Behind the Smile – Page 4 – this life is lived in perfect symmetry

June 12, 2018June 12, 2018

WATCHING / LISTENING 6.12.18

MOVIES:

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (Amazon). So, I LOVE The Fifth Element. It’s one of my top ten favorite movies of all time. One time, I think it was during Christmas break maybe? My sister and I watched it five times in a row over the course of two days. Greatest way to spend your time? Quite possibly. Anyway, so I generally have favorable feelings towards Luc Besson’s work based solely upon my undying love for The Fifth Element. This move was apparently a passion project for him, and I am here to tell you that…. it’s not as good as The Fifth Element but nowhere near as terrible as the reviews for this movie make it out to be. It’s really fun and watchable. The movie it reminds me of is Jupiter Ascending… only far better than that movie. Anyway, so if you like space movies and can overlook some uncanny valley special effects for one species of aliens, then you will most likely enjoy this movie. It’s really fun.

Crooked House (Amazon). This is my favorite Agatha Christie mystery due to who turns out to be the murderer and this adaptation is impeccably cast! Glenn Close is delightful as the aunt. It’s a little slow though. Maybe I wasn’t in the mood for British mystery drama. *shrug*

Blade Runner 2049 (HBO). This is a sequel I guess of the original Blade Runner from 1982 and it takes place thirty years after that one. It is sort of interesting to look at but slow and kind of boring. I think in the middle I got up and washed the dishes and when I went back to it I hadn’t missed anything.

TV:

Lost in Space (Netflix): I watched the first two episodes of this. It’s…okay? Not binge-worthy though. I read somewhere that it’s paced better if you spread out the episodes and I would have to agree with that. It’s definitely episodic and not like, say, Stranger Things which is essentially like a 7 hour movie. Anyway, Lost in Space is a literal reboot of the classic TV show and it has high production values but I watched these episodes back when it first came out and haven’t gone back to it, so that should tell you something right there…

The 100 (CW & Netflix for earlier seasons). So, I have watched this show from the beginning when it started out as a teenybopper futuristic Lord of the Flies situation and have stayed watching it because it’s surprisingly a show that evolves with every episode and each season has reinvented itself. The show is also not afraid to kill characters off or have their characters do terrible things in order to survive. Recently I got caught up with the back half of Season 4 and have been watching Season 5 in real time.

PODCASTS:

Nothing too crazy to report on here, as I went through a couple MFM eps, an episode of Sword & Scale (#82, interview with a 911 dispatcher and a 911 recording that will break your soul in half and stomp on it, OMG). BUT aside from unrelenting murder I did want to slightly discuss my current favorite podcast.

The Adventure Zone. This is, simply, a podcast that is recording the ridiculous Dungeons & Dragons campaign of the McElroy brothers and their father (the brothers do other podcasts including Sawbones, which I have listened to before which is about medical history). I have an absolutely terrible sense of humor, i.e., there are many popular things I simply do not find funny (British humor in toto, every comedian but Jim Gaffigan, most sitcoms, toilet humor, etc etc. You name it, I probably don’t think it’s funny. I DO find almost anything with Danny McBride funny, and I like the 21 Jump Street movies. And the Lego movies but I don’t think they are supposed to necessarily be comedies? Anyway, I digress) so when I tell you that The Adventure Zone is hands down one of the funniest things I have ever had the pleasure of listening to, I mean that in the most heartfelt way. These guys are having an absolute blast and it shows – from the silly story arcs to the characters to the character voices these guys give their characters, I like it all. And it even kind of makes me want to play D&D. But don’t tell anyone that last part. I’m coming up on the end of the Balance Arc and I am bereft. I love this podcast.

May 22, 2018

MONTEREY + PACIFIC GROVE

Spent the weekend in Monterey and Pacific Grove for a graduation at CSUMB. We stayed near Lover’s Point in PG and enjoyed some great views from our hotel rooms. Friday afternoon we walked along the shore and enjoyed the ocean!

We were there for my cousin’s (wife’s… whatever) graduation at CSUMB. It was a nice and cool day! The whole weekend was pretty gray, but as a heat hater I can’t really complain.

Look, I found Liz in my picture! hahahaha

Later we went to lunch with Justin and Liz and I ordered a crab cake and salad, but thought the crab cake would be miniature like the ones we get in the Bay Area so I ordered another one on top of that one and when they came they were huge! Needless to say, I was in crab cake heaven and cleaned my whole plate! lol

And finally, a seagull joined us for breakfast one morning:

May 17, 2018

WHAT I’VE BEEN UP TO

Oops, disappeared there for a minute (month). I had been doing so well in updating fairly regularly too! I just got busy, I guess. Or rather, busy doing nothing interesting. I am still working on my Zweig sweater (finished the body and started the first sleeve!) and planning out my next projects once I finish that one. I always start closing in on the finish line and get start-itis on my next projects! It’s a problem. But I’m faithfully plodding along on the sleeve(s) and hopefully will have that done in the next couple of weeks.

My next projects are going to be sweaters. Right now I don’t really know what pattern I want to do next. I had talked previously about making Birkin, and I got the yarn for it, but I’m not sure I want to knit it next.

Here’s the yarn I chose for that one:

This is Knitpicks Palette yarn, which I have been using for Zweig and like quite a lot! It has a rustic look but is very nice to knit with. The colors are a smidge off – the light beige color is more of a warmer light brown, but close enough. I had actually ordered a different pink color but when it came, it was too Barbie pink for what I had in mind. However, years ago I apparently ordered some Palette (for what purpose I literally have no idea at this point, possibly mittens? But… not sure) and had a couple balls of Masala, which is a burnt orange and was able to swap that out. I think this collection of colors are much more “me” and look forward to working on this project.

I kind of ordered several more of Caitlyn Hunter’s patterns (Boyland Knitworks) because they are awesome and she came out with this fabulous new one called Sipila that I can’t wait to make, but also because I have become enamored of Alyeska, which is an all-over top-down colorwork sweater with unusual motifs. It kind of blends from light to dark with a contrasting pop and I went stash diving for this one thinking I could come up with something, and I do believe I have something very fun:

I don’t have quite enough of the darker green for the bottom section of the sweater so I thought, rather than buy more yarn, to either incorporate that really dark green to the far left, or the slightly variegated kelly green in the middle by fading it in. I think that will work out really nicely! The yoke will involve the mint/pink speckle at the top and the hot pink will be my “pop”.

Finally, the next sweater I have been thinking about is the So Faded sweater. This is an easy top-down raglan with garter detailing at the shoulder that “fades” into the next color by alternating colors for about 1.5-2″. I have seen a lot of these, but while I kind of like speckled yarn it isn’t my super jam so I thought I could find some variegated yarns in my stash that blended together nicely and this is what I came up with:

Hot pink to purple to black (dark gray really)! Some of these yarns have been in my stash FOREVER (here’s looking at you, Collinette Jitterbug!) so rather than “saving” them for socks or shawls or whatever, it will be nice to actually use them since they’ve spent years marinating on a shelf.

Having a huge stash of sock yarn is working out really well for these color work and blended sweaters! It’s fun to shop the stash. Because I generally try to only buy yarn at Stitches and maybe 1-2 Knitpicks orders throughout the year, tops, and here I am with yarn for two more sweaters that I just had to go into the other room for.

When I do get around to making Sipila, I will have to order at least the body yarn because I want that one to be solid or semi-solid. That might be a fun one to look for yarn for at Stitches next year. As much as I like it I clearly have a bunch of projects in front of it! There is also that Norah Gaughan Stag Head Pullover that I want to make (and have the yarn for!), though that pattern is knit flat and pieced together, which is not my favorite. Though I do really want that sweater! So, we’ll see.