and pass them on and bake bread with what remains.

And then he tells me since he's going away for a few days it's my job to deal with day ten.

The bread actually came out really good. It's got a lot of cinnamon in it, and it's soft and sweet, very good hot.

So, I get to the 'pay it forward' part of the process and one neighbor isn't home, another is psyched because she hasn't gotten this in years, and another...

The lady who lives diagonal to me, when she moved in, she tried to interview everyone on out street since her son was going to be living with her and she wants to make sure we're all safe or something. I missed that interview (like five years ago) and she's still a little shifty about me and my mom. So, I see her in her driveway and I'm like O HAI and do you like bread? and tell her the whole thing about this Amish Friendship Bread thing.

And she's like great! sounds good! sounds delicious! ..... do i have to do anything?

And I'm like Well, yes, you have to bake it.

And she says "oh, well, I don't want to do anything. If it was already done I'd take it."

Which makes me think of the Little Red Hen.

Like, what am I supposed to do? Bring her a cooked loaf of bread every ten days?

And then, in other news, semi-stolen from the kind of thing Not Always Right would post, I was at JoAnn's the other day trying to deal with a special order they had to cancel when the lady in front of me started hassling the cashier.

Cashier: *ringing up glue sticks*

Customer: Can't you just bulk ring those up? I'm in a hurry.

Cashier: They're all singles... Ok, they're done.

Customer: Can I use a coupon?

Cashier: If you like.

Customer: Can I use two coupons?

Cashier: If they're not the same, sure.

Customer: *hands over two of the same coupon*

Cashier: Um, these are the same.

Customer: No, they're not. I cut them out of two different newspapers.

Cashier: ...

Customer: Well? Are you going to take them?

Cashier: I can't take them both, they're the same.

And then once the lady is all rung up and paid and everything she just stands there pawing through her shopping bag, counting stuff and checking the receipt and doing math. WHILE BLOCKING THE LINE.

Bourbon Street and Headstones

2009-04-10T14:22:00.006-04:00

Probably it's the trip to the Marietta Cemetery for class this morning but I suddenly really want to reread Interview with the Vampire.

And maybe The Vampire Lestat. And Queen of the Damned. Man, those are some good books. The first time I read them was in the sixth grade and those three are still my favorites of the series. Good, long summer reading.

Heh.

2009-04-08T19:11:00.000-04:00

Your result for The House, MD Personality Test...

Dr. James Wilson

70% Eccentricity, 30% Confidence, 55% Kindness

Congratulations, you're Dr. James Wilson! You've got the tough role of being the conscience and best friend to Dr. Greg House, which proves that you must be secretly (or openly) insane. You're always a good person for providing advice, witty remarks, free lunches, lectures, and (wanted or unwanted) psychoanalysis. You are about as confident as the average person, but you have some big issues with yourself, and may have problems living up to the ideals you have in your head. You do really care about other people, though, even if you sometimes express that caring by trying to get into their pants.

Take The House, MD Personality Test at HelloQuizzy

A Novel Solution

2009-03-29T16:26:00.003-04:00

So, I was talking to Kevin at lunch today, telling him where I am in the novel, whats going on with the characters... Right now there's the making of lots of tension and drama amongst three of the main ones that'll play out through the rest of the book. One character doesn't like that his lover is spending time with his ward, because he's jealous, only (at the moment) he doesn't know which one he's jealous of-

And Kevin says "Why don't they all just have a polygamist relationship? Then they won't have to be jealous of each other. I mean, if they're all happy with that."

I told Kayla about it, and she pretty much asked "...then what's the rest of the novel about?"

Irony

2009-03-18T17:27:00.003-04:00

Funny-in-a-horrible-way story:

I had to drive to Athens yesterday for research for one of my classes; since I drove all the way there and back, today I decided I'd take the car in for an oil change. When I was leaving KSU and taking the sharp turns in the parking garage the car made a rrrrr sort of noise when I made the turns, then was silent by the time I was actually on Frey Road. Got home and my tax return was waiting for me, but since I wasn't expecting it until April or later I hadn't actually thought of anything to buy with it (except for sort of wanting a bike). Called Goodyear, told them the whole story, brought it in, got the oil change and then they come out with their funeral faces on and they're like 'You have to see this, it's going to be hard to explain...'

And basically, that rrrrr noise was the sound of my entire tax return being spent.

Good news: I actually have the money to do the repair, because of the tax return.
Bad news: No tax return means I have no money.
Good news: I don't have to pay for the car to be fixed.
Bad news: No bike.

(and because one person already asked, no, do not buy me a bike.)

What I did on my Spring Break

2009-03-16T00:14:00.005-04:00

Mostly: nothing.

The booksale was the last day before break, so I had plenty to read. Made some headway into Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, read chapters here and there in Sitchin's Cosmic Code, flipped through the Esperanto book and tried to explain to mom why it's a brilliant idea.

Did a lot of knitting. Hobby Lobby isn't what I usually think of when I think 'yarn shop' but they have their own in house brand of yarn and it's mostly insane artsy acrylics which, when that type of yarn's time is over, go on sale for $1.99. Which isn't bad for a skein of yarn; it's even better when it's neat yarn with bright colors, all sorts of unusual styles and types. I bought this lemon-lime yarn that reminded me of those subliminal message Sprite commercials from last year and did a thin summer weight scarf out of it; Mom went nuts seeing it so I gave it to her. Another yarn I bought was this purple furry yarn with bits of sewed stuff in it; it's called ragg yarn and it looks like it's spun out of lumber jack shirts and muppets. Mom started giving it the 'that's mine' look but I told her I'd just knitted her something (and it's not like she doesn't know how to knit). I finished the purple scarf in South Carolina and Aunt Marilyn got the same look.

Monday we watched Castle, which was funnier than I thought it would be.

Thursday we drove down to Hilton Head to visit my Aunt and Uncle at their vacation home, which is in one of those golf course resort neighborhoods. I hadn't seen them in a year or two, and I loved taking pictures of the Spanish moss covered oaks in the area. We couldn't play golf with them because I have no idea what I'm doing, and secondly I brought clothes and then a dress, and the clothes weren't nice enough for golfing and the dress was too nice, and thirdly I don't even have golf shoes. Apparently golf is such a historical sport you have to dress up for it. I just found the whole thing a little silly and weird; I mean, how are you supposed to try it out?

We went to the beach once, so I could see it, and it was freezing and the wind was blowing like a hurricane- It was still stunning, especially since there was enough fog on the ocean to make the horizon invisible. The Savannah River side of Hilton Head was somewhat warmer- I poked around the beach there picking up seashells and looking at a few beached jelly fish; the largest was the size of a colander.

Friday night we ate at a local place called Pepper's Porch where I had fantastic jambalaya. I got to watch Bones on my laptop that afternoon, since we missed it the night before- Booth and Brennan continue to be the highlight of my tv week.

Headed back today and I made the mistake of taking Dramamine on an empty stomach- I slept eight hours last night, the entire ride back up, and a five hour nap this after noon. Went to get the dogs from Fred's house just in time to catch the premier of Kings...

Kings was epic. I like the drama of it, and the politicking, the uniforms, and David. David spent the whole episode being badass without even noticing it; he can't sleep so he rescues his fellow soldiers, he faces his court martial without reservations, hides from the King's party to play the piano... Spends money buying his fellow soldiers beer and video games.

Which reminded me this has been an incredible year for television. Not just since January 1st because a lot of shows have been on midseason break, but this season since last fall. Fringe. Bones. Leverage. Castle. Lie to Me. Kings. Being Human. Dollhouse. (i'm probably forgetting something) Practically everything that's been on has been fantastic. I was eating dinner the other night and turned to Mom and said "I miss Leverage." right out of the blue and she was like "Me too.". At least there will be more of that this summer. Fringe there's still something like 20 days until a new episode. Bones is going to be new until the season is over. I have no idea what Kings' schedule is going to be like, but I'll be glued to my seat when it's on.

Yay for tv!

In other news, I remain jobless. I'm trying to keep my chin up about the whole thing, but it's really depressing and aggravating. I'm the next person to be hired at two places, if anyone leaves. But who's going to leave right now? No one. Mom's got the same thing going on. Since I got home I've filled out at least two or three applications a day, more when I wasn't in class, and I've had one interview. One. I got the job at Aero because of how awesome Kevin is and the fact I'm an epic employee- I was supposed to be seasonal for Thanksgiving, not until January. I just worked like a powerhouse and impressed everyone and they kept me on until they couldn't anymore. It's even more ridiculous when you're on these job finding sites and they're like "Now Hiring!" so you rush to fill out the application only to get a reply back asking if you have a commercial drivers license when they weren't advertising for *drivers*.

Anyway, we got home from South Carolina early so I can make it to my England to 1688 class tomorrow- it the best thing I'm taking this semester.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

2009-03-08T22:24:00.002-04:00

This book is seriously awesome.

There's magic, and fair folk, and the Regency Era, and the word 'showed' is spelled 'shewed', and there are *footnotes*. They're fake ones that go to books that aren't really real, but *footnotes* for god's sake in a fiction book. Referencing fictional stuff.

It's even written like that era. Here's the first sentence so you can see: "Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians."

And it's one of those massive, tome-sized things that they keep coming out with these days. I remember when I was a kid and the Narnia books could keep me busy for hours; now they're maybe an hour and a half's reading (and when I clocked that it was outloud reading). This thing feels good in your hands.

And apparently they're going to make a movie of it.

Book Sale

2009-03-06T13:46:00.003-04:00

Had a great time at the Cobb County Library Book Sale this morning- went with Kevin and Anna Short, which was a lot of fun. Hadn't seen Anna in a long time. It was cold, but it wasn't as cold as I thought it might be, waiting outside the exposition centers for an hour. It was kinda funny, there's a moment where there's only about fifteen people in line and then suddenly people start streaming up and the line grows exponentially.

So, we got in the door and you could kinda tell this was a small year for the sale- I guess more people kept their books or didn't buy any at all... (jeeze economy!)

I had more luck in the nonfiction section than fiction... It was sort of funny, I was hoping to find hardcovers of all the Keys to the Kingdom books so I went to the kid's section first and this lady rushed up to me, sort of frantically shouting "IF YOU SEE ANY HARD COVER HARRY POTTERS PLEASE LET ME KNOW!" (it's like when I used to work for Arby's and I'd be at Kroger after work, and someone would ask me what isle something was in). I found three of them while I was looking for my own things (no luck for me though...)

Found one of those Rogue Angel books; it's a little odd they openly admit to being entirely written *not* by the author on the cover but hey, swords and stuff.

The book I was the most astounded to see was KJ Bishop's The Etched City- it's this astoundingly strange book I checked out from the library once, sort of about an assassin and a healer where one of the assassin's swords is named 'Not My Funeral'.

A hardcover of Vivian Vande Velde's Dragon's Bait, which I've already got as a paperback, but I love the way Velde doesn't quite nail down the ending of her books; I keep rereading them, wishing for sequels.

The hugenormous hardcover of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell...

As for nonfiction: a Field Guide to Prehistoric Life (for those pesky time travel situations), Teach Yourself Esperanto, three Zecharia Sitchin books (omg there was a whole stack!!), a humorous history of England (promising to be short and bloody without "the boring bits"), and a book on the effects of language on evolution (I actually wrote a paper on the same subject in Anthropology class a year ago).

Kevin got about 400 Grisham and Crichton books. Yay!

4.5 Book Weekend

2009-03-01T19:21:00.002-04:00

Drowned Wednesday, Sir Thursday, Lady Friday, and Superior Saturday.

When I sat down with them all in a row like that my level of impressed with the series only grew. I read Garth Nix's Sabriel when I was much younger and found it incredible, the world he'd created, the magic in it, even though at the same time I found it sort of mopey. The Keys to the Kingdom series delivers on the magic, world building, and sheer too-much-fantasy-is-just-enough. Now I've got to wait until June (hopefully) for the last book in the series. Considering all the things left to tie up I'm thinking there might be another book after that... (What the sheer happy fantasy part of it reminds me of is the Abarat series)

(both series are supposed to have sequels this summer. yay!)

Started in on Kirith Kirin which I got by inter library loan. It's really pretty good.

Oh, and the Cobb County Library Book Sale is coming up this next weekend.

Best Plot Ever

2009-02-25T13:39:00.003-04:00

Drowned Wednesday

2009-02-24T23:39:00.002-04:00

Finished Garth Nix's Drowned Wednesday this afternoon. It was fantastic, and Arthur is finally starting to man up about being the Architect's Heir.

I think most of us, being given our own pocket realm and being told we're in charge of the Universe wouldn't spend half as much time whining about how much we want to go back to the regular world and being a normal kid.

Anyway, pirates, gods, whales 126 miles long, submarines run by rats...

Started Sir Thursday which had the best military name ever, the 'Moderately Honorable Artillery Company'.

The Yarn of Shakespeare

2009-02-18T18:44:00.002-04:00

Kevin and I had lunch today and I got my birthday present from him early (since there's a party Friday)- It's this really lovely yarn, all slate blue and gray and black called Shakespeare Yarn. Two skeins! Now I have to agonize what to make out of it since it has to be super awesome.

Went and picked up Lady Friday since I've been on a Keys to the Kingdom kick the last two weeks, and saw this fantastic hardcover Gustave Dore art book in the bargain section. Might go back for it, but Barnes and Noble doesn't take coupons like I wish it would.

Happy Birthday

2009-02-18T12:29:00.002-04:00

I spent my birthday driving to Athens and back for twenty minutes in their rare book room.

Thank god the rest of the day was better than that. Incredible hibachi, then Mentalist and Leverage while bundled up under my birthday present Snuggie (yes, the thing on tv- and it's a million times more warm than it looks) clutching my birthday present copy of Tanith Lee's Princess Hynchatti and Some Other Surprises.

Thanks Fred and Randy!

YAY

2009-02-15T14:09:00.000-04:00

Burned

2009-02-09T12:36:00.004-04:00

spent most of saturday morning hiking around the coasts of lake acworth and allatoona where the water has pulled back and all the downed trees covered in fishing lures were exposed. this is probably the earliest in the year i've gotten a sunburn. ouch.

we went and saw Coraline in 3D the night before. it was incredible.

Ephemera

2009-02-01T19:24:00.003-04:00

I'm posting scans of a lot of the postcards I've received over the last year or so. Picture of the card, then location it was sent from.

Ephemera

2009-02-01T19:22:00.003-04:00

Florida, USA