SP (SS?) Strikes!

My first Secret Pal dropped out. I really hope everything is going okay with her - is it weird to e-mail her on her anonymous address to find out?

Either way, I have an Angel now, going by the psuedonym "Secret Scalawag." Clever, if you ask me. The Secret Scalawag is way too cool, and seriously seems like they interact with me on a daily basis. I'm serious, just look at this:



Pink handmade soap and a bath bomb that would make Lush feel inadequate. Really, they smell SOOO nice. The bath bomb is going to be used here in a second. I say my SS knows me because I've had this obsession with pretty bath things lately. There's also a really nice-smelling votive. The bath items appear to be from Ben and Oliver, while the candle is more mysterious.

Then, obviously, my SS seems to know that the boyfriend and I really like Swedish Fish - to the point were we will microwave them to make them squishier. Perfect movie fod.

Amazing super-dark chocolate, which I bought two bars of recently; one to send to my own secret pal, and the other to keep and eat myself. This one is ESPRESSO chocolate!! It's probably to-die-for, but I'm barely awake yet.

Let's not forget my first EVER Socks that Rock! The colorway is Mist, in a pinky, greyish, purpley colorway. It feels like a dream; like Koigu, but I think a bit softer. I'm not sure if this is the coolest part, or the Best of Bowie DVD! I've rented this a couple of times, and I've even thrown a party dedicated to David Bowie in which we watched it.

Thing of it is, I've been contemplating buying it myself, because, really, I could watch this a million times and still love it (him). Oh, except for that song he did with Mick Jagger. But Bowie recently turned 60 (!!!), and this seems like a really nice tribute somehow.

SS, you rock. Really, you do. I've been absolutely blown away. :-)

Why I quit. (Or, knitting drama.)

I used to work at a really, REALLY nice yarn shop. In this state, it's probably only second to ThreadBear. (Okay, I'll admit it, I think it's BETTER than ThreadBear, because the ThreadBear woman was really awful to me when I was there.) The co-owners were really sweet (usually), and the rest of my co-workers were amazing. But over the summer, I called it quits. I had taught classes, given private lessons, and worked countless hours on the floor. I had bought countless skeins of yarn at a small discount.

But here's the catch: I was the youngest person employed there. This was fine with a lot of the clientele, but there were a few who were, for lack of a better descriptor, ANN ARBORITES. These are people who work for Pfizer, Google, or the University and act like they're gods. They throw hundreds of dollars around on things like yarn and wine. They have too much in the way of a disposable income. Some are really kind, while some are nightmares that think they're in Berkeley or Cambridge or something. If you saw the people that go to this university, you'd know that we're NOT the "Harvard of the West" as they liked to claim.

Anyhow, my age. It all seemed to culminate in this one old woman who had knitted a bright yellow baby blanket. When she found out that the kid was a girl, she crocheted hot pink fun fur and multicolored bobble yarn around the outside of it. she was going to finish it off with some plain pink edging. No further comment on the choice of colors/yarns. Note that she had ALREADY crocheted two borders around the outside of her blanket.

She came in to us. I was working with one of the owners, who was teaching a class. They don't like to be disturbed when instructing a class, and rightly so. She saw that the owner was busy, and proceeded to ask me how to crochet an edge around the edge of her blanket. (This would be the third border, mind you.) I showed her anyway, and she insisted that I wasn't doing it right - her tension looked fine on the ugly yarns that she had chosen before, but on a smooth yarn she wasn't keeping it even, so she insisted it was wrong. I explained to her a million ways that it was just that her tension was off and perhaps she could try again.

This wasn't good enough. She looked at the owner, teaching away, and I said, "She's teaching a class. She'll be done at noon." (It was about 10:30.) "THAT IS UNACCEPTABLE!" She barged over and interrupted the class, insisting that I didn't know what I was talking about. The owner looked at her work, told her that the tension was off on her third layer of crochet, and then this woman ACCEPTED THE ANSWER coming from her.

Thing is, I have more years of knitting under my belt than the owner. I started early.

There are not enough expletives to explain how pissed off I was.

The thing is, this happened all the time. Time and time again, I got my intelligence insulted about something which has been my pastime for over fifteen years. So what if I started when I was six? So, middled-aged knitters of southern Michigan with sticks up your asses? You drove me to quit. Thanks a lot.

I get more credibility when working with ceramic tile at my full-time gig.

I can't wait until law school.

A Video Game Vacation

First off, a HUGE thanks to Lorinda for the awesome prize package she sent me - Kureyon, sock yarn from To Knit Perchance to Dream, and a cute little card.

I was just having way too much fun playing video games and working on random knitting projects over the holiday break that I really didn't accomplish a whole lot of knitting.

Or blogging.

Or sewing.

Or many of the things I intended to do.

You see, this post is mostly going to pertain to video games. I knew for a long time that my mother was getting me a black Nintendo DS for Christmas.

My boyfriend has been wanting one for ages, and we knew his parents weren't getting him one. He wanted a pink one, so I took up the challenge. For the two weeks prior to Christmas, I was going in and out of stores that sell video games looking for the elusive pink DS. I refused to pay the exorbitant prices being charged for them on eBay; asking $250 for something that retails at half that just doesn't seem at all ethical to me.

I had pretty much given up the search once Game Stop, Meijer, Target, and Sears were all sick of hearing from me. On Christmas Eve, the boyfriend and I were at Meijer getting groceries or something. I joked about stopping by the toy section, and he said, "I don't even WANT to look anymore." I made him walk across the store with me "just in case." Sure enough, there were six pink DS systems sitting in the case, along with a few white ones. I pretty much screamed when I saw them, and (since it was late), went frantically looking for a red shirted employee to help...

The video game talk would be over, except for one small detail. A couple of the boyfriend's co-workers have Wiis. I had little interest in a Wii - until I played theirs (drunken wii bowling). Now I need one, and have the money set aside from graduation. The only problem is, I'm running into the same problem as I had with the pink DS: you can't find them ANYWHERE at retail! I know one day I will have my Wii, but until then, I'm doing pretty much the same thing I was before Christmas with the DS.

If any of you have been thinking about a DS, I highly reccommend them, along with Final Fantasy III, New Super Mario Bros, Kirby Squeak Squad, and Nintendogs.

I spent many days just sitting there and playing for hours until my rear end was sore.

It's truly a shame that my favorite things (video games, knitting, reading, sewing) are all sedentary pursuits; I'm going to be fat before I know it.

Boyfriend's roommate has an Xbox 360, and has been playing Gears of War. What a gory game! The graphics are so good that the blood and guts can literally give me chills; it's THAT good.



Click on the image below so it blows up to a fullscreen one, and just imagine how detailed it looks when that man rips your character apart with that chainsaw gun. (Yes, a chainsaw gun.) Go on, imagine it!

He's been playing a lot of matches online, which is something I actually wouldn't mind trying. He says he rarely runs into female players on there (they talk to one another wearing headsets while playing the game), which makes me want to play even more. I'm all about freaking out teenage boys. "OHMIGAWD, I'm playing against a GIRL?"




Fine, I'll mention knitting. I'm working on Tubey, and it's definitely the fastest sweater I've ever had the pleasure of working on. I'm working on the sleeve/shrug part, and I'm almost DONE! I cast on less than a week ago! It's a lot of stockinette in the round, so it mindlessly flies by. Perhaps the body "tube" will be a little more engaging. I'm using KnitPicks Andean Silk, which is really soft and lovely. I just couldn't spring for the Debbie Bliss that the original calls for...