Specifically for The Professor, and our usual rickroll target, B!
more music charts
(I know it’s generally not polite to rickroll your podcast listeners and/or blogreading friends, but c’mon…it was funny! Thanks to Rycrafty for finding GraphJam in the first place…)
I just reformatted my computer. Actually, to be honest, I had just reinstalled WinXP…and realized afterward that I had considerably buggered up the process. It had to do with some pretty uninteresting problems with partition management. Needless to say, I installed XP on the wrong partition (damn XP for singling out the BIG partition!), and wound up having to reformat everything. Decided, while I was at it, to try installing Ubuntu Linux and all the extras that I’d originally been thinking of working with.
Right now I’m working on reinstalling WoW…in Linux. We’ll see if it happens. The process seems to have changed since I last tried. Then again, a lot can change in about 6 months. I’m hoping that this installs nicely so that I can be happy with this OS. The only thing I *don’t* like is that Lexmark refuses to make linux drivers for their printers. How much trouble can it be for them to extend themselves far enough to widen their support scope? I mean…I know that most companies don’t support linux due to its configurability, but at least they could provide some as-is drivers and tell us “Use ‘em if you want to, but if you muck it up, don’t come crying to us.”
In other geeky news, we played Vampire: The Masquerade (tabletop RP) last night. Old 2nd Ed / 3rd Ed rules. None of this NEW World of Darkness crap. Very fun. Very very fun. Robin got an idea of the type of characters he was dealing with…a bunch of egghead occultists! Where the gangrel forensic archaeologist is the “heavy”. Hee….too cool. We’ll probably be doing it again in another few weeks, when Robin has a chance to get some NPCs fleshed out and stuff. 
All in all, not a bad way to begin a weekend.
Two words, sweetie:
Atkins Bento
Yep. I’m trying to figure it out. I need to start packing lunches and I need HELP!!!
Anyone else who does the Bento Thing and reads this is more than welcome to comment. I have to keep up my studied aura of pretention, don’tchaknow 
More questionny goodness on the Secret Pal front….
I’ll probably wind up adding it to the SP11 page that’s currently at the top of this page on the screen (look up. To the right. There you go.)
4. What is your favorite knitting book at the moment? Do you own it?
About two weeks ago I made an order from Lime & Violet. It finally came in the mail this past Friday! Squee!
The colours are absolutely wonderful. The pictures don’t actually do them justice. The dark multicolour is called “Sideshow Husband”, and the one with pinks and yellows is “Strawberry Lemonade”. Fitting, no?
I immediately wound the Sideshow Husband and cast on a pair of Jaywalkers. For the Man In My Life, of course. I’m rather surprised at how quick it knits up….and how thick the striping is. It’s wonderful! I’m almost finished Sock #1 (which is good…I just finished Sock #1 of the Pink Tofutsie Monkey Socks, so this is a nice change before casting on Sock #2).
I think I’ve found a way to combat Second Sock Syndrome. Well…aside from using the two socks on either two circs or Magic Loop method. Which, in retrospect, would likely have been smart of me.
(A couple more pics below the cut! That is, if all works out OK…)
We’ve gotten addicted to Katamari Damacy in the past couple of weeks. It’s one heck of a video game….weird language pattern for the main character(s), and the fact you have to “roll up the world” in a ball is really funny.
Yes, I’m a nerd. Sorta. I found a crochet pattern that I’m going to have to buy. It’s the little Prince from Katamari Damacy. Of course, to actually MAKE it, I’m going to have to learn how to crochet, but that’s not the point. The point is that I could make little Prince dolls.
It’s amazing the things we see on the net.
Got a few rounds done on the Monkey sock yesterday, and a few rows on the Persephone scarf. Thinking of writing out the Persephone pattern so that I can take it to work, but I’m not going to stress on it. Still waiting for my order from Lime & Violet to get here. I had picked up two skeins of yarn when Miss V updated the store. I’m hoping that there’s just a little delay from customs, and that it’s not a matter of the postman misdirecting our mail, or a neighbour deciding that they suddenly need wool. I find the misdirection by the postman a more likely event, mainly because the guy’s a lazy arse. We get mail for other folks all the time. Yeesh.
In other news, have been eating mostly properly for the past few days, and it’s making a difference. I’d been gaining and losing the same 5 pounds for the past two months, and it’s been driving me nuts. I guess it could be worse… I could have ballooned back up to my highest weight. At any rate, I’m on the way back down, and I hope to break the barrier that’s sorta sprung up at that 10 pound mark. That is…I seem to hit a glass wall at every 10 pound mark. It keeps me within a certain 10 pound range for a while, then allows me down to the next 10 pound range. Maybe it’s just the way my body adjusts; I don’t rightly know. I just know that the past 2 months have been pretty frustrating.
Of course, eating all that ice-cream to counteract the insane heat wave earlier this month didn’t help (grin).
We’re trying to strike a balance in our eating habits. Cutting a lot of the junk carbs has really helped. I have to admit that the goal of getting rid of the next 30 pounds is exciting. That will put me at the weight I was when I first got to Calgary. Another 10 pounds beyond that, and I’ll be the weight I maintained in college (of course, by “maintained” I mean “kept off by eating Smarties, fried rice, and orange-pineapple juice & walking everywhere because the trolleys moved slower than my own 2 feet!”).
Very exciting stuff. Now time to get ready to go to work (pout)…don’t wanna!!! 
I tell you…the nice part of waking up at 5am for a 7am shift? You get to come home at 3:30pm. The drawback? You have to wake up at 5am. ***THUD*** (sigh)
Now…Robin has often mentioned to me that he feels he should have a hobby (other than WoW, urban poetry, or remarking on my miniscule yarn stash as “oh my god, it’s taking over the house!”)
Well. I think I’ve found just the thing for him. After all, earlier today he remarked to me that we should be saving up for a new digital camera that will actually take printable photos (as in: has enough pixels per inch that we can take the flash disc in to Black’s and actually have prints made).
Thing is…the person in the article…uhm…well….yeah. That’s Robin. Down to wanting to know if there is acid-lite paper.
I will not point out the fact that his Grandmother scrapbooks, and that we inherited a lovely book stuffed with family photos that was originally supposed to be all about his brother until Grandma realized that maybe Robin and his Significant Other might want a book too, particularly one that shows all the embarassing pictures of his youth that most grandmothers collect (and most young men wish they’d burned as soon as Grandma brought them over to the house to show Mum & Dad).
But yeah. He has photos, I have some photos…we’d like to have more photos, particularly of our life together. Scraptarding may just be in our future.
Oh! Should really mention…The Evil Palace of Yarn Goodness got some shipments in this week…and so I dragged Robin down there today so that I could spend some money on my favourite brand of frivolity. I came away with 4 skeins of Artyarns Supermerino (two of my own colour choice, two of Robin’s colour choice - the object being 2 pairs of socks) and some really cool Tofutsies in a cherry pink-and-white twist colour.
They’re also now carrying some of the much-needed tools of the knitter’s trade. I walked away with a swift. They practically had to pry the ball winder out of my arms. Robin now claims to have ideas as to what to get me for Yule.
You don’t want to know what I’ve found to be the best substitution for a ball winder. No. I’m serious. You really don’t.
Allrighty. Last night was Night #1 of our new Karazhan group. For those who are not partaking of the Crack that is World of Warcraft, Karazhan is a 10-man dungeon (aka “instance” or “raid”) that you can only go to if you’ve maxed your character’s level. Clicky the link if you want to learn more about it. It is filled with many things to kill, most of which take the effort of you and your 9 buddies. Last night we managed to kill five bosses and do the Opera House event.
One of the bosses is called “The Shade of Aran”. The first time someone killed him, Guild Chat was filled with “Aran down! We killed Aran! Yay!’
I wanted to know why they were killing a sweater. And how. Did they unravel it? What colour was it? Did they repurpose the yarn?
Right. Two fandoms clash…WoW and Knitting….hm. Unfortunately, unlike the Molten Core dungeon, I can’t spend my evening knitting between pulls in Karazhan. In the 40-man raids, you have more tardlings going AFK…so when this would happen, I’d knit. I got a good portion of some socks done around Christmas that way!
Anyhow. We made progress last night. Much better progress for a “new” run than many established runs have had. It’s all good
In other news, I have turned the heels on Robin’s socks and have about an inch on the legs. I find that working both socks at the same time is working well for me. I’d like to see if I can do the same sort of thing for some of the Way Cool Patterns on the net right now (mainly Cookie A.’s patterns), but we’ll see. I’m also grooving on all the yarn out there. Two of the folks on my Ravelry “friend list” are yarnies….they dye and/or sell this yarn. It is all verrah verrah yummy. Very Apple Macintosh for the lick-factor. I may have to save up the sheckles and get permission from He Of The Accountancy Family Background to use my Visa card and make a couple of orders.
Because, y’know, a girl can never have enough sock yarn. Never. Despite what he may think…
(I also signed up for secret pal 11. which will raise some eyebrows around here when I start putting together care packages for a person I’ve never met. The trick will actually be MAILING the darned things. I know that I am postally challenged. I accept this, and am willing to confront the Evil Postperson. I shall start by anxiously awaiting my pre-ordered copy of The Last Freakin’ Harry Potter Book in a couple of weeks. The Training is so strenuous )
Allrighty.
So I’d pretty well forgotten all about Summer of Socks. Then I got my beta invite for Ravelry (whee!!!)….and it all came rushing back to me. The socks. I’d meant to be finished Robin’s Socks by now, but there are only so many meetings at work that you can knit through. Seriously…the last big “meeting” I went to, I’m sure I got another inch put on the socks. I’ll have to get him to try them on.
But yeah. I haven’t even turned the heel yet. And that makes me a very sad girl. Because how am I supposed to know what I’m doing in regards to 2 socks on 2 circs if I don’t even turn the heels?
Guess it could be worse. I could be stuck at turning the heel on ONE sock instead of TWO. 
So yeah. I’ll have to get back to that. Been too hung up on WoW to do much knitwork lately. I guess that instead of browsing the web from the Slow As Hell Public Computer at work, I should be going back to work on my knitting at lunch. Yeah…that’d do it. And my feet wouldn’t hurt as much from standing at the terminal.
Thought I’d go through some of my older photos and stuff earlier today to see if there was anything I should be adding to Ravelry, Flickr, or Facebook…and finally said “Nyah”. We’ll see what new stuff I come up with in the future.
Oh…and Chelsea…I have changed your user privileges back down to “subscriber”. Since you haven’t been posting, I figured I’d just use the blog on my own & reactivate the crossposter. Because I’m silly like that (I actually came close to just nuking everything, tell the truth. Think I’ll just go back to this being a general-purpose blog with mirrors at Livejournal. The LJ will have the uber-private stuff as usual. If you can’t see it…there’s a reason why, heh heh )
One of the gents that I work with lives on a farm. Today he mentioned that his wife spins. Apparently she spins all sorts of fibres, and knits as well. He has a hat somewhere, made out of dog hair (or so he says).
So I’ve asked him if he’ll check with his wife as to whether she’d be willing to handspin me some sock yarn, and how much it will cost. Yay! Hopefully he’ll have some good news soon
I’m pretty sure that he’s mentioned her spinning to me previously, but I, in typical fashion, forgot. Be cool to make someone some handspun knit socks for Yule, tho
