Saturday, June 28, 2008

New celebrity crush

I've developed a new celebrity crush. On WALL-E.

It'll never work out: he's animated, I'm live... he's far in the future, I'm right now... he loves EVE, I love Chico... he's a robot, I'm human...

But I love him just the same.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Civic Duty

Dudes! I was selected for jury duty *again*! This means I have a 100% success rate of being chosen for jury duty. I'm on another criminal trial, but at least this one isn't a murder trial.

The judge expects we'll begin deliberations tomorrow & that the trial will conclude tomorrow. We'll see.

I'm a cog in the wheel of justice! I'm serving my county and neighbors!

Oh, and if ever you're at the Delaware County Courthouse, about to order lunch from the cafeteria, do yourself a favor and do not get the Grilled Cheese Hamburger. You might be intrigued by the title. You might want to see for yourself how a Grilled Cheese Hamburger differs from a plain old cheeseburger. They are similar, but not the same. I wasn't impressed by the Grilled Cheese Hamburger.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Recent Happenings

It's hard for me to believe that the year is about half over already; the past few weeks have flown by especially quickly. Here are some recent happenings:


  • Sissy and KC (her husband) drove out for a visit; we spent two weekends together, with them exploring Canada and upstate New York while we were working. We visited the Statue of Liberty & Coney Island the first weekend, and we went to Rittenhouse Square for WWKIP Day, followed by a trip to Circus School, the next weekend. At circus school, I learned... I need more practice at circus school.

  • We also ate cake & fought zombies with Ivano, Peccable, TrackerNeil, and Amy F. That was a good time. Peccable & TrackerNeil have big things going on; I'm so pleased for them. They're delightful separately, fantastic together, and I love them dearly.

  • Chico received a bonsai tree for Father's Day. It was well-received.

  • Roxy, the new Bad Cat of the house, decided it would be a Good Idea to break through one of the window screens in pursuit of a bird outside & stubbornly spent some time on the roof. I'm not sure I like having the humans outnumbered by the animals, but we're such suckers for homeless animals.

  • I'm an entrelac-knitting fool these days. Once Baby Burno's blanket is done, I'm going to rip back Baby Eriksen's blanket & start over with this entrelac pattern.

  • We have a boatload of things we need to do this weekend, but all I really want to do is make a light picnic and spend time out in a park.

  • I enjoyed this daily fiction story quite a bit.

  • Tomorrow, I will be 0x24 in hexadecimal.

  • I have jury duty on Tuesday; I don't mind going to jury duty, but I hope I'm not selected for another murder trial. I didn't care much for having that kind of responsibility for judging someone else's life.

  • Next Friday, we're going with a whack of people to see the Camden Riversharks play baseball. I've gotten so spoiled by having a minor league team so close; I love going to their games.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Birthday

Happy birthday, Pal. I wish you all the Capogiro you care to eat, all the books you care to read, and all the music you care to dance to.

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Entrelac!

Man, who knew that knitting entrelac was so freakin' cool?! I didn't, until tonight.

I cast on for this blanket for a baby due in July, and I like the pattern so much that I may frog the other baby blanket on the needles & make another of the entrelac blankets instead. The yarn is a lovely variegated superwash merino from Artyarns in the cappucino colorway. If it weren't so late (and I wasn't so tired), I'd stay up later to make more little diamonds.

Plus, entrelac is fun to say. Give it a try... entrelac! Entrelac! ENTRELAC! For maximum fun, say it in the spirit of Valerie the witch from The Princess Bride saying "Humperdinck."

OOH! Or maybe go a little wild and say "Entrelac Humperdinck!"

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Something that sucks

Chico's & my Raleigh bicycles were stolen from our garage late Saturday night or early Sunday morning. We'd only had them for about 10 months and took excellent care of them. The rat bastards were "kind" enough to leave the Young Sir's bike behind; whoever stole ours must have known that Raleigh bikes are more expensive than Trek bikes. We invested in quality bikes, thinking we'd have them for a really long time.

Chico filed a police report while I called our homeowner's insurance agency. We can file a claim, but after our deductible & the 3-year loss of our "claim free credit" the cost would be higher than what we'd receive from the claim.

So. If we want to replace our bikes, we'll have to do it at our own expense.

I'm so angry at the person or people who stole them. You know, we do the right thing and don't bother people, we save our money so we can buy things for us to enjoy, we do what we're "supposed" to do, and some asshat comes along and steals what we earned & enjoy as if the asshat were somehow entitled to do so.

The asshat has deprived us of the enjoyment we got from riding our bikes. Deprived me of the fun of riding down a hill after the work of riding up the hill.

I don't want to hear any nonsense about how our bikes were just material things, and I shouldn't be attached, and maybe some "poor soul" stole the bikes so s/he can ride back & forth to work. Screw that.

They were our bikes. We worked for them. We bought them. They were ours. No one else's. Unless the universe drops some kind of gift into our laps, we can't replace them.

I curse whoever stole them. I hope whoever stole them gets violently, vomitingly, disgustingly ill every time they hear one of their top 20 favorite songs, for the next 850 months.

Monday, June 02, 2008

My stash is now a little scary

Not that long ago, I cleaned up... organized... purged... whatever... my knitting yarn stash. I vowed that I was going on a yarn diet because a) I was running out of space to store new yarn, and b) I've got a lot of yarn. Not comparatively, mind you. Lots of knitters have stashes much, much larger than mine; but, I discovered during that cleaning that I already had lots of lovely yarn that I couldn't wait to knit into lovely items for myself & others. Hence, the declared yarn diet.

I completely blew off that diet, like many dieters do, I suppose. I mean... just completely. First there was a Ravelry yarn crawl with other local knitters, then it was Maryland Sheep & Wool, and then a "few skeins" of sock yarn for Chico since most of my sock yarn is pink (for me!), then it was Koigu mill ends at Rosie's Yarn Cellar. Those activities, coupled with the axiom "sock yarn doesn't count as stash," just killed that diet. I mean, I slayed it.

So yesterday, I re-organized the stash. I didn't purge anything though, because it was all (all!) Good Stuff. Holy cats. I packed all the synthetic & cotton yarns (my least favorites, not that there's anything wrong with them) into one of those plastic zippered bed-in-a-bag bags and... moved the huge-ass bag to somewhere outside the main stash.

I now have yarn stashed in two (two!) places in our home. The second mini-stash is out of site, but... I'm a little surprised at myself & a little ashamed. Yikes. I have a lot of yarn, by my personal standards.

I'm reinstating the diet, and I vow to be completely serious about it this time. Girl Scout's Honor1.

1 I use "Girl Scout's Honor" as a pledge, as this lady does.

Sunday, June 01, 2008

Alpacas of Gettysburg

Chico took me to a suri alpaca farm yesterday as a belated anniversary present. The farm is about 3 hours away in Gettysburg, but the drive wasn't bad... I knitted some of the way there & back.

The farm's name is Alpacas of Gettysburg, and the owners (Larry & Helen Hornbake) are wonderful & really nice. I learned all about their farm, got to feed the alpaca, and even "kissed" the alpacas who didn't mind kissing.

My Flickr photos are here if you're interested. And, if you're interested in visiting the farm or buying suri fleece for handspinning, contact the Hornbakes - they welcome visitors.

I had a great time.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

What the hell?!

So I'm making my first ever pair of toe-up socks; this method is good if you have a limited or unknown amount of yarn - you knit the important bits first (the toe, foot, and heel) and then keep going up the leg until you run out of yarn.

I've done everything you're supposed to: I've read through the pattern to make sure it makes sense to me, I've checked for errata, and I've assembled all my materials.

And now this damn method is as odd to me as... as... I don't know what, but it's pretty damn odd. I just can't see how what I'm doing is going to make anything vaguely sock-like.

I guess I'll trust the pattern & the hundreds of Ravelers who've made socks from it, but... damn, it's so freakin' weird.

ETA: Ah, I get it now. I trusted the pattern & just went with the instructions, and I found myself with the toe of a sock. Whoever came up with this method is pretty freakin' smart.

A Walk in the Cities

I often read the day's Everyday Fiction story over lunch; they're short and often pretty darn good.

I especially enjoyed this submission, A Walk in the Cities by David Macpherson.