A happy Sunday to you. ( 75% boring plans for the day )

If you already want to get into the Halloween spirit, check out jwaneeta's ghost tale.

Three things:

1) knitting Today there was knitting! I wanted to start the Harry Potter scarf I've been meaning to knit for ages, but the yarn store I went to didn't have the right colors. (Curse them! They had every other color. Just not the right maroon color.) So that fell through. I did get yarn for a different scarf. (Scarves, what I knit best.) It's the deep purple color and is 100% Peruvian Highland Wool, whatever that means. I'll post a picture of the scarf when it's finished. I learned a new stitch for it!

I also finished my last Jayne hat. (It looks essentially like the first three I made, in case you were curious.) I wanted to make it to use up the last of the yarn, but I have nothing to do with it. Because, honestly, how many Jayne hats does a person need? I might sell it?

2) buffy Because I was suddenly gripped by this knitting frenzy, I ended up watching seven episodes of season 3 of Buffy. Ouch, guys. I still don't much care for the show, but I knit more efficiently if a tv show I'm not all that invested in is playing. So Buffy it is! Wesley was finally introduced and what a cutie he is. In this episode I just watched, he screamed like a little girl and it was quite charming.

Still don't like Buffy. Or her Mother.

3) also Lest you think I only watched tv and knit all day, I also cleaned my entire apartment (and shredded tons of old papers!) and made chocolate chip cookie bars (mmm...). It was a great day at home, honestly.

I would like to state, for the record, that I have read three and a quarter of the books in the Twilight series, and skimmed the last three quarters of the fourth book. I know everything that happens in those books.

I feel justified in having any opinion of those books that I want, be it good or bad, and I don't appreciate random strangers telling me otherwise.

BAH!

(Now I will go back to my knitting. Finishing the earflaps on my last Jayne hat while an episode of Buffy plays in the background.)

Played two games with my mom today.

At one point, she had just played "trait", vertically starting on the second row down and just to the right of center. I was already ahead (235 - 173). I looked at my rack, which had the following: aeignt* ...which led to eating[s], across the triple word score, with the s forming strait. It wasn't in itself that much (the words gave 29 points) but, y'know, using all the letters on the rack...

(needless to say, I won that round. ...by 100 points.)

(she got back at me by starting the next round with walkout, using all the letters obv. I did have a fun play at one point -- [e]quid, with the e forming 'de' from a previous thing; the q was on a double-letter and the word ended on a triple word, so it ended up being 74 points. /without/ using all my letters! ...I lost that round, but only by 13 points)

The way we play, we're allowed use of the dictionary to check word validity before we play. Fishing (eg "I have a Q but no U, what words can I make") isn't permitted, but we can look up for spelling variations (eg "is it an e or an i in that word?"), part of speech ("is it a verb, so can have -ing added? is it a pluralizable noun?"), or general word validity ("is foobar a legal word?"). It can lead to some interesting discoveries:

* "goon(e)y". I was looking this up to see if it worked as an adjective (i.e. goonlike) and, if so, whether it was -y or -ey. Turns out they're legitimate variations of a word ... meaning albatross.

* "tabu". I was fairly sure this was a legitimate variation of taboo, but I looked it up to make sure, because I knew my mom would question it. Taboo was listed, of course, as a verb meaning (something along the lines of) "to exclude". "Tabu" was listed ... as a verb meaning "to taboo". which sounds ... weird to me.

* "oom" is not a word. (No, I didn't need to look that one up, but it did flash through my mind as a possibility at one point.)

* there are some very strange words out there. :x (This time I found, accidentally, something like "flooey", with variant "flooie", which seemed like a kind of dorky word. ...I discovered, half a minute later, that I had the letters for flooie on my rack, but I didn't play it. Previously, I'd found the word "teapoy", which seems like it should be a typo but isn't.)

I'm totally obsessed with this show. ( Spring Waltz )

And people who know stuff about Canada? I have some questions. FTR, this *was* going to be a comment on Nos' last post, since she mentioned an AU that made me squeal with glee, and this is NOT related to that AU but my own various things in progress. So...( questions for y'all. )

( ad info site here )

How could they not know who he is, this supposed data site.  Shame on them.

Even the babymd himself is reticent about the Employee Of The Month... 
( marketing manager to the baby MD here... )
Watch the 4th ad/promo for meltingly gorgeous horizontal Tom, for the latest acting showreel.  Just adore him from your laptop...
( no fear here either )

1. I'm pretty much in love with Fall Out Boy's new song "Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On a Bad Bet". Patrick Stump, the bottom of your range does things to me. I approve wholeheartedly. Also, all the Patrick and Pete shenanigans lately have put a big, stupid smile on my face.

2. I've had The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett sitting in my pile of unread books for some time, and the other week I finally cracked the cover and started devouring it. And while I'm baffled as to why I've never read the Lymond Chronicles until now (because it's exactly my kind of thing), I'm a little glad that I haven't. I feel as though I'm old enough to enjoy Francis Crawford of Lymond without all of the helpless pining I would have indulged in when I was younger. I can look at Lymond and think, "My, you're a handsome devil, but a relationship with you would be so much work." I'm certainly a fan of the witty and erudite (see: my love of Stephen Fry) but even the mere idea of keeping up with Lymond mentally exhausts me. Now I need to order Queens' Play because there doesn't seem to be a physical copy in any bookstore location convenient to me. Curses!

3. I saw Walrus play last Saturday, and they were adorable. I went to the Mark Rose show on Thursday, and he was adorable and utterly dorkalicious. Jane Vinyl were pretty cute, and I found myself delighted by Last Fast Action. 4/5 of Empires were also there, and it was awesome to see them because I haven't been to one of their shows in a while. Aaron from Beardog gave me a hug, but he was pretending that I was Mark Rose at the time. It was a thing. At one point, Mark Rose asked for gum and I became a gum dispenser to him and half the internet. Wild and crazy times, oh yeah. I was exhausted and feeling crappy, but I had a great time and I'm glad I dragged myself to the show.

4. I finally watched the first three episodes of Supernatural, and I have granted the show a stay of execution. ( And I think this is the only thing they could have done to win me back... ) Please note that I still haven't seen the latest episode.

5. I am behind on almost every show I watch. An epic amount of behind. I am going to crawl into bed now and fire up the TiVo. And at some point, I really need to look at the yuletide brainstorming post, don't I?

Actually, it was at 1 AM this morning after a hellaciously long flight delay at Newark airport, which must be the ninth circle of hell, then I faceplanted on bed and just got up, um, an hour ago.

The vacation has been fabulous, but I have to say I am very glad to be sleeping in my own bed again. Now, I have several loads of laundry to do, a mountain of mail to go through, and approximately 30 hours of TV to catch up on. Oh boy. Better get to some of that now.

A few bits of political humor. Full disclosure: you may not know this, but I lean a teeeeeensy bit to the liberal side.

Just Added! A brief clip from an upcoming episode of The Simpsons. Matt Groening showed this at the NYer Festival. Homer attempts to vote.

From MSNBC: Breaking news! (photo)

From The Nation: Grammy-Winning Veep? (essay)

Sarah Silverman urges Jewish grandchildren to go down to Florida and get their bubbehs and zaydehs to vote Obama in The Great Schlep. Bonus: swag available! Warning: video contains Sarah Silverman. (video)

From The Onion News Network: How To Pretend You Give A Crap About the Election, for those who are sick of looking uninformed around their "voting" friends, even though they are, in fact, uninformed. (video)

From Tony Auth: Bob Dylan, always right. (political cartoon)

Finally, a video of the political satire panel from this past week's New Yorker Festival, featuring Samantha Bee, Andy Borowitz, James Downey, Todd Hanson, and Allison Silverman, and hosted by Susan Morrison, the New Yorker articles editor. (length: 82 minutes) (ETA: Here is the link to the complete online archive of this past week's New Yorker Festival, including panels with Shakespearean actors, magicians, cartoonists, as well as many political- and social-issue themed panels.)

Enjoy the day--hope the weather is as beautiful where you are as it is in Chicago!

Happy Coming Out Day, everybody!

love,
j00j, ally

ETA: why does someecards.com not have cards for the occasion? bah.

1. Okay wow. That was the worst night's sleep ever. Either I'm still having a reaction to the rozerem (random nose snot is a possible reaction, btw: wtf on that one) or as it is the season where I am ACTUALLY doctor approved allergic to something (and it's a mold too) I got hit with a big smacking dose of it somewhere. As I hadn't been outside yesterday, I worry. As I don't have the energy to do that sort of military inspection cleaning, I worry more. After two hours of being horribly awake (2am - 4am) and getting up every half hour to blow my nose clear (there was also a lot of sneezing), I finally, against most sound medical advice, took a decongestant. (If that confuses you, look up sleep aids and decongestants and anti depressants, it's usually a no go unless medically monitored.) I finally fell asleep and slept till 11am. Got up. Gaged my actual awareness of the outside world, canceled all plans and am now contemplating a nap.

I kinda hope I'm actually sick. B/c that's an easier fix.

Also I got bit by something. I think the great A/C and Leaking debacle of the summer of 08 has probably led to several things breading in my carpet and fake wooded areas. (I have been vaccuuming a lot too.) When I take the little pumpkin into the vet, I'm gonna have him looked over for flees. *sigh* There was a lot of time with a door or window open without a screen or with such a poorly fitted screen, it might not have been there at all.

I can curl up with cocoa and be better now? Pls?

And now b/c you listened to all that whining:

2. Best detention report ever.

3. Bah humbug.

4. Best use of old skool geek infighting for political funnies!

5. Paris Hilton Consults Martin Sheen - (Warning: Opens to a playing video) I'm starting to like her a bit. It's startling. Also, WTF MARTIN SHEEN. SO STRANGE.

6. Nailing your wife - (Warning: Opens to a playing video) Best video ever. I possibly shrieked. Nathan Fillion, pls to continue to be that awesome. Or possibly just have that bad a sense of humor.