Reviews

The SSShawl is going swimmingly. I just completed row 80 of Clue 2. Of course, others have already completed Clue 3 which came out on Tuesday. Oh well, I’ll catch up to them eventually. The shawl is uber pretty. The alpaca sometimes gets kinda stuck on the needles, but only if I’ve been holding it in my moist hand for awhile. I say moist because they’re not really sweaty, but not so dry as to make the yarn slippy on the needles. Which is actually kinda good in the sense that at least my stitches won’t be randomly jumping off into the ether where the only rescues available come in the forms of crochet hooks and tinking. I do not frog lace. Too risky.

They drained my arm today. Took my life essence. With my permission of course. But now my left arm is kinda achy at the join where they stuck the needle. Apparently, I’m a quick bleed. XD

I got permission to change my Writing Project story and I’ve already got two fifths of it written. It’s so cool to be able to write about knitting and fibre and stuff in a really odd way and then be graded on it too.

I’ve finished reading Suzannah Dunn’s The Queen of Subtleties and have started on her older book The Sixth Wife. So far, the Anne Boleyn story was more interesting, but I figure that there’ll be some juicy bits ahead if the blurb on the back is to be believed. Here’s hoping. *crosses fingers*

Went to see Will Smith’s “I Am Legend” yesterday. It was pretty good actually. The dog in it was so adorable. Reminded me of Mocca. Kinda figures since both are German Shepherds. But Mocca is way blacker than the dog in the movie. Oliver’s dad said that he can’t see us, meaning me and Oliver, not owning a pet. Well, we have been talking about getting a puppy once we’ve got the space for one, but right now, we don’t even have enough space for ourselves. It doesn’t help that the only bathroom in the house is kinda unusable at the moment. I mean, the toilet works just fine, but because they’re redoing it, they’ve taken the tiles off the walls around the bathtub so that the plumber can fit in the new bathroom set in about a week’s time. Meaning that the shower can’t be used because the water would leak into the kitchen. The tiles were taken off last Wednesday. Which means that I haven’t been able to have a proper shower in over a week now. I have managed to wash my hair bent over the tub and just washing up in the sink every morning, but that’s still not the equivalent of a shower. When I first heard that they’re redoing the bathroom I was kinda looking forward to seeing the new one. I figured I could deal with not being able to use the shower for a week. But then they switched plumbers and the fitting was pushed back by another week. And said that next Wednesday the plumber is half dismantling the toilet so instead of pushing the lever to flush it, we have to use a bucket. This is England, but not medieval England. I’m a city girl! I like nature, yes, but do you see me going camping? No, I only go on hikes because I know that I need to use modern day facilities at the end of the day. So this actually gives me something to look forward to next week when I go back to Aber on Thursday. Oliver feels the same way about the whole bucket thing, so he’s trying to get time off so that he can come to Aber with me. Another thing that’ll make me happy! Aber’s starting to look very good. A hot shower and alone time with Oliver. XD

Ooh, just remembered. We were invited to go to Leicester this weekend. So I might be able to shower at Russel’s… I hope I can. I knew immediately that the Christmas gift (two Westlife CDs) I got from Shaun & Russel was picked out by Russel. We’d had a little talk about Westlife the last time we saw each other in about October (maybe it was November?) and he remembered! ^_^

I bought this fabulous knitting pattern from Cookie A called the Twisted Flower sock. Sure, the cabling can get annoying at times and my fingers hurt a bit and I’ve had a cable needle in my mouth pretty much all day, but all in all, I really like the pattern. It’s well written and the chart is easy to follow and after doing it for awhile, I just keep it there beside me as a security blanket in case I mess up.

Now, the problem that I’m having is because of the yarn. It’s 100% cotton. And at the gauge I’m getting, it’s so not going to fit my mom’s foot (because this is supposed to be a Mother’s Day gift). Grr. I hate cotton. But since I’ve put so much effort into it already (as in, I’ve spent six hours doing the leg!) I’m so not frogging it. Which means that I’ll probably convert it into a fingerless glove. It’ll be a darn pretty one, but it’s not the sock that I had hoped it to become.

Need to go buy proper sock yarn. Non-cotton sock yarn. On the bright side: Yay! A good valid reason to buy yarn from either The Loopy Ewe or Lisa Souza. And for a good measure, I’ll buy me some yarn as well. You know, as a consolation prize for doing cabling with cotton. ^_~

Today’s Labor Day which means no class! w00t!

Anywayz, I went to see The Wicker Man last night with Michelle and her mom. It sounded like a really good movie and the beginning was actually pretty good. A tad strange, but good. But then.. no no no. *shakes head* It just fell apart. It really did. It was supposed to be a thriller type thing, but everyone in the movie theater was laughing! I swear, someone really screwed up with this movie. It got to be ridiculous. So if you want to have a laugh, go see it. If you want a serious/scary movie, find something else.

On a side, I got up all the way to the M yesterday! o/ Took me awhile, but I did it. ^-^ I’ll probably try it again next weekend. Just to have some sort of exercise during the week.

Okay, I’ve read the whole book of poetry by Tony Harrison called Selected Poems. What a waste of time. Seriously, 250 pages of nothing but crappy poetry which sounds like something a teenager had written. Lots of swearing, politics, showing off how “smart” he is by throwing in other languages… and he came off as a little bit of a racist. And perverted. Really, why is he so fixated on sex? Lots of references to Africa and poverty and death too.

Now I’m not a big fan of poetry, but I know this much: That wasn’t any good. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe is good, these aren’t.

poetry, Tony Harrison, Selected Poems, poem review

Wow.. just got my first ever spam comments. Advertising some online poker. So honoured. -_-;;

I’ve just been counting condoms again.. The site Condoms-Cheap is up again and I was enlisted to do inventory of the stock available.. Yippee! *rolls eyes* To tell the truth, I can’t tell the difference between a natural condom and a ribbed one. The ones with benzocaine in them I do notice because then the sex usually lasts longer (not that I’m complaining about the duration it takes now without the help of chemicals), but that’s what they’re made to do, right? We’ve only been using the natural ones because 1) since I can’t really tell the difference between most of the types it’s best to go with natural and save the others which sell more easily and 2) we didn’t find the others until like 30 mins ago.

condoms, sex

So now we’ve got the German, Russian and Japanese discs of Pimsleur.. All are quite good. Russian seems to bee the easiest to pronounce. Go figure. For some reason I almost say gazpacho every time I’m supposed to say Mrs. (gezpajra?).. And if my mind starts to wander while doing a lesson, I might say the word they’re asking for in the wrong language. So I gotta stay focused. Japanese has too many words that sound the same. But it’s still fun to learn. I’ve only done one lesson of that so far and I can only remember watashi, eigoga, iie, hai and sumimasen. It’ll all come back to me when I’ll do the next lesson. I hope. ^-^

Pimsleur, languages, Russian, German, Japanese

We’ve just completed the 3D puzzle of Big Ben. 1400 odd pieces.. the windows were a real pain. So now it’s standing proudly on the coffee table in the living room. 127 cm in height.. in the end I had to stand on a chair while we attached the roof of it to the walls. No, I’m not that short, this whole thing was standing on the dining room table. So of course I couldn’t reach that high. XP The windows were a real pain to complete but once that was done, the actual walls were easy to complete. Only took us about 2 days. ^-^ Next we’re gonna build the Capitol building. The cottage is already done. That one took us about 2 hrs.. the length of a movie.

We went to Rotherham yesterday. Got the Russian Pimsleur discs. Learning Russian is a bit more fun than German. Probably because I’ve studied German earlier and I wasn’t learning new stuff that often. Although I hadn’t heard about doch (or however it’s spelled) before listening to Pimsleur. I now know how to say “Excuse me” and “I understand a little Russian” in Russian. Which is true. I understand it when someone asks me if I can understand Russian. XD Of course my vocabulary is very limited right now but it’ll have the chance to grow if we keep listening to one lesson a day.

Puzzle 3-D, Big Ben, Pimsleur, Russian

Haven’t listened to Pimsleur’s German for a few days. Tsk tsk. But at least we’re one ninth done. They had us repeat the one of the worst sentences ever: “jetzt nichts essen”. I can’t do that in the normal speed one’d use in a conversation. The different S sounds are too confusing. Just like back in school when I first learned the word Franzözich. For me, that’s incredibly difficult to pronounce. The two on the CD having the conversation.. they’re funny. The guy’s trying to find out when the two of them could go out to eat together. The woman suggests a time and the guy always says: “No not then. An hour later?” Well, he susbstitutes the hour later part with the actual time he’s suggesting. At one point the woman obviously gets frustrated and says: “You don’t understand German!” Which just promts the man to ask again does she want to go eat with him. *rolls eyes* They’re really rude too. Keep inviting themselves over to the other person’s place for a drink or to eat. That’s not something one’d do in normal circumstances. It’s impolite to invite oneself over to another’s home. Or maybe it’s different in Germany.. doubt it though. At least Pimsleur works. I can remember everything they’ve taught me. At least I think I can. Still feels like we’re going way too slowly, but I am learning things. ^_^ Just too bad that they’re so expensive. Hopefully they’ve got Pimsleur stuff in the libraries in Aberystwyth. I want to continue learning.

Pimsleur, German, learning languages

We finished playing Silent Hill 2 a few days ago. Got the “Leave” ending. Was pretty much what I expected it to be, after playing Silent Hill and Silent Hill 4. There were two things that got me by surprise. 1) the newspaper article about Walter Sullivan (and then later finding his grave) 2) the writing on one of the walls in a store or something: “There used to be a HOLE here.” To me that just proves that when they were making SH2, they were sorta thinking about SH4. Still, the stories are separate enough to be played on their own without having to know the story of a previous game. I just kept expecting to see red notes slipped underneath the doors. Blame SH4. I really liked the Riddles (played it on Hard). As usual, we had to take out pen and paper to solve one. But that’s the whole fun of it. Making you think before allowing you to continue. The baddies were funny.. although not as funny as the two-headed babies burping everytime they were hit in SH4. Still, the headless mannequins (like always) they managed to scare me whenever they jumped out from behind a corner. Really did not like the Pyramid Heads. The music was pretty good too. I liked the tune the music boxes played (also a good riddle, even if it does assume that one knows fairy tales). Most of the sound effects managed to make me jump, so they were as effective as they were supposed to be. Oliver thought I was being ridiculous hugging the pillow whenever there was the ominous sounds in the hallways of the apartment buildings, but.. but.. sounds scare me! Even more than images. Sounds can be terrifying. That’s when my imagination gets going. I’d probably hate being blind.. not mind being deaf. Although that’d mean I couldn’t listen to music anymore. And I’m straying from what I was talking about. Back to SH2. The people who thought of these games.. they’re twisted. Really weird plots. I mean, really. Dead people, cults, holes in the walls.. what’s up with this whole alternate reality? Really confusing. Especially without a map. Anyway, over all it’s a pretty good game. Frustrating at times, but that’s what spoiler free walkthroughs are meant for. XD

Silent Hill 2, Playstation, PS2