Vote for Me!

Check out my entry into Mionetta's Mixology Masters Contest, the Sky of Blue Cocktail, and be sure to vote for me.  I wouldn't have really posted about this here, but everyone who votes is also entered into a drawing for a VIP trip to Vegas Uncork’d by Bon Appétit, so it's win-win.

What I'm Looking Forward to in 2012

2012 is going to be quite the year, as there's a lot coming up:

• My younger sister's wedding
• My older sister's first child being born
• Renewing the things that are only renewed every four years
• Presidential election

And on the non-real life side of things, there's plenty I'm anticipating:

• The rest of season two of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
• Season 3!
• The rest of season two of Strawberry Shortcake's Berry Bitty Adventures (the next episode isn't until the 28th, what's up with that?)
• The Lorax movie

Wild West VBS Tropes

Once again, I spent the time during rehearsals for this year's VBS skits making a list of the various tropes I noticed playing out, but since the theme this year is the Gold Rush, I had a little help coming up with some.  And while the VBS itself was set in the gold rush, the skit is actually set in 1860, in a boom town called Discovery City that's seen better days.  Each day followed the lives of its inhabitants: incompetent lawmen Sheriff Theodore Tweedle and Deputy Otis Henry, Sadie Brown, who runs the Hard Time Cafe (later Good News Cafe), Caleb Foster, a prospector who spends more time spreading the gospel than searching for gold, Petunia Periwinkle, a starlet hopeful who got off at the wrong stop, and Dr. Marvel, a snake oil salesman.

Tropes found in the skits include:

(Some of the tropes are spoilery, so don't read this list if your church is putting on this VBS)

• The Wild West - Naturally.
• Anachronism Stew - Quite a bit.  Despite being explicitly set in 1860, movies are mentioned in one skit, Home on the Range is sung (it wasn't written until ten years later), Sadie runs an outdoor cafe, and many idioms that likely didn't exist at the time are used in the dialogue.
• All There In The Manual - The character descriptions in the Drama Guide give bits of information that are not even hinted at in the actual skits, such as Sadie opening her restaurant after her father died, and Dr. Marvel having been a con artist since he first cheated on a test in first grade.
• Heterosexual Life Partners - Theodore and Otis.
• The Sheriff - Theodore.
• Clueless Deputy - Otis, though the sheriff isn't much better.
• The Missionary and a Prospector - Caleb
• Bird Oil Salesman - Dr. Marvel hawks an all-healing "potion" made from the oil of a pink-striped albatross.
• The Outlaw - Jake "The Snake" Jackson, meanest outlaw in the west.
• US Marshal - Dr. Marvel is caught and waiting for the marshal by the end.
• The Ditz - Petunia, Otis, and Theodore.
• Surrounded By Idiots - Sadie, though she rarely expresses this directly.  "The closest those two could get to a brainstorm is a light drizzle."
• Offstage Crash - While trying to hang up a sign, Otis ends up crashing through the door of the Sheriff's office, with a rather excessive sound effect.
• Your Other Left - Theodore tells Otis to raise his right hand so he can be sworn in as a deputy.  You can guess what happens.
• Donut Mess With a Cop - Once he's sworn in, Otis suggests they go celebrate by getting some donuts.
• Cucumber Facial - In one skit, Otis gives Theodore a fancy spa treatment, complete with mud mask and cucumbers on the eyes, which Theodore agrees to only when he hears it will help his luck with the ladies.
• Took A Level In Kindness - After Caleb shares the gospel with her, Sadie becomes noticeably nicer, and the narrator comments that her biscuits even taste better.
• I've Heard of That, What is it?/Global Ignorance - Hearing that Petunia is from Ohio, Sadie comments that she's originally from Kentucky.  Petunia seems to know, but then asks how far away it is.  Hearing that the two states share a border, she blames her ignorance on not being good at "biology."
• I Know You Know I Know - After hearing about a recent bank robbing by Jake "The Snake" Jackson, Theodore is not worried about Jake showing up there, since "There's a new sheriff in town, and he knows it!  And he knows that I know it."  Otis asks, "But does he know that YOU know he knows that you know it?"  "That's the only thing we don't know," Theodore replies.
• Giftedly Bad - Petunia.  She fancies herself as someone who just needs her big break to become world-famous, but in truth her acting is terrible and her singing even worse.  
• Hollywood Tone Deaf - Petunia. The script mentions her voice making glass break and coyotes howl, but sadly these are not included as sound effects.
• False Reassurance - The reason Petunia thinks so highly of herself is that no one tells her point blank that she's terrible, instead saying things like "We've never heard a voice quite like yours," and "What you did to those notes has never been done before."
• Medicine Show - Dr. Marvel puts on a show (all in rhyme) to sell his potion.
• Never Trust a Hair Tonic - Petunia takes some of Dr. Marvel's potion, and it turns her hair purple (in our version, anyway.  The script just says "the crazier, the better").
• Different As Night And Day - It turns out Caleb and Dr. Marvel are twins.  As Sadie puts it, "He's a giver, and you're a taker."
• Acting For Two - Since the two rarely show up on the same day, Caleb and Dr. Marvel are played by the same person.  Their only actual interaction is offstage.
• Pie in the Face - Mistaking Caleb for Dr. Marvel, Petunia lets him have it with one of Sadie's pies as payback for her hair.
• Too Dumb To Live - When Jake "The Snake" Jackson comes to town, he's able to tie up Theodore and Otis by simply asking them to put their hands together and sit back to back.  Once he's done, the two wonder how they got tied up.
• Stuff Blowing Up - Jake plans to use dynamite on the sheriff and deputy after robbing the bank, but didn't bring any matches.
• Completely Missing The Point - While tied up with the dynamite, Otis laments their imminent explosion, since it means he won't be able to go the square dance next week.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall - Jake has trouble opening the bank door, so Otis tells him that it's just painted on, and he has to go around the side (i.e. back stage) to get in.
• Ten Minute Retirement - After the humiliation of being outwitted by Jake, Theodore quits being the sheriff, to Otis' dismay.  He returns to the job after Jake returns and turns himself in.
• Heel Face Turn - After reading a bible that Sadie slipped into his money bag, Jake realizes the error of his ways and turns himself in.  Also, by the end, Petunia decides to give up on show business and learn about Jesus.
• Get Out of Jail Free Card - Averted, as Jake does indeed go to jail.
• Leitmotif - Anytime Jake "The Snake" Jackson shows up, a rattlesnake sound plays.  After he repents, the sound isn't heard.

And of course, it wouldn't be a VBS skit without a little bit of Fridge Logic:

Why did Petunia drink the potion, anyway?  And when did Sadie find the time to sneak a bible into Jake's bag?

Our version also had a bonus trope, Samus Is A Girl.  Since we had more female actors than male, we decided to make Jake "The Snake" Jackson a girl, and after much discussion, came to the conclusion that it would be funnier for everyone to think Jake was a guy until she actually showed up.  Technically, the Drama Guide says to use another outlaw mentioned, "Calamity Kate," in that scenario, but there's so much in the script with the rattlesnake leitmotif that it just made more sense to do what we ended up doing. 

Potential Meet Up?

Just putting this out there, but since I usually attend Connecticon, I was thinking about setting up an informal MLPFiM meet up there.  It would be sometime on Saturday, July 9th (I can only go one day), probably sometime after lunch.  Would anyone be interested in that?

Crocheted Gift

You may have noticed that April was pretty light on posts, and that I'm not fairly behind in my MLPFiM recaps (the rest are coming, don't worry).  The reason for this: I spent most of my free moments crocheting up a storm, working to finish up a blanket for my nephew's birthday at the end of the month:

(All-Star Blanket from Crocheted Gifts)
It took me ages to find a decent pattern for a kids blanket that wasn't a baby blanket, and that would look good.  For the record, my nephew loves it, and it even matches the rocket ship sheets he got.
One thing that I liked about this pattern was that the squares were all joined together as you go, rather than sewn together at the end.  Sewing things together is my nemesis, hence why my Crochet-Along blanket is still a pile of squares sitting in a bag.

What I'm Looking Forward to in 2011

It feels like there isn't as much here as there has been in previous years, but here's what I'm looking forward to in the upcoming months:

• This week's MLPFiM episode, which is Apple Bloom-centric, "Call of the Cutie"
• And all upcoming MLPFiM episodes, of course
• Kung Fu Panda 2

Birthday Meme

Here's one to commemorate my half-birthday.

Type your birthday date (minus the year) in the Wikipedia search engine. List 5 events that occurred on that day. List 5 births, 5 deaths, 5 holidays and events.


On February 19th:


Five Events:

197 – Roman Emperor Septimius Severus defeats usurper Clodius Albinus in the Battle of Lugdunum, the bloodiest battle between Roman armies.
1600 – The Peruvian stratovolcano Huaynaputina explodes in the most violent eruption in the recorded history of South America.
1847 – The first group of rescuers reaches the Donner Party.
1945 – World War II: Battle of Iwo Jima – about 30,000 United States Marines land on the island of Iwo Jima.
2002 – NASA's Mars Odyssey space probe begins to map the surface of Mars using its thermal emission imaging system.


Five Births:
1473 – Nicolaus Copernicus, mathematician and astronomer
1855 – Nishinoumi Kajirō I, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 16th Yokozuna
1924 – Lee Marvin, American actor
1940 – Smokey Robinson, American singer
1962 – John Laroche, American orchid poacher


Five Deaths:
1670 – King Frederick III of Denmark
1837 – Thomas Burgess, English author, philosopher, Bishop of Saint David's and Bishop of Salisbury
1927 – Robert Fuchs, Austrian composer
1988 – André Frédéric Cournand, French-born physician, Nobel laureate
2008 – Lydia Shum, Hong Kong comedian and actress



Five Holidays and Events:
Chaoflux (Discordianism)
Christian Feast Day: Barbatus of Benevento
Christian Feast Day: Conrad of Piacenza
Christian Feast Day: February 19 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Flag Day, the birthday of the President Saparmurat Niyazov, established in 1997 (Turkmenistan)

Tropetastic VBS skits

Sorry for the lack of posts this month.  Besides the usual things that keep me busy, most of my evenings these past few weeks have been devoted to practicing for, and then performing in, the skits for my church's Vacation Bible School, The Egypt File.  Of course, being me, I spent a good chunk of time that I wasn't on stage taking note of the various tropes that appeared in each day's skit.
The overall plot takes place in a museum being opened in Egypt by Claire and Percy Sedgwick, a brother and sister from England fulfilling their late grandfather's dream.  Along for the ride are their butler, Albert, and the summer intern, Mackenzie Ross.  When the money box is stolen, the Sedgwicks call on Detective Carson Hughes to investigate, and all signs seem to point to Joe the janitor.

Tropes found in these skits include:

• An Aesop - Each day's skit has a bit of dialogue (usually delivered by Mackenzie to Claire) that ties in with the lesson presented by the rest of the program.
• MacGuffin - The stolen money box
• Screwy Squirrel - Percy is always playing pranks, especially on Albert
• Sour Supporter - Albert constantly complains about how much he hates Egypt and wants to go back to England, but continues to serve the Sedgwicks faithfully.
• Defrosting Ice Queen - Claire starts off rather no-nonsense, but thanks to Mackenzie's aesop-spouting and her rediscovered Bible, by the end, she's much nicer.
• Amateur Sleuth - Mackenzie states that she always seems to end up in places where there are mysteries to be solved, and spends the skits investigating the missing money box.
• The Stoic - Joe the janitor is a man of few words, and comes off as a little creepy.
• Parental Abandonment - Claire and Percy's parents died when they were young, in an unexplained accident.
• Eek, A Mouse! - Percy catches a sand rat that gets loose.  Whenever Claire hears that it's near, she climbs onto a table.
• Bond, James Bond - Detective Hughes introduces himself in this way.  Percy immediately makes fun of this. ("Nice to meet you, 'Hughes, Carson Hughes.'  My name is Sedgwick, Percy Sedgwick.")
• Donut Mess With A Cop - Albert offers to get Detective Hughes a donut or pastry since "I know you people like that sort of thing."
• Mystery Magnet - Mackenzie is implied to be one.  In her own words, "It just seems that wherever I go, there's a crime to be solved, and I just can't resist getting involved!"
• How Much Did You Hear? - After giving herself a Rousing Speech, Mackenzie turns to find Joe standing nearby.  She asks, "How long have you been there?"  "Long enough," he replies.
• What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous? - Mackenzie (rather amused) assures Albert that having his box of fudge-striped cookies eaten by a "wild animal" (presumably Percy's pet rat) is truly horrible.
• So What Are You Saying? - Albert uses this twice in the same skit, once while speaking on the intercom to Mackenzie, and then again when calling Detective Hughes.
• Insistent Terminology - Joe prefers "custodian" to "janitor."
• Mummy - Percy dresses as one, complete with Zombie Gait, to scare Albert.
• Crouching Moron Hidden Badass - Scared by the mummy, Albert beats him up (offstage), making Percy later compare him to Chuck Norris.
• You Never Asked - Albert on his kickboxing skills.

The next few tropes are a little spoilery:

• The Reveal - the following three tropes:
• Red Herring - Joe
• Detective Mole - Carson Hughes turns out to be an artifact smuggler pretending to be a cop in order to search the building for a hidden treasure.
• Reverse Mole - Along the same lines, Joe reveals himself to actually be an undercover cop named Nick Raines.
• Spotting The Thread - Mackenzie gives out the clues that lead her to realize Carson Hughes wasn't really a detective: she found his hotel key card, he didn't know where the post office was (instead telling her to have the hotel mail it for her), and a threatening letter she received had the hotel's stamp on the back.
• Noodle Incident - When asked how she knew Nick wasn't really a janitor, Mackenzie replies that when she saw him using the floor buffer, she figured something was up.  Nick concurs, adding that it was quite amusing.
• Saving The Orphanage - The Sedgwicks bought the orphanage next door in order to tear it down for parking.  The director, Miss Brown, comes over in a few skits to ask for more time to relocate the orphans, but the demolition crew is on a tight schedule, and the museum really needs the parking.  By the end of the week, Claire has a change of heart, mostly due to Mackenzie paraphrasing James 1:27 ("helping widows and orphans in their distress"), and tears up the demolition contract, making the orphanage The Sedgwick Children's Home instead.  Which kind of brings up the question, what are they going to do about parking, then?

There are more, of course, but those are all I could find and/or think of.  Also, despite the characters' name, no one has a Sedgwick Speech.

Real Life Influences My Movie Choices

I watched Adventureland a little while ago, mostly because I, like the main character, worked at a local theme park for a few summers. I bumped it up in my queue once I learned Bill Hader was in it, and it actually came a month ago, but I just hadn't gotten around to watching it. I nearly gave up on it a half hour in, though. I had a hard time getting into it, since it was really more of a dramedy, and I was expecting it to be more like my own experiences working at a theme park. Maybe if James had gotten to work in Rides like he wanted, things would have turned out differently. I mention this since I was a ride operator (and there was even a Music Express where I worked, although I never got to run it. And now it's not there any more).

Similarly, I recently watched Reservation Road, purely because part of it was filmed at the theme park where I worked. Otherwise, it would have never gotten anywhere near my queue, as it tells the story of a hit-and-run incident and the effects on the family of the victim (a little boy) and also on the perpetrator (who, ironically, is hired as a lawyer by the father of the victim). The park is in the film for less than a minute, three quick scenes most of the way into the movie, although the trailer for the movie showed the characters riding the Music Express incorrectly. Still, seeing the park in a film gave me a little thrill, even if the movie itself wasn't my cup of tea. Not that it was a bad movie, but as I said, drama and tragedy just isn't my thing. I was, however, amused to learn that Jennifer Connelly, who played the mother of the victim, was Sarah in Labyrinth back in the day.

Redbox Saga: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

Where I work, I'm fairly close to a pair of Redboxes, and so I've noticed a general trend in how the week's new movies are handled. Generally, The Redbox Guy (RBG) will show up anytime between Friday and Monday to put in the new discs, take out old ones, and shuffle the little movie posters around (is there a word for that?) so that the newest DVDS are right above the Redbox kiosk itself and the others are in some kind of random order on a display case next to it.

Naturally, when it was getting close to the release date for Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, I kept an eye out to see when the RBG would show up. It turned out to be one of those weeks when he didn't come until Monday evening, so he was still at work when I was leaving. I kind of wanted to ask him if I could see the Cloudy DVD, but I figured there are probably rules against that. When I went into work the next day, though, I was very surprised to see that he hadn't changed any of the little posters (or the upcoming movies sheet), which worried me a little bit, since most people make their decisions on what to rent based on the displayed posters, even though there are many more movies inside the kiosk. Especially kids. But I was happy to see that despite no notice of it being inside, people were renting Cloudy. (I, meanwhile, attempted to buy the 2-disc w/mystery exclusive DVD at Walmart, but had no luck, so I settled for getting it at Target, where it came with a teeny tiny version of "The Tasty Tale of Chewandswallow." The mystery exclusive turned out to be an umbrella that reveals food when it rains.)

The following week, RBG didn't come until Monday again, and yet again he didn't put up new posters (or even the old ones from the previous week), but he did put a poster for Cloudy in the Featured Movie slot, which made me happy, anyway. Finally, for this week, the guy came on Friday and put up all the new posters that hadn't been put up before, including one for Cloudy down in a prime location in the kids' section (the two rows closest to the ground). Of course, now there's the problem of there not being enough copies of the movie to go around. I check every now and then during my shift, and it makes me feel good to see that it isn't there, since that means all the copies are checked out, but at the same time I feel bad for whoever might be coming next to try and rent it.

As for the actual DVD, it both brings me great joy and vexes me at the same time, though not for the same reasons. I'm very happy to actually have the movie on DVD, so I can go through it frame by frame if I so desire, and easily get screenshots of the exact shot I want (you'll be seeing the fruits of that soon), and the supplemental features on the second disc are very good, too, especially the "Recipe for Success" featurette and the voice actor spotlight.

What vexes me, though, is not what's on the DVD, but rather, what isn't. When the DVD was announced, the special features were, too, and the things I was looking forward to the most were the Extended Scenes and the Early Development Scenes. Especially the extended scenes, since the Junior Novelization is full of such scenes, but from what I've seen in the Art and Making of book, there's plenty of good material available for the Early Development scenes. But the actual DVD has only two of each. On the Extended side, there's a short bit that was cut out of Flint, Sam, and Manny's trip in the elevator, which I could have done without, really, and a longer section of the Spaghetti Twister that includes a foodfight between Flint and the Mayor (which was pretty much a given to be included). But I really would have preferred to see more, especially if it was something that wasn't in the junior novelization or the various animation reels on youtube (most of which have been collected here).

On the Early Development side, there's a nice scene of Flint writing to Vance LaFleur, cataloging some of both of their achievements, and a different version of the spaghetti twister. Now, since I have the Art and Making of Book, I didn't need any explanations, but it might have been nice for there to be some kind of introduction to the scenes for those who don't have/can't afford the book. In lieu of that, here's a bit of explanation: In one version of the story, Flint was trying to get into the Science League, run by Vance LaFleur, who (among other things) saved the world from giant ants. Toward the end of the movie, Flint would realize that he was meant to stay in Swallow Falls, and that his hero had actually created the giant ants in the first place (and had a rather cavalier attitude about it). The second clip doesn't need that much explanation, except that Sam is there reporting on the opening of a hotel, which was a dropped element (it looked like an inverted pyramid with a million rooms, and from what I can tell, it was going to serve the same purpose as the dam). Both are fine scenes, but as I said, I was hoping for more than just two. I kind of would have liked to see the scene described in the Art and Making of Book with the jukebox guy, but that's probably just me.

I was also sort of hoping that the DVD would explain just what was planned for Brent in the Ice Cream Snow Day scene. The Art and Making of Book includes a shot of him in a sequence of color keys for that scene.

Upon further inspection, Brent is actually in that scene in the finished movie, but only at the very end, when the camera starts to pull out. I've circled him to make it easier to find him.

So yeah, it makes me wonder whether or not there was going to be more to his appearance in that scene, or what. I didn't really think that I'd get an answer, but one can always hope.

The commentary (the director/writers and Bill Hader) really didn't shed as much light on the story development as I would have liked, but it was still fun and informative. For instance, I never noticed that when Flint goes to replace the fuse near the beginning of the film, he's singing the music that was playing in the background of the previous scene. And when Brent becomes Chicken Brent, the music that plays is an orchestral version of the Baby Brent Sardines jingle. But there's also a lot of Bill saying "I voiced this with Anna in the same room." So yeah.

Anyway, the movie itself is very awesome, and even if the special features don't always live up to my (admittedly rather high) expectations, I still think it's worth getting the 2-disc DVD. The Blu-ray version also has the option of throwing food at the screen while watching the movie, although only on certain players, or so I've heard.

What I'm Looking Forward to in 2010

Whether or not it's a new decade or not, here's what I'm looking forward to in the coming months:

• Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs coming out on DVD!
• Finally seeing The Princess and the Frog (my older sister is coming to visit next week, and we agreed to see it together)
• The next 2009 SSC movie, "The Berryfest Princess"
• Rapunzel
• My older sister's wedding, which will hopefully also branch into a trip to Disneyland

Blockbuster Blues

Unlike those folks who use Netflix, I get my movies-in-the-mail from Blockbuster, which goes back to when I was in college and had at least five Blockbuster stores I passed regularly when traveling by bus, and I used to get two free in-store rentals per month as part of my subscription. Now, there are only two or three stores nearby (and none of them any closer than fifteen minutes drive), so I've dropped that part of my subscription. But I still get the movies by mail, and for the most part I enjoy what I see, except for the odd occasion where I completely forget why I put a movie in my queue by the time I actually receive it (not that I don't enjoy it, but I do wonder about myself sometimes).

Lately, though, I've been faced with a slightly frustrating situation. You see, over this week, I've received three DVDs, but none of them are the ones I put at the top of my queue. What bothers me about this is simply that I put two movies at the very top, so as to get them next. Both are listed as Available, so availability shouldn't be a problem. And yet, as each DVD was returned and new ones sent out, those two were skipped. I understand that there's more to the DVDs being sent than just running down a list, but still, it's very vexing. One, I could understand, but both of them being skipped three times?

Now, my subscription is the three-at-a-time variety, and yet, I was surprised to get two discs in the mail today, since I already had one and had just put one in the mail to go back. Well, earlier this week, I reported that a DVD I had returned hadn't shown up on my profile page yet, and I'd sent it in two weeks before (and another DVD I'd returned since then had already shown up). So they sent the next DVD (but not, you know, the next DVD. Or, come to think of it, the DVD of Next, although they did send that to me once by accident) that day. So now I'm guessing that the DVD I returned finally made it back there, and so they sent another DVD anyway. Except, they sent a DVD that they already sent (the same one, I think, that they sent when I reported that DVD missing in the first place). This could be an indication that the computer system over there has gotten slightly messed up, which could very well be why the two DVDs I want keep being skipped over. But really, I'd better get those movies soon.

My Coraline Swap Box

The box I sent out in the Coraline Swap arrived about a week ago, and since the recipient has blogged it up, I can share it here, too.

From the moment I heard about the swap, I knew what I wanted to put in it. On the very same day that I saw the movie, I picked up a book called Creepy Cute Crochet, so I made a Coraline doll in the same style. I also knew I wanted to make a mouse, but since I didn't think I would have time to experiment on a circus outfit (as it was, most of my time was taken up with making and remaking the raincoat, and figuring out the directions for making the hair), I made one of the real Mr. B's mice, even though they never actually make an appearance in the movie (which is why it has safety eyes instead of button eyes). Unfortunately, some of the red velvet residue got on the dolls, but otherwise, they came out rather nicely, I think.

National Crochet Month

I recently learned that March is National Crochet Month, so I thought I'd show off some of the things I've crocheted since last May, when I started to crochet seriously (as you may recall, I tried to get going in 2002 and 2006, but it didn't really take until last year).

These first four are all made from patterns in Get Hooked Again:

A sunglasses case, right when I needed one most.

A bag intended to hold WIPs.  I had a lot of fun making the individual pieces, even if it didn't come together that well.


  Of course, a case to hold my hooks.  The pattern really included crocheted flowers on the outside, but they came out looking funny, so I just left them off.

A scarf made from two different yarns, since I ran out of one halfway through (or rather, it became the halfway point when I ran out.  I like the effect, though.

This bag is from a pattern in Stitch 'N Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker.  Despite the unfortunate name, it has a lot of interesting patterns in it.  I didn't starch the straps, so they got all stretched out.

This is from a Bernat pattern that I got off their website.  Nice and fluffy.

Here my husband is modeling a toque I made for him for Christmas.  The pattern is from Not Your Mama's Crochet, but I think it's wrong, because even though I went up two hook sizes, the finished product is way small, unlike the one on the guy in the picture in the book.

This one isn't actually finished yet.  It's a shawl from a pattern sheet I got at Michael's, and all it needs is the fringe to be complete.

Just a couple of coasters I whipped up the other day while watching a movie.

Ricardo Montalbán is dead!

I promise I'm not going to annouce every single celebrity death I hear about, but I had to share this one.  Ricardo Montalbán is of course more famous for his other roles (particularly Mr. Roarke on Fantasy Island and Khan in the second Star Trek movie), but to me he will always be Gutierrez on Freakazoid!  And occasionally Señor Senior Sr. from Kim Possible.

Update: here's a post that Paul Rugg posted about Ricardo's work on Freakazoid.

What I'm Looking Forward to in 2009

I feel like I should have more of these, but here's what comes to mind:

• Next week's Ugly Betty with Bernadette Peters and Nikki Blonsky
• Monsters vs. Aliens
• Up (mostly for Ed Asner)
• The full debut of the 2009 revamp of Strawberry Shortcake

Eartha Kitt is Dead

I just heard that Eartha Kitt died earlier today of colon cancer.  She had 81 years of being awesome.  Seriously.  She was Catwoman on the 1960's Batman series, she was Yzma in The Emperor's New Groove, and even had a guest spot on The Magic School Bus series, among many other things.  And she sang "Santa Baby" better than any of the others.  Rest in peace, Ms. Kitt.

Crochet Me

Somehow or other, I've become a crocheter.  I'm not entirely sure how it happened, but this is what I recall.

I first encountered crochet when I was about 15 or 16.  During my Junior High through High School years, I was part of a group called Musicon Ministries; I'm not really going to go into all the details of it, but all you need to know about it for this story is that it involved a group of kids from all over CT who met for weekend retreats during the year.  Part of these retreats was a large group session/lecture, and one weekend, a girl was working on crocheting an afghan, and worked on it during all the sessions.  I asked her about it at some point and she said it was really easy once you got the pattern down, and mentioned even crocheting during her classes at school.

Skip ahead to 2002, when the first Michael's I ever encountered opened, and I picked up a teach-kids-to-crochet-stuff kit, and learned how to crochet a drawstring bag.  I made a couple more, but after that I didn't do any more crocheting for a few years, although not for want of trying.  For some reason I couldn't commit to a project (although being in college at the time probably had something to do with that).  Skip ahead again to the end of 2006, when I suddenly decided I wanted to crochet another drawstring bag (having lost the others I made).  Unfortunately for me, I couldn't find the materials that came with the kit, and when I tried finding it again at Michael's, they didn't have any.  Fortunately, a local Jo-Ann Fabrics did have the exact kit I wanted, so I was back to crocheting again.  I made grand plans of making drawstring bags for everyone I knew, but after two, my interest waned again.

Skip ahead one last time to this past May.  While browsing in the library, I noticed Get Hooked Again on display, and remembered seeing the first Get Hooked on Amazon, so I picked it up, figuring that maybe the patterns would inspire me to take up crochet again.  Just a few days later, I was at a newly opened Borders (I went because of special offer coupons only valid at that store), and while I waited in line, I noticed a crochet kit that came with not only instructions on how to crochet, two balls of yarn and a set of five hooks, but 50 pattern cards, all for only 8 dollars.  It seemed like destiny, so of course I picked it up.

Between the book and the kit, I found out something rather important: I had been crocheting the wrong way!  In all my previous endeavours, I had been going through each round by putting my hook in the back loop of each stitch, rather than under both of them, which is proper crocheting.  Going through the back loop produces a ribbed effect.  Perhaps it was finding this out that let me stick with crochet this time around, as I proceeded to crochet all summer long, sometimes to my detriment (I missed posting on time in one of my class discussions because I thought I had another day and wanted to work on a tote bag while watching one of the Indiana Jones movies), but mostly to my pleasure.

This whole post is just the lead-up to my showing off my latest, and first wearable, creation, the Coming Home Poncho.  I picked up the pattern in a shop in Bermuda, which is also where I got the hook I used for it, although I didn't want to scare my husband by getting all four balls of yarn needed for it, so I didn't get to work on it until I was actually home.  It took a little under a month, although if I'd worked on it more often, it probably would have taken less time.  Behold:

It's pretty warm.  The yarn is Lion Brand Homespun in Montana Sky (the actual pattern calls for Prairie or something like that, but it was too boring.  I like blue a lot better).  While I don't feel confident enough to do actual fitted items yet, I wouldn't mind doing something like a vest next.  

Capturing Makes me Feel Alive

So yesterday new episodes of Sushi Pack and AiCaL came out.  As you know from reading my blog, these two shows are my bread and butter.  However, I despaired because I knew that while I could watch them, I could not capture them (or When Will Ben be Zen/Wharf City on the Half Shell).  

You see, back in July I got a new laptop, but unfortunately, my USB TV tuner stick (a Pinnacle, you may recall) didn't work with it.  Oh, it could read digital TV signals just fine (or as fine as it ever did), but it wouldn't capture analog input.  And since I captured through my VCR, that was a big problem for me.  So I spent some time doing research, and finally decided to get an AverMedia DVD EZmaker USB Gold capture device, since that was (as far as I could tell) the best capture device that works with Vista.  Meanwhile, however, the main TV decided to implode one fateful Saturday, and my father took the opportunity to upgrade to HDTV.  Which meant that the actual TV was in flux for a while as things got set up and kinks got ironed out.  But finally I had my device and the TV was set, and I got ready to capture.  Only to come up with nothing.

At first, I wasn't sure what was going on, I could only feel crushing despair at having my hopes dashed.  But then I decided to try using the new device in my old laptop (which I still have, but it only actually works for about 10 to 20 minutes at a time), and see if the problem was Vista or not.  But still, I got nothing.  So then I tried using my Pinnacle to see if maybe the problem was the VCR, and when nothing came up, I knew that the solution was near.  Unfortunately, I know next to nothing about setting VCRs or TVs, so I called on my father, and he was able to come up with a solution.  It had something to do with the line in not being the right thing, which is odd, because with the old TV, I always used the line-in and it was just fine, so I don't really know what was different.  But I was able to capture, and now I'm working on editing, and it feels great.

Shortpacked and my life

(Click for full-sized Shortpacked!)

Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction when my fiancé decided to grow a mustache, with similar results. That's pretty much how he looked, too. I made him shave it off (the rule was, when he was back home he could have it, but not while I'm around), so maybe Amber will do the same.
Speaking of my fiancé, he flew in last night, so I'll be seeing him soon. And tomorrow he'll no longer be my fiancé, but my husband. Whoa...