Holy Crap.

We just got a Mrs. Fields catalog in the mail at work. It's the Valentine's Day edition.

This stuff should be OUTLAWED. Or look way less like heaven in cookie form. It's kind of mean, really.

stuff worth smiling about

Today there are things to smile about. Specifically:

These arrived today (a day early!) courtesy of amazon and UPS and I have briefly flipped through both of them and can hardly wait to have yarn with which to make many of the projects! Mom, your socks are about to be even more varied and interesting. Also, the number of sweaters you own may increase drastically. I'm sure we can work out some sort of arrangement. :)

The other thing worth smiling about is the 2nd half of my Christmas present from Sacha and Toni, which I received today:

It's a Certificate of Awesomeness which was the result of (parents, avert your eyes) this one night of extreme intoxication in Rochester after Toni's thesis show. Let's just say the bottle featured here, the award being presented by "the Power Hour" and the nickname "Jessie McBottleowine" give you a pretty good picture of how the evening evolved. Good times! And she even painted it "24 Karat Gold" for me! (that was the actual name of the color of spray paint)

Disclaimer

Yea, so that post right there, that I just posted this morning? I would like to just tell you that I started it on Friday morning, I was all full steam ahead with a really great rant about the two craptastic movies I watched and glowing words for the wonder of the other, and then I lost it. The mojo left me. And the post proceeded to sit in purgatory for the next three days (two+ anyway). This morning I chopped it all up, threw a picture at the bottom and hit "Publish". It's not that stellar.

Anyway, thanks to these new handy sidebar list thingies I just put up today (picture Vanna showing you the sidebar) we can avoid lame posts in the future (well, a decrease of them at least). I'll just put what I've just watched or read up there and if anyone wants to hear about it, they can ask. And now maybe I will feel more free to come up with interesting and witty things to say, hm?

the demise (and redemption) of the romantic comedy

OK, yes I know. A lot of posts about movies. What can I say? It's the winter. There is no new TV. I'm not knitting anything new or more exciting than I was last week (I started a couple new pairs of socks, I'm still working on the mystery project, I still haven't finished the scarf - because I know if I finish it I'll have to block it, blech). As previously stated, it's cold outside (and dark most of the time) so I haven't had a whole lot of adventures. Therefore, I reset to my default, which is watching movies.

Now, my favorite genre of movie is (surprise, surprise) the romantic comedy. Which could probably be renamed "fairy tales for grown women". I have no problem with that. Chances are that if you put a girl in a movie, give her some not overly dramatic set of issues, insert cute guy to be her eventual prince charming, throw in a happy ending, chances are good that I'll like it and even fork over $10 to see it in a theater (also, in many cases, purchase the DVD when that comes out). I'm not that hard to please. Fall in love, ride offf into the sunset, happily ever after, blah blah blah.

That being said, Thursday night I watched two of the dumbest romantic comedies I've ever seen. My IQ might have dropped a couple points, even. I started to fear for the genre. Both of them starred Heather Graham (which should have been my first clue that they would suck - although Netflix recommended them, so I wash my hands of all responsibility). They were just terrible. I'll tell you the titles and that's it, I can't possibly give any more of my life to those movies. Cake and Gray Matters. Just terrible. Terrible writing, terrible acting. Terrible. The only good thing they provided was an opportunity to mock them mercilessly, which is always fun.

Anyway, on Wednesday of last week I went and saw 27 Dresses with Katherine Heigl and James Marsden. Such a super cute movie. It gave me that warm fuzzy feeling that only a really good romantic comedy can. In fact I liked it so much that I keep badgering Toni to drive home RIGHT NOW so I have an excuse to go see it again. The romantic comedy is back, people! (I know, the time fram is sort of backwards. The demise part came after the redemption part. Whatever. I could have lied and said it went the other way around, but that would make me a liar, and would you ever listen to what I have to say again if I was a liar?)

In other news, I've started this pair of socks, but I can't decide how I feel about it (I seem to be rather lukewarm on a lot of projects I've got going on at the moment). It's Opal sock yarn in bright pink (obviously) and I've stranded it with leftover Lorna's Laces laceweight leftover from Grace's shawl of a few years ago (I can't believe that was a few years ago). I can't tell if it looks interesting or dirty with the combination....

Aside from that, last night I got my invitation to join Ravelry, which I did. My user name is "fantastikJ" and I don't have any friends yet (or pictures, or very much information at all) because I'm still trying to figure it all out. It's sort of intense and I have the feeling I might not be quite cool enough for it. It's very intimidating.

D'oh

So, remember how I was going to stay in my house all weekend? Instead it turns out that what I meant to say was on Friday night I was going to go to dinner with Suneil and Sacha and then go to a couple bars and have a couple drinks and sleep late on Saturday due to the alcohol. Which is what I'm pretty sure led to the following situation.

For breakfast I made myself an English muffin with some peanut butter and settled in to watch a Star Wars marathon (I'm currently up to Episode 4 as of about 8:00 tonight). I bent down to grab the sock I've been working on off the floor and for whatever reason failed to remember that I was holding a plate of bread with peanut butter (again, I blame the alcohol). One half of the muffin leapt for freedom and while it missed the sock, it sent a peanut butter missile which landed here:

It's a good thing I had plenty of yarn, so I could rip back to the pre-pb infected part and redo it with clean yarn. This is the sad little pile of affected yarn:

After that little episode it was smooth sailing, and I now have a fully completed pair of socks:

Hooray! Now it's anyone's guess when I'll get around to getting to the post office to send them to Jessica. I'm sure it'll happen someday. :)

Lastly, here's another picture of the mysterious something I'm working on. I'm still undecided about color, but now I have a little more completed and this picture was taken during the day in natural light (no flash) so it's a pretty good representation. What do you think? Do you like it? do you hate it? I just can't make up my mind. Sometimes the navy strand ends up looking almost purple, which is not really what I want.... sigh. I'm so hard to please.

MovieFest 2008: Part One

In honor of this three day holiday weekend I've got coming up, I decided to have a little movie festival of my own (which will more than likely be on my own as I have a very small TV and the boys really don't like watching movies on it, despite the fact that overall my apartment is the most comfortable). It's going to involve some combination of the "collections" that I own. These collections include the following:

The Ultimate Superman Collector's edition (all 4 Christopher Reeve movies plus Superman Returns not to mention a ridiculous number of bonus discs)

The Matrix trilogy

Star Wars: Episodes 1 - 6

X-Men trilogy

Kill Bill Vol 1 & 2

Bridget Jones 1 & 2

Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy

All four Die Hard movies

Princess Diaries 1 & 2

And this does not include all those collections for which I need to purchase the most recent release (Ocean's Thirteen, Spider-man 3, Harry Potter 5) or those which technically aren't a series but could sort of be counted as such (my Jane Austen movies, the Audrey Hebpurn movies, the Cary Grant movies, Julie Andrews movies, musicals, etc - it just occurred to me that this is definite evidence that I have a ridiculous number of movies because I don't think this even represents 50% of what I own). Now, obviously there are not enough hours in a three day weekend to watch all of these movies, nor would I even attempt it. I mean, come on. There's got to be some time for sleeping plus pretty much all of Sunday afternoon and evening will be devoted to football. Plus I might try to, you know, read a book or something. It's already been established that I'm not leaving my house (with the possible exception of football watching on Sunday), so now I need to decide what makes the cut for MovieFest 2008: Part One. Any and all suggestions would be more than welcome.

Over the last few days I've been watching the Indiana Jones movies that I borrowed from Sacha (this is actually what led to the idea for MovieFest 2008 - that, and I like to be able to put "Fest" behind as many other words as possible and it's not like there's new TV on or anything) and I sort of forget how good they are if I haven't seen them for awhile. Especially Raiders of the Lost Ark. That is a great, great movie.

My other plans for this weekend include knitting up a storm (and I will actually take some pictures so that you have something to look at other than 10,000 words) and making some homemade pasta sauce. I have an intense dislike for commercial pasta sauce, but I need a good 3+ hours to make the family recipe so this weekend presents the perfect opportunity.

One other thing I want to mention. Through the wonder of Netflix I've been watching all these old, classic movies recently. I'm addicted. I'll pretty much watch anything with Katharine Hepburn in it, and here's a list of the ones I've been watching recently that I recommend you check out: Holiday, It Happened One Night, The Philadelphia Story (I will seriously plug this in every post. Watch it. I love it), Charade, Father Goose, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Marilyn Monroe was way funnier than I thought. This was hilarious), Bringing Up Baby, Carefree... I could keep going, but that's probably enough for one day, right?

Tonight I'm headed to see Juno after work, I've been trying to see this movie for several weeks. Somehow I could not convince Suneil to see it last weekend. Something about it looking too much like a romantic comedy. Oh well, his loss. :)

Have a great weekend!

Hibernation

Well, we got another 7 inches of snow yesterday and we're scheduled for a pretty spectacular storm on Friday, which means I am officially going into full hibernation mode. The mode in which I will not leave my house unless I really REALLY have to. Because you know what isn't nearly as fun as it sounds? Standing outside in the middle of winter with the wind whipping off the ocean waiting for the bus. Maybe that makes me a wuss, maybe I should have considered this whole "climate" thing when I was choosing where to live, and maybe I should be better with my money so that I could save up to get a car and would no longer need to wait for the bus. But, as I am here, and it is cold and I do not have a car, hibernation is the solution. Unfortunately work falls into the category of things I really really need to leave my house for, but I can handle that as long as my fleece pants and warm socks are waiting for me when I get home.



What makes this year's hibernation a little more tricky is the writer's strike. I have no new television to look forward to on the wintery nights when I'm at home knitting away (well, very little new television - I watched the first two episodes of The Sarah Connor Chronicles and I still can't decide if it's a good show or not. It could be. Time will tell) and I've defintely seen every movie I own so many times that I could probably quote most of them to you. Ditto for all the books I own (except The Kite Runner. I am having a REALLY hard time getting through that. Right now I'm still pretty close to the beginning but I know it's going to get sad and the anticipation is too much. It's going to take me like 2 years to read this book. I get overly emotional about books and movies. I cried for like 3 hours after I watched both Schindler's List and The Passion of the Christ. I still haven't read the last chapter of The Notebook and it's been about three years for that one. And the last four Harry Potter books? Forget it. Like a baby. But I digress). My saving grace at the moment is Netflix. I'm sure I have sung the praises of Netflix enough for you all to know how I feel about it, but just in case you were in doubt: Netflix is the greatest invention ever. I've had it for just over a year now and I seriously don't know how I ever lived without it. And now I'm not only into the delivering of the movies, but I'm hooked on watching what they've got online (hooray for the BBC). I got an email this morning telling me that from now on the Watch Instantly section is unlimited each month. So I could watch just as many hours of whatever programming they show online as I want. Not that I was really in danger of going over the limit before, but this was about the most exciting thing that's happened to me today. It doesn't take much to make me happy :)


And now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be in my cave...

Date Night

Calm down, don't let the title fool you. You know I did not actually have a date last night. :)



No, last night I took myself out on a date. Turns out I know how to show me a good time.



First, I took myself to dinner and enjoyed my food and a glass of wine while reading my current train book (Clear and Present Danger). It was a little like those women in the movies who have just been divorced or something, for whatever reason they always seem to show them eating alone in restaurants with a book. I kind of liked it, because it meant I didn't have to cook. Anyway, it was nice to just be able to take an hour to sit quietly after work, have a glass of wine, read, not be on the train with people crowded all over the place, and not to just be sitting at home where the stuff I really should be doing is staring me in the face and taunting me.



Next I took myself shopping. For Christmas I got a gift card to Sephora, which pleased me to no end. Despite how infrequently I actually go to the trouble of putting makeup on my face, I love it. I love looking at it, buying it, playing around with it, and I actually do like wearing it, I just generally don't put that much effort into my appearance for work (cue my mom shaking her head and wondering where it all went wrong with me). I'm trying to get better at that in the new year, one of my decisions was to actually try and look like I give a crap. Maybe something new and different will happen if I don't look like a scary pasty nightmare all the time. :) And you can take my word for it because I don't have photographic evidence, but I am actually wearing makeup today.


After dinner and shopping, I took myself to the theatre! The ACTUAL theatre! I saw Rent, featuring some top 10 American Idol guy from a few seasons ago as Collins and the first ever winner of South African Idol as Roger (they were both very good, as was the rest of the cast, and in fact I now have a little mini crush on the guy who played Roger). It was a fantastic show! I love going to the theatre, I really love musicals, and I especially love Rent though this was the first time I'd actually seen the play (one of my friends played the soundtrack nonstop in high school, and I own the movie version). I decided a couple of days ago that there are always these things I want to do and/or see: shows, events in the city, games of whatever variety, etc - but I never do them because most of the time I can't find anyone to go with and then I end up bummed out because I didn't do it. It occurred to me that this is a silly thing. There is absolutely nothing stopping me from doing fun things by myself, and as a matter of fact a reasonable way to meet people who like the same things I like is to actually do those things, whether I'm by myself or not, right? I go to movies by myself all the time. So from now on, I'm just gonna do whatever it is I want to do, with or without a buddy. Last night was the first run at it, and I have to say I think I'll put it in the win column as far as fun evenings go.

As an added bonus there were lots of hilarious people sitting around me (another thing, I treated me to some excellent seats in the pit - third row from the stage, not too shabby and not as expensive as I would have thought). There was this one pair sitting right next to me who were clearly on a date and before the show started the girl was explaining to the guy how she was a classically trained singer and when she was in college she was almost in this extremely fabulous a cappella group but it would have interfered with soccer so she didn't do it and she has such a good ear that she just can't even stomach it when people are off key. She just can't stand to listen to it! Then she started crying about thirty seconds into the show (when it was definitely not sad yet), which was sort of weird. Maybe someone was off key or something. :)

Anyway, the only downside to this whole taking myself out on the town thing is that I didn't get home until after 11:30, which is very late for a school night! There are lots more shows coming to Boston in the next few months, I may have to start planning my next theatre adventure....

Further evidence that Tuesdays are inherently evil

The machines have it in for me today. They're planning a Matrix-style attack on my way of life, I just know it!


Exhibit One:

This morning I was sitting on the train and just outside Park Street station it lurched to a stop. This isn't entirely out of the ordinary (particularly on the green line) but somehow this just felt different. Sure enough, the train had completely shut off. Stopped working. For no reason that anyone could tell. The train driver (operator? conductor?) had to use the emergency release to get the doors open and there was talk of us exiting the train and making our way to the station along the tracks (I was sitting right by the door and overheard said conversation), but luckily they managed to get the car to run again after about 10 minutes and I made it safely to work. You gotta love the T.


Exhibit Two:

I went downstairs at lunch time to get some food, as I did not seem to have any interest in packing my lunch this morning. I went to the sandwich place in the food court, ordered a tuna melt, paid, got my receipt and waited. And waited. And watched as two of the guys tried really hard to get the toaster back up and running because apparently it had overheated. In the end they had to reset it and I had to order a different sandwich. In the end, this really only affected me, so I guess I could feel special. Plus the guys were really nice about it, they made my new sandwich pretty quickly and gave me a refund.


Exhibit Three:

It's approximately 10,000 degrees in my office right now. Stupid heat wave in the middle of January (which, by the way, will become 'glorious heat wave in the middle of January' as soon as I step outside) causing everything to be too hot because this building is enormous and it takes awhile to change the temperature. Meanwhile the solar panels are doing their best to keep us warm, which wouldn't be a problem if it were cold and the thermostat in my office is pretty useless. Today I am Jessie of the Rosy Cheeks Because Her Office is Way Too Hot.


Listen to me - complain, complain, complain. It's terrible, I know. Here's hoping I am able to thwart the machine revolution for the rest of the day...

I give up

So earlier I had this whole post written (well, half a whole post) but I went to save it and instead it just disappeared. So due to frustration I will not even try to be interesting today, but I will distract you with pictures of knitting.

First, I finished the socks for my mom:

I decided to do a picot edge at the top, but I didn't have a whole lot of real estate with which to sew the inside due to the lace, so it's kind of a weird looking edge. But I like it, so it's staying.

Next, I started a new pair of socks:

It's Sockittome yarn in the colorway Spring Forest. This stuff is pretty great to work with. I'm pretty sure these will be for Jessica because I think she'd like these colors and when I was in Michigan over Thanksgiving I went to the MMKG meeting and Jessica won this door prize, which she gave to me and said, "I better get some socks out of this!" And so she will. :)

Last, I just started this:

It's pretty blurry and I'm still undecided about the colors and I'm not telling you what it is. Mostly I'm putting this picture up here so I can keep coming back to it during the day when I can't see it in person so I can keep mulling over the color combination. Hmmmm.

Quite the beginning

So I seem to have survived another New Year's Eve. One very important lesson was learned at this particular New Year's celebration: no matter what you think, no matter how delicious and fantastic it is, rum-soaked pineapple will not be your friend the next day. If you are silly enough to consume more than one piece, you will definitely have a hangover. I'm absolutely sure it was the pineapple, it couldn't possibly have had anything to do with the vodka punch or the champagne. Possibly.







It was a fun party, on the small side of the party scale, but sometimes that's nice. Big parties can be a little overwhelming, and a small party is far less likely to get completely out of hand and ridiculous. The last couple of years have been quite large scale, so this was a nice change of pace (2007 we rang in at a bar I don't even know the name of if that tells you anything, 2006 we rang in at a wild and outrageous party at the boys' old apartment). We feasted on Chinese food, had delicious desserts (including chocolate fondue!), as well as all the aforementioned drinkie-poos. Which brings us up to today.



I got home around 2:00 this afternoon and I proceeded to immediatly put on my pajamas (which I foolishly did not take last night. That was poor planning any way you look at it). Here is what the rest of my day looked like:







I spent most of it on the couch curled up under a blanket and rereading the 4th Harry Potter book for about the 10th time (I'm working my way through the whole series again, I never get tired of it), though I did take a little time out for a 3 hour nap, which was pretty glorious.






I uploaded my photos from the previous night's festivities to facebook and watched The Philadelphia Story while I did so. I. Love. This. Movie. This movie has won the prestigious title of my favorite movie of all time. Which is really saying something, because you all know I like me some movies.






Once my photos were uploaded, I worked on this scarf for the rest of the movie. It's coming along quite well, now I just have to decide exactly how long I'm planning to make it. I suppose that will depend on who it's for. Which means I better make a decision on that pretty soon. Wait, what's that? A decision? Isn't that the whole theme of 2008? I think it is! Lo and behold, my first decision to be made. I'll give myself a deadline of Friday to figure out who I'm going to give this scarf to and how long of a scarf it will be when all said and done. Look at me, sticking to my resolutions so well.