bass

Angela bought me a bass for valentines day. The one in that picture is exactly what mine looks like. It's actually a pretty nice bass. The intonation was totally fubar though. I noticed it after a few days of playing and I fixed it yesterday. The bass sounds even better now that the notes are in tune everywhere on the fretboard. LOL

I'm really enjoying playing again. I play for at least an hour almost every day. Today I came up with this little thing that totally sounds like mid-90s emo rock to me. Still, its got a shake-your-booty rhythm thats fun to play. Now I just need a drummer . . .

There's been a lot of stuff going on in my eq2 guild. Too much to relate all of it here. The biggest change for me is that another member finally moved her inquisitor from the raid guild she was in to our guild. She plays her inquis as an actual healer (and WAAAY out gears me) so she's sort of taken over my spot in the guild groups. In the interim I've been dpsing on Dennika while I madly power level a swashy. At this point in the life of the new expansion, Dennika actually does about as much dps as an equivalently geared mage because the mages hit ratings are so damn low against deep orange and red mobs. It's damn cool to be parsing 2+K zonewide in the hole at lvl 82 on an Inquisitor :-)

My swashy is named Prentice. He's going to be a pirate. So his full name will be Pirate Prentice who just happens to be a character in Gravity's Rainbow. He's going to worship Bristlebane and I think I'm going to name his pet "Banana" if I can. Or maybe I will come up with something better once I get the pet quest done.

They added battlegrounds to EQ2 this week. I haven't had a chance to try them out yet because they were busted last night but I'm hoping to have a set of PvP gear made for Dennika this weekend so I can give them a whirl. I have my doubts about whether EQ2 PvP will be fun but I'm hoping against hope that they did a good job.

--Abe

I hate coming up with titles

Like the title says.

Anyway, I went to feed the cat a few days ago and the food bag felt really empty when I picked it up so I just upended it into her bowl. And this is what happened.

Angela laughed so hard at that giant pile of cat food.

I went to the dentist yesterday for the first time in about 10 years. I only have to fillings but they are old silver ones and both have cracked both of my teeth. To I need to have them drilled out and the cracks ground down and filled. It's only going to cost 700 bucks . . . for one quarter of my mouth. Total cost for all the stuff I need done is close to 2000. On the bright side they said that other than my 5 teeth with issues all of the other ones are in excellent shape and so are my gums.

We re-arranged our living room and it is *awesome*. Our computers are out next to the front door and the old computer room is now a reading / music room. It's really nice to be able to talk with Angela in the evenings while she watches tv and knits and I play video games.

Anyway, have a great day.

--Abe

Sweater so close

The Olympic cardigan is coming along okay. Sunday, I finished the back, ripped back and reknit the sleeve cap on the finished sleeve and started the second sleeve. Now I have about half the second sleeve to do and then I am ready for finishing. Though I don't even have buttons yet... Also on Sunday, I realized that the Olympics were to engrossing to watch while knitting, so I had to switch to Netflix and I watched season 1 of Criminal Intent. Which worked quite well.

I have also taken a few breaks from knitting to draw. So I have a couple of pencils that I need to ink. I started inking one of an apparently hungry teddy bear, but it just wasn't working. I am going to try scotch taping a copy of the pencil drawing to the back of the vellum and ink that way so I can turn the papers without moving them from each other and losing my place. I also was inspired by the Dames and Monsters book for sale at the Emerald City Comic Con and penciled a picture last night. It is pretty funny, I think. We'll see how it turns out. So I am liking drawing with the brush. I need to practice when to chose the brush or the pen. I think the dames and monsters one will use both.

So about the ECCC, I would really like to go this year. There are a couple panels on Saturday I am really looking forward to. But it will be $40 for Abe and me to go if we pay now. $$$. Abe needs to get some of his fillings fixed and that is pricey. I guess I should use this unfilled weekend to fix up arachknits stuff and post new items that aren't really new but haven't been up before. Now that I have the camera phone, I will just use that because our actual camera just blows. Takes 8 pictures and runs out of batteries. They are great pictures though. :) Anyways, Leonard Nimoy and Wil Wheaton will both be at ECCC so I would like to go see both of them speak. And Image has a panel, so we should really go see that one in particular. That means we will be there pretty much all day so I think I need to dress more practical this year. My boots were too heavy for standing around that long last year. And there are no chairs anywhere except the few at the food booth and they are always full, so I think I will wear pants. I wish I could wear the Mini Gorgeous, but Friday we went to the Eden winter party (where I won a Webcam...) and after 3 hours my feet felt like they were going to fall off.

Also, I watched some of The Guild on Netflix and it was freakin' funny. Sadly funny if you can feel their pain, which Abe and I can totally get. He didn't watch it with me because he was busy raiding... Though we rearranged our apartment to get around tripping the breaker all the time so now the computers are in the living room and it is kind of awesome. Though now I can't watch the emotional movies by myself. :)

Edited to add: This weekend, we went to Bai Pai for lunch which is really close to Acorn Street Yarn Shop, so we had to go there and show our love so I accidentally bought two skeins of Noro Kureyon Sock Yarn. I will make a light Gaia shawl and a cowl. Eee.

Chocolate Bread

I made a loaf of chocolate bread today. It turned out really good. It's very subtle. I mixed the dough until the chocolate had entirely melted so the dough was this deep dark brown. It smelled so good when it was cooking. In a few minutes, when I'm finished with dinner, I'm going to slice a piece off and toast it.

The new EQ2 expansion is pretty damn good. The sundered frontier is a very nice zone with some beautiful views, good music and fun quests.

I've been playing my bass every day lately. I'm starting to get my stamina back and haven't yet had a full blown blister :-)

Well, off to EQ2. Later.

--Abe

Cascadia

Well, here are the Cascadia socks, my first Rockin' Sock Club socks for 2010. AND those are my new Mini Goregous shoes. Jealous yes? The more I wear them the more comfortable they got. Both the socks and the shoes. I do believe that most of my hand knit socks will be pictured in these shoes. Aren't they cuter than the second picture? The second pic is alright, but for good lookin' feet, nothing beats a pair of Fluevogs.

Next I have an picture I drew at work. Just using a regular pen. Cute, yes?

And here is the pencil pic I drew at work to put in the little Tyler frame that is stuck to my monitor. (Tyler is the company I work for).

Pseudo-Monday Blues

Well, I have Windows 7 and I find it a bit annoying. I haven't used it much though, so maybe I will get used to it. I think the most annoying part is having lost all my setup/organization in iTunes. I have to uncheck all the songs I don't actually want to listen to (mostly Abe's cds). All my playlists are gone. :( I am big on playlists. Based on mood. And all my ratings are gone. I had lists by rating, too. Bah.

This weekend was pretty fun. Abe didn't have the best Valentine's, but stil a pretty good time. We went down to Fluevog and both got shoes. Pretty nice. I got the Mini Gorgeous to wear with all my hand knit socks, and I am sure I will wear them all the freakin' time. I also put the Mini Dollface on layaway, which is awesome because they only had one pair close to my size and it fit fine. And they weren't sure if they would get any more shipments. I would have been super bummed to have missed this pair, so I am glad I put them on layaway. I should be able to get them by my birthday. :) Abe also got the Angels Supervog. These, I swear, are the most colorful shoes Abe has ever had. At least since I met him. I am so glad I finally got him to try on a pair of their shoes. I am pretty sure he is converted and will save up money to buy their shoes when he needs more in the future. Yay. I had wanted to try on Earl of Warwick Coventry, but they did not have my size. :( Oh well. I would have wanted to put those on layaway too and there are other things I want to buy someday. I tried on the Fellowships Jenna, but I wasn't as big a fan of them on as just to look at. Which was too bad. The leather was crazy soft. Sounds like a good thing I didn't get them though, because the last two reviews of them are about how they wear poorly. Which at over $300 is not acceptable.

We also went to Luisa's which was delish as usual and later we watched WALL-E, which is,no kidding, one of the cutest movies of all time. I love it.

On Friday, the Olympics started and so I started the Knitting Olympics. I am doing pretty good. 4 days in and I have a sleeve done, the left front done, and I am over half done with the right front. That leaves the rest of the right front, the back, and the other sleeve. Then I sew it all together and knit the button bands and the collar. I think that is doable with 2 weekends to go. I think I can finish the right front and the back by the end of next weekend. There is one glitch. I might need to rip back the sleeve caps and knit them a bit longer to match the front and back. The pattern from the handy book of sweater patterns doesn't seem to really do that. Oh well. At least I have only done one sleeve. I was going to take a picture every day, but I totally forgot. Oh well.

On Saturday, my mom and Jim came down. We had a great time. First we went to see Avatar. Wow. I couldn't tell what was CGI and what was real. It was amazing. The plot line was pretty typical, but I barely even noticed because I enjoyed the characters and the visuals so much. We did end up watching it in 3-D. The new 3-D is pretty amazing, but man it gave me such a headache. I had to keep readjusting my eyes throughout the movie. I think I would watch a cartoon in 3-D (like shrek and the new viking movie), but no more realistic. I will definately be buying Avatar on Blue-Ray. I can see why it was the number one movie for so long. By the time I got home that night, I was already ready to watch it again.

We went to Suni's for lunch afterwards. Delish. I had my usual Avacado Bacon Burger with an egg. Everyone loved their food. I asked for no fries and got them anyways. And I just realized I got charged for them and shouldn't have. Oh well. Less than $2.

Saturday we also went to Daniel Smith just south of downtown Seattle. They have a lot of stuff, go figure. So I got some Vellum, a #0 round brush for inking, a kneaded eraser, another pen handle for a different type of nib that I accidently bought the last time I went to Dakota Art, and some gaouche, which I cannot pronounce, for covering my mistakes and maybe even for drawing with. On Monday I went to Dakota because after practicing, I found the #0 was a little too small, so I got a #1 round and a #4 flat. The vellum is totally AWESOME as opposed to regular tracing paper which is so thin. you can see back on Zorro (wikipedia), if you look close, that there are wrinkles in the large black sections. Which is going to be a problem with Gone. I have decided I will just post that here, since there will be the wrinkle problem and that is not professional enough to send out. I really like the brush on the Vellum. I made some sketches. There is the leg of the Rocketeer (wikipedia), Mariella from another story, some sketches from my art class.

As notes on that Rocketeer pic, I was trying for a certain style and failing. I fall back into my own style pretty quickly. I am pretty satisfied with it other than that, though. His left thigh is a little too long and his feet are a little too small, but other than that. I am pleased with his shirt and various wrinkles. Originally, it was supposed to be tilted 90 degrees counter-clockwise so his feet were pointing down but there was something wrong with it and I changed the orientation. So his rocket packs don't quite seem to work with what is going on, but I still like it.

Well, I am getting ready to go to the dentist soon to get a mouth guard. Sexy. Abe gets to go get his teeth cleaned, lucky dog. :) I am actually pretty excited because it should help with the pain I am getting. I clench my jaw when I feel weird. Weird as in stressed or anxious or whatnot. I also grind my teeth a bit. And now that I have had my wisdom teeth removed, they are moving all over the place. The mouth guard should help that. I am also getting a lower retainer type thing to keep the bottom one from moving too. I have switched to Sensodyne because the new gaps where my teeth are moving has gotten really sensative, but it is not helping. And it tastes terrible. So I am switching to Crest ProHealth or something.

Finally, a little shout out to LeVar Burton, who was born in Germany in 1957 today. You know, Geordi La Forge. He created and hosted Reading Rainbow. If you check out his wikipedia page, he is looking a bit aged, but he kind of is. 50 and over is kind of aged. He has won a surprising number of awards for Reading Rainbow, at least surprising to me. Looks like around 15 to me.

I would have spell checked this, but the button refuses to work for my mouse, so screw it.

What the hell day of the week is it anyway?

It's wednesday or thursday I'm sure of it. Here's a very cool drawing of The Rocketeer that Angela did recently. I like it.

I spent most of yesterday upgrading her desktop to Windows 7. I've got all of her hardware working, including the print/scanner/copier. And I've got most of her programs installed and set up the way that she likes them.

I spent most of today playing my bass and working on the pdf for my apple, stilton, and apricot bread. I re-resized the pictures because I'd screwed up the scaling last time and they all looked like crap. I also tried to make the pages have a more artistic layout. Angela looked at my last draft and said "It is so obvious that a man made this." So, I'm trying to gussy it up a bit. The pictures look way better anyway and they are all a uniform size now as well.

Once the recipe pdf is done, I'm going to list it on etsy and see if I can get a few bucks rolling in. Once this one is done, I'm moving on to a cook book who's contents are a secret for now. A delicious secret.

Of course, I also did the requisite laundry and dishes today too. I'm a regular house wife again.

--Abe

Zorro

Well here is my crappy Zorro inspired by ComicTwart. Practice Practice Practice. I might draw another one. I messed up in a few places, like the dots above his head that I completely forgot to erase and the line at the edge of the hallway shadow, which I inked in. Whoops.

I am currently working on the Corrie Vest from Knit Picks. I would link to it ,but it looks like that bad boy is outta here. It is really fun, though now I am worried because I just read that it apparently starts to droop even with only one day wearing it. I might have to do some reinforcing crochet.

I was going to knit it straight through, but I think I am going to do the Knitting Olympics and knit a cardigan from the 12th to the 28th (from the opening to the closing ceremonies of the Olympics). I have the yarn and a swatch and the pattern. I need to rerun the numbers on the pattern though since it is a heavily modified version of a saddle shoulder in the Book of Sweater Patterns.

I also finished the first RSC socks. They are ok. I am not a fan of pink though. I will wear them on Sunday as Abe and I tromp around the city for Valentine's day. We MIGHT go to the Sci-fi museum. Anyways, with my next paycheck I am going to get another skein of STR (Socks that Rock) so I can make the other pattern. I intellectually want to go with a blue or gray to make it look like rain as the designer kind of intended, but I can't help but want to make it green. We'll see. Here are the ones I am thinking about: Jade, Stormy Weather, Nyame, Green-Eyed Monster (though it isn't really appropriate, I just love this color), Monsoon (I am leaning towards this one as a compromise), or Typhoon Tina.

When I get a chance, I also want to get the Andrea shawl and mitts from Knit Picks. These are so awesome. Both were designed by Kirsten Kapur who has a lot of really great patterns. So of course I favorited her on Ravelry.

I am also considering getting a Cricket Loom. It is small and I think I can set it on my lap while I sit on the couch to use it. That is how I use my drawing board and it wasn't intended for that either. Anyways, I can weave up some scarves an stuff. With a little sewing and knitting, I think I can make up some cool hat. And with more sewing and additional fabric, I can make up some skirts. All for myself at first, but once I get them down, to sell on Etsy. I am a slow poke and still have not put up those hats for sale on Etsy. Perhaps I will get ready for that tonight. It is just such a pain to use our good camera. I am tempted to use the poor photos on my phone.

Bellingham

We up to Bellingham this Saturday. Angela and her mom want to take a trip to Ireland this year and they wanted to see if they could afford to and to plan out an itinerary if they could.

While they did that, me and Isaac went to Bellingham and wandered around. We went to Cosmic Comics which had a surprisingly good selection of comics. Then we went to a local music store, but I've forgotten the name of it so I can't link to it. They had a great selection of CDs though. Lots of older stuff and new stuff. Isaac got the new Tom Waits album; Glitter and Doom Live. I got Frizzle Fry by Primus for myself and Your funeral . . . My trial by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds for Angela.

Then we walked all over down town Bellingham. We had a great time.

--Abe

Don't you like the wolf now?

Finally! Here is that Little Red Riding Hood comic that I am sure I have previously mentioned. I forgot about it, so it could have been up a long time ago.

Well, the post is short tonight because Abe is waiting to turn his computer on until I turn mine off because they don't like each other.

Not a lot going on

We went up to Bellingham last friday for a birthday party for Angelas friend Rijil. We had a great time. We both really want to move to Bellingham and the smell of the ocean as we got out of the car just brought it home to us both.

I'm getting my tax return in a few weeks and I'm going to go to the dentist with the money. It's been like 10 years since I've had a cleaning. It's going to be expensive but it will be nice to have clean teeth :-)

I started trying to teach Angela how to play the guitar tonight. We're always talking about playing music together but the bass and piano aren't the best instruments for jamming. I can't really play the guitar though so it's going to be interesting helping Angela learn.

--Abe