Hi, LJ. I'm probably about...six months...behind on reading your posts. Sorry about that.

I'm still alive, though.

So, I haven't posted a lot lately. I hope to improve this in 2012.

We bought annual movie passes to our local independently-owned movie theater this year. My plan is to keep running track of all the movies we see.  For the curious, the pass costs the same as about 12 regular priced movies at this theater (which I believe has cheaper tickets than most DC-area theaters.)

Yesterday, we saw "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows". It was definitely amusing but not a "must see." The plot is a bit muddled in the beginning and I got a little tired of the slowed down fight scenes by the end. It is a fun little action film, all in all.

I keep delaying posting my scarf progress because I never remember to take a photo.

And now the site that hosts the scarf-o-matic tool is down. So, failure there. I'm about 50% done, though!

Since lelek has now joined me in scarf insanity, I feel I should post another scarf update:



Although, I haven't even started knitting tonight. Hopefully I'll knock out some more rows tonight.s

Slowly, the scarf creeps along.

It is your very first update on my Tom Baker scarf progress. And...it isn't too impressive. But I started!



Anyone else doing any winter craftwork?

LJ is making it hard to want to stick around. And this is coming from someone who really wants to stick around.

I know a few of you are Kindle users--so, it is worth mentioning that I have joined Lendle. Essentially, it is an e-book lending service. You actually get a small kickback for each loan that adds up into Amazon gift certificates.

You can make "friends" on the site--but it doesn't seem to be terribly useful. It is easier to search for the books you want and borrow them from whoever has them up for grabs. But if you want to be friends on the site then let me know.

Pretty nifty site: lendle.me

During my drive to work yesterday, I was way too close to a mattress flying off someone's car. That would have been an unfortunate way to die.

I do have a relative who was killed by a log falling off a log truck, oddly enough. That is a little more impressive way to go than a mattress, though.

The Washington Post ran an article this morning about local cafeterias getting rid of trays. In part, this is mean to keep students from piling more and more food on their trays.

They also ran an article about the University of Maryland's new competitive eating team.

America is a strange place when it comes to food.

As long as I'm spamming you with corgis this week, California's new "First Dog" is a corgi.

Article is here

Someone walked by my house this morning with one of each of my favorite kinds of dogs. One of these and one of these.

My husband pointed out that I looked really happy when they went by. Who wouldn't be? They were adorable.

There's a small herd of corgis that live down the street from me--one house with four or five of them. One of these days I'm going to stuff one under my coat and run away with it.

1. Reply to this post, and I will pick five of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of Icon Squee!

The following were chosen by katje0711:

( Icons are behind the cutCollapse )

30 Days of Posting Meme:
What did you want to be when you were growing up?, requested bykatje0711 

The main thing I remember wanting to be was an archaeologist.  I think this was probably due primarily to the Indiana Jones films and not any particular interest in the science, initially. Although, once I become interested, I spent a lot of time reading about ancient cultures and archaeology and palentology--and all those sorts of things.

I also had a great interest in animals and thought about being some sort of zoologist. We used to have this big box of animal information cards. I wish I remembered who made those or where they came from. I just recall that they were in a big red plastic tray. Did anyone else have these? I used to read through those over and over again, trying to memorize things about different types of animals.

Now I'm going to have to track down information about those cards. My set is long gone now, like most of my childhood stuff.

Edited to add:

I looked up the cards. What most people my age would have had were Wildlife Treasury cards...but we actually had these Safari Wildlife cards. I loved those things. Although, I swear ours were in a red tray and not a blue tray.

It almost makes me want to eBay a few sets for fun.

30 days of posting: Day 3

Fashion!, requested by likelikehighway 

Oh, dear. This is an interesting topic. I would say I have a vague interest in a fashion--but not one that is executed in any manner.

I like things that have a late 50's and early 60's retro feel or, alternatively, modern Japanese fashion. Do I buy or wear any of this stuff? No, not at all. I work in a lab and most of my clothes seem destined for disaster. I wear solid color tops and jeans or corduroy pants.  Exciting, no?

With starting this new fellowship program, I've felt compelled to start dressing more nicely. I certainly make enough money to do so and actually have opportunities to dress up outside of the lab for work. I haven't really DONE anything about it though.

My body is changing right now because of roller derby -- I'm back to wearing pants that haven't fit since grad school. So, that is one more excuse to put off purchasing fancy stuff. Excuses, excuses...right?

I do read fashion blogs, though, while I ponder doing something about my wardrobe. Here are some of the ones I have in my RSS Reader. I've love to hear if anyone else has ones they read:

Fashionista
FaceHunter
Style Bubble
The Sartorialist

I still need more post topics for this meme. Submit them here.

I never promised this would 30 days of posting in a row. I think 30 quality posts periods is a good goal so that is what you're getting.

Day 2: The highs and lows of your new Kindle, requested by spicedogs 

After a great deal of internal debate, I bought a Kindle a few weeks ago. My primary motivation was to put a stop to the giant piles of books that were accumulating around the house.  I have only had it a short time so I'm still learning a lot about what it can and can't do. I'd love to hear from other Kindle owners if there are things you love and/or hate about it too.

Here's what I like about the Kindle:

1.  Believe it or not, my absolute favorite feature is the built-in dictionary.  If you encounter a word in the text you don't know, you can guide your cursor to the word and the Kindle looks it up in the dictionary for you. I can not tell you how much I love this.  In addition to helping build my vocabulary in general, it is useful for looking up random things like British slang words or historical references that go over my head.

2.  The thing is slim and you can jam it in your bag.  You can fit dozens of books on it, not to mention PDFs of papers. I always have something on me to read no matter where I end up.

3. No one has a clue what you are reading. This is ideal if, like me, you find yourself trapped in endless breaks during meetings at work where you have to kill 15 minutes.

Here's what I dislike:

1. Would you believe the first book I bought--a popular press title--has all sorts of random typos in it? It has a glitch where the title shows up randomly in the text every so often. I hope this isn't typical.

2. I still, in some sentimental way, miss having copies of books around. I know the whole point was to keep them from piling up in the first place but I still haven't gotten used to not having a hard copy. I can always buy a hard copy of things I really want, of course.

30 Days of Posting: Day 1
"Why I Likes Roller Derby," requested by white_aster 
 
I think this can best be divided into two sections:

( Why I Liked Roller Derby Before I Ever PlayedCollapse )

( Why I Like Roller Derby NowCollapse )

You can contribute topics for me to write about here. PLEASE! I need more.