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Monday, November 23rd, 2009
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10:30 am - update on the cat thing
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thanks to your suggestions to ride it out, we are. Costello is taking up shop under the bathtub and seems to be happy. the other cats are still curious and i think they take perverse pleasure in riling him up by sitting where he can see them when he pokes his head around the water heater. (we have to stop them from going behind there, but they get the hint and lay off for another day)
we are lavishing pets and love on the established cats when they are out of the kitchen. when Costello comes out (in the evenings; he's very nocturnal) he gets pets and loves and is allowed to escape whenever he wants. (the other cats? cuddled unmercifully)
i'm debating 'nipping the three of them to see what would happen, but my supply of the good stuff is running low. anyone know of a good supplier? if i were a better gardener, i'd grow my own (in hanging planters of course)
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10:17 am - and the list gets longer
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okay, done with my mom's giftmas shawl. the black spiral still needs the ends woven in (i don't like doing that bit)
my neice's colonnade is nearly done. it only took a week to knit and unless i point it out, you can't see the mistake. i just need to weave in those damn ends, buy a button, sew it on and knit a button loop. this needs to be done by this Thursday. i should have it done tomorrow.
GeekBoy's birfday socks are halfway done. i'm in love with this wollmeise wool. it's soft and smooth and feels really nice as i knit with it. i'm glad i made the larger size socks because otherwise it would be very difficult to give them up, even to GeekBoy. the pattern is the basic 'beginner's lightweight socks' by knitting pure & simple (highly recommend it; very easy to understand, extremely easy to modify) but with modifications. the first ten rows are on smaller needles (i always cast on and knit those first few rounds veeeeerrryy loose) and on a 2x2 ribbing. the rest of the leg continues the ribbing in the sz 2s, with a cable along one side every 4 rows. the heel, sole and toe is done stockinette. the result is a sock that glomps onto GeekBoy's foot and calf with as much love as i glomp the rest of him. first sock is done, second has two inches so far.
i've decided to knit a Versatility (knitty) for one of my nieces. i haven't decided which one. i have some Pick of the Andes bulky in black, left over from wing1's ninja sweater, that would be enough, if i left off the bobbles. as no one in my family is a bobbly person, this is not a hard decision.
thanks to Mr Meddler's link, i've decided to knit a Branching Out scarf for the Duchess out of the mink/cashmere my lys has. the lace will let the yarn bloom like the example in the store.
of course, i still need to decide if i'm just going to knit the winglets hats, wristwarmers and scarf out of the glow-in-the-dark yarn, or do intarsia with it. if i do the intarsia (and i probably will since the girls will NOT wear white knit items, even if it does glow in the dark) i have to find compatible yarn. probably black if i want wing1 to wear it.
***
then, when the holiday knitting is done, my list is full again: spiral shawl for aunt, sweater for ME, hat for ME, more socks for GeekBoy (coz he likes wearing them and i like him wearing them), socks for ME, shawl for ME. aaand then it's fall again and i start knitting for others again.
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| Thursday, November 19th, 2009
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9:50 am - fukkit
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it's cold and windy and rainy outside, but i'm warm and cozy and somewhat comfortable (yay pms medicine!) inside. fuck writers' group. i'm putting a favourite movie on the tv, settling on the couch, and knitting GeekBoy's present for the next few hours. (it's alright that i mention it; he knows what it is. he's making me a spinning wheel for giftmas so it's only fair he knows i'm knitting him some socks. he even picked out the pattern. and the yarn - wollmeise. in purple.)
updates:
yesterday's presentation for class went well. when i went in, i thought for certain i'd speedtalk and finish the 30 minute presentation in 7, but it ended up lasting over an hour. luckily the topic (animation division of NFB) is so vast and i had so much trivia stored that it was surprisingly easy to babble for so long. the guy who was supposed to present after me didn't show up, so the professor encouraged me to pull up other animations. (nfb.ca rocks, seriously. health care and the nfb? canada, you do a lot of things right, don't you?) at any rate, i think i got a good grade on it. certainly expanded on what was in my term paper. as long as i don't blank out on the final on the 3rd, i think i'm going to pass this class. and by pass, i mean get an A. (why go back to school if you don't plan to get As? especially when this is the only class i'm taking this quarter?)
Costello discovered the secret room behind the waterheater and under the bathtub. GeekBoy would rather he didn't stay in there (to clean any 'accidents' we would have to pull out the tub. ick) but for the first night since he got here, there was no early morning howling and yowling and growling. we're giving him until Thanksgiving to stop with the 'grrr, other cats.' bit. GeekBoy joked that he's kind of like a reverse Tribble. we can tell where he is in the house by walking around carrying one of the other cats. we get near him and there's a loud growl.
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| Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
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5:24 am - assistance?
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| Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
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3:38 pm - this has got to change
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wing2's last class of the day is in one of the rooms closest to where the buses are. pretty convenient, right? wrong. she has to sprint to the orchestra room clear on the other side of campus to pick up her violin, then sprint back to the bus loop, only to watch the buses pull away. at least once a week i have to go pick her up because the fucking bus can't fucking wait one fucking minute more.
tomorrow i will be talking to the school. this is unacceptable.
current mood:  irate
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| Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
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11:54 am - my mom's giftmas present
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sorry for the crappy phone picture; my camera broke in september (think i might know my giftmas present!)
anyway, this is another super spiral shawl from A Gathering of Lace. done in black alpaca/wool blend. i didn't do the border in the book, again, because i don't like how it looks. i'm debating crocheting a simple scallop edge, but i think i like the points the pins are giving it.
in my opinion, once you get off the dpns and onto the circular, this is quite possibly the easiest shawl EVER. i have one more to make (my other aunt) but i don't have to get that done until March.
i have another skein of the Berroco Ultra Alpaca fine yarn left. should i even attempt making matching gloves? (mom knows about the shawl; it would be awesome to surprise her with something new)
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| Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
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10:53 am - a week early
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my term paper is done. does anyone want to proof read it for me? gmail missus dot wing and she'll send it to you.
now to go to the college computer center and try to download videos for my presentation next week.
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| Saturday, November 7th, 2009
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6:39 pm - chocolate-covered cherry shots
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courtesy of the tweasels of LSG:
1/2 oz grenadine
marashino cherry
1/2 oz kaluha
1/2 oz bailey's cream
layer in a clear glass so you can see the pretty colours. gulp it, being careful not to choke on the cherry.
mmmmmmm.
one is enough; it's rich and delish and has quite the kick to it. i'm about an evening's worth of knitting away from finishing my mom's shawl, but i'm debating the wisdom of doing lace right now.
current mood:  happy
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| Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
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8:22 pm - A Nifty Trick
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let's see if this works. youtube is being mean to me.
anyway, this is the raw avi i made from the flipbook i drew for my class. i could see making this into a longer animation in the future, complete with sound and colour.
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12:07 pm - phew
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Talked to the prof this morning and was able to solidify my subject. A history of the animatioon department of the NFB, with examples of innovation and, if I can find it, comparison to the US version. (NEA? I know my state has a group that gives grants to artists, but nothing on the scale of the NFB)
THIS kind of paper I can do. (-: *scampers off to class*
current mood:  relieved
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| Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
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4:18 pm - academic help?
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i'm supposed to write a three to five page term paper for my History of Animation class. i chose for my subject the National Film Board of Canada. okay, big bite. smaller bite: the animation department of the NFB. okay, still a big bite. um, the influence of Norman McLaren on the rest of the animators at NFB continuing to this day. wow, still a fucking huge bite.
i don't want this to turn into a biography of Mr McLaren. i need to 'compare and contrast' something from the past to something to the future.
do i just take one of McLaren's work and c/c it to a modern piece? hard to make that last three to five pages. do i take an example of each of his styles (scratch/ink on film, line drawing, stop action (both pixelation and puppets)) and c/c it to a later film?
for film manipulation i've got his "Lines" series against "Two Sisters" by Caroline Leaf. (compare: no camera work, all animation done by hand ON the film. contrast: he created the soundtrack by drawing on the edges of the film, she used a traditional soundtrack)
for line drawing, there's his "La Merle", and Malcolm Sutherland's "Birdcalls". both deal with birds, and Sutherland's artwork is evocative of the simple graphics of La Merle. contrast - human singing vs bird singing.
stop action. pixelation has his Academy Award winning "Neighbours". i haven't come up with a partner for it. puppets has a very simple war film called "Keep Your Mouth Shut" and a primitive skull puppet. modern version is "Madame Tutli-Putli", an Oscar nominated beauty. very complicated, that later film, especially compared to the skull.
should i talk about the artists he's influenced? Evelyn Lambart, who worked with McLaren for most of his films, dropped the protractor for the paper and scissors and did such lovely work as "Fine Feathers" and "Froggie Went A'Courtin'" Caroline Leaf went multi-animation, with gorgeous films done by sand painting, paint on glass and the abovementioned film-scratching. George Dunning directed "Yellow Submarine", Gerry Potterton did "Heavy Metal". Rene' Jodoin, who studied under McLaren and then started up the french branch of the NFB animation department, worked with Peter Foldes to do one of the first computer animated films, "Hunger". That can be compared to "The Spine", an amazing modern compuer animated film, also sponsored by the NFB.
there's so much information and i can access a whole lot more, that i'm losing focus. do i write what i've mindbarfed above? it seems like it would be disjointed. do i compare McLaren and his innovations (scratching on film, creating his own soundtracks, etc) to Sutherland's work on his latest, "Forming Game" where he improvised with the musician and evolved the animation from hand drawn to projecting the handdrawn animation onto a projection membrane and incorporating stop action? that wouldn't take very much space, less than three, definitely and i don't have many sources for that. (need at least four book or journal references; for the braindump, i have a couple quotes from a Canadian film journal (now defunct), and one newspaper article (is that enough?))
i can't NOT talk about Norman McLaren - not only is the NFB HQ building named after him, so's the electoral district.
ow, my brain hurts. help?
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| Friday, October 30th, 2009
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4:52 pm - awesomesauce video
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“We Are All Connected” was made from sampling Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, The History Channel’s Universe series, Richard Feynman’s 1983 interviews, Neil deGrasse Tyson’s cosmic sermon, and Bill Nye’s Eyes of Nye Series. (yoinked from smartbitchestrashynovels)
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| Thursday, October 29th, 2009
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7:38 am - call the waaaahmbulance
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i don't know if i have a sinus infection (from getting ocean water into my sinuses on sunday) or the 'flu, but my nose, ears, eyes and throat hurt/are plugged/are leaking and my muscles/joints ache. oh, and i'm sneezing and coughing.
i'm not going to writers group today. instead i'm going to stay on the couch and try to breathe and finish my flip book.
on the plus side, i got 14 out of 15 on my midterm yesterday and i think i might have talked the teacher into giving me credit for the wrong answer (i explained why i chose what i chose on that question and he looked thoughtful)
current mood:  sick
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| Sunday, October 25th, 2009
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6:21 pm
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| Friday, October 23rd, 2009
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10:36 pm - quick update
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Arrived 11ish local time. Mom & Dad & MzC & I went to the swimming museum. It was neat and impressive to see all those atheletes. We walked on the beach (well, dad stayed by the lifeguard stand and the rest of us got soaked past our knees.) Lunch was at - get this - "Bubba Gump" restaurant. Fun place. Good shrimp. Then we went to the hotel, met up with the rest of the team and land drilled. Loudmouth, Mom, Dad and I went out to dinner with a couple other Puget Sound synchro teams. I met a lot of nice people.
Today we got up early, had breakfast, and then headed to the pool. Mom and I did well on our tech routine but the free confused people because they thought our planned cadences were mistakes. We finished 9th of 11, but I'm not as upset as I was - watching the video showed me that we did pretty good. Tomorrow will be better because with MzC in the trio, the cadences will look like they're meant to be. Who knows, we might even place.
Even though I put on sunblock, I got sunburned. I look like a mutant Pagliacci with a red instead of white circle on my face. Stupid swim caps. Tomorrow, more sunblock and more shade.
Right now? Sleep. I'm exhausted.
Oh, next year's competition is at La Marinas (? By LA and Buena Park). Oct 20-23. I have a feeling a lot of us will be spending Sunday at disneyland. (-:
current mood:  sleepy
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| Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
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6:08 am - fly by night
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Left seattle about 10pm last night. It's now 6ish am, local time. I'm waiting for everyone else on this very very full flight to grab their stuff and leave. I have two hours or so before the next flight takes me to florida. I will search out caffiene, my gate and a place to sit and stretch.
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| Monday, October 19th, 2009
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9:20 pm - i felt like a real college student
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went to my professor during his office hours and showed him my flip book, explaining the clumping problem that throws the animation off. he said not to worry about it; he'll be taking pictures of each page and animating it on the computer anyway. he seemed impressed with my artwork. he strongly suggested i take the 'drawing for animation' class next quarter and mumbled something about me being top of the class already. i talked to him about the term paper and he liked the idea i had - comparing the production methods of Snow White to Akira. (but now i think i'd like to research the National Film Board of Canada, with all the incredible animators it has spawned. *starts singing "BBBBUUUUUUuuuuuuttttt .... the cat came back..."*)
after our meeting, i went to the computer lab and watched the animations he'd posted in our class directory. next time i will bring my earphones because i felt very self conscious (even though i was pretty much the only one in the lab)
then i walked around the campus trying to find some place to buy a beverage to drink with my lunch (which GeekBoy sweetly made for me. awww) it was pretty damn cool to walk around a campus again, with the leaves falling and all the students wandering around. i felt like a real student.
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*side note: GeekBoy and i have been arguing (well, our version of arguing, which is like a very very very mild version of disagreeing) about this song. it finally occurred to me, while looking up the song via google, that HE learned the animated version and I learned the Muppet Show version.
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| Friday, October 16th, 2009
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8:40 am - too much fiber?
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i bought some beautiful sock yarn yesterday at VYT (i was in there for tea; bought more than i expected, but hey, they had pumpkin spice, candy cane, and creme brulee as well as the usual yumyums i love) the yarn was for my trip next week. mom's shawl is going along really slowly. i'm not going to bring that because i don't want to start over if i drop stitches or airline agents rip the needles out (i've heard horror stories); i bought the sock yarn and bamboo needles because they are safe, small and more likely to make it through security.
last night i was alerted (damn you, rav, for enabling me) to the fact that Wollmeise had yarn in stock. the knitters on the forums rave about this yarn (hand dyed in small batches by one person, high quality, low supply, high demand) so i took the plunge and bought some sock yarn. um, xlana, you just bought sock yarn. and you haven't even started the second sock of the delicious bamboo yarn you knit one sock and a hat from last month. and you should be working on presents for other people. well, that yarn has to come from Germany, and GeekBoy and i rationalized that it won't arrive until after the competition so it can be my reward for not freaking out too much in Florida.
sigh.
then, same forum, someone talked about this yarn. glow in the dark yarn. knits like normal stuff, glows in the dark. can you say fingerless gloves for the winglets? if my order arrives before wednesday and i have black yarn the same thickness, that's what i'll be knitting over the weekend. (of course, they say ft lauderdale is supposed to be rainy and 80 degrees; i'm not sure how much knitting i'll get done. i'm bringing the kindle and my zune as well. (we'll have a canopy.))
time to step away from the computer and yarn store for a while.
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| Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
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9:14 pm - what was she thinking?
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this morning, taking my mom to the ferry after practice, i was hounded by a red car on the road from LFP mall to the freeway. the speedlimit on that two lane, residential, very curvy road is 30 mph. at one point, as i took a curve, i couldn't see the headlights or license plate of the red car. i don't think i could even see the hood ornament.
being run over as a kid + years of being a crossing guard = me going the speedlimit in residential areas. i noticed i was a little over about the time i realized i couldn't see the front of the red car, so i slowed down. this is a good thing because the next turn was really sharp.
well, the driver in the red car didn't like it. on the next curve, she pulled into the bus bumpout (on the right) and passed me, going on the sidewalk to do so. did i mention we WERE ON A CURVE??? there was another car going the other way so i couldn't even swerve into the other lane. she barely missed me and zoomed ahead to tailgate the next car. (oh, for those of you who know this road, it was the curve just before the elementary school.)
the red car tailgated the next car until the RiteAid next to the freeway. even when it was two lanes both ways, she stayed on the poor car's bumper in the right lane. i passed her as soon as i could. i was tempted to follow her and ask her what the hell she was thinking, but Mom had a ferry to catch.
i'm just glad she didn't hit me, but i would love to know what she was thinking. she didn't save any time doing that stupid stunt.
***
other news: i spent all day on the couch, pencil in hand, and finished the flip book. (-: about 105 pages. i think the paper is too thin; it doesn't flip page by page. i get clumps of pages going at once. )-: i might go in to talk to the professor tomorrow during his office hours. depends on if GeekBoy works from home or not.
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| Sunday, October 11th, 2009
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8:17 pm - 3 day weekend
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winglets had no school on fri. we went to the Animation exhibit at the Science Center. um, if you don't know much about animation and cartoons, this is a fun exhibit. we didn't learn anything new, but we did have fun with some of the activities. i was expecting more but i think that's my problem. we saw "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" at the IMAX. it was cute, but i was distracted by the fat-hating, lack of POCs, and obvious message of "if you're smart, you'd better be good looking, too, otherwise no one will listen to you." anyway. came home, worked on the Yarn Harlot's Pretty Thing (she said it would take a couple of hours to knit, so i thought it would be a great project to whip up and send to my fave sis to open on her birthday.)
sat, GeekBoy and the winglets did yardwork and cleaned the driveway while i knitted. for. eight. hours. (couple of hours? ha!) got to the end of the pattern and realized i had mixed up the symbols for ktogs and ssks. for the entire cowl. shrugged and cast off. (yeah, real exciting saturday)
sun, i blocked the cowl (will take pix tomorrow - my digital camera is broken so i have to use my cell phone and i need as much light as i can get) and then left. my trio partner and her husband picked me up and we went across the puddle to my mom's. mr C watched the football game with my dad while mom, C and i land drilled. a fairly early dinner and we were back on the 630 ferry home.
wheeeeee.
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