Oooh, shiny!

So, on a sidenote before I start: About 30 seconds (give or take a couple days) after my homework-whining post, my teachers all decided to simultaneously heap homework upon my helpless senioritis-laden head, leading me to spend an ungodly number of hours this weekend working on sundry pointless things, and barely knitting at all. Sadness.

However, on to happiness.

I WANT one of these! My mom and I were fantasizing about just such a thing a few months ago and even contemplated attempting to design one. But this is way cooler than anything we’d have come up with. It’s not available yet, but I’m snatching it up the second it is! And $20, too! Hopefully that doesn’t mean it’s really cheaply made. I’d gladly pay at least $30 for it though, assuming it won’t fall apart.

In other news, I bought yarn for the first actual full-size version of the Secret Knitty Design. Hopefully it’ll come out well the first time and I’ll be done in time to submit it to the Spring issue. My mom volunteered to test knit it for me once I’ve actually written the pattern.

How Strange…

So I had an interview scheduled for 10:00 today, and it was all very clear on location/time/etc., but I waited half an hour and he never showed up! …I was stood up by a college interviewer! Seriously, now…

On a different note, this is my first post ever from the WordPress for iPhone app, which is moderately nifty.

Well, that’s all for now, I guess. Lace scarf’s chugging along and I’ve been swatching like a madwoman for the previously mentioned secret design, so no interesting pics to share, although I haven’t missed a Project 365 day yet. Over and out!

P.S. While waiting at Starbucks for The Interview That Wasn’t, I did make the rather exciting discovery that I’m pretty sure I’ve memorized all sixteen rows of my lace chart…well, either exciting or a little sad, depending on how you look at it, I guess…

Noticed I really like ellipses…? ;)

In which I come out of my stupor for a funny movie.

My sister recently introduced me to the failblog, a hilarious site with all sorts of ‘fail,’ ‘pwned,’ etc. moments. Here’s today’s – briliant!

By the way, I have been alive and knitting. My Ravelympics project (Colinette Absolutely Fabulous Throw kit) is turning out not to be as big a challenge as I thought – I’m over halfway done already. I think I’ll tack some other stuff onto the end – like finish at least through Clue 4 of my mystery shawl or something.

Work has been interesting. We’ve (meaning my friends there and I) been ’sprucing up our nerd den,’ as we call it. Phrase inspired by this, if you’re curious. We made a ‘garland’ out of a chain of paper clips and hung it in our cubicle, tacked up 24 cards all over one panel, and picked some flowers, stuck them in a water bottle, covered the water bottle with masking tape, and wrote ‘pretty flowers’ on it with an arrow. I think that last one merits a picture, albeit a crappy cellphone one:

Oh yeah, and I have been working a bit at work, too. Even though it’s very challening to fight my Sporcle addiction to do so. I can list all 118 elements on the Periodic Table now! Working on being able to do them in numerical order. I can list every thing mentioned in ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ in order, though. *begins to hum*

There are different kinds of cold.

For cross training, today we did a local St. Patty’s Day (which, incidentally, is my parents’ anniversary…I should get them something…)-themed race. It was five miles, and I surprised myself by meeting my goal of finishing under an hour – 56:something! :D It was also really fun, because tons of people got really dressed up. I wish I had pictures to show…Ah well.

Anyway, whilst showering after said race, I got to pondering – the cold you feel after running in the cold (sweat + wind) is very different from the cold you feel after a shower or when you have a fever or after skiing. But, for me, anyways, if I’m hot, I’m just hot. There’s not much distinction. Just thought that was interesting.

If you’re a fan of puzzles, check out Killer Sudoku Online. You can play Killer Sudoku (a way cooler variety of the classic, in my opinion) daily, or peruse their archives, all also playable online or printable. It’s pretty sweet.

Anyways, just a quick post. I’ve got to go teach later!

…because sometimes I feel like I have no life.

80% Barack Obama
78% Bill Richardson
76% Hillary Clinton
76% John Edwards
73% Chris Dodd
69% Dennis Kucinich
68% Joe Biden
66% Mike Gravel
45% Rudy Giuliani
41% Mitt Romney
38% John McCain
34% Tom Tancredo
30% Fred Thompson
29% Mike Huckabee
25% Ron Paul

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Teehee. I thought I was a little bit more moderate-leaning, but clearly not.

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Science/Math Nerd (Absolute Insane Laughter as you pour toxic chemicals into a foaming tub of death!) Well, maybe you aren’t this extreme, but you’re in league with the crazy scientists/mathmeticians of today. Very few people have the talent of math and science is something takes a lot of brains as well. Thank whosever God you worship, or don’t worship, so thank no deity whatsoever in your case, for you people! Most of us would have died off without your help.
Musician
Social Nerd
Literature Nerd
Artistic Nerd
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Drama Nerd
Anime Nerd
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace

No surprises here…although the artistic might’ve been a bit higher if there had been fiber art/crafty type questions. (EDIT: WordPress doesn’t seem to like the coding of the results for that one, but they’re presented in descending order, and yes, anime IS zero)

These quizzes were actually kind of interesting, to tell the truth.

In other news…

My sister’s hamster Java died awhile ago :(. Today she went to Petco to get a new critter to be a pal to Tesla (teensy hamster so named because she’s really hyper). She was going to get a guy and name it Edison to have a theme going on, but the lady there knew her and her devotion (obsession, really) with animals, small critters particularly, and she offered her the option to take home (for free) a 3-week old albino hamster that isn’t even weaned yet, but had been brought in without its mother. Addie’s so excited. She has to feed this little girl (we think it’s a girl) goat milk twice a day for a week or so, and I think it’s making her ambitions of becoming a vet come alive a bit. All fifth grade girls go through a phase where they want to be a vet, I think – but I don’t think my beloved sister is going to come out of it…

No pictures of the new critter yet, but trust me – she’s TINY. Literally about an inch and a half long. Anyways, one more quiz. This one creeps me out, no kidding…

What Is Your Name Supposed To Be? Your Result: Rachel Rachel- Hi Rachel, you probably the odd one out in your group, the different one. But thats good! You have your own taste and vibe, and your probably really cool! Thats why your personality name, is defenitley Rachel!
Carly
Alyssa
Brooke
What Is Your Name Supposed To Be? Quizzes for MySpace

How weird is THAT?

Some fun links for you…

I wasted some quality time browsing random websites, and here are the fruits of my labors (the first few pictures just speak for themselves, but click the images if you like)…

From seller: “If like us, you suffer from the almost constant disappointment of holy effigies failing to miraculously appear to you during breakfast, well, fret no more, because help is at hand.”
*chortle*

This one I would actually consider buying. Awhile ago, thinking it would help me get up, I bought an alarm clock called ‘Sonic Boom.’ It comes with a vibrating disc that goes under your pillow to literally shake you awake. My theory was that if it were more irritating, it would wake me up. Instead, it made me press the snooze button sooner. Alas.

a quick post

…in contrast to the previous wordy post.

I had a swim meet basically all day today, and I’m totally pooped, so this’ll definitely be brief.

Exciting events in my life since we last spoke:

• losing power for the better part of two days after the huge windstorm
• getting several best times in swimming – two today, and one or two in the past week
• Okay, either my life hasn’t been too exciting since we last spoke, or I just can’t think of anything because I’m sleepy, but I needed a third bullet point…

Before we part company once more, here’s a cool site to check out – Art Lebedev Studio. They have a bunch of cool stuff, some of which is actually for sale, others just weird concept products. A few for your enjoyment (the images are links):

Will have INCOME!

I’ve been teaching a kids’ knitting class at a LYS near me – we worked out some sort of percentage agreement for payment that I didn’t pay much attention to since I was just thrilled to have a job. I got a bit worried when it turned out only four kids signed up for the class, and my mom started teasing me that I would get $5 for the whole thing or something. Well it turns out that whatever I agreed to comes out to $20 an hour!!! AND she’s going to pay me that for the extra class we’re adding on to the end even though the parents aren’t paying any more for it! I was flabbergasted. How many teens earn that much?? I’m so happy! Plus, she said I could probably do another session of classes and make it an ongoing thing. This is so fantabulous.

I also passed 21k on my NaNo today – I’m actually ahead, for the first time this week! Hurray! Between 500-word spurts, I’ve been allowing myself to waste time online for a bit – an effective motivational tactic, I’ve discovered. I’ve been browsing many online knitting patterns, so check out my Ravelry faves, which have grown quite suddenly yesterday and today. Except now I delude myself into thinking that this blog is any more than a diary currently – I really don’t think much of anybody is reading it. Ah well. It’s probably the longest diary I’ve ever kept… :P

On the not-quite-so-happy front, I have swimmer’s ear, which means my ears hurt all the time and I have to take these icky ear drops three times a day for a week. Not fun. And I haven’t had to swim since it got bad because I didn’t have a ride today, so I’m not so much looking forward to swim practice…Oh well.

Another sad thing…my sister’s hamster died yesterday. She was hysterical, and I remember when my guinea pig died how hard it was, and I cried with her. He was adorable, too. She’s been crying on and off all day today. They have a lifespan of two to three years, but he didn’t even live one, so obviously we were all really shocked. And my brother was totally insensitive about it, to the point where I started yelling at him. He’s such an idiot sometimes. *sigh*

Back on the bright side again, a 4-day week this week and a 2-day week next week, for Veteran’s Day and Thanksgiving, respectively. Huzzah!

Hurray!

My internet lives once again! Also, Halloween is coming up, and I’m going trick-or-treating with friends (who says you can’t in junior year?). I shall be Bullwinkle, although I don’t think I’ll manage to convince Alethia to be Rocky. *sigh* It’ll be fun anyway. I made an awesome set of antlers. Pictures to come.

*revels in her internetty glory*

Farewell, for now!

FrusTRATION!

I am very irritated.
But I suppose I should back up.

For my Bat Mitzvah (3.5ish years ago) I got a lovely Gateway laptop. Unfortunately, mere weeks out of warranty, the hard drive crashed and I was informed that it wasn’t worth fixing. Taking pity on me, my parents contributed 2/3 of the cost of my current laptop – an HP Pavilion. I did rather extensive research before buying it. However, within 6 months of getting it, I began to have problems with the keyboard. After multiple unsuccessful correspondences with the HP people, I finally sent it back. They returned it to me several weeks later, reportedly having replaced the keyboard. But the problem was still there. I learned to deal with it. It stopped driving me crazy. Then recently, we bought a new router. Immediately after installing it, the wifi on the lovely machine stopped working. Something about Windows not being able to configure the connection. And I know for sure that the two should be compatible. So I assumed that the wifi adaptor had died. Anyway, I adjusted. I moved my computer into the guest room (where the modem and router are) and plugged it in with an ethernet cable. So I still had internet. Then, two days ago, even that stopped working. Everyone else in the house could still connect on wifi, mind you. It was just me that was having problems. So I’m considering sending it back to HP again, since I bought the exgtended warranty and may as well use it. But I’m rather doubtful about whether they’ll actually do anything to fix it. All in all, a most disappointing experience.
Well, I’ve been drooling over the new iMac anyway. If this one totally dies, that’s what I’m getting. I’m fed up with Windows, and I definitely wouldn’t want Vista anyway. I wish I had a real job so I could just buy myself one now…

On the bright side, there’s a 3-day weekend coming up!