That's right, I'm even picking games and I beat Cian last week in my picks! This is entirely due to my faith in the Chargers as the dark horse team this year, and yes... I picked them over the Eagles this week. Philly is the better team for sure but they have no fire or passion whatsoever despite their talented new additions. McNabb is way off his game and that makes me a sad panda. :(


PS: I picked the Bengals to win over Pittsburgh this week AND WAS SO RIGHT. GO CINCINNATI!! Screw you Pittsburgh!!!! Big Ben is a big doof.



PPS: Please please PLEASE, will someone bash the shit out of Tony Romo? Hurt him good and send him out for the season!! I am so tired of his overrated ass being heralded as the next greatest thing in sports. Dallas is fucking mediocre and the NFL needs to recognize.


Addendum number whatever: Burlington, Vermont has most excellent beers. Smoked stout + cider together in one pint = my heaven. Also, it equals my yelling GO BENGALS repeatedly in the bar. Oops :)

what would happen if some random guy waxed his chest hair into a mustache? mental images are telling me that this is HILARIOUS.

must google when filters are not being applied.

worrying should be an olympic sport. i should be a shoo-in to win but i'd screw up because of performance over-anxiety.

that would actually make me a true winner though, right?

I'm still not over it. Sometimes I wonder if we'd still be friends now if he hadn't died. If it hadn't happened, would I still have run away from my other friends too? Something about realizing that everyone that matters to you will disappear, well... I wanted the control of making it happen instead of letting life do that for me. Strangely, I felt more alone while trying to keep all those friends than I do now that I don't have any.

I miss him. Selfishly, I miss myself from then even more. Nothing could touch me and I had not a care in the world. Now I care too much and it weighs me down so much.... but I guess that's really just my getting older.

He knew he wasn't going to make it. I refused to believe it but he was right, they blew him up into little bits. I never saw the stitch job they did on his body to make it open casket... I simply didn't know it was happening until afterwards. I used to hate myself for missing it. Now I think that it might have been better that way.

In the end, I barely knew him at all. He was still one of the best friends I ever had.

Today's lunch:

white rice, toasted with a tiny bit of butter, 2 types of curry spice, ground ginger and Adobo; then added to the cooking pot with chicken broth, salt, and a splash of rice vinegar.

in the toasting pan goes a clove of garlic and half a red pepper, along with bits of fish from sadly mediocre sushi leftovers.

I'm skipping the curry sauce this time and instead, opted to put the flavor in the rice instead. YUM. :D



Later, I think I'll make some potato bread pretzels from scratch and mix in some of my homemade fruit sauce made from local cherries and blackberries, to make a cherry berry flavor of course. I may add dried cherries soaked in cranberry juice / sweet rum, or I may just opt to coat the pretzels in a sugar bath. Nummmm. Said fruit sauce is also amazing mixed into yogurt- it works better than that weird shit they call "fruit on the bottom" for sure!

Cian made (and ate!) pasta with local smoked sweet chorizo, red peppers, and capers in a flour-based light cream sauce a few nights ago. The eats around here are getting way more than good! Considering he refused to touch any veggies or sausage just a few months ago... well, the progress is mindblowing (and waist-expanding for me, anyway.)

Mmmmmm. Who needs restaurants anyway?

Life is always better when there is a blanket to be worked on.

When I first started knitting, I wanted to make one in all different shades of gray. 6 years later, I am FINALLY MAKING IT- 'cept I'm crocheting, of course. Keeping a blanket on knitting needles is a giant pain in the ass, so eff that shit.

Speaking of needles, I accidently broke one of the (gorgeous multicolor resinated wood) knitting needles I was using to make a fabulous new scarf. Would you believe that none of the local big-box craft stores carry short straight needles in size 4? Good thing I have the blanket. Project Interruptus is an undesirable condition.

Today, one of the many douchebags that I have to call my neighbors decided that it would be fun to blare shitty rap with rumbling bass from his computer first thing this morning. I'm talking fucking earthquake loud... Not everyone gets up before 7:30, thanks. And, it was coming from the room RIGHT NEXT TO MY BEDROOM. The entire goddamn building was vibrating. Am I the only person in this place that owns a fucking pair of headphones?? It was so bad that Cian went and asked him to turn it down and he did... but seriously. This shouldn't have even happened in the first place. I love this apartment but I hate everyone in it.

It's okay, it's all okay. I have a blanket. It's a mantra. BLANKET. BLANKET. ....OOOOHMMMMMMMMMmmm.... 2 double decreases, 3 double crochet, 2 increases, 3 double crochet. Gray gray grey gray grey grayish gray. Must take the metal off the iPod, it's making me pissed again. Loads and loads of Numan... blanket... gray. It'll all be just fine.

TAKE THIS FEAR AND HEAL THYSELF~..

Whiskey in the coffee will make any day better, even one filled with oogie stuff like cleaning and organizing.

I've been trying reeeeeeeeealllly hard to be happy, since I can't seem to feel that way naturally. And y'know, it's difficult and even a little tedious but SO fucking worth it. Wish I was putting that same level of effort into my workout regimen cause then I'd prolly be super super happy... but i just can't be bothered. Ugh. It was going fine until I messed up my knee and now I'm too scared to start up again because knee pain is NOT FUN.

Now if only I could kill that elusive gnat, today would be fabulous. The stupid thing is full of my caffiene and alcohol-laden blood and is STILL too fast for me. WTF.

Through Flickr, I have confused many a noob WoW player. It always cracks me up to see that people have found my teleport picture through googling "how do i find the teleporter in Silvermoon?" which means that they no doubt will spend several minutes attempting to jump onto the platform where my character was pictured, thinking that this is the teleport. Guess what, it isn't- instead, it's the return platform that is only accessible by having gone to Silvermoon and then teleporting back. In fact, the teleport itself is not even in my screenshot due to clever angling. You have to admit, that's pretty funny.

In my defense, I didn't post the picture to deceive people- I didn't even think it would be noticed by anyone other than myself, just like the rest of my Flickr posts. I only took the shot because I thought it looked freakin sweet. It just so happens that it's one of the first images to come up in any Silvermoon teleport related search. Therefore, it is Google selection that is confusing all of these poor Belf noobs, right??

Hee hee hee.

LEVI CROWLEY GOLDEN DAWN
STRANGE SAME DOGMA ON AND ON...

to the bitch that commented about my swiffer cover pattern, "isn't that from Mason-Dixon?":

FUCK. YOU.


also, learn to read.


i responded explaining that the commonly adapted stitch pattern that i used due to its scrubbing ability and ease of knitting has been traced to the ball band of Peaches N Creme yarn, which is WRITTEN ON EVERY VERSION OF THE MASON-DIXON PRINTINGS EVERYWHERE. They did not invent it, and they rejected my version of the swiffer cover for another in their new book because "it wasn't photographed beautifully enough" or some shit.

then i deleted her stupid comment from my pattern, as to not confuse the other poor knitting lemmings out there. SIGH.

i bought a new camera. it's big, shiny, and actually has lenses.

unfortunately, i can't get it to do what i want.

not in the close-up pseudomacro jewelry/knitting/yarn sense, anyway. this is a large part of why i bought the beast in the first place!

however, i can actually get professional looking landscapes and my vacation pictures should be a hell of a lot nicer from now on. my old camera was only good for it's super macro function, which only worked well in tandem with the portrait setting and spot focus enabled. the exposure adjustment and saturation functions were easy to access, though clumsy in actual effect.

i don't seem to have a saturation function on this new expensive camera whatsoever, and exposure adjustment is only limited to certain picture modes. the macro mode is really limiting in that i'm stuck using flash (UGH!!!!!!) and i can't adjust the iso, white balance or exposure AT ALL.

i'm pretty fucking defeated here. it looks like my only option may be to buy a macro lens for the one setting i can actually use to access all functions. DAMNIT.

this camera is supposed to be a really, really nice one too. for what i paid for it, well, it should be wiping my ass and cooking my meals.

FUCKKKK. :(

so mr. dog owner finds my guitar hero offensive... LIKE HEARING YOUR MISERABLE DOG ALL DAY ISN'T?? god, what a worthless fuckwank.

anyway... here is why i don't want to deal with him directly:

i listen to his dog cry all day AGAIN.
eventually, douchedick comes home.
he hears my guitar hero, loud and drunken, filled with METAL SONGS ONLY THANKS!
he tries stomping loudly up and down the stairs in response.
i turn up the volume.
he stomps some more.
i play pantera like 5 times in a row.
he then decides to use the dog as noise leverage by LEAVING IT BEHIND ALL NIGHT.

dude.

FUCKED.
UP!!

manipulating that poor miserable dog just to piss me off? no, you're not a soulless asshole or anything.

for what it's worth, i heard the old guy that sits in the stairwell all day lecture mr. pet neglect on his dog howling yet again. said old guy lives underneath the loathsome asshole.

oh yeah, according to the website of this apartment complex, they only allow small dogs of 20" height MAX. i did happen to mention in my call-in report that it was a great dane, but not anything about its ginormitude. they may not know the breed though. i am thinking another call is due soon, especially in light of this compounded douchebaggery.

now i am listening to my super rumbly computer speaker iTunes to cover up the noise. did i mention that whenever the asshole is home, he's listening to HIS rumbly shitty computer music?

but I'M the jerk apparently.

I HATE ASSHOLES OMG.

Cian offered to take me to MD Sheep and Wool this weekend but I turned him down. Last year was really disappointing, you see, and it's just not worth the trip to go.

This is mostly because I went to the Rhinebeck festival a few months before I went to MDSW last year and it spoiled me something wicked. Rhinebeck is SPRAWLING and the fairgrounds are so beautiful and OH GOD THE FOOD. As for Maryland, I'd have to say... not so much. It had too many people crammed into a comparatively small space, with not many vendors worth seeing and it was impossible to browse yarn through such a crowd anyway. The food was a major let-down and it was just too bloody hot to walk around all day.

It doesn't help that last year at MDSW, there was a shit-ton of thievery and it set all the vendors on suspicious edge. Apparently wearing lots of eye makeup and a shirt with a rib cage on it meant that I was some kind of shady character, never mind the fact that I paid for all my yarn thankyouverymuch.

No, I appreciate the offer on the bf's part to take me to an sheep and yarn filled gathering and I would love to see more alpacas (<3!!!) but I'll just stick to Rhinebeck, unless the PA fiber festivals turn out to be any good. Besides, I see sheep and alpacas every time I head to Target. I really love Lancaster sometimes. :)

Well, the dog is now quiet. I don't think this is a sign of better care or adjustment to the living space because now I just hear what sounds like very muffled howls and whines every once in a while. This leads me to think that they are now muzzling the animal when they leave the house. I know they're not taking it anywhere because the sound of it being led down the stairs is pretty unmistakable. Perhaps they're even locking it up in one of the bedrooms or worse, a closet.

I don't know for sure what they're actually doing to take "care" of their pet- I can only guess. Since it is no longer disrupting anyone else, I'm not sure that I can call and report much of anything. I wish I had more information... but I really don't want to talk to them. I am so angry at the thought of putting a muzzle on that poor miserable creature that I would fucking lose it.

Yes, my home is peaceful again, but at what cost?

And how can someone be so oblivious to their own pet's needs? Seriously, I was "home" with that dog way more than they have been. I haven't even seen it being walked for days. JERKS.

:(

I have new neighbors. THEY HAVE A GREAT DANE IN THEIR UPSTAIRS APARTMENT. Yes, that merits all caps. This is the biggest fucking dog I have ever seen in my life! And it is clearly not suited for apartment life, judging from the fact that it cries and howls LOUDLY in the most upsetting way whenever the owners are gone... constantly... until they come back.

It sounds like there is a ghost in my apartment during the day. They leave it cooped up only to yell at it and take it on a cursory walk when they come back. I listen to this poor thing whine and cry for company all day and the only thing they do when they come home is yell at it to go lay down. I really kind of hate them for this- the poor dog is SO UNHAPPY and hearing it makes me depressed too.

After 4 days of this in a row, I called the front office and filed what I called "a concern as opposed to a complaint". Yes, it is disruptive to me to listen to this, but that's not what raelly bothers me here. It's the blatant neglect of this clearly sensitive animal. Oh and you want to know what really kills me about this? ONE OF THE OWNERS IS A VETERNARIAN.

That's right. She can take care of other animals for pay but completely ignores her own. What the FUCK?

Now I get to listen to it and wonder what the management here will do. I still can't believe they okayed that kind of pet, which is so large that it NEEDS a yard and space to run around. When it does get a chance to play, it sounds like an elephant stampede... and we have really cheap, poorly laid carpet here. I imagine it's already shredded to bits and probably stained, judging from the time it spends alone.

I want to call an animal rescue facility but it's a little soon for that. However, if no action is taken, I will be.. but I'm unsure of the best place to call.

This dog is seriously the size of a goddamn pony and is confined to only a small part of an average sized apartment, which wouldn't be enough space even if it was left loose. I can't blame it for being traumatically upset but I sure as hell can blame its owners. Why do my neighbors all have to be such assholes? This in particular is unforgivable.

What would you do?

Spotted in New Mexico: a restaurant by the name of DISCO TACO

also: roadside stands full of carved wooden Jesus Bears. I did not buy one but I am still amused. Also, I don't know what makes them "Jesus".

Utah is also really, really gorgeous. I found my ideal vacation town there and am already planning the next road trip as we complete this one.

Right now I'm in Colorado but since we got here at nightfall, I have yet to really discover it. The beer is great though!

Need hotel breakfast before they take it away.....

I was totally unprepared for the beauty of New Mexico and Arizona. It is STUNNINGGGGG~! For someone that has spent most of their life in the flattest of boringly flat states (hello delaware), this trip has really been a revelation. Seeing pictures of terrain isn't enough to really understand just how marvelous the earth is in person. I thought that this region of the US would be barren and colorless but boy, was I wrong!!! Wish I could have gotten pictures of the best of it but stopping on those roads would have been bad news.

Oh, and I still hate Texas. It denied me lodging, food, and now good health for the rest of my vacation. Thanks for coughing in my face, sullen Latina register girl at the El Paso Walgreen's. Or maybe it was the little brat at the breakfast buffet who was pulling all the sweet grapefruit out of the fruit salad bowl WITH HER FINGERS. When I stared in horror and disgust, her bitch ass mom glared AT ME. NOT her daughter. I tried to get fruit from where she hadn't been cause it was the only thing that looked edible and I was starving from not eating the day before. I guess I should have just opted out but FUCK I WAS HUNGRY. :(

Also, why is it snowing at the Grand Canyon? Okay, I didn't really want to go there on this trip since it coincides with spring break and I know the place will be filled with tour-tards getting in my way. But still... snow? It looks like we may have to completely reroute the second half of the trip. I genuinely have no clue right now where I'll end up tonight, but for now I find this exciting.

I have discovered a lot of fun new things so far! I learned that hills can poop on unsuspecting cars, or at least that's what the sign seemed to indicate. I saw a horse scratching its ass on a billboard post, so it would seem they are immune to splinters... or it was just a "special Ed" like the horse on that Family Guy episode. Oh, and I found out that you can get a chili relleno IN A BURRITO WITH SPICY CHILI ON TOP. It's not authentic or anything but it's still brilliant!

Damn, I'm still hungry.

i hate texas. i am never coming back.

3 strikes, it's out.

CAN YOU BELIEVE EVERY RESTAURANT IN EL PASO CLOSES BY 9 PM UNLESS IT IS FAST FOOD???????

yeah, i came this close to mexico to eat wendy's. oh wait, i didn't and I DON'T GET TO EAT TODAY.

fuck you, texas.

It's about 14 hours from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania out to St. Louis, Missouri and we made it all in one trip. This is only the first stop on our cross-country road tour and we cleared a huge chunk of the country already! We left at 10 PM and drove through PA overnight, where we saw something absolutely amazing- the craziest falling star or possibly even a UFO!

The color was the first remarkable thing- a bright glowing lime blue-green with of a burst hot pink light at the edge of the 'star'. It was much larger and longer lasting than any other one I've seen and it appeared to actually land behind the tree line somewhere! It started extremely high in the atmosphere and only had downward trajectory so I don't think it was a flare... perhaps it could have been a meteor or asteroid? It also could have been a falling piece of *something* from space... or, you know, ALIENS. Of course that's what I'm hoping for :) I guess I'll never know.

In St. Louis, we booked a room at THE NICEST hotel I've ever been in and got a 10th floor room with a full view of the arch and the city. A girl could really get used to a view like this. :) However, one could do without the hotel staff judging guests on their less-than-upscale appearance. I know gossip is one of the very few perks of hotel employment but try and do it when the guests aren't around, maybe? Not everyone likes to wear their income on their sleeve. Whatever.

I would definitely come back to St. Louis and spend more time around town. We only got to see a small bit (up close, anyway) but everything was really pretty great. We hit up a small local brewery and got lots of awesome beer and pretzels with their beer baked into it! Yum. :) Also discovered an amazing coffee chain called Peet's which almost rivals Tim Horton's in awesomeness.... nearly. Nothing can top the Canadian version of Dunkin' Donuts though.... NOTHING.

Now we are packed up and heading out onto our next leg of the trip- destination Amarillo, Texas. It's supposed to snow there tonight... fucking crazy. We shall see, oh yes. We shall see.

PS: Kentucky is really beautiful. The daylight has the most incredible shade of blue, saturated to the point where the trees flicker and glow as you drive past.

PPS: Spring is beginning in the south and tree blossoms are starting to appear!