Fast Cars, Appreciation, and incoming snow.

If it doesn't snow.... have we seen the movie?

This is a question that I must ask myself, as every time I go and see a movie with my mother for the last many months, it is always cold and snowy.

Now there was the high possibility that when we came out of the theater last night, we would be met by snow. But sadly, it was only snowing on the mountains, and had not yet reached us.

So, the movie that we cannot officially say we've seen was Fast and Furious. Which I highly enjoyed.
1) I'm always up for some Vin Diesel Appreciation, and 2) it actually had all the boys, all the girls, and felt like a real sequel. Now, I haven't seen #3 and don't have much desire to after the horribleness of #2. So, when I own my Fast and Furious movies, I shall own #1 and #4, ignoring the two in between.

But, the only defense to the whole "If it didn't snow..." question, is we had not planned on seeing the movie. It was a last minute thing. Jes had tickets and then couldn't go. So I bought the tickets from her.

We had to putter around for a few hours before the movie, and I'm sure my bank whilst looking at my activity will go "hmm.. Erin's going on a shopping spree"
As yesterday,
I went to La Baguette and got some croissants for us.
Due to having driven into the parking lot via a different route, I found a new shop that I didn't know was there. "My Cuppa Tea"

I wasn't overly impressed, but I did get some Lapsang Sochoung (Sp?) As I have been craving some recently.

Then after having gone home, we left to pick up the tickets. Which we were meeting Jes as the Whole Foods, and I hadn't stopped at the atm. So, we bought some veggies for dinner.

Then, we headed over to Jo-Ann's to putter. I picked up yarn for a project. Of course spent tooo much money whilst there, but there were also some little charms that I could not pass up.
As far as the project goes, I am missing 1 skein of yarn, as apparently it is now discontinued. So i'll have to find a suitable alternate.
My needles arrived, so i will be able to actually start the project as soon as I get that one skein of yarn.

Then I'll just have to figure out what to make for all the other peeps whom are either going to pay it forward, or I'm going to be nice and just make something for the comments anyways.

Then after the craft store, we still hadn't killed enough time, so we decided to go get firewood from the store. We had run out of the house far too quickly, and we had realized that Mother of Mine hadn't eaten, so we got a few things to nom.
Thats when I found the pink cheese.

Yes, pink cheese.

It was a cheddar mixed with Claret, so it was much like the Porter that I enjoy.

But, I admit I wasn't overly fond of the very drunk nature. I could taste the claret, just a little too strongly.



So finally, we got to head over to the theater and have our Vin Diesel Appreciation.

After that, we came home, watched a few episodes of The Unit season 2, and also watched a craptastic sci fi movie called "The Lost Colony". I got it, because I remember when it first came on, I didn't get to see all of it, and 2 it had Adrien Paul. Yes, I will pretty much watch anything he's in. The graphics were horrible, the acting at times was annoying (of course, not Adrien.. he was great), and the story wasn't that bad. Not nearly as bad as everyone keeps saying it is. Honestly, think of the budget they had.. 1.50$ and pocket lint. So for the classic Saturday Sci Fi flick, it wasn't bad.

Slept fitfully because the wind was howling and once again the windchime was bothersome.

Woke up, hopped in the shower, and now I'm sipping some Sherlockian tea whilst watching Top Gear, and Arsenic and Old Lace. Which is a fun movie but for the fact that sound is quite inconsistent. You have to turn up the volume to hear them, and then suddenly one of the characters is blasting a bugle and yelling "charge".

Poured boiling tea on my hand at one point, which is not fun.

Pan is giving me lots of love. Methinks it's because he's sorry for waking me up so much this morning. oh yes, he was bothersome as he was thirsty. So until i turned the tap on in the bathroom for him, he was whining at me.Then he let me get some more rest before I just couldn't lay in bed anymore. Did I mention that it was before 7am?

I really can't wait till the point where I don't have to get out of bed at 5 every day. Because then I'll be able to sleep in on the weekends as well.

Okay, well I guess I'm done rambling for now...

Much rambling...

So I've been meaning to blog for a little while now, but I have been distracted by a few things. Mostly work.
February was a very LONG month. Which is ironic since it is the shortest month of the year. January was busy, but it flew by. Feb was just miserable. I'm hoping March will be better. So far it is off to a good start. Pan actually LET me sleep in until 6. (My paranoia only needing to go so far as to slide his litter box contraption right against my bedroom door so as to prevent him... complaining in a physical way. (I say liter box contraption because what I've done, is taken a large moving box, cut it up, taped it back together and made a little outer box for his box. That way it's small attempt to have him not track litter all over my floor. I lost the battle on where his litter box was to be placed, but so far I'm wining the battle of the track. It also makes it easier if I need to slide the box side to side at all, as it just glides on the carpet easier than the plastic box it's self.)
6am came about, and I hop out of bed. Normally I would try to stay in bed till 7, but today has a mission.
Today is Vamp club sign up.
Yup, those previous posts about yarn colors etc, today is my chance to join up. The reason for the 6 am start time of me stalking my computer, is because poor overwhelmed Jen from Fresh From the Cauldron has decided for her sanity's sake to limit the club to 50 members. There are about over 40 confirmed people who want to be in the group, and about 10 or so lurkers who haven't made up their mind.
The club was supposed to go live last night at Midnight, but Jen's kids had softball so she pushed the start time back because she knew she wouldn't be up at midnight.

I do not blame her for wanting to save her sanity.
As I said, so far the month is starting off well. I was decadent and had a slice of home made apple pie for brekkie, and I am snuggled under a blanket on the couch currently watching "One Way Out" great show. The bloke on it is a crazy escapologist. But he isn't all "oooh it's magic" like Criss Angel. He's a english bloke in jeans, that has an engineer who creates crazy shit for him, and a friend with a camera that doesn't mind putting him in dangerous situations. I just watched him locked up in chains, 30 feet above the ground, with only mattresses to catch his fall if he didn't escape the chains and grab the "duct tape descent" contraption his engineer contrived for him. He did it by the way. It was close. Like last second close. But he did it. He glided down safely in a stream of duct tape. Now it's time to watch Top Gear. Love that show.

I do hope that March continues this well.

Yesterday was quite a productive day, and I was away from the computer for most all of it.
I got my bathroom cleaned up. (They are FINALLY coming to fix my sink, so I had to clean my bathroom so that they can get under the cabinet)
I got a ton of my bedroom cleaned up, and I even moved the mini dresser into my bedroom. Holy crap!
It still doesn't have it's drawers in it, but that will hopefully change tonight.
Once I secure or loose my spot in the vamp club, I plan on working on my closet as we convinced the management company to bring a ladder to change the light bulb in my closet. But since I haven't been able to have any light in my closet for like 3 months now, everything is kinda piled on the floor. Must move that so he can get the ladder in.
Got the floor mostly vacuumed and just lots of little things done in the upstairs region.
I also finished reading Castle in the Air by Diana Wynn Jones (I'll review later in this blog)
But the reason I was able to get most of that getting accomplished, was because I was *cough* umm... coping a few audio books to download onto my Zen replacement that I'll be getting in a week or so. - Speaking of, that was a funny story. And I don't recall if I already spoke of it, so screw it, I'm going to talk about it. The other day, I got an email from Overstock saying "We are sorry to hear about your Emmerson 4 head VCR (refurb) no longer working, and we will be refunding you your money, you have the choice either of having it refunded to your credit card, or store credit. If you choose store credit, you'll get an additional 10% increase refund."

Me: What The Hell?

Did you catch the mistake? Yeahhhhhhhhh my Creative Zen V is not a VCR, nor has it ever been.
So I emailed them back stating (mayhaps a bit shortly... mostly I just underlined a few key points, which can be construed as short, but I wanted to make sure that they got the point of my response) I would be happy for the refund back to my credit card for my _Creative Zen MP3_ player as long as I am refunded for the _right_ amount.
I told them they could call me or email me, and that night I got a phone call (mind you, i got the call at 8:20pm - which what freaking help desk ever calls that late?!)
The girl I spoke with apologized profusely for the email error of her coworker. And that it is of course the Create Zen V MP3 player that they will refund. As I had forgotten that my credit card had expired and been replaced since I had ordered my Creative originally, I just had to give them the new information, and in a few days I'll have my refund. Woohoo. The girl on the phone was very sweet and helpful. So other than the email snafu, the whole experience has been not too horrible.
I decided not to go the store credit route, because 1) Overstock didn't have any Creatives other than a few Refurbed Zen V Plus, which was exactly what I was returning.
Right now, I can get the new Creative Zen for 99.00$ from Creative 4gb. Which is a much better deal, as the Zen now has removable memory. yup, so I can pay 99$ and then later spend 30$ and buy a 16gb memory card or whatever. It no longer limits me to what I have on my mp3 player. I can have many cards and just interchange them. Ironically, Guy had just decided to buy the Zen as well because his grandmother gave him some "You better spend this on something frivolous- absolutely NO bills" money.

Great minds think alike as we were going to buy the same one. Woohoo.
As my refund from Overstock will be 109.99$, it means that I will also buy the 2 year protection plan from Creative, and end up spending a total of like 4$. How sweet is that? Totally upgraded and spent less than 10$ (Though, I'm going to actually buy a case for this one, as I don't want any scratches this time! But i'm not counting that as part of my upgrade, because well it's an accessory that I had planned on buying the last time and never got around to it.)
I shall also be knitting my new Zen a little cozy, but I haven't decided what I want to knit for it, or if I want to try my first Doctor Who kitting project. No one has a pattern out there for the Zen yet, cause apparently people are only obsessed about ipods. Which, considering how often those break, and are expensive to repair, I can understand their paranoia.

But this shall be my new baby:



This of course was my old one (only in the colors of Black/Blue)



The Zen is going to be the size of a credit card. Which will be neat. The V was about the size of an Ipod nano? possibly. I don't know since I avoid those at all possible.

Can you tell I'm excited? I can't wait. I'm holding off on actually buying the new one until the refund shows up, because I just know my luck too much. I'd get screwed somehow.
Okay, I'm done talking about my new future mp3 player.

Haven't done much knitting this week. I did a little. Printed off a lot of patterns for the future, and even came up with the idea for another Kushiel inspired sweater. Yup, I'm now up to 3 possible future sweaters.
But this week I was working on a swatch of Long Spirals. It's kind of neat. I haven't decided which side I like more, the write side or the wrong side. As usual I like to work in texture as opposed to color.

Awwww crap. I had a really good idea for something, but now I can't recall what it was. I think it was a sock. Hmm must ponder it and sketch it if it comes back to me.
I will of course post photos when the swatch is done.

Bookwise:
Finished Castle in the Air like I said. It was good, I did not enjoy it as much as Howl's Moving Castle, but I did enjoy it a lot. It relied heavily on The Arabian Nights. Howl, Sophie, and Calcifer made a cameo appearances, but you didn't 'see' them until the last quarter of the book. Howl was vain and cranky as ever. Still love that Welsh wizard.

Bed book: Torchwood "Another Life" - I am enjoying it thus far, but I have discovered a problem with reading books of Torchwood... what is that? Well, there are often welsh words interspersed in it. And when you are only reading the book prior to shutting of your light and going to sleep, it makes for much confusion. lol
And i just now realized that I was reading two books dealing with Wales at the same time. Granted Castle in the Air, it was only a casual mention of "Howl isn't from this world. He's from a place called Wales" but still.. it amuses me.

Purse Book: Still plunking along on Peshawar Lancers- meaning I haven't touched the book in prolly 2 weeks lol. Someday, I will switch the book to being a couch book, or hell, it will be a book I read on the plane moving to the UK. There is a very distinct possibility that will happen.

New Couch book: Yup, the new one shall be Kathy Reichs's "Déjà Dead" which is the first book of the Bones books, yup I'm finally reading the novels that inspired Bones. I know without a doubt that they are going to be highly different, but I still want to give them a go. And I know that the first one is the most painful to get through. And yes, it is quite a far cry from the books I have normally been reading for the last nearly 2 years, but I gotta say.. change is refreshing. Like reading the Bryant and May book "Full Dark House" it was just refreshing.

Oooooh I see Jen has just popped online. Woohoo. That means club any moment now hopefully!