New Zoo Review anybody?

You remember the show New Zoo Review? I was going through a bunch of sutff on You Tube that a buddy of mine kept reminding me of and my friend Kyra reminded me of New Zoo Review. I found this and thought y'all would get a kick out of it. LOL!

10 Questions

it's still too hot to really knit so I thoguht this might be fun. If you've seen the A&E Show Inside The Actor's Studio, at the end James asks his guest a series of 10 questions. I thought it might be fun to do them here since I'll nver be sitting on that stage to be asked. Here are my answers.

01. What is your favorite word?
Silmarillion-it just sort of flows off your tongue like mercury

02. What is your least favorite word?
No

03. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
Gloomy, dark, days. Thunderstorms really turn me on both spiritually and emotionally. Birds flying, butterflies and dragonflies. Nature based things turn me on.

04. What turns you off?
Negativity, complacency, laziness, lying, cheating, giving up.


05. What is your favorite curse word?
Motherfucker

06. What sound or noise do you love?
The sound of a brook or stream, thunder, the sound of ocean waves breaking.


07. What sound or noise do you hate?
That infernal reverse beeping of trucks backing up, loading docks banging, jack hammers, that sort of thing.

08. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
I had always wanted to be a rock star before rock & roll died. Acting was high on my list as well at one time.

09. What profession would you not like to do?
Garbage collection

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
I can't honestly answer this as I don't subscribe to the belief of "heaven" or god per-se.

Knitting and Cars

I just got the new issue of Interweave Knits today in the post. Man I wish it weren't so beastly hot....made me want to start knitting up a storm. LOTS of stuff in there I love and will hope to do this cool season.

There's some great lace shawls in there that I'd love to knit....to throw over the back of a sofa but that will have to wait. My cat would destroy lace in an instant. She's having a helluva good time for herself clawing up this sofa.

Didja ever want something so badly and you realise that you can't logically do it for one reason or another? I've had an on again/off again love affair with this car, an Excalibur Phaeton. I'd give my eye teeth for a mid 70's model. I watched Roller Boogie last night and my girl Linda Blair drives one in the movie. That's what started me on my love affair of it back in 1980.

I'm at a position now where I can afford one and want one BADLY!!!! but due to my location, I can't buy one. Fir starters, I now drive a 2003 Jaguar and love it to death but have been having major problems with the tires, namely I have to check my air pressure daily as they go flat. This is thanks to the dumpy area I live in and this city as a whole is not much better. The roads are filled with broken glass and I've never in my life seen so many potholes. It makes me sorry I wasted money on a Jaguar while living here as it is being destroyed. I'm now a Jaguar fan for life and can't see myself driving anything else-it is-bar NONE the best car I've ever driven and will continue buying/driving them but the Excalibur would be an awesome second car but there's not a cold chance in 7 hells I'd buy one while I'm living here. BOO HOO! I wanna move to Malibu CA. so I can enjoy both cars!

How much longer before knitting season starts again?

Keeping Busy

Not a whole lot going on that's of any interest Just not having a good time and need to make some changes but can't afford to move at the moment. Enough of my misery....

I know it's not knitting but since it's been so hot, especially when you cant open your windows, I've been doing cross stitch. I should have had this finished last winter and framed and hanging on my wall but I got a bit sidetracked LOL! I'm about half way done with this. The chart for this was 6 or 7 pages-currently the biggest I've done so far although nothing like what I will undertake with another dragon. I've got a whole bunch of other dragons left to cross stitch!

Hope you all are having fun and enjoying your summer! :-)

Happy Solstice

Can't believe it's the summer Solstice already. Hope you have a happy one!

Hey, I actually KNIT something

Moving right along on the things my mom had started and never completed, is this ribbon cropped top. It is supposed to have sleeves but I thought it made it look a bit too foo-foo for a guy to wear so I left them off so it's more like a muscle shirt.

It's made of cotton 'ribbon', Unger Streamers was what it's called. I'm not sure if it's made anymore as this dates back to 1995. I don't know why my mother never finished this, it would have been perfect for her. And it was very easy to know, just straight knit, garter st. on the bottom and collar and being done on size 17 needles, it works up like greased lightning.

I can't believe I'm posting these pictures-I look like shit. Excuse the two-tone hair, I'm in desperate need of a rock & roll treatment (bleaching the roots) which I'm doing Thursday, just in time for our trip to Great Adventure on Friday for the coaster event on Saturday. I don't know how many of you are Six Flags fans but from all I've heard this year, I'm very disappointed and I've not even gotten there yet. Wheels came off one coaster shutting one side down, a restraint unlocked on another shutting it down-we're taking bets on if any coasters will actually be open to ride. The season is getting off on the wrong foot this year and that ain't good.

I'm wishing Chris would get home from work early, I'd like to go out for a Margarita tonight.

Indulge me...I'm venting :-/

Allow me to indulge...I'm sat here at my desk listening to a thunderstorm on CD...how that for pathetic? LOL! There's not a storm in sight tho we've had enough rain to make me contemplate trading in my Jaguar for a canoe.

When you're stuck someplace, how do you deal with it? I'm stuck living in this shithole I live in and at the moment, cannot do much about it. It is a very heavily industrialised area that I live in. Surrounded by factories-it's not a proper neighbourhood. I've made some pretty stupid decisions in my life but moving down here has to be the biggest one of all time. WHAT was I thinking? I think a lot of it has to do with the fact we moved in here and three days later, my mom had her stroke and I lost her a year after that. This is not how it was supposed to be. This is also "the wrong side of the tracks"...I grew up in an upper middle class family/neighbourhood....that is not at all what this area is even remotely about.

I cannot leave this house now for several reasons. My grandfather owns this house-I'm next in line for it which I'm not looking forward to. It's a shithole. But that's beside the point. He will sell this house and he's hell bent on handing out riches to family members that wouldn't know him if they tripped over him in the street. This was a major hot point for my grandmother when she was alive-he's all too anxious to hand out money to anybody and my grandmother would go ballistic. I'll be goddamned if he's going to hand out my inheritance to assholes who don't know who he is. Family or not.


Deal was I'd keep up he property and he wouldn't charge me/us rent. Well, I've not kept up the property-I have been so down about this area that I don't give a toss what anything looks like. I've let the yard grow like a jungle as I was treated to a wild pet of sorts. I had a Coyote in the yard which both delighted and saddened me. I've not seen him in almost a month and a half so apparently, even the Coyote has had the good sense to bugger off-I wish I could. I refused to call authorities in because they would have shot it and I will NOT tolerate that. My only concern was the Coyote was safe. I hope he is. He was beautiful...so fluffy looking-I only wish I could have gone out to sit with him. Perhaps if he stayed I may have been able to. There was a time I was able to get squirrels and crows to eat from my hand. Why not sit with a Coyote.

This also happened to coincide with my return to the Craft....I wondered if it was an omen of some sort...maybe my totem animal. I've begun to study the old religion in good faith now. I got tired of being a dabbler, a "winter Witch". I have had a very, very strong calling of late so I decided now is the time. Maybe it's my age, I dunno but it feels right, more-so than ever before. I have some very definite plans-one of which is I want my death to be different. I really wanted a High Priestess to preside over my mom's death but I've not been involved in a coven in over 10 years so how would I do that?I kept it as low key as I could, I had a deacon (sorry, I have no idea what a deacon is) come to the funeral home and I left the room while he did his thing. It is nothing at all in tune with my beliefs of ideas. Would have been great fun to see the reaction if I could have sent my mom off like I wanted to and had a Witch there. I've always been the black sheep of the family anyway. But I want none of that for my time when it comes. I most definitely want a High Priestess to send me off to the Summerlands when it is my time.

Anyway, I guess in short I just needed to vent. I'm not having a very good time here and I feel it's not doing my health any good. I've always been a Type-A personality but my stress level since moving here has been astronomical. I do quite a bit of meditating to help calm me, my religion and the Goddess gives me a great amount of solace as well. Just kinda sucks that any relaxing realm I enter is via visualisation...I no longer have a yard to chill out. My dad made a sanctuary in the yard when I was living home...water fountain, large gargoyle (I swear that Gargoyle was alive...I saw it move several times)-landscape lighting. Not only was it a space to calm the nerves, it was wonderful to to go out at night and worship the goddess...often being joined by passing skunks. I never knew how much I'd miss that. Took so much for granted.

Here I am

I'm here...I'm here. I didn't slip into a black hole and disappear :-0 I'm not sure what to say...I haven't been knitting :-( I helped my dad wallpaper his living room. Seems strange because the room had panel all around. Not dark but my dad said it was to him and he hated it. Having grown up in that house and seeing it with bare wood floors and wallpaper seems odd now but it's nice.

That made me want to wallpaper my bathroom here, I did funky painting with a sea sponge and don't really like it but I'm not keen on spending more money in this house so it'll stay as it is.

Chris and I are going to NJ to an event Great Adventure calls Coaster Celebration. We get an hour in the morning (8.30 to 9.30) to ride and stay on them without having to get off and get back in line, we'll then have the rest of the day to do what we want and then again from 11.30 to 12.30 will get another hour to ride and stay on different coasters in another section of the park. This will be interesting to see how it goes, 14 hours in a park that's a long day.

My friend Kyra sent me some yarn that when knitted up, is supposed to look like the American flag...red white and blue. I don't know what I'm waiting for-I was planning to start those the evening I got the yarn.

So that's all I'm up to. Nice to be missed :-) I wondered if you guys would forget about me :-(

Beltaine

I just wanted to wish those of you that follow the left hand path a Happy Beltaine :-)


B*B

A Meme

Lissa over at Am Knot did this and I liked it so I tought I'd steal it and do it too. Hope she doen'st mind


FAVOURITES

TV show: Charmed, X Files reruns, Family Guy (Stewie rocks!), Bev Hills 90210 reruns-yes I was a fan of the original run (Did I just admit that?) and I still love it.
Flower: Foxglove
Alcohol: Absinthe
Movie: Oh god, this could end up 6 miles long. The Exorcist, SAW 2, Harry Potter series, Full Meal Jacket to name a few
Color: Purple
Sport: Ski Jumping (I'd say roller coastering but I don't think that's a real sport??? LOL!)
Actor: Keanu Reeves, Dean Winters, Christopher Meloni,
Music: Generally 80's style heavy metal but anything really so long as it's not rap/hip hop.
Season: Fall
Book: Anything by Richard Laymon.

1 0 F A C T S

Birthplace: I wish New York City but Boston, MA.
Hometown: I tell people New York City but a small suburb just N. of Boston.
Height: 5'10"
Hair color: Blond, and not blond enough
Hair length: approaching the middle of my back
Hair style: a mess usually ROTFLOL! Plain...no more perms or I'd have hay on top of my head.
Eye color: brown unless I wear contacts in which case they'd be grey-or shimmery like moonlight for special f/x
Skin color: White...actually, I'm sorta heavily tattooed so I guess I'm what you'd call coloured.
Shoe size: 9 1/2 I guess. In dress shoes, all differnet sizes (designer shoes are not always the most confortable so I get various sizes dependng on the shoe)
Citizenship: US of A

1 0 T H I S O R T H A T S

Love or lust?: Love
Hard liquor or beer?: Hard Liquor
Night or day?: Day
Hook-ups or relationship?: Relationships
T.V. or internet?: TV
Wild night out or romantic night in? A night in. I'm getting very boring as I get older LOL!
Saturday or Sunday?: Sunday
Colored or black and white picture?: black & white...especially if it's infrared
Phone or in person?: Either
Bill Pullman or Bill Paxton?: Can I say both? Would that make me a pig?

1 0 H A V E Y O U E V E R S

Have you ever been caught sneaking out? Yes, an Ozzy Osbourne concert when I was 14 and did I catch hell when I returned home.
Have you ever done something you regret?: Yes
Have you ever been on a house boat?: Not that I'm aware of
Have you ever unintentionally injured a small child?: No
Have you ever been charged with sexual assault?: Eww, No
Have you ever had your revenge?: I leave that up to Karma. I don't want to come back to pay it off.
Have you ever finished an entire jaw breaker?: No, I lost my taste for candy after biting in to a Blow Pop and it pulled a brace off one of my teeth. My orthodontist was not amused.
Have you ever stayed up all night til the sun came up: Oh many, many times when I was a teen and in my 20's.
Have you ever been caught by your parents with a hickey? Yes, kinda hard for a guy to blame it on a curling iron
Have you ever been caught by your parents doing anything more than making out?: Oh, umm, Yes...and my dad learnt to knock after that LOL! (I was 19)

10 A R E Y O U S

Are you missing someone right now?: Sort of
Are you happy? I will be when I get my behind on a roller coaster finally.
Are you interested in taking a free stress test?: No, I fear the result. My stress is very high as it is.
Are you bored? No
Are you German?: I may have been in a past life
Are you Italian?: This goes back to the reincarnation thing above
Are you French?: Again, the reincarnation thing...perhaps in a prior life.
Are you loyal to the smelly European countries of your ancestors?: Smelly country of ancestors? Have you been around some college kids? Tower Records in Boston used to be good for clearing out your sinuses when the college kids shopped.
Are your parents still married?: No, my mom died 3 years ago and they divorced when I was 15 anyway.
Are you into someone right now?: Yes-I have a partner and a dream partner. Is that an Incubus?

Moving Right Along

I sat on my sofa this morning with a cup of coffee and my afghan. I finished it whilst watching Charmed. Now that that is out of the way, it's time to make some decisions.

I have that Perry Ellis cable sampler from Vogue Knitting magazine that I'm maybe a quarter of the way done with. However, I have been so inspired by the Barbara Walker cable books that I'm thinking perhaps it's time to rip that cable sampler out and use the wool to design my own sweater. I'd probably enjoy it more and it'll be a new challenge. I'm already knitting this cable sampler for the third time and am tired of it even tho it is a gorgeous sweater.

That said, I had joined the Socks The Rock club and have the first kit I could knit. Just not sure if I want to do another pair of socks just yet. They're fast, fun and easy but designing my own sweater seems a bit more interesting at the moment.

Rowan has a book out, Denim, that my friend Kyra (her link is over there on the right- Knitmeister) had started knitting a sweater from, Patrick is the name of the sweater. It's a gorgeous cable crew neck. I'd love to knit that as well.

I suppose in between I'll start to heavily fringe that striped afghan I did.

Not that I need another afghan but I've had visions of a knotted granny square afghan done in shades of purple. Somewhere along the line I stumbled upon a web site that had crochet granny squares but they were a Celtic Knot style. Has anybody else seen them? I'd say it was around February I saw it. I don't think it was The Crochet Dude...I think it was a woman who did them. I'm not sure if she had a pattern for them yet or not.

I'm Here...I'm Here

Hell....I hadn't realised how much time had gone by since my last post. I got wrapped up in finishing the hall and then got into some spring cleaning which led into taking my car in for it's 3 year maintenance check and getting wrapped up in the opening of Great Adventure.

Let's see, I finished the crochet afghan I posted several entries ago. Now I found another afghan. This is knit in garter stitch and is basically a way to use up scraps. I started this one over 20 years ago, found it in my mom's attic so she must have worked on it some and now I"m finishing it up. This seems to be the season for me to finish things. I have to say I absolutely detest using the circular needles on this for some reason. I've never disliked circulars but on this one, for some reason I do.

I dyed some curtains purple and now am not sure I like them. Chris does, I think I may end up stripping the colour. I got a little carried away after watching Purple Rain a week or so ago.

I've not started any new projects, nor have I finished the spider pillow. I need to get another skein of fisherman wool for that. I don't think I'm going to have enough for the back.


I wanted to jot a quick entry to let you all know I'm still alive LOL! I have some catching up to do but right now I've got some more stuff to organise here.

Needles & Spiders & Paint...(sigh)

Hmm, where to start? Ok, I finally broke down and got those Brittany needles off ebay. I still can't believe I paid 60 bucks for a single pair of needles but I love the tops of these so much. They are exquisite! Even better than the current ones they make. What I don't understand is they told me in a recent e mail that they may produce this Victorian top again in the far future. (scratching my head) Why the far future? They are currently making crochet hooks with this top, would seem to me knitting needles would be no big deal...they all start out teh same way, just one gets a hook at the end and one gets tapered. It's not as if it's any big deal they need to set up for. And I think it looks superb in Birch wood.

Here's an idea, if anybody else feels as strongly about these as I do (and they do make a handsome addition to any knitters collection of needles!) write to Brittany and tell them you want the Victorian tops back in Birch. Maybe if they get enough letters, they'll produce them again. I could see it if they weren't doing that top at all but they are cranking it out on crochet hooks.

Yes, this is another spider I did for going on a pillow. I'm in the process of working on the back but haven't done any knitting in a while. I can see there's probably going to be spiders all over my house before long LOL!

If any of you got Barbara Walkers book with the spider, please check it out. I had to send mine back to them for replacement. I was missing half the book. Mine went up to the mosaic charts then started back in with page 99 so something went wonky. Hopefully it was only my book.

Still scraping the ceiling but it's in the final stages, not much more to do.

Seems I had a lot more to say but I can't recall any of it now so I guess I'll go work on the ceiling. Please click on the link & write to Brittany! :-)

Home Improvement?

Not too sure about that, a small job turned into a larger job which is turning into an even larger one than that. Long story short, I've not been ignoring you guys or my blog but I started to scrape my upstairs hall ceiling as it was cracking. What started out to be a small touch up turned into me now scraping every ounce of this crap down to the substrate. Along the way I'll need to spackle the bits of ceiling that are crumbling. UGH! You can see here what I'm doing. I've got serious thoughts on leaving it as is and saying it's Abandoned Asylum chic. What do you think? Yeah...me neither, besides I'll loose money when I sell this hell hole. (Pictures seem to be giving Blogger a problem at the moment)

Right then....

I've not got any knitting done since I stated this last week around this time. My only saving grace was the past two nights, Travel Channel and National Geographic channel respectively had on shows about roller coasters. And the season starts next week. Great Adventure opens next Friday the Chris and I won't be going this early. I've set a goal for this summer..to conquer my fear of 200+ foot drops....that means Nitro, although that's stupid as I've been on Chiller, tho that starts out flat and the end you go up a 200 foot spike only to drop down and do it all again backwards. To be fair, the spike is at such a severe angle that you cannot see the ground below you. You can only see the sky when you're at the top of the spike. I think I also need to really try to get my fear in check and do Kingda Ka. Chris and I stood and watched it for about an our last year but for some reason, this year just seems like it's the year for me to do all this stuff....I just turned 38, I'm not sure how long I'll be able to do these new fangled rides. I'll do any roller coaster on earth under 200 feet...I don't care how many drops it has, how many loops it has...it's all good but I've had a phobia about those over 200 feet and this is my year I think to conquer and move on :-)

My Sentiments Exactly...

While not knitting related, this struck a chord in me. It was in the paper this morning and pretty much sums up my feelings.

For Moon & Jason-Bats & Spiders :-)

I have to remember to comment to my comments more. I didn't mean to keep anybody is suspense LOL! Here's the bat & the spider.

The bat is a lot of fun...very easy to do and shows up quite well. It would look sharp somewhere on a sweater...don't you think....or I'm thinking some type of table wear....I'm just kooky for bats....especially since they used to enter my house frequently when I lived with my dad. But that can turn into a whole nother post, suffice to say I'm an honest to goodness bat fan. I think they're cute and they are amazing to watch.

The spider....this was not hard but requires a lot of concentration. You're twisting stitches every which way. It is amazing to watch take shape and I thin she uses every knitting technique known to mankind in the 53 rows it takes to complete it LOL! Unfortunately, it doesn't show up all that well in this photo. I think maybe the yarn is too busy for it...trust me, look at it and you can see it's shape.

It is QUITE large. 9 inches...oh my! LOL! This simply MUST be used in a sweater. I need to design a spider sweater. It's too cool a design.

Crochet

Time for a change of pace. I found this afghan in my mom's attic around Christmas time. This has to be at least 20 years old, most likely older. I remember her working on this. Ironically, it matches my bedroom walls. So I've been working on it off and on in between knitting projects. Last week I also ordered a Brittany crochet hook. It has the top on it like their old knitting needles that I'll never own a set of :-( If the crochet hook is birch, I don't understand why they don't continue to make the knitting needles with that top on them. I remember reading somewhere that said they discontinued them due to breakage. Crochet hooks don't break? They could put a disclaimer on the knitting needles saying they are for decorative purposes only so if you break them, they don't have to replace them. That's fair, no? I'd go along with that.

I wish I knew how to add pictures aside from just the top of a post...I'd post pictures of the Barbara Walker spider and the bat. I'll save that for tomorrow to. Now, I'm going back to my afghan.

Bats and Spiders and Turtles, oh my!

Chris and I went to Boston yesterday and after stopping in several stores, I found and bought Barbara Walker's 3rd Treasury of knitting patterns. I thought they were out of print since a quick search on Amazon showed only used copies available. When I got home and started looking through it, lots of ideas started going through my mind. I think I need to come up with a pattern for my own sweater. I have to use the spider, it's gorgeous. I also quite like the bat. There's a lot of really beautiful cable patterns. I'll need to ask for the other 3 volumes for Yule or something.

I had started to knit the bat last night to see what it looked like in DK weight yarn but 3/4 of the way through it I was interrupted by a phone call and after 2 hours on a cell-phone-call-from-hell I can't figure out where I am this morning. Trust me, what I did looks cool. It will end up being used in some sweater.

ANYHOO....I picked Koyaanisqatsi up last weekend and forgot how incredible it was. I don't think I appreciated it enough as a teen but seeing it now, through older and more jaded eyes, it's an experience. If nothing else, the soundtrack is great to knit by :-) Yesterday, I got the final chapter in the trilogy, Naqoyqatsi. It's good but I don't like it as much

No pictures this time....

iPod Music

I was over on Ginx's blog last night and saw this and thought I'd do it too. It's been forever since I did any type of meme. So here goes.

"Open iTunes or Windows Media Player to answer
the following. Go to your library. Answer, no matter
how embarrassing it is."

How many songs? 1446

Sort by artist
First artist: 3 Doors Down (Kryptonite)
Last artist: ZZ Top (Leggs)


Sort by song title
First Song: 2 Minutes to Midnight by Iron Maiden
Last Song: Youth Gone Wild by Skid Row

Sort by time
Shortest Song: "Evil" (0.2 seconds) (not really a song but a stinger)
Longest Song: Freebird live (10.35) by Lynyrd Skynyrd

Sort by album
First Album: ...Twice Shy by Great White
Last Album: WOW by Wendy O. Williams

First song that comes up on shuffle: Forever Free by W.A.S.P.


Most Played Song: Nightingale ( a.k.a Freya Falconing on her site) by my friend Lylith
And these are the first 10 songs that iTunes chose for me today:

1. Where's California ~ Teena Marie
2. Too Late For Love ~ Def Leppard
3. Unchained Melody ~ Righteous Bros.
4. Close My Eyes Forever ~ Lita Ford & Ozzy Osbourne
5. Queen of the Broken Hearts ~ Loverboy (Hey! I forgot about them!)
6. Someday ~ Nickelback
7. Dream Weaver ~ Gary Wright
8. You've Got Another Thing Comin' ~ Judas Priest
9. Learning To Fly ~ Pink Floyd
10. I Don't Believe In Love ~ Queensryche

Lotsa Goodies

Chris and I spent the day walking round Boston on Saturday. I wanted to look for some solid sock yarn to try out these socks. Scroll down until you see Conservative Socks. That is the black/purple/orange thing you see in the photo. I really like the design, it's unique but it looking like it's turning out enormous. Anybody wanna wear it with me? I got the gauge so we'll see...it might just be that the yarn is solid so my eye is seeing an unbroken piece of fabric where the other yarns I've used were variegated.

I also got two pair of Brittany needles. These are nice but they aren't the ones I want. The black walnut are just too expensive. I think I mentioned seeing them on eBay but the "Buy It Now" option was $65. and I'm not paying 65 bucks for a pair of knitting needles. And a new (to me) Mountain Colour yarn, Wildflower. I guess these will be socks too-just need to find a nice pattern for it. I'm tired of the universal sock pattern and not sure I want to do another pair of jaywalkers.

The Great American Aran Afghan is absolutely delicious to look through. I want to make this but with summer approaching, I'll hold off till fall. I may make a pillow of one.

On that note, is anyone familiar with Barbara Walker's books? I saw a block of a spider, I'm not sure if there was a web or not but I definitely remember seeing a 3-D spider. I cant remember what blog I saw it on but the person said it was Barbara Walker block. Does anyone know what book it is in? I looked through two on Saturday and didn't see it. I loved that spider! Would like to get the book it's in. Actually, the two books I did see I wanted to get but couldn't splurge on them.