Yeay! I finished a project!!!!

After my self-guilt inducing post earlier in the week about all my old languishing projects, I finally dished one: my Darkside Cowl. I've made this cowl before, but I really wanted one of my own and then I found this incredibly soft baby alpaca yarn, I had a plan. So one down and two more to go! I plan on letting my pair of socks chill for awhile... but I NEED to get going on the rest of the holouts so I can get started on my Christmas knitting! Mwah ha ha ha!!!!

The next installment of my favorite form of entertainment

As some of you may know, Blizzcon 2009, Blizzard's Annual convention celebrating Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo, is going on right now. Now, I don't really care for Starcraft and haven't had the opportunity to touch Diablo, but I am totally excited about the announcement regarding World of Warcraft. There has been alot of speculation on what will happen in the expansion. Even the name, Cataclysm, was up for debate until recently.

They are supposed to be doing some really neat stuff in this expansion such as repurposing some of Azeroth rather than just creating new areas, so I'm really excited and thought I would share the expansion trailer with you.

What's been keeping me busy lately...

KNITTING!!!!

A huge shock I know... but I really do have a lot of things to finish up before I start up anything else major. Hopefully putting these projects up on the blog will make me want to finish them up so I can show them off when they are done (here's dreaming anyway). I just love checking things off my to do list!
















Ah, my nemesis, the Any Yarn Bear. I started making this for a friend's daughter and quickly realized that the yarn I had picked while very soft, was murder to knit with. It is a suede and has no give whatsoever, so my hands protest and threaten to secede from the union when I pick it up and attempt the simple garter stitch. I started working on this in January... can you tell, how much working on it hurts?
















This is a cowl I'm making for myself using the Darkside Cowl pattern of of Ravelry. I love the pattern and the yarn (it's baby alpaca). No, not ground baby alpaca, just the fur... and it feels soooo soft. I started this in April and ended up putting it aside for other less wintery projects. I actually just picked it up again yesterday and am hoping to finish it over the weekend. For some reason I have a hard time getting through projects that are for me unless I have a very specific use for them, like my Easter shawl.





















This is my first pair of Basic Ribbed Socks, which I started in May. I adore the yarn, which is Malabrigo's new sock yarn, but... this is the first project I have done on such tiny needles. They are #2's, and if you've never used them, are similar to knitting with those really long fireplace matches. I constantly feel like I am going to break them into a million pieces and destroy all the hours of work I've put in... Right now I am 2/3 of the way through the first sock and I'm pretty ok with it remaining at that point for the time being. I am currently on a really tedious section of the pattern and while not difficult, it seems to knit up so slowly. In general my knitting has really sped up, so maybe by the time I feel like working on them again, it will go much faster.
















This last photo is of a Leftover Dishtowel I'm making for our kitchen. We have lots of blue potholders and a medium pink countertop (great choice guys). So, I wanted something to kind of tie it all together and came up with this durable cotton yarn from Lily. When I'm all done it will have a loop and button on the top so I can hook it around our oven handle.

Now, I've definitely gotten some things done despite having these four projects hibernating in my project list. In addition to occasionally working (and guilting myself) on these projects, I have finished 7 chemo caps since July 31st. So, it's not too bad, but I have a few awesome projects lined up, so I want to be able to check most of them off my list first.

Do you want to date my Avatar?

<br/><a href="http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-US&vid=601e493a-9f80-4d4e-ad8c-62962c3c5add" target="_new" title="The Guild: "Do You Want To Date My Avatar?"">Video: The Guild: "Do You Want To Date My Avatar?"</a>

This is a recent music video done by the folks at The Guild. The Guild, which you can watch on their website, is a two season web series about a group of online gamers starring Felicia Day who has also starred in another great web series, Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog. I highly recommend this music video, the mp3 of the song and The Guild web series to anyone who has ever played a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game, there! are you happy?).

As you all know B and I play World of Warcraft often, and this web series is very good (and funny) commentary on what it can be like to play online with people you don't really know. Anyway, I hope you enjoy. If you like the video and want to support The Guild you can download the video on iTunes for $1.49 and the mp3 on Amazon for $.99 (both are a steal).

The New Addiction (well, not so new for me anyway)

by TanTanU | Create your own Cartoon at www.toondoo.com

You can move your mouse over to the left side of the image to see the rest of the cartoon.

A Red Sox Filled Week

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to actually go to two Red Sox games in one week! One was our Red Sox night for work which I went to with Darth Coco for her birthday. I'll post more about that night later, but for now I'm going to focus on the second game we went to. The evening started off well, we had dinner at the Boston Beer Works (very good, btw) though there was a very long line.















We were very fortunate in the game we went to because we were able to see Jim Rice's number get retired. That was pretty cool.


































I just love close seats! It allows me to play paparazzi so easily...




























And I HAD to have a piece of fried dough.... I got a Fenway frank (or 3) when I went to the game against the Orioles, so I decided fried things were appropriate for this evening.















Let's just say that the night got a little tense... The Sox were ahead and then the A's slowly started catching up... GGRRRR!!! It's like we were just waving at them as they rounded the bases. So very frustrating after an early lead. Below is a little example of the tension getting the best of people.





















So, after a long (long, long, long, long, long, long game) the Sox lost in the 11th at around 11:30pm. /cry Oh well, you can't win them all... it was a very good night despite the loss. We kind of ran the gambit of the emotional spectrum during the game: elation, anxiety, sadness and hope. Another added bonus was that we both had Charlie cards, which make it much faster to get on the T. Thank you so much Mr. Charlie Card, you saved our lives... or at least let us get a few more minutes of sleep.

Gamers: Dorkness Rising the movie

Oh holy awesome gamer geek humor fest! This is so good I have already ordered B to purchase it and have stopped halfway through the showing to share the trailer with everyone. Trust me, if you have ever played D&D or any other type of tabletop roleplaying game, you will love this!

Really Cute Pixar short to check out

Cloud - Watch more funny videos here

kittenz!!!!

Aren't they sooo cute!!!! B and I have been feeding these little monsters for the past week or so and they are adorable! Now, I know I can't have one and all seeing as we are allotted one kitty per our apt. complex's rules (stoopid rulez), but that doesn't mean I can't love them anyway.
















We (or really I) have named two of them. One has an eye that likes to close a lot, so both B and I agreed on "Winky" for that one. I thought "Smudge" would be an excellent name for the one with a very pronounced smudge of white on his/her nose.
















As for the other two, I haven't come up with anything yet. One is mostly white with blacks spots and he is very curious and likes to stalk us in the nearby foliage. The last one is mostly black with a tiny little bit of while on his nose and he is very skittish. We really only see him when we've put out food and backed far away, whereas the other three come out and hang around with us when we are quite close.
















So, anyway, these guys are being very well cared for by Brian's folks and for last week, us. It seems like a pretty good life for four kitties without their momma.

This man is not afraid of anything!

I was finally able to give my first ever Jayne Cobb hat to it's owner, my friend, John. As you can probably see, he seemed a little happy about receiving it! I can't blame him, because after making his in exactly one day, I made one for myself two day later (couldn't have him showing me up now could I?

For those of you who don't know this reference, first of all watch the fist season of firefly.... you can get it at Netflix here. The show rocks and it is less than a season long (so sad). However, if you want the quick reference, see the video below:



Now, I know it's not an exact replica (see images below) but it's not too bad and I'm very proud of it. If you want to make one yourself, you just have to check out Dryope's blog here. Now John and I will be all prepared for Can't Stop the Serenity 2010! Although, with the warmth of these hats and the distinct lack of A/C in that theatre, we better come prepare for heat stroke!

Photo Album of Chris & Mary's Wedding

Chris and Marys Wedding 8-1-09

Our friends Chris and Mary got married yesterday and I took a fair bunch of good pictures of the event. You can check them out by clicking on the album above.

Sailing in the fog

Ok, so these pictures are from the weekend of July 4th... anyone else think I'm a little backlogged on my blog entries? Lol! Anyway, B and I were very lucky to be able to get two nice sails out of the weekend over the 4th. This one was really foggy and resulted in me getting burned because I keep forgetting that UVA goes through clouds (sigh). you think I would learn some day...





















I loves me a good jolly roger!















Seagulls, "mine?"





















It was so neat having all the fog becuase these two sailboats just suddenly appeared behind us. So very cool!





















The bell bouy, complete with annoyed looking seagull for your pleasure.
















Self-portraiture via sunglasses, oh, yeah, and B. :P
















Boom rigging... I love taking shots of sailing gear.





















Dave getting the jib ready.