Yikes! Run, Visa card, run! That's all I can say. >.<;

Finally finished FSU's scarf in the wee hours this morning... or maybe not so wee hours. I think it was a little after 6AM by the time I finished the last of the garter stitch border and had casting off left. ^^; I'll admit I don't mind meeting 6AM from that end of the clock cycle, but... >.<;; Somehow, I don't think it wise to meet 6AM in that fashion. ^^;

Vampire Knight continues to hold my interest. To the point where I'm trying to hunt down the manga and novel. ^o^ No idea how much we'll be able to get right away from Iwase compared to whatever I might have to order from Japan. Unfortunately, the novel seems to be out of stock at the moment and waiting for a second print run. *sigh*

( GH doujinshi ouchness )

Oh well. At least the scarf is now done so I can get back to a bit more typing style activity. :P First up, Mona's translations. :P Next up... depends on when Mona's stuff is finished. (Hopefully in the next couple of days.)

......FSU wanted me to knit her a scarf for in the house using a yarn (alpaca cashmere tweed) that recently came for one of her sock clubs. The yarn itself is fairly heavy, and there's absolutely no way in this world we'd make it into socks. I already have one pair of alpaca socks made from a thinner yarn, and I can't even wear them for more than half an hour. Can you imagine what would happen if I made a pair of socks from something even heavier?? I don't need melted puddles of FSU to clean up! :P

But the pattern I'm using for her scarf is extremely simple and basic that I can watch anime while knitting, so I've managed to get caught up on a few series at least. :P So far in my watch list that I'm caught up on is Vampire Knight (I'm quite enjoying this one actually; I'll have to think about whether I want to follow the manga for it as well), Nabari no Ou (...bat wings anyone?? ^^; ), and Amatsuki (intrigued by this one so far). I know there are other series I still need to catch up on, so hopefully I'll be able to do that, but... I only have one more ball of yarn left for FSU's scarf before I'm freed from catatonic knitting, so we'll see how much more watching I get done. :P This scarf was an unexpected albeit short side trip for me, so I should be back to what I was expecting to be doing shortly. :P

Nooooo!!! What happened?!? >.<;; Ack! Ack! Ack! I can't find out what went wrong until after the 7th!

I was *sooo* hoping to win that auction, so why's all the info from the auction suddenly wiped out?! From the winning bid, I should've won it too. *cry* I *don't* want to have to get this through Mandarake since it's going for ~Y6500 whereas I should've been able to get it for less than half that by auction. *sigh*

......We now return you to your regular programming. :P

Oh good grief! I have to admit I never expected to see the sort of drama I've been seeing on the Mystery (Misery) Lace forum. Knitters aren't children, and while I can understand the need to vent... *sigh* I've been in a number of flame wars and other nastiness online (hey, I've been on BBSs since '91 and the internet since ~'95), so the stuff that's been happening on Ravelry isn't as openly toasty; it's more of an insinuating ugliness. >.>

( knitting stuffs )

Otherwise... Mona, can you double check the scans for the first SS in that doujinshi or see if there was any errata sheet included with the volume? I keep feeling like I'm missing a paragraph or two, but not so much as a page. *confused*

So, the cold's still with me, it *snowed* all day (and is expected to snow for the next few days), but above all, I've been summoned for jury duty. *sigh* All female members of this family have now been summoned for jury duty while none of the males have (to FSU's and my knowledge). It's made for a strange day. ^^;

On a plus note, Scherherazade's Slippers are mostly progressing well; I haven't run into any further issues with the pattern. (I should've checked the blog posts for this project before casting on. One blog mentioned "modifications - creative chart reading" or something along those lines. That would've been rather informative actually. ^^; )

In any case, I have one more heel to turn and get the Confetti pair up to row 105 before going back to the Jitterbug pair. I'm not sure why, but I seem to be doing both of them still. This is bad because Leafling is waiting on the sidelines but without any needles to be put on. (Not unless I finish the Celtic Braid socks in record time that is. Hah! Yeah right.)

I really want to get my hands back from these socks. Unfortunately, I only have the one pair so when they're engaged with pointy little sticks, they can't be typing away on the keyboard. This is definitely problematic. >.> (Even more "problematic" is that it took three tries to spell that one word. The brain is devolving into serious mush at the moment.)

And to top off this whine(?) fest, cherry flavoured extra strength Neo Citran tastes like powdered acetaminophen with pseudo-cherry flavouring added to it. It's tweaking at the gag reflex. >.> With that lovely thought, I'm going to go crawl off to bed and hope the terrible cherry gunk kicks in and whisks me off to oblivion. Barring that, I'll read Leafling's pattern and try to make sense of some of the weird stitches I'd heard were supposed to be in there. (Good sleep material. :P)

Ugh. Woke up with a sore throat yesterday, still had it today with a headache and chills added in. Of course, it did snow today, so the chills could be anything and the headache could be weather related. *laughs* Either I'm in denial, or I'm coming down with something. Will probably know better tomorrow. ^^;;

Working on the slippers some more and I'm not sure what's happening. I've spotted issues with rows 45 and a probable stitch mistake in 53 (k2tog should be SSK), but now I'm stalled at 65. I think someone on Ravelry mentioned running into a problem there and eventually frogging. >.> Hopefully the brain will kick in. The working stitch # is as listed (42), but from what I'm reading, you need 44 to work the pattern, so the question is does r63 need to be fixed or...? Not sure yet.

ginny_t, have you reached r65 yet and did it work for you?

Otherwise, a bunch of doujinshi arrived yesterday from Japan. Yay! ^^; Unfortunately, I've managed to read through almost all of them. O_O;; I think I need to find more to read. ^^; Back to staring at the pattern. *sigh*


[ETA: Never mind. Found the problem. >.> ]

[ETAx2: NTS: r65 mirror left on right; r67 use k2tog and SSK where removed in r65]

You know, you're 72 right now, so *what* do you think you're doing falling out of a friggin' tree?! I swear, you're definitely *his* father, not mine (nor FSU's)! I'm neither that clumsy nor that foolish. (For one thing, I'd call a tree trimming service.)

And that is how my day began today. I have since discovered how badly organised our Health Region online and phone-in service is and just how bad the walk-in situation is here. The Stelmach government can increase our health care budget as much as they like; if they can't bloody well get enough doctors with our current budget, how is increasing that budget going to get more doctors here? (Unless you're talking increasing the incentives to come.)

In any case, male parental has now been sent off to the 24 hour clinic downtown (20 mins by car) even though the bloody hospital is far closer (5-10 mins). He has a gash on his arm that needs cleaning up and probably stitching (as well as a Tetanus booster I'm sure), but he certainly doesn't need the emergency centre. And for those who are thinking why downtown, the walk-in clinics here are *both* closed (5 mins on foot). Two others nearby are closed. I realise it's Sunday, but at least two of those four are supposed to be open on Sunday afternoons, but because of staff shortages they're closed. *sigh*

( knitting photos )

And hopefully the male parental will learn, but I shure wouldn't bet on it. The idiot insisted on finishing the trimming of the stupid tree before going to the clinic. *sigh*

And here we go again. ginny_t, I hope you haven't begun this one yet, because I've decided that the first way I did things is indeed the best again... >.>

( possibly quite long on these socks... )

And with that, I'm going to double check the m1 purl stitch direction tomorrow and double check my gauge once I reach the end of the first chart. (It seems to be 8 stitches/inch, but that's what I thought with the Jitterbug at this point so I want to make sure once I'm out of the main increase stage.) It could be I'll be doing this all yet again with a thinner fingering 4-ply... >.>

Somehow, this seems to be more suited to my fic journal, but... *shrug*

Anyhow, *someone* decided to tag me on the fanfic writer meme. >.<;;

( stuff )

Wow! That was quite long. ^^; I'm not tagging anyone, but any fic writers are more than welcome to nab and write. ^_^

So, I've finally caved in and am trying out an auction service so I can buy things from Yahoo Japan's auction site. I think this is an extraordinarily bad thing for me to do, and I'm going to have to kick myself off the service. I mean seriously! The temptation is horrible!

I don't know if anyone remembers this post, but... temptation won out, and I bought two volumes of RichMore magazine, for what will probably be ~Y2000 each once all the service charges are included (but not including shipping). If only the magazine were available from Amazon, I could include it with our book orders here. *sigh*

Oh well, it's interesting to see doujinshi both really cheap and super overpriced. Of course, it doesn't help that I'm being exposed to doujinshi circles I've never heard of, and there's even one with some (what looks like) LinxNaru that I'm *sorely* tempted to pick up; it's by Inada Shiho herself. ^^; There are a couple of other doujinshi by her that I've found as well as one that's thought to include some work by Ono Fuyumi; that one's supposed to include the preface to Naru's paper regarding the paranormal. (It's also supposed to include some stuff about Naru's childhood.)

I should never have gone wandering into Yahoo Auctions. I could've lived in blissful ignorance. >.<;; I suppose the good thing is that these doujinshi are a lot more affordable than the one that's supposed to include a number of short stories for both GH and 12 Kokuki, but... *sigh* I am *not* giving in to temptation... I hope. (Actually, I can't afford to give in right now. :P I just don't know about when my birthday eventually rolls around. It could be bad if it's still available then. ^^; )