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Let the Right Robot In

terminator salvation

Well, I certainly enjoyed the new Terminator movie, but that is because I am quietly a Terminator geek. (Though I didn’t watch much of season 2 Sarah Connor, simply because I could never remember when it was on. I’ll get the DVD.) I mean, robots! KILLER ROBOTS!

So, this movie has no time traveling in it, which is nice because sometimes time traveling is annoying.  Though it’s never bothered me in the Terminator movies, probably because there are no stupid philosophical/physics-related questions as to what might happen if someone goes back in time and – *gasp* – meets themselves.

Some people really worry about this. I say, everything I need to know about time travel, I learned from the Back to the Future movies.  I.e., if you meet yourself in the past/future, you do not create a black hole or destroy the universe, you merely FAINT.  And your actions in the past can change the future.

Thank you.

Anyway, so Terminator Salvation was pretty decent, however I missed any mention of time travel at all, so if you hadn’t seen any of the previous Terminators, you might be confused why a 35-yr old guy is trying to rescue a teenager who he says is his dad…

But yeah, ROBOTS, EXPLOSIONS, naked CGI-Ahnold-as-T-800 cameo…

Heh.

I would give it a solid B grade.

Additional points for the Marcus-kind-of-an-infiltration-unit guy/robot being super hot.

*ahem*

***

I would still like to see Star Trek again, plus there are still a couple of movies coming out this summer that I would like to see, including the new Transformers and the new Harry Potter.  I didn’t see the first Transformers in the theatre, and I think that it would have been pretty awesome. And I always go see HP in theatres.  This is the one where __________ dies, so I’m curious as to how that will be handled.

I’m currently trying to watch “Let the Right One In” which is a recent Swedish film about a vampire girl and a serial killer and bullies.  I had a hard time getting into it at first because the DVD is dubbed rather terribly into English, but I finally figured out how to get it to play in Swedish with subtitles and it’s much improved. I will try finishing that one tonight.  There is apparently an American remake in process, but, yawn.  The original is lovely, and hell, you can watch the crappy dubbed version if you don’t want to watch it in Swedish. I’m not sure why they’re remaking it, except that Hollywood hasn’t had an original idea in years.

Now, if Showtime would ever freakin’ replay Season 3 of Dexter, I’d be all set. Hmpf. 

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THE LOOM OF DESTINY

I am really not sure when it happened that this blog turned into a craft blog, but I guess that’s the way it’s rolling.

My goal for the next few months: MOVE. Like, physically move – unload my storage unit with all my Texas stuff and find a place to live. I may already have done that. Does anyone have $40K? Hello?

Once I move, presumably into a two bedroomed place, one bedroom will be the Studio. I have been far too remiss in the part of my life that I miss the most: drawing. I want to get a proper drafting table and lighting and soon will delve back into illustration , specifically comics (yeah I know) and some narrative work. Click the pic to the left to embiggen my last significant piece that was actually sort of finished. It’s old, from May or June, I think, and I totally drew it at work while on the phone. I have drawn a few zombie-related comics (naturally there are no zombies in them) but they are not done.

I really miss all the time I used to spend on the drawings – and I know that technically I could make time, but I have to say, this whole “working for a living” really cuts into my me-time. However, in the end, I have still been fairly artistic and crafty with all the knitting and teaching myself to weave and all that. I got my sock mojo back. I dumped my hojillion skeins of sock yarn on the bed the other night and sorted it into AWESOME and REALLY AWESOME piles – I have a really great collection at this point. And I really want to make something out of the Dream in Color Smooshy.

This weekend I am going to Ikea with my mom. I saw in Craft Magazine a project I would like to make. It involves these apothacery (oh god how do you spell that???) drawer things that glued together and screwed to a different table base makes a great jewelry stand. I don’t normally buy Craft because it is stupid expensive, but the latest issue was all about weaving, and I have been bitten pretty hard by the weaving bug. In fact, I finished my first project and warped the loom for the next one:

Woven Scarf

I used various socks yarns to complete my first project, primarily some Knitpicks Essential Kettle Dyed in Bordeaux (?). The Essential is quite soft and makes a nice end project. I didn’t like the Bordeaux color at all (wasn’t variegated enough, but I bought it when it first came out so their dyeing process is probably improved at this juncture) and was actually going to return it, but then thought it would be a good yarn to try my hand at weaving with – because I wouldn’t care about cutting it up.

Weaving

The new project is being woven out of Noro Silk Garden Sock, which while GORGEOUS was kind of a dumb choice – the yarn is very sticky on itself, and makes moving the heddle rather annoying. However, the end product will be worth it. My tension is much better on this piece, and the colors are super awesome! Too bad I am ALLERGIC TO MOHAIR. Also, you’d think I’d be a little more freaked about cutting up a $20 skein of yarn, but OH NO, I cut that sucker with an  evil gleam in my eye!

Anyway.

I also got a haircut. I like it a lot.

New Hair + Scarf

I think that might be the debut of my “new” glasses on this blog, too. I’ve had them for a couple months now. I was getting a lot of headaches and realized that it had been about three years since I’d been to the eye doctor.  Time to get new glasses.  I’m slowly going blind, of course, and I suspect bifocals will be in my future, but for now, my vision has settled in the 20/40 and 20/50 range. Also the doctor did a pressure test on my eyeballs where he numbed them and put a glowing blue contact on each one (glaucoma test?) which SUCKED because I totally have an eyeball issue, like, don’t touch them! Or get near them! Or talk about them getting squished or poked in any way!

Oh god, now I have to lie down; I’ve disgusted myself.

P.S. Be sure to check out WANTED, the movie about the LOOM OF DESTINY and fraternity of assassins who use it:

I thought it was pretty awesome (and better than Batman, BUT EVERYTHING IS BETTER THAN THE DARK KNIGHT). Okay, the movie is not really about weaving, it is about explosions.

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Magic Loopin’

Just dropping by to announce that I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth in terms of blogging. I have just been… not inclined. Or distracted, or busy, or whatever.

Last weekend we were in Redding for my cousin’s wedding. I forgot to bring any knitting, so when we were at Sew What! (a funny quilting/knitting hybrid shop) I bought some Panda Wool (bamboo/wool/nylon mix) and a 40″ US2 circular, looked up magic loop on my laptop (free wireless at the motel) and taught myself magic loop:

Sock started in Redding

I am not super enamored of it for socks (DPNs 4eva!), but the possibilities of its use for sweater sleeves, hat decreases, etc., are pretty great. I look forward to using it on top-down sweater sleeves, where DPNs are kind of a pain.

I really like the Panda Wool, it has a nice drapey quality to it.

***

I went and saw the Dark Knight last night, and was VERY BORED by it. It is NOT the second coming of superhero movies, it was basically boring in every way, rather masogynistic (only main female character gets burnt to a crisp and the only other female character who even talks turns out to be owned by the mob) and way too long. Props to Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, and Heath Ledger, though: they turned in top notch performances. And Aaron Eckhart was hot as usual, even with half his face melted off.

Still, I was way more excited about the crappy preview trailers for the new Terminator movie and the Watchmen movie coming out next year than I was about the Dark Knight.

So, go watch it if you’re inclined, but I thought it was boring.