Thanksgiving was fine. Mom and I had dinner before I went to work, although this might have actually been great timing because all the turkey tryptophan made me extremely sleepy within like, 5 minutes of leaving the table. Work was relatively painless and afterwards, I stopped by a party at a friend's house and got to see quite a few people I hadn't seen in awhile.
There was Beatles Rock Band, and it was awesome. I enjoyed it very much (finally a video game I enjoy), though it took me forever to figure out how the guitar controller works.

This meme sounded like fun,
• Leave me a comment saying "Resistance is Futile."
• I'll respond to the first five by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity
• Update your journal with the answers to the questions
• Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions

questions from padawansguide
1. What are you top three favorite fandoms?

Probably Star Trek, Supernatural (which is a fairly recent obsession) and Doctor Who (although only the recent series; I can't seem to get too into the earlier shows)

2. What are your three favorite bands?

My all time favorite band is the Beatles. I can't even explain how much I love them and how transcendental their music is without sounding like a mad hippie, so I'll just say that they were all geniuses and that even 40+ years on their music still sounds amazing and new.

I also really love Radiohead, although I'd have to admit that my love for them probably peaked around OK Computer and Kid A. I once drove 8 hours to Houston to see them in concert and while I'm not sure I'd do that again for any band, it was definitely worth it.

Third place is a lot harder because I love a lot of bands (Are you British? Do you have guitars? Yes, please.), but after the Beatles and Radiohead, I'm not quite as obsessive over the others to the point that I have to have all their albums and read biographies of them. But since I'm on a British guitar band theme, I'll go with the Smiths. If only I had known about them when I was growing up, I would have probably enjoyed the 80's a lot more.

3. Where do you see yourself in five years?
Oh goodness, I can't even see myself in next week. I don't know. But I know this, if I keep buying books and craft stash at my current rate, in five years, we'll all see myself on the show Hoarders, if it's still on.

4. Favorite era of history?
Ack, I can't narrow it down. I love the Tudor era, the fin de siècle period of the 1890's, and the Roaring '20s. Those are the top three that I've always been fascinated by since childhood. I'm also very interested in Regency England (thanks Austen and Heyer), the French Revolution, the English Restoration and the Japanese Heian period.

5. Favorite artist?
Hmm, really hard to narrow down too! I like Alphonse Mucha, Toulouse-Lautrec, many members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and Mark Ryden, but my sentimental favorite is probably Edward Gorey. I want to plan a visit to his house,which is now a museum.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all. :D

Have a Muppet rendition of "Bohemian Rhapsody".

Let's see, what have I been up to lately since I last posted? Hmm, not a lot, I suppose. I think I am getting holiday overload already and it's not even Thanksgiving yet. The day of which I'll be working, but that's not so bad. I'll just have to get up a little early and have happy turkey day before I go to work. We've finally started to get to the slow part of the year, so work is not driving me as crazy lately.

I finished watching all of the previous episodes of Supernatural (with the exception of "Bugs", which I skipped over because of the name. :P) You know, if you watch all these shows back to back, it's very noticeable that a)Dean's voice really does get more Batman-ish as seasons go by and b)Dean eats A LOT.

And since it's been awhile, I took some cross stitch pictures


"Summer Basket" pattern by Blackbird Designs, stitched on 32 ct Baby Lotion belfast

This one was a lot of fun to stitch. I really liked the color palette, with the overdyed thread giving it subtle color changes. Hopefully will get it framed sometime soon. There was a really pretty maple frame at Hobby Lobby that I think will do nicely.

And here's my wip

"Bliss" pattern by Just Nan, stitched on 32 ct Silkweaver Antique Gold Belfast.

The fabric looks a little washed out here, I think; it looks more yellow in person. I am starting to have some second thoughts about it actually, like I'm not so sure that the fabric's so much of an antique gold as it is a mustard yellow. *sigh* Too late to do anything about it now, I'm just going to have to finish it and hope that once it's done and framed and everything, it won't look so mustardy.

The lettering on this took forever; a couple of weeks at least just on two lines because all the letters are one thread over one. I think 1 over 1 is very pretty when other people do it. It's kind of a pain to do and I don't enjoy it very much. Also, it gave me a huge headache when I tried to stitch it at work, so most of it I stitched while watching SPN.

I just found this week that my favorite bookstore, Hastings, is going to host a Sarah Palin book signing. DNW. D: D: D: Way to let me down, bookstore.

A new Connie Willis novel will come out February next year. FINALLY. It's been almost eight years since her last one (and Passage was not really one of my favorites either) and it will be one of the time travel books too. I wonder if it will be humorous like To Say Nothing of the Dog (which is one of my favorite books) or if it will make me bawl as much as Doomsday Book did. Can't wait.

There was a post on ONTD recently about the Avett Brothers and now "Will You Return?" has totally earwormed into my brain. It sounds like early Beatles, if they were an alt-country band with a banjo player. I need to go do something productive, like clean, pay bills, etc, but I can't stop listening to it.

eta: there is a banjo museum downtown. I am totally curious and need to go.

I feel a bit lightheaded today, I hope I'm not getting sick. I had kalbi tang (Korean rib soup) for dinner and am now drinking chai tea in hopes to ward it off.

On the other hand, today has been pretty good because I went to Target and bought caramel TimTams! Australia's Favorite Cookie! (It says this on the packaging.) Verdict? Yeah, that's a pretty fucking awesome cookie. Thanks for that, Australia. Anyway, I also bought George Carlin's autobiography that just came out.

Then I went to FYE and bought the new Star Trek dvd set. SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. That by itself would earn today


And a bonus animated gif for good measure. (also ganked from the internets)

Meh, I am waiting for the Waters of Mars episode to download. It is taking forever. Trying to avoid spoilers in the meantime.

Speaking of Who, the last audiobook that I listened to was Doctor Who: The Forever Trap narrated by Catherine Tate. Basically, the Tardis gets infected by a spam (!! lol), which transports the Doctor and Donna to an apartment complex that they can't leave and is populated by crappy, crappy alien neighbors. Oh, and the landlord is an alien drama llama. Not kidding on this.

It was funny and entertaining. Catherine Tate does really good narrating, especially when it comes to character voices. I miss Donna's awesomeness. *shakes fist at RT Davies* It does amuse me though, that not even the Tardis is immune to spam viruses. Considering the nature of most spam, I think they got off easy just getting stuck with a timeshare.

Oh hey, I forgot to post the Silver Needle pictures from my Tulsa trip.

I was shy about taking pictures, so I only took a couple.


It's a fun store to browse in. It's positively crammed full of needlework. There are like a bazillion models. (And most of them are like 1 over 1, or on 36 count or higher fabric or both. Work guaranteed to make you go blind. O______O )

(  a couple more )


Other randomness:

I think there's a new Doctor Who special this weekend? About freakin' time! I don't like this occasional special business; I miss having a regular series. Also, I hear David Tennant is doing a pilot for NBC. While I'd love to see more of Tennant on tv, this... doesn't sound all that good.

Andrew Bird to be on Muppets cover album. I need this album immediately.

Being somewhat of a music snob, I hate to admit it, but Lady Gaga's music is kinda growing on me. And I really like how crazy effed up the video for "Bad Romance" is. Also, it is interesting to see Alexander McQueen outfits out in the wild. Besides the hoof ballet boots, she also wears this shoe that is evidently a shout-out to H.R. Giger. Seriously, that is an awesome shoe. You have to admire someone who can manage to walk in shoes like that, much less perform choreography in them.

Speaking of awesome, I have about three episodes of Supernatural Season 2 to finish and I found a used copy of Season 3 this weekend. Yaaaaaay. I am totally becoming obsessed with this show.



And now I'm going to watch tonight's episode, hopefully without breaking my laptop, because it took forever to get rid of all the viruses from the last time I used surfthechannel.

I'm a bit sad that Halloween is over; I had to work and didn't get to do anything fun :( Maybe next year, I will try to at least go see the parade downtown. But I did have a great time earlier in the week when I went to Tulsa with brennye and her mum. We went to the Oklahoma Aquarium in Jenks and I took about a million pictures of fish and crustaceans.


( the jellyfish invite you in )

Yesterday, a package from the UK arrived in the mail, containing a Hooked on Exchanging Halloween cross stitch from Caroline. She made me a cute little ornament. Isn't it adorable? Caroline did a really great job on the finishing. Little boot buttons! *dies* :D


( more pictures under the cut )

Thanks so much for an awesome exchange, Caroline!

Tomorrow I'm going to Tulsa with brennye and her mum. (I should be in bed by now, but it is so hard for me to get to sleep earlier than I'm used to. Damn, I will be a zombie tomorrow.) We're going to visit the aquarium in Jenks, the Silver Needle (I think), maybe Gardiner's Used Books, and I think I may have talked Brenn into going to Whole Foods. LoL, because we are all about going to interesting grocery stores. Anticipate much fun. Now am definitely trying to get some sleep.

Today I tried cooking roasted bone marrow. It's been something that I've wanted to try for several months now, based on two things: one of the few bits that I liked from the Julie and Julia book was the part where Julie Powell described cooking bone marrow and also, the fact that roasted bone marrow is Anthony Bourdain's death row meal. Since the recipe seemed fairly easy, I figured I could attempt it.

The thing about my cooking is that I actually can't cook. Generally, I eat a lot of tv dinners or eat out a lot. When I do try to cook, it's really less about cooking as a particular skill and more about being a "project" of sorts. I like doing creative stuff, as evidenced by my many hobbies and every now and then I get a wild hair about a specific something like a particular recipe. Usually it's baking desserts, which I think is a lot easier than cooking meals, but this time it happened to be a desire to try roast marrow.

It took me awhile to find the bones, but I found them at the La Baguette Boucherie over on N. May. (La Baguette's is actually very nice and they have all kinds of interesting foods that they sell.) Excited that I could finally try them, I also invited my friend Sarah over for dinner today.

And how did they taste? Well. . . Possibly I didn't cook them right so that could have been it, but I'm not sure I would try them again. (And this is from a person who gave sushi at least three chances before I realized that I really liked it.) Like, the first taste of it wasn't bad and then each bite felt progressively more gross. It was like sucking fat out of a large bony straw. BLERGH.

Fortunately, I also cooked green beans and had bought cheese and white chocolate raspberry gelato from Forward Foods, so dinner wasn't a complete loss. Though I do feel a bit guilty for making Sarah be my guinea pig. Um, sorry about that, dude.

Anyway, after that, we went to go see Where the Wild Things Are. I have mixed feelings about it, I think. There are a lot of things about it that I really like. For example, a lot of the visual imagery is incredibly beautiful. The acting is all very good. But there are some things about it that I didn't like, number one being the shaky camera style. Shaky cam always makes me feel really nauseous and I nearly fell over upon leaving the theater.

I think I'm sort of disappointed because the trailer gave me such a strong emotional reaction, I kind of teared up when I first saw it. Maybe it was the Arcade Fire song or maybe it was because I couldn't tell that the shaky cam was going to make me queasy, I don't know. I'll probably rent it when it comes out on video though, because it really is very striking visually.

Between the dinner and the shaky cam, I felt pretty queasy when I got home, so I flopped onto my bed and drooled all over my pillow for the next two hours. I feel better now, but I've discovered that there's a virus on my laptop. UGH. Some program that pops up automatically whenever I start up my computer that tells me there's viruses (no shit) and that the only way to get rid of it is to buy some crap Security Tool con. Bastards! I used some anti-malware programs to get rid of it, so I think my laptop is okay now (no more pop-ups), but I'm still pretty paranoid. I've changed most of my passwords, just in case. :(

I think I'm going to go eat more of the gelato and lie in bed and watch non-shaky episodes of Psych and/or Supernatural for the rest of the night now.

Last night I was browsing allposter.com for vintage style posters and I came across this...



It's titled "During the Hula-Hoop Craze Japanese Hooper Isaki Fukishima Injures His Back Fatally" That is just . . . o_O odd. I had no idea how that is even physically possible. Although I like how the girl in the foreground is hula hooping away in carefree abandon, unaware of IMMINENT DEATH. Wouldn't this look awesome decorating someone's home? Seriously.

And this Fandom Secret post made me laugh my head off for a good five minutes. I have no idea why, but it's that last, most obvious line, in bold type that just kills me.

Not much has been going on since my last post. The sun finally came out today for the first time in what? a month? I enjoyed seeing sunshine during the fifteen minute drive to work. That was a nice change from the dense autumnal fog. I quite like fall, it's my favorite season, but between the weather and Camera Obscura's My Maudlin Career being the only cd in my car at the moment, I couldn't have made myself more depressed if I spent the day drinking box wine and eating a bagfull of twinkies. However, it was only temporary, so no harm done.

I entertained myself by buying more stash this weekend.



Two new patterns for samplers, a packet of beads so I can finish up my Mirabilia Halloween fairy (it's been a year since I touched it), some Lavender Mist 32ct belfast fabric (for Just Nan's Amethyst Roses) on the top right, and 32ct Bo Peep Pink belfast on the lower right for the Blackbird Designs' Summer Basket. There's also the corresponding floss and a Just Nan pumpkin pin there as well.

I've decided the fabric for Japanese Garden is going to be Fairy Dust and it's on order, but hasn't arrived yet.

Here's a floss toss for Summer Basket. The fabric is a very light, barely there pink. I love the colors of the floss. Yay, moar projects! I have no idea how I'm going to be able to start/finish them all.


In other news, I netflixed The Brothers Bloom this weekend. It has been a long time since I saw a movie that I enjoyed so much, I wanted to squish it to bits. Will definitely be picking up the dvd for it soon.

Also have been listening to audiobooks lately. I've never really paid them much regard before, as I've probably not had someone read aloud to me since elementary school, but since I can download them onto my iPhone, I've discovered they're quite addicting. I bought Sylvester by Georgette Heyer and read by Richard Armitage, which was very good. I've been on a huge Heyer obsession this year. Then I caved in and signed up for an audible.com account, which starts out pretty inexpensive. I downloaded Sprig Muslin, also by Heyer and read by Sian Phillips from I, Claudius. Soooo good, although for the first hour or so I was kind of distracted that Livia was reading the story. Then I got over it and really enjoyed the rest of the story because Phillips does an excellent narration. And it's less distracting when it's a woman narrator, because as sexy as Richard Armitage's normal speaking voice is, it's terribly hard not to giggle when he's trying to do the voice of an elderly dowager.

Also, if anyone has recommendations for other audiobooks, please suggest them!

Oh, and random link of the day: From Newsweek, Photos from early Star Trek cons in the 1970's. I thought these photos were really fascinating. And it's interesting to learn that a lot of the early cons were organized by women, especially as a contrast to the typical stereotype of Trekkies being socially unskilled males. I think it's nice to know that early fandom was much more egalitarian.

Apparently there is a Korean taco truck roaming downtown OKC. *dies* I've heard about the one in LA on tv which serves a fusion of Korean and Mexican food and while I'm not sure if it's run by the same group, the concept seems to be the same. I must try this.

So I went to the fair twice so far, once on Sunday with my Mom and then again on Tuesday with Sarah, Nicole and Brodie. I had a lovely time both occasions; I walked around an ungodly amount, ate a lot of deeply unhealthy fried foods and generally enjoyed myself.

And I found out how my needlework placed!

( cut for pics and glare-o-rama )

So that was pretty much my favorite part of the fair. I like looking at the other buildings, but mostly they're flea market type stuff, like salsa makers, stacks of Shamwows, and vanity license plate frames. I didn't buy anything (well, except for some fudge), but they're still fun.

As for food, I had (spread out over two days, mind) deep fried cheesy mashed potatoes (with bacon), roast corn on the cob, a deep fried snickers bar, a roast beef sundae, a strawberry margerita (not enough booze with that one), kettle corn on a stick, and blueberry crepes. The crepes were pretty awesome and besides the mashed potatoes, probably my favorite.

The major disappointment though, was that we could not find the deep fried butter. Sarah and I looked everywhere, but we couldn't find it. Sarah even asked several people and everyone pretty much answered the same way. "Yeah, I've heard about it. Do I know where it is? Nope. No idea." WTF, people? Why would you hide deep fried butter? I think somewhere at the fair, there must be a hidden room with a peephole door and you have to know the secret password or something. Or maybe, more realistically, they only sold it for a particular day. Yeah, it's probably better for our health in the long run, but still major sad face at the lost opportunity :(

And then I came home and immediately fell asleep. Oof, too much walking. Already I am planning on what to submit for next year. I have a few ideas, maybe I will even get some stuff finished.

Went to the cross stitch store today and bought the remaining silks for the Japanese Garden mandala. Now all I need is to decide what color fabric to stitch it on, something I'm still waffling over. Eh, it's not like I don't already have a dozen other projects I ought to finish in the mean time, I'm a serial starter and quitter.

Anyway, the lady who owns the shop asked me if I'd been to the state fair yet and when I said I hadn't yet, she gave me a pair of free state fair tickets. Yay! I think I'm going to take my mom out there tomorrow and we can see how my stitchery placed and Mom can have a giant turkey leg. supremegoddess told me that they are selling deep fried butter this year. I'd heard someone mention that on Patti's blog and I thought they were just being sarcastic, but apparently it is true. Uh... I don't think I can resist such an insane article of food. Also, I have a Paula Deen intense love of butter. Fortunately, I am also planning to go to the fair again with some friends on Tuesday, because then I can eat my deep fried butter in peace, without listening to my mom have a conniption about my soon-to-be imminent heart problems.

Other news: I have finished watching my season 4 Supernatural dvds and am sad that I don't yet have the other seasons. The bad thing about dvds is that it spoils me for watching tv on a weekly basis. Also finished Mad Men season 2. I kind of enjoy this show, although it's totally like a soap opera with the the promise of insane drama, but since this is a critically acclaimed drama, everyone is too repressed for the drama llamas to actually explode.

Speaking of soap operas, despite never having watched Guiding Light, I feel sad that 70 plus years of television history has ended. Also, partly because from the few minutes of it that I have seen, I feel pretty sure that it didn't suck as much as General Hospital is sucking right now. Pretty sure I've been backing the wrong horse on that one.

I went to the Super Cao Nguyen market today and they have geoducks and dorians for sale, both of which I have seen on Anthony Bourdain's show. I love Anthony Bourdain and admire his passion for eating anything, but I am too chicken to eat either one of those things. Or maybe more accurately, I am too lazy to buy and take time to prepare them. I would be willing to taste a dorian, maybe not so willing to chiseling one open.

They did have giant beef bones and I might go back to buy those so I can try to make roast bone marrow. That was probably the one thing I got out of that Julie and Julia book, was that Julie Powell made beef marrow sound really delicious and I really want to try it. Although since I'm totally not a cook, I don't know if they're the right kind of bones. *pokes brennye, they might be good for your doggie though too*

Off to see if I can find a good book before bedtime.

Today was a good mail day. The dresses that I ordered from Atelier Arcadia's Circus Collection arrived from Spain, as did a box of Leeke wigs from a group order. So that was a good excuse to take some doll pictures in a long while.


( Gish invites you in )
I love the Arcadia outfits. I love all the tiny details and it's so well put together. I am really tempted to get the stripey bustle dress next now that the fabric is back in stock. Hmmm.

Since there is a lot of Beatles related news lately, here is one of my favorite Beatle-related stories. Back when Sarah and I were both going to community college, we ditched class to go have lunch at some retro hamburger diner. This diner had a jukebox and we played a couple of Beatles songs on it before this other group of people at another table started hogging the juke box by playing really crappy Billy Ray Cyrus type country shit. And I could be remembering it wrong, but I'm pretty sure they were smirking about having taken over the juke box with their crappy taste in music. At this time, Sarah and I were really young and obnoxious and so we went and got change and put "Tomorrow Never Knows" on repeat for like, four dollars worth of quarters. I can't remember how times that was exactly, but either way, it is a lot of psychedelic sitar music to take in one go.

Our plan of revenge would have been awesome, except that the smirky asshole table got up and left as soon as their country music finished and so Sarah and I are left sitting there, having realized that we didn't really want to listen to "Tomorrow Never Knows" more than once, although it really did seem like a good idea at the time. So we took off, leaving the unfortunate staff at the retro diner to listen to four dollars worth of "Tomorrow Never Knows".

A couple of weeks later, we decided to have lunch there again (because in addition to being young and obnoxious, we were also apparently stupid), and that diner had gone out of business forever. And that is the power of the Beatles, my friends. Le fin.

Okay, watching Supernatural before bedtime gave me really creepy dreams. Also, a bug landed on me at one point while I was watching it and I fell/jumped off the couch. Not ever going to watch Supernatural in the dark again.

In other news, it is Nicole's fault that I signed up for a blip.fm account. It's a website where you can dj your own radio station thingy She was talking it up last weekend, so I decided to check out what she was playing. It seems like fun so far, although I'm still trying to figure it out. (Oddly enough, I apparently have no idea how any social network besides LJ work. I signed up for Facebook on a whim, which I kinda now regret because I have no urge to update it at all.)

Pooh, the widget doesn't seem to work on LJ, so here is the link to it.
http://blip.fm/caerbannog
At the moment, it is mostly some Beatles songs that I like, although there will probably be a lot of sad bastard music on it later.