Blah blah Monday blah

I joined the 2008 Ravelympics today. They're similar to the Harlot's Knitting Olympics in 06. I'll be competing in the Sock Put for Team Browncoat (Firefly / Serenity fans) and Team KTog (my LYS). I can cast on on Friday, August 8, at 7 a.m., which is local time for the opening ceremonies in Beijing. I will knit the Kaylee socks, since they're all Firefly themed and stuff.

I was also going to mention what books I've been reading lately. Thanks to a camper, I started reading Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series and am hooked. What can I say? I love young adult fantasy. I'm pretty pumped for the final book to come out at the beginning of August. Right now, I'm reading Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, and the last book in David Eddings' Belgariad series, Enchanter's End Game. I'm really enjoying Middlesex, and I've been ignoring the Eddings since, er, I found out about Twilight. Oops.

...

You know, I was going to post about a couple things today, and I can only think of the one. I was composing my blog post on the way to work this morning. And now here I am, and I can't remember a bloody thing. Damn you, Innernets Of Distraction and Air Conditioner Of Forgetfulness!

ETA: I remember now. I decided I want to be a vegetarian again. You see, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (high school), I decided to give up meat for Lent (back when I did the churchy thing). It stuck for a while, but eventually I got back to my carnivorous self. So I'm going to do a trial, no-meat period of one week, starting today, to see if I can do it again.

Now, what to have for lunch?

Spring forward? Not me!

Owing mostly to the fact that I left neither my house nor my pajamas yesterday, I also neglected to set all my clocks forward. Luckily for me, my work hours are generally pretty flexible, so it doesn't so much matter. So unlike all you DST-abiding citizens, I got an extra hour of sleep. Mua ha ha.

And now for a Vitaminpalooza update! I was going to post this comment last week, as it was slightly more relevant then, but who am I to be telling stories that are relevant.

On day eight of Vitaminpalooza (last Tuesday), I had some intense nausea about five minutes after I had breakfast. I was so confused; it is a rare day that I actually have breakfast. When I say intense nausea, I mean this close to vomiting: I'm already in the bathroom and ready to pay penance to the Porcelain God.

I read the box. I am 95% sure I saw something somewhere that said "best if taken with food." Here I am, sacrificing my time-honored tradition of ditching breakfast, and what do I have to show for it? Potential loss of vitamins via toilet bowl. What's with that?

Well, being a vitamin virgin — except for those Flintstone ones back in the day, and some really cool ones that looked like suns and moons — I just went for what seemed appropriate: food first. It turns out I've got the order all backwards. You're supposed to eat a bit and then pop the pills. Especially if you're taking something with iron, which can — get this — upset your stomach. I am such a dolt sometimes.

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I went to The Spiderwick Chronicles Saturday evening with my mom. Having never read the books, I thought it was pretty cute.

Also, I finished some books yesterday for the Ravelry Book Challenge. (Yes, books plural. It pays to ignore DST ...) Firstly, I finished re-reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I think that's the third time I've read it. It's still my favorite book of the series, and it still makes me (dork alert) emotional. Despite all the death, destruction and chaos. (Brownie points to whoever knows what movie that's from.)

I also finished Freakonomics yesterday. It was one of the best non-fiction books I've ever read. And I don't usually have glowing reviews of non-fiction literature, because I usually fall asleep reading it. It is the most interesting take on economics I've ever seen. (I'm not a huge fan of economics, personally, because it falls into the math category in my brain and me and math ... aren't bosom companions. We've learned to get along, is all.) I'm incredibly glad my cousin recommended the book to me, and I must send him a note saying so.

With that, dear readers, it's time to do a little work.

In which I actually post photos! OMG!

I thought you might enjoy seeing what my bruised leg looks like today. Thanks to the new iMac, the fantastic program Photo Booth, and my willingness to show a little leg at work ... here's an accurate representation. To be polite to those of a more delicate nature, I'll put the technicolor artwork bruised leg photo at the end of the post. To delay the moment of squeam, I'll distract you with a headshot.


See how long my hair is? See how long my roots are?


Watch as I ponder the red minion, guardian of my desk.

Other than taking pictures of my technicolor leg, I've been working a bit on my Koolhaas hat, although I had to frog almost three repeats of the eight-row chart, due to the fact that I completely omitted the third row all the way through. While it looked cool, it just didn't have the effect I wanted, so now I'm ... one repeat in to the chart.

Aside from that, I've finished The Wee Free Men for the Ravelry Book Challenge. I started both Freakonomics and Talk to the Hand yesterday, the former to the suggestion of my well-read cousin and the latter because I enjoyed the author's first book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves.

And now, dear readers, I depart, leaving you the ghastly picture of my leg to haunt your dreams. Mua ha ha.



Check me out! I'm wearing pretty excellent pants today, though you can hardly tell from the picture.

Snow, snow, snow, snow

Another Monday and guess what? It's snowing. This is becoming a very regular thing this winter, and I don't like it. I don't think I've seen my driveway since November. (Of course, this causes less of a problem than you might think, as I don't own a car.)

What else do I know? I signed up for Melaleuca last week. I'm supposed to have gotten my first order today, though I haven't been home yet. UPS says it's been delivered, at any rate. I ordered some vitamins, some nutrition bars, some tooth polish, and a few other cool things. I'm pretty pumped, particularly about the vitamins. I'll try to post a review soon.

I started reading Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk last week. It's pretty ... whacked out and creepy. Par for his stuff, really. I'm enjoying it so far. I finished The Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker last week. I downloaded it from Librivox.org, which is a fantastic site for obtaining audio versions of books in the public domain, or when the copyright has expired.

Snow continues to fall. Rather quickly, too.

The Effects of Librotonin and other tales

I'm currently reading four books for the Ravelry Book Challenge, one of which I can't find. As of yesterday morning, I was only reading two books, one of which I can't find. Let me tell you why that is (not the bit about having one I can't find — that's never abnormal, and you know this if you've seen my house).

I have this brain problem. Every time I get in a certain radius of a book store, a chemical called librotonin is produced. This chemical is not dissimilar to serotonin, except that they're completely different. I have thus far been unable to compute the exact event horizon of librotonin, as once I'm close enough to the book store I'm sucked in and Must Buy More Books.

Needless to say, yesterday I crossed that threshold yet again, finding myself at Court Ave Books, our local used book store. (I generally gravitate toward the fiction section in a book store, to start off, so it was no surprise that I found myself in short order carrying Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion by Neil Gaiman. (I just finished reading the four-book Hitchhiker trilogy, and this was just the sort of thing I wanted to read after.)

I made my way then to the young adult area, because I wanted to see if there were more Madeline L'Engle books that I didn't have. And then Lloyd Alexander caught my eye. Well not Alexander himself — that would be rather extraordinary as he died last May — but his Prydain books. I was trying to decide which were the ones in the trilogy (because for some reason I thought those books were a trilogy and in fact, they're not) and chose the one that begins with the Assistant Pig-Keeper: The Book of Three.

Following my foray into children's literature, I then went to the front of the store where they keep the classics. You know, those books you always mean to read because everyone always talks about them but you suspect that they haven't read them either. I thought to myself, Ah, Jules Verne. He's one you ought to read, being all into steampunk and stuff. And I found his books and picked up 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; then I left the store before I could do more damage to my pocketbook.

Despite this librotonin effect, or perhaps because of it, I've finished seven fiction books and two non-fiction books, which you can see little thumbnails and ratings of in the sidebar yonder.


I was also going to write about the snow that fell last night, which was not heavy snow this time, thankfully. It's instead the sort of snow that looks like piles of big glitter flakes and acts like dust. It's the sort that, if you scoop it up in your hands and blow on it, it all comes back in your face and you get all snowy and damp.

It's the sort that, due to its powdery consistency, one shouldn't have to shovel it. In actuality one could go to an amusement park and purchase one of those dreadful little fans that run on a pair of AA batteries that don't really keep you cool but make you sweat just a little more when you point them at your face.

And that's all I really had to say about the snow.

In which I make excuses for not knitting.

Forgive me, readers, for I have sinned. It has been eight days since my last confession post.

I haven't knitted anything at all. In two weeks. I have, however, crocheted two things, which is a very strange thing for me. Firstly, I saw some Evil Minions on Craftster, and for some reason I *had* to make them that night. So there's a sparkly red bunni (sic) sitting on my computer here at work.

Secondly, I taught myself to filet crochet. I am about two-thirds through my first piece: the fleur-de-lis filet crochet. (That's probably the most French I've ever used in a sentence. And look at all those unpronounced consonants. I shake my head in disdain at you, French language!) It's actually coming on quite nicely. I'm using some random acrylic and a large-ish hook (the only kind, right?), and I'm at the first row on the chart where there's a whole lot more black than white.

What else have I been occupying my time with? The aforementioned Ravelry Book Challenge. Someone who is also in the challenge is organizing the books through goodreads. So I opened an account. My challenge bookshelf can be found here. There are only four books at the moment, but I'm probably going to finish one or two of them today. (I'm quite near the ends of them.) I'll stick a goodreads widget in the sidebar so's you can keep up with my appetite for bound volumes.

Really, that's all I have. Happy Wednesday!

Howie Mandel, all in white

I had a very interesting dream last night. In fact, I woke up and for a few minutes, I was quite convinced it was real. And I know some of you might not enjoy reading descriptions of others' dreams, but tough luck, I say.

I was at work. All the desks were gone in the front office, and the walls were a bright white (I assumed someone had been painting). Suddenly, the office despot walked into the room, crying. She had gotten fired, and everyone that *she* had fired was hired back.

And then our owner walked in through the back door, his head shaved bald, wearing a white suit and looking oddly like Howie Mandel (who resembles our owner about as much as a pebble resembles a Lamborghini.

So that was fun.

Anyhow, the book challenge is going well. In addition to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, I started reading The Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey. I'm about halfway through, and enjoying it quite a lot. It's been a long while since I've read any Pern books, so it's nice to come back to that.

Really, that's all I have. There hasn't been a lot of knitting lately. I've got half a pair of Mrs. Beetons done, and I'm still working on the Bellatrix socks.

ETA: Bwahahaha! I had to share this with you: The Top 25 Men Who Look Like Lesbians according to Cracked.com.

Book challenge!

My dad was on national news last night. He was interviewed about the Iowa caucusing by Charlie Gibson for ABC World News. The segment, if slightly hokey, was still pretty cool.

I joined a book challenge on Ravelry yesterday. I set a goal to read at least 52 fiction books and and 12 non-fiction books in 2008. (One fiction a week and one non-fiction a month. Clever, I know. I got the idea from someone else in the group.) My first fiction book is Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (it's a good thing re-reads and audiobooks count!) and my first non-fiction will be Bait and Switch by Barbara Ehrenreich. I bought and started it last year and, er, stopped, so I'll be starting over soon.