As you may already know, twigcollins is an evil, evil person who got me into knitting. But you know, I thought I kind of had it under control. I don't go crazy at the yarn store, I always have a project I plan to do, and THEN I buy the yarn. My washcloth patterns were all free, and I've only bought 4 knitting books. The fact that I have been given 13 books should not count against me. (does fiction count? if so 14) But I was getting ready for my trip to go visit the thehouseofmews this weekend, and trying to decide which needles and yarns and such to pack. (2 of the Mews have gotten into knitting recently so it's my duty to spread the enabling.) And I got all of my stuff together in one place and...well....

I may have a problem. This may be more serious than originally thought. By my count I have....
18 sets of needles, including straight, circular and double pointed.
12 balls of 100% wool
3 balls of acrylic
1 ball of ribbon yarn
2 balls of merino
2 balls of possum (yes POSSUM, blame eramundo
1 ball alpaca
2 balls hand dyed sock wool
19 balls of cotton (what? they're tiny and like, a buck fifty apiece)

This is getting bad. Though in my defense I only have remnants of left of most of those. Not whole untouched skeins. (no, I just have 15 like that)

....So why is it that I still don't have the right needles to do the scarf i want to do while I wait to figure out the sock?

Last night I pulled up cnn.com only to find that the only thing that managed to push Michael Jackson's death off the main story was the death of Billy Mays. Don't worry Iranian elections, we still care about you.......maybe.

Anyway, I have ripped 3 out of 4 of my new CDs for your listening pleasure. I should have the Monkey Majik CD up tonight in the same folder, but I forgot the CD at work over the weekend.

Sambomaster - Sambomaster wa Kimi ni Katarikakeru (Sambomaster is Talking to You)
This is probably my favorite of the bunch. Sambomaster is pretty much pure rock, and full of that Bill and Ted 'Rock and Roll will change the world' spirit. LOVE AND PEACE. Tracks 1, 4 and 8 are some of my all time Sambomaster favorites and I'm glad to finally have the CD instead of watching the YouTube videos over and over.

Sambomaster - Atarashiki Nihongo Rokku No Michi To Hikari (The Road and the Light of the New Japanese Language Rock)
Not as good as 'Sambomaster wa Kimi ni Katarikakeru' but it's still Sambomaster.

Teriyaki Boyz - Serious Japanese
I think I love this CD as much as I love to mock it. I don't think I like this supergroup as much as I like the groups the members are from, and there's a lot of true fail on it. I mean, Kanye West is so very very bad. And there's a whole song dedicated to the brand of clothes that one of the members created. But track 2 and 9 are very good. And track 7 is all about the movie Fifth Element. Really. (Ok, not really, but it does specifically shout out to Bruce Willis)

Many happy returns to mewschangeling. I am thrilled to drag you further into knitting madness with myself, and I can't wait till we can babble about it in person. Have a great day!!

My Japanese coworker just got back from a trip home and brought me all kinds of tasty music. I now have all of Sambomaster's CDs, and the latest Monkey Majik. I'll try and remember to rip them tonight if anyone else would like to listen.

I also got a CD by 'Teriyaki Boyz' which is a supergroup made up of people from Rip Slyme, and m-flo plus Wise and the DJ Nigo. I want to say that they got together to perform the 'Tokyo Drift' song for the Fast and Furious movie, and have put out two albums since, but I may not be right about that. I do know that they have inexplicable guest stars on their albums like Daft Punk, Busta Rhymes and Kanye West.

And I have to say, Kanye (because I know you're listening) it is not good when the Japanese guys have better English lyrics than you do. First here's a bit from m-flo's Verbal (who admittedly went to international schools growing up and speaks perfectly fluent English):

'When I speak I'm like Shuriken / lookin for a hustle to sink my teeth in'

And now Kanye, here's what you threw in:
'All that frontin for the audience / make'em not exist no more, Yugoslavians'

Time to step up the game, Kanye.

Well I had about 2 inches of ribbed cuff for a sock following the pattern that was in my book. It was then that I realized something horrifying.

I have fat ankles.
...AND calves.

I tested the cuff, and found that if I was intending anything more than an ankle sock I was doomed. Luckily for me one of my Christmas presents was 'Big Girl Knits' which I remembered had a section on adapting socks for people with thicker legs/ankles. Easy-Peasey-One-Two-Threezy right?

Uhh... So I may have spent most of last night building a spreadsheet to figure out my sock equations. The number of stitches I need to start is the circumference of my leg where the sock should end times my stitches per inch minus 15% for a snug fit, 10% for a looser fit and then rounded to the nearest multiple of 4. Then to figure out how to get to my decreases it's....well, that's not important.

What's important is that I think I'm back to washcloths for awhile. XD

(I need to make a knitting icon, I think)

The Decembrists are really odd to have as part of your playlist when you always listen to everything on 'shuffle' mode.

'Wait, what's going on now? Is this the same character that was singing the last song that I heard? Is this the hero or the villain? You need more singers!'

Who had a Fabulous weekend? ( I admit it, it was me. )

So m_steelgrave and I were squeeing over the New Star Trek, and I promised that if she recced good fic, I would do the same. Well, she's recced fic twice now, so I had better live up to my end of the bargain. Most of the fic here is specific to the new movie, so duh, spoilers ahead. Some deals with things that are from the TOS canon, so fair warning there too. Mostly I like gen-happy-crew-centric fic, but, like Stargate, most of the really good writers are hanging out in the slash end of the pool, so I roll with it.
( Read more... )

So, wednesday_10_00 wants a cat meme, and I know my flist is full of cat ladies people (and I am fast becoming one) so let's have at it! (p.s. she says dogs are allowed too)

Name: Castleray Roxanne of Derkatz (Roxy)
Nickname(s): Moneypenny, Grumpybutt
Birthday: 10/20/07
Origins: adopted from the Dertatz cattery after her first litter of kittens did not go well and they decided she'd be better off as a pet than breeding stock.
Breed/coloring: British Shorthair / Tortoiseshell
Distinguishing features: OMG Big Orange Eyes, also one inky foot and one biscuit foot
Favorite food: yogurt, tuna juice and Greenies cat treats
Favorite sleeping position and spot: on top of a cardboard box of manga
Enemies: perhaps my coworker's 10 year old son, but she's pretty tolerant of him too
Bad habit: deciding the laptop cord is a toy and destroying my lovely, wonderful couch.
Most anthropomorphic trait: Hates the alarm clock as much as I do, and complains when it goes off.
Other strangeness: Tiniest grumpiest meow in the world. Has successfully been cat yodeled.

For those of you who may remember my bananaphone love....

Ring Ring Ring BANANARCHY!

(link found by the ossim altodescant)

Well, I have started my first week of layoff from work. This isn't a permanent layoff, mind, just one week here, and another in July. It's better than a pay cut I know, because if/when business picks back up any raises will be based off a higher salary. And really, all things considered, not nearly as bad as it could be. I have my refrigerator stocked with chicken strips, mac n cheese and chocolate ice cream (I saved $15 on groceries with coupons! I win!). I have yarn for knitting with, I have video games, books and writing I need to do. So it'll be a nice week.

But it still feels weird. And especially weird for filling out unemployment when really I feel more like I'm taking a no-pay vacation. But the office told us to do this, and I'm not missing out on benefits for a week out of pride. (My boss said something about not filing just out of pride. I told him I could use his benefits if he didn't need it.)

troika of geek
Originally uploaded by DarjeelingTea

Finished my Trek knitting project! One washcloth/dishcloth for each uniform color. But the real question is....how long until the red washcloth bursts into flames, or comes unraveled in the wash? Oh I hope it's soon.

(Oh, btw, here's that ribbon scarf I was talking about )

I was knitting a ribbon scarf. And it was easy, and quick, and coming out well. And.....I may have gotten carried away.

When I finally decided it was time to bind off it was...uh....six feet eight inches.

I will try and have a picture of it's ridiculousness up soon.

One of the plants near ours makes dog food. The air smells like kibble for a good mile.

thorne_scratch! I completely forgot that I'm under orders from soranokumo to tell you about the Japanese movie I saw over the weekend. Through Netflix I've been renting a lot of Japanese movies, especially the ones brought over by Vis. I needed to wash my brain out after trying to watch Miike Takashi's 'The Happiness of the Katakuris' (Don't watch it), and picked up Linda Linda Linda, which was great.

It's the story of a bunch of girls in a high school band getting ready for the school festival. They lose one of their members to an injury, and decide to replace her with the next person to walk by as their lead singer. The next person happens to be a Korean exchange student who only speaks limited Japanese. From there on it plays out pretty much exactly as you'd expect it to. I loved all of the Korean girl, Son's, scenes. They reminded me very much what it was like when you're playing along with only sort of understanding what's going on around you.

Another plus is that the girls are a Punk band. Yes! Japanese High School Punk! In that way that they are much more ordinary students than anything punkish. Their songs they play are all covers of The Blue Hearts, a popular Japanese punk band. And all the instrumental tracks were done by the Smashing Pumpkins, James Iha.

The only thing I didn't like very much about it is that they don't differentiate when someone is speaking Japanese vs. Korean. Which makes a HUUUGE difference in one of the scenes.

Okay, so I posted about Trek and knitting a couple of times now. But apparently I haven't gotten Reboot Trek out of my system. So much so that I'm pretty much completely obsessed. I thought maybe babbling about it a bit might help. ( So that will all be under the cut. )

It was great to see groveperson, her husband and her adorable son this weekend. We went to the downtown farmer's market and I had an awesome spinach pie while we listened to live music. The music was unbearably loud, especially for the kidlet, but the man was so obviously permanently baked that it was worth it just for the hilarity. Especially when he went into a long winded explanation of the word 'esoteric' and launched into playing the theme from The Pink Panther. Also when all the nearby table started crying and he asked, "Is it because your balloons popped, or is it my music?" Groveperson's husband gave me a new cat toy for Roxy that she loved so much that when I put it on top of the bookcase for the night, I eventually had to move a chair and a few boxes so she'd stop trying to get to it.

And since I was in the land of, like, stores and things, I picked up my Father's Day presents and a bunch of cotton yarn. I may be acquiring a stash after all. But it's all necessary! For geeky washcloths! Like the Daleks I promised people, and the first of the Star Trek washcloths. (I'm making a gold and red one, and then planning to see if the red one manages to catch on fire, or get destroyed in the wash or something)

The Trek washcloth I knitted while mainlining the first disc of Chuck. OMG what a great show. I'd heard many good things, but had never gotten around to actually watching it. (I might have done much sooner if I'd known that Adam Baldwin was in it, and playing a very slightly more civilized Jayne to boot.) Very, very funny show.

And, to drive up my ratings, two more Roxy Pictures.

So yesterday I went to the grocery store, armed with my Kroger coupons that come in the mail. One of them was for a dollar off a 5-pack of Kraft Mac & Cheese. Since that's always a good 'I don't wanna cook' food I went to pick it up, only to discover that it was ALREADY on sale. So an extra dollar off of that. Score!

Then I noticed that there was a coupon stuck to the box...buy the 5 pack and get a free 10 pack box of Capri Sun. It's not something I usually drink, but...free!

And then when I checked out I got a dollar fifty off my next grocery bill. Between that and other things I think I saved about $10 on that trip.