Internet Trolls
Normally I take a pretty passive approach to internet trolls. I mean there are the really creepy type of internet troll who take video games far too seriously. Then there are just the general forum douche bags who try to start flame wars with people all the time. I get a slew of weirdos in the comments and they seem to be screened pretty well. Occasionally a loan offer, or gold Rolex offer will slip through, but they’re pretty easy to spot, the spam I mean. So they get marked as spam and sent to the spam folder of comments.
It’s the real life trolls that seem to be a problem. I don’t often write here, but when I do it’s usually just some silly diatribe about whatever was on my mind at the time. I write about Doctor Who a fair bit, and recently it’s been about not using shampoo and trying to find a day to change my sleep schedule. There’s a decent amount of writing about my crafting, from knitting to dyeing yarn. All in all it’s a pretty standard personal online weblog. No big deal.
Note: All of the screenshots can be clicked on for full image and they should open in a new window.
But then you get people like this:
My initial reaction was to question who the hell would say something like that about that post. I then realized that the poster was hiding. Hiding behind a fake website address and a fake email address. I was ready and willing to just shrug this off as some random commenter that thinks they know me. Apparently they’re my friend, so it had to be true, right? Wrong. At first I thought this was an old friend, who often stops by to read but rarely comments. There is the occasional comment, but it’s not normally something so negative. It’s okay, she could be pissed at me. It happens. The part that I take the most offense to is the fact that they claim this post is “so full of lies” as though they know intimate details about my life. How does one write a personal blog entry such as this one and it be something that is purely lies? I mean, I could fully understand if I were writing about someone else’s life and got all of the information incorrect. Except that I’m writing about my own high school experiences. I’m writing about what I went through. The post is told in a very quick, short sentence way because that’s how it was back then. Everything was in spurts. I didn’t realize that my experiences could be trivialized and turned into a fact or fiction type situation. I didn’t make any of this up. This is the way I felt when I was younger. No question. Unless there’s something I’m missing here and someone else lived that portion of my life for me. Could be, I suppose. You never know.
Then to turn around and claim that I’m “trolling up sympathy and made up drama.” Um, wow. I wasn’t trolling for sympathy. I was sharing my experience. Which, according to the other two commentors, seem to mirror their own experiences with themselves and family members.
“Get up off your ass and do something with your life. That is the entire problem.” You’re assuming I don’t do anything with my life. You’re assuming that I don’t have anything else to do with my time. I wasn’t speaking about current depression or problems, but it seems that basic reading comprehension levels aren’t needed before posting asshole-y comments on people’s blogs. No big deal. I’ll “get up off my ass” and figure out who the fuck this person is.
Oh, and this definitely gets better.
I have the IP addresses there in the comments. So I followed them back to the website that does my analytics for me. I then looked back and found the most recent comment and IP address from July 10th.
Wow. 6 actions. And you came from a direct link. Interesting. I then clicked on the IP address link you see there and this is what it gave me.
Excellent. I now know that the commenter is from Southern California. Their IP address shows Sherman Oaks, California. I also see they’re running a Mac, and google chrome at a pretty decent screen resolution. Must have a Macbook Pro. Nice. Oh look at all of that activity linked to this person! They seem to read a lot, even if they don’t always comment. Also looks like the other IP address matches the first comment. Funny how that works. Let’s click on that ARIN link up there towards the top and find out who this IP address belongs to.
Hmmm… interesting. Brandissimo Inc. I wonder what a google search would yield for “Brandissimo”. Let’s find out what shows up for me! I imagine if you did your own google search you’d find something similar.
Huh, lookit that! It’s a name I somewhat, if not vaguely recognize. Not who I thought it was at first, but alright. Let’s see what their site shows or says. Maybe there’s someone else who things I should “get off my ass and do something with my life.” Maybe I pissed someone off in the passed. Let’s look. Going to the Brandissimo! website gives you some weird flash thing embedded into the page. I click on the people link to see who all works here.
I cut all of the rest of the junk from the surrounding area and captured this bit. Now, there are 4 other faces you see there. And this company could very well have an army of employees underneath them, one of which is using company time to troll my website and be a complete dickhead. But I don’t know this, nor will I bother to get too far into it. For now I see that the only person who’s name is even remotely familiar is one David Gagne.
Apparently me and David were once really good friends (I hardly knew him at all). We apparently went to high school together (Um, nope) and ran with the same people. It seems we were so close that he knows without a doubt that all of my depression talk was fake (Again… nope) and made up to garner sympathy from the internet masses. All 5 of you who read… when I’ve posted a link to tell you to read.
Let’s see what the truth really is. David Gagne came across as an arrogant computer guy way back in the day when I still worked for Healthcare Recoveries Inc. I truly cannot remember a single personal conversation we ever had, and well, I don’t even remember the professional conversations we may or may not have had. This isn’t really a story about why I stopped working there, but I was let go. I think officially on the paperwork it said “Improper employee conduct” but really they found I was writing on Opendiary, printed out a handful of my entries and fired me for them. Whatever. I hated that job and only stayed for the money. They did me a favor. I haven’t looked back. I had some rough patches in life and still do, but there is something very important that I learned from working there and getting let go… I never EVER wanted to work in the computer industry as a professional. Ever.
Now mind you, this isn’t about starting a shitstorm, although I imagine the link backs might do that. Also putting up all of the screen captures and what not. This isn’t about Brandissimo, which I know absolutely nothing about. Let’s face it, I don’t even know anything about David himself. I hardly knew anything about him back then, so why would I care to know anything about him now. Here’s the thing, between the various social networks, there’s a whole lot of stuff I really don’t give a shit about. I don’t care about the dumb games people play on Facebook, so when I see someone post something on their wall, I block the app. I don’t care about the quizzes, so I block those too. I don’t, however, go to the people’s FB pages and tell them that they’re lying and saying stuff (taking quizzes, playing games) to garner sympathy. I just ignore it.
So here’s my plea to you, David. Go away. Leave me alone. Follow the golden rule we were all taught when we were little kids and just keep your comments to yourself. We were never friends. You knew me some 9 years ago back when I was interested in doing database administration work and the employer we both shared was willing to give me a shot. I got in trouble for blogging stuff on the internet and lost my job. Who cares. Is your only measure of success to have a lucrative career in the IT world? Cause it’s not for me. I’m not interested and I don’t care. My life took a huge turn in a different direction the day I walked out of those doors. I never looked back, and maybe you should do the same. I can’t even fathom what your interest in my life is, and why you feel the need to comment so harshly about things you know nothing about. You have no idea who I am today or in the past. We were never friends. Do you understand this? I don’t know what planet you’ve been living on or why you believe we were ever friends, but outside of your blog I know nothing about you, and truthfully, don’t care.
So stop reading. It’ll spare you the need to write nasty little snide remarks about the validity of my personal experiences, and it will keep me from having to spend a couple hours of my life sharing how I figured out who it was with the world.
Filed under it's called life!, techie | Comments (3)The Doctor, Vincent and Myself
Depression is a sticky situation. People often assume that it affects women. That it involves a lot of sleeping and apathetic behaviors. Or suicidal thoughts. The public is allowed to eat up whatever the media feeds them, but the reality is that depression is far more than just over-sleeping and threats to kill yourself.
I remember back in high school, the earlier years and possibly even starting in Junior High, having many terrible, suicidal thoughts. This wasn’t just the run-of-the-mill a-boy-doesn’t-like-me type of upset. I was saddened by who I was and the idea that I would never be better than I was at that moment. I had few friends and even fewer with whom I held close enough to know any different. My mother spent many years telling me that I was fat and made ugly devil faces when I was angry, high school only compounded on this horrible self-image that she helped create.
I had a best friend whom I spent most of my time with. I had people I was close-ish too. I had others I hung out with. I was social. But I always felt as though no one really understood me. No one “got me” in the way my best friend did. So when we’d fight, I’d hide. I didn’t want to answer the questions about why we, normally inseparable, weren’t eating lunch together. Why we weren’t running around spouting off lines from Shakespeare at each other as though we were somehow transported in time. Coupled with the lack of boy attentions, the fact that I didn’t like my boobs and a discomfort in my body, and the voice of my mother telling me how fat I was all the time, depression quickly set in.
I spent some time self-mutilating. I wrote initials on my ankles and wrists. I used needles and razor blades. I covered it up. I hid the scars. Today, almost all of it is gone and insignificant. I’m definitely grateful for small favors, including the one where I had no idea how far down I needed to go to make things permanent. I also had thoughts of suicide. Many of them. That I was tired of the laughing and the pointing, and the snickering behind my back. The way people talked about me, or the way I perceived them talking about me. The rumors that were spread. The general cattiness amongst the girls. The genuine need to destroy any and all things good in each other’s lives. It was far too much for this girl to handle most days.
I wrote letters. I hid them in the wall. I doubt my dad ever knew that I made that little hole in the closet to hide those things. I wrote many letters explaining why I was willing to do what I thought I wanted to do. I thought about it all the time. Planned different ways. There was even this particularly bad curve off of one of the major highways, and along the curve was this huge billboard in the middle of lots of underbrush. I often considered how fast I would have to crash into that billboard in order to make sure that it “worked.” No sticking around for the hurt and pain and endless sympathy and stares later. I knew that if I was going to do it, it was going to be for real.
I obviously didn’t do it. I’m here today writing this. The thoughts are there super rarely and often following something catastrophic like people at work treating me shittily and me being threatened to kiss some ass or I’ll be fired. But y’know, no job is worth that much stress. Pretty much ever. And if I were let go, it might be better for everyone at that point. I digress.
Last week’s Doctor Who, er, actually, two Saturday’s ago, was Vincent and the Doctor (this is the British airing date, as I’m fairly certain the U.S. is about 2 weeks behind, though I don’t know because I see them as they come out and am thus on U.K. airing time with the Doctor Who episodes). The episode itself is about Vincent van Gogh and the imaginary things he sees, but the deeper bit of the episode was the personal demons that Vincent was struggling with.
I’ll spare the details, for those in the U.S. who have yet to see the episode, but I cried. A lot. I watched the episode again last night, and again, I cried. There is something so touching and real about the end of the episode. The fact that depression often takes hold and doesn’t let go. That Vincent suffered deeply and still gave to the world so much beauty and art that there are few words to express this. Even as the authors of the episode try, the truth is, he can’t have known. Vincent that is. I can’t imagine what his life was like. I can’t imagine the pain, or the torment… or the suffering. But I can empathize. And wish for a Doctor like my Doctor to go and show him.
If there is ever a moment in your life when you’re faced with someone who suffers from depression, watch this episode. On it’s own compared to the rest of the season (or past seasons) it wasn’t the best. But stand-alone, it was touching and real. There are many of us who can related to any of the three of them (Vincent, the Doctor or Amy).
Now let’s move forward a little bit more. Sunday’s Postsecret was a particularly good one. I’ve reached the point where I don’t often read Postsecret anymore. It’s blown up and it’s no longer about secrets, at least not in the same way it used to be. But there was a Golden Gate Bridge secret. Then photos of people asking the poster not to jump. Then an email about someone who, upon taking their first walk across the bridge, saw “ribbons and messages along the way”. It was touching and to someone the person who sat on the bridge, it was very real. All of it was. It happens all the time. Someone, somewhere, has taken their own life, and it’s devastating and sad.
I could have been one of them.
For those in the U.K. needing help, not just for people who have depression but for family members and friends, check out BBC’s Headroom to learn more about depression and resources available to you.
For those in the U.S. check out Hopeline or Call 1(800)SUICIDE [1-800-784-2433] for help, day or night.
Filed under it's called life!, television | Comments (9)No Shampoo Begins Again
I can’t handle this. My head is itchy all the time. My scalp is flaky and gross. I’m not handling this regular shampoo thing all the time very well, and it’s only been a couple of weeks since I’ve been back to regular shampoo!!
The move was exhausting. My stuff is still in boxes all over the place, though the craft room is finally up and running (and it’s been used!).
I’m unsure when I’ll be able to try to work on getting on a polyphasic sleep schedule, but I know for sure I need to get away from the traditional shampoos. Here comes the transition period again that I so loved!! (*note sarcasm)
Ugh, I hope my scalp feels better soon. This itchy gross stuff is not good. Not good at all.
Filed under No Shampoo, living green | Comment (1)More experimentation
So first… the No Shampoo stuff. Here goes… As of last night I used real shampoo. With moving and packing I find that I’m constantly dirty and gross and nasty and I’m just not okay with it. I tried to get through it with the baking soda/citric acid combo, but my hair was just not being cooperative with this. So I broke down and used real shampoo and conditioner. This is not permanent, as the hope is that after the move is done and taken care of, the dusty, dirty boxes/stuff issue will resolve itself. I plan on going back to a No Shampoo regimen as soon as the hooplah of moving ends.
Oh another note, I think I’ve decided to take the plunge and try a Polyphasic Sleep Schedule. Particularly, the Everyman 3 (possibly 4.5 depending on the adjustment period and how well I do).
So here’s the thing. Someone linked the Uberman Sleep Schedule as a joke to just eliminate sleep altogether. When I first read it I guffawed. I mean, who eliminates sleep altogether! And how in the hell could this be healthy! But oh, it was definitely intriguing. It was so interesting. The thoughts of all of the things I could do if I had 22 hours of waking time made me want to cry with possibility. Just think about it. Do you find that you spend hours upon hours browsing the internet only to realize you forgot to cook, but now it’s almost time for sleeping and shit, what the hell am I gonna do now? 22 hours people. 22 amazing and productively blissful hours!! Then my brain processed to instant jealousy that anyone has the work schedule to allow for something like this. I had to shrug it off. I mean, work wouldn’t take to kindly to me asking for 3 chances in an 8 hour day to take naps. And what about the driving? And the week off I’d need to take for the first horribly sleep-deprived portion of adjustment??
So I kept reading. And she mentions the Everyman. The wha?! What’s this? And different type of polyphasic sleep?! What’s the schedule and how do I sign up!!
With Uberman the first couple weeks are absolutely crucial to the body’s ability to adapt. The nap schedule must be followed strictly and it’s even suggested to take time off from work/school in order to get over the hump. This is clearly out of the question as I’m saving my vacation time for Comic Con in July. I’m just sayin’, I gotta set my priorities here. While on Uberman the nap schedule becomes almost necessary to function normally. There’s very little give or take with regard to when you take them. They have to be within a few minutes or it throws the entire system out of whack.
Everyman has a lot more flexibility. It allows you to take your 3 naps within an hour of when you’ve scheduled it. You can also on the fly adjust from the Everyman 3 (which is a Core sleep of 3 hours and 3-4 twenty/thirty minute naps throughout the day) to the Everyman 4.5 (Core sleep of 4.5 hours and 1-2 twenty/thirty minute nap(s)). There’s a longer adjustment period (up to a month or more) but no need to take a week or two of off work in order to get over it.
Days 3 and 4 are still the hardest when you’ve finally hit the true Sleep Deprivation mode. Ah well, I know how that goes. I get that kind of groggy, wtf am I doing at work feeling with monophasic sleep (the traditional being awake for 16-ish hours a day of productivity and 8-ish hours of sleep). Though really, who actually gets the alloted 8 hours a night? I know I don’t! And I’m tired as hell because of it!
So my plan is to pick a week… maybe one in June, and see if I can’t make this happen. I always am struggling to find time to do things I want and like to do with free time. It always ends up being a This -or- that instead of a little of each. I want to crochet/knit more, but then I can’t play WoW. If I play WoW then I can’t crochet/knit. It’s a catch 22. Plus all the random internet reading, blogging, researching, randomness. Plus I’d like to go tot he gym. Maybe. One day.
I’ve worked up a schedule using chikuru’s sleep schedule as a guide. Because really I hate mornings and would much rather have more time during the dark parts of the day to do stuff than any other. Plus, I have to consider work and commuting into the equation. So my plan is to have my core between 4am and 7am, the first nap at noon (during my lunch), 2nd nap after I get home from work, and the 3rd nap at 11pm-midnight-ish.
Once I start this I’m gonna have to try to be better about, y’know, not snoozing alarms and actually getting up. Also, not oversleeping.
Filed under sleep | Comment (1)No ‘Poo continued
Part 2
So it’s been 7 days since I started this No ‘Poo trek and there have been a handful of interesting developments. It seems that I am the guinea pig amongst those closest to me. Truthfully, I’m kind of enjoying the weird status I’ve achieved. So many people are happy to hear the good things so far, but today… alas, I break the bad news.
I knew going into this that it couldn’t possibly be all these great and wonderful things only. I had an additional challenge with my long tresses as well. But before I share in the troubles of going No ‘Poo, lemme tell you about all of the good things!
So the lack of flaking head from dry scalp… well, it has gotten better. As the day(s) wore on there flaking started a little bit here and there, but it was noticeably less. When I looked at my hairline on that first day I could still see some skin even though it wasn’t flaking while brushing or blow drying. On the second washing it was even less and today, I don’t have any dry skin along my hairline. This is great news! Here I was thinking I was in dandruff denial, when it really was dry scalp all along (outside of the flaking I had none of the other typical dandruff symptoms).
Today was no ‘pooing 3… no 4 in the last 7 days. I’ve had to make the baking soda mixture once more (after the initial mixture) and the citric acid mix is still the first bottle. I have no itchy head problems like I usually do, even when I have my hair pinned up and pulled back in a pony tail. I still have no tangles when my hair is wet after washing it. Not one. So I’m going to guess that the dry scalp, itchy head and tangles are all problems that have come to existence because of the shampoo/conditioner combo.
Now for the bad news. The detox. I read that there was a detox period. I knew it was coming. The stage where the scalp is still producing the same quantity of oil as though you were stripping it of all of it’s natural oils, blah blah blah. But what no one bothered to mention was HOW MUCH oil the head was producing.
Holy effing crap Batman, I mean really now?! I feel like I’m showing in baby oil. Or better yet, vegetable oil! My hair has been pinned up AND pulled back because he greasy mess that it’s turned into is nearly impossible for me to stomach. I know and understand that it will go away. I mean, logically, I get it. But there’s got to be something in the meantime, right? Some way to lessen the gross-factor of my hair being plastered to my head and wanting to stick straight out in any direction I brush it, right? RIGHT?!
The answer is simply no. Short of going back to my old shampooing ways, there’s no other solution. I looked. I googled. I found other people who couldn’t make it through the detox phase because their bucket of goo head was driving them mad. Believe me, it’s tough.
So today I was talking to K at work and she was thinking of being her home’s guinea pig. Trying to ween herself off of the shampoo by doing every other day with the traditional shampoo and the baking soda exchange for a week and then every 2 days, etc. Thus making the detox phase less traumatizing but postponing the “All clear” for longer as well. Today I used a bit of shampoo. I get it, I’m setting myself back a few days. I know. Trust me, I know.
I’m just a weak soul. Especially when it comes to my hair. I don’t have a tiny body. I don’t have long legs, or an actress’ face. But I have always had really awesome and beautifully healthy hair. And this greezy mess is making me want to shave my head. No really, it is. So I broke down and used some shampoo first thing in the shower. Then proceeded to do the baking soda/citric acid combo. It didn’t fix the problem. Hell it didn’t really remove all the oil from my hair either. But it’s slightly more tolerable than it had been.
Noah asked me in a comment on my first post about what I was doing for the citric acid ratio. The first bottle I used was 1/2 tablespoon of citric acid crystals to 1 cup of water. This is roughly half what I saw posted regarding how much lemon juice or apple cider vinegar to use with water. Maybe this is just much more than needed. Next bottle I’m going to try 1 teaspoon of citric acid crystals to 1 cup of water. Maybe this will also help with the greasy factor. Maybe skip this phase once a week. In the meantime, I’m going to use a tiny bit of shampoo once a week until this entire greasy head thing has ceased.
Other than that I have no complaints. It’s super easy. I’ve adjusted to the method of rubbing my scalp instead of trying to get a lather. I’ve also read some more on SLS (Sodium Lauryl Sulfate) and what it does exactly. It’s basically an irritant and the foaming agent. Yay foam! I love the foam. But I’m working on getting over my foam love in favor of the other benefits.
Here’s to getting through this detox phase… cause I’m over that part.
Filed under living green | Comment (0)No ‘Poo has gone viral… almost
Part One
The other day, while on Facebook, a friend of mine linked an article about how to clean your hair without shampoo. I read through the article, and then decided to read through a handful of other articles (there are 5 different links in there, if you’re curious about what I’ve been reading) before making a decision about this process. When I turned around and shared the link with my own friends… I won’t lie, I was surprised by the amount of interest from so many others. At least 3 other people relinked the same article and there were TONS of comments on everyone else’s posts as well as my own (and by ton I meant more than 4).
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m internally a hippy, even if on the outside I refuse to wear patchouli or burn incense ALL the time. I don’t smell like sage, and I don’t own a single skirt that goes to my ankles. But I am interested in decreasing my own personal carbon footprint (to be PC about it) as well as decreasing the quantity of junk I put in my body as well as what I put on my body. There are a hundred different reasons for a thousand different people, but mostly it’s because I’m tired of having weird unexplainable crap happen to my body. It’s time to make my body a place of zen… again… like when I was a little kid. It’s my own little personal biosphere, really, when you think about it. Why not make it a happy place instead of an always conspiring against you place. And yes, my body is constantly conspiring against me.
In almost all of the pictures I’ve seen about what people’s hair looks like, the styles all seem to be of a short nature. I have absolutely nothing against short hairstyles, but I do not have one of those. My hair, at the longest point, goes to the middle of my back. I believe this poses an entirely different set of rules and processes while going No ‘Poo. Like my hair did not feel “de-greased” when I used the baking soda mixture. I used it, rinsed, used it, rinsed, then finally broke down and used a teeny bit of shampoo to actually degrease my hair, used the baking soda again.
Now here’s where my crazed yarn love and small stint in dying comes into play. When you dye natural fibers (like wool and silk), you need to make sure the dye is acidic. It is also suggested that you use similar ingredients as the ones mentioned for the “conditioner” portion of all of this. To balance the pH of your hair and bring it back to normal. So instead of using apple cider vinegar or lemon juice (which is hard to find sans sugar and other junk in it), I have citric acid crystals (or powder). You need a lot less of this in your conditioner mixture, but it accomplishes the same thing as the vinegar and lemon juice. It also has no scent or color what-so-ever.
I noticed a definite difference in the texture of my hair when I put the “conditioner” in my hair and let it sit for about 15 seconds or so. After rinsing it out I finished my shower like any other. The real interesting stuff seemed to be things I noticed after I was dressed and dealing with my hair outside of the shower setting.
Even with shampoo and conditioner, when brushing my hair (yes while wet… yeah yeah, I know the warnings and I don’t care) I often had tangles. With the baking soda/citric acid combo, I had not even one tangle. This may have been a fluke since it really is only the first day and I have nothing else to compare it to, but if this is a trend that will continue, my hair and head will be happy for the change.
On a typical shampoo day, it takes somewhere between a half hour and an hour to deal with my tresses. That includes putting some sort of shiny-fier if I’m going out and want extra shiny hair, blow drying and flat ironing for lack of fly-aways and style. Half hour is pretty generous for short timing, as it’s usually much longer. My hair always seemed to hold gallons of water even after I had towel-dried and even somewhat air-dried my hair. However, with the No ‘Poo process I had none of this. My hair started to have the dry-flippy bits within minutes of towel-drying. Also, blow drying AND flat ironing took half the amount of time it normally does. Half. This is mind blowing. I decided on a hair style that requires me to actually DO something with it all the time. It was a poor choice, but a cute hairstyle. What’s a girl to do?! Apparently, ditch the shampoo and you are blessed with you time being yours again.
Another thing to note is that I have dry scalp. It flakes like dandruff, but isn’t dandruff. But I have super oily hair. It’s really quite the conundrum. It doesn’t even make sense!! Until I read through so many things regarding the detergents in shampoo. I understand the biosciences of the body and know that my scalp is working overtime to adjust, but I’m stripping everything with shampoo. Got it. While my scalp is still noticeably dry along the hairline, there was no flaking. No flaking while blow drying my hair. No flaking when brushing AFTER it was dry. No flaking the next morning (aka this morning).
Again I point out that this is all stuff that stuck out for me. Things I definitely noticed without realizing that there might be a difference. I know there’s a detox period of about 2 weeks in which my scalp still produces the same quantity of oil as it was when using shampoo. So I might find that I’m “shampooing” every other day for the first couple of weeks while I try to keep my hair from turning into a fire hazard.
I will keep you posted on the progress and changes. I figure there will be complaints at some point about the process, and I will gladly document those too.
Filed under it's called life!, living green | Comments (7)Another $10 spent
I decided that I would make 2 amigurumi dolls. I want to enter each of them into a different county fair. Last year I entered a doll and the wonderful thing won first place. The hope is for something similar this year… but I also want people to see what I can do.
The thing is, I’m not following a pattern per se. I’m improvising. I’m no artist, by any means, but I have a love of color. And so this entire process has been months in the making, months in the planning and a few days ago I started working. Two arms. Two ears. And a head, and I found myself stuck at the eyes. I had only one style of acrylic eyes in the correct size. Well, I guess this little bunny is getting amber colored eyes. I found myself back on CR’s Crafts looking up doll eyes again. The last time I found myself on that site, I had just purchased Elizabeth Doherty‘s book Amigurumi!: Super Happy Crochet Cute and really wanted to make one of the dolls. Not just the cute other stuff that is in the beginning of the book. I wanted to bypass all of the smaller projects and jump right into the big elaborate dolls.
I found my eyes, and this time I found more eyes in the size for the dolls I want to make (and a few extra, just in case).
I find myself buying a lot of little things here and there. I stopped at Michael’s the other day ready to find exactly what I needed because I had a plan!! Except my plan backfired on me and I wasted the money from a Xmas gift card. Ah well, it was a lesson learned.
Does it mean I’m stealing? Using bits that I like from each ami designer? Deciding on the clothes I want to make… having nothing to do with any of the other designers and authors? I have a hard time understanding at what point it becomes “mine” instead of a copy of theirs. I guess when the time comes I’ll figure it all out.
Back to the doll… I’m at a point where I need to make decisions about colors. What color to make the undies. What color to make the sweater. What color to make the shirt, the underskirt, the shoes, etc. And while I can imagine all of these colors in my head, so far nothing is going quite how I expected it to. I had other plans for the sweater… AND the shirt. If there’s a way for a person who can’t draw to be at a drawing board, I’m that person. I now need to try to figure out how to get this all worked out. Design clothing, too. I don’t design clothes! Not only am I going to have to figure out how to design clothing, but I need to do it on a much smaller scale!
So here I am. Wondering what to do next. *heavy sigh*
Filed under amigurumi, crafting | Comment (1)Completed Socks!
In an effort to share more of the stuff I’m actually working on, I’m going to try to be better about posting the things I’m making and working on… sometimes I’ll do it as I make it, but most of the time I’ll share after it’s over. And even still, when it’s a surprise gift I’ll work on sharing photos after the giftee has received the item.
My knitting is finally getting better and I’m getting faster. I’m still pretty terrible at actually doing purl stitches in continental, but I love knitting socks because it’s all knit stitches!
I fell in love with this pattern the first time I saw it in Wendy Johnson‘s Socks from the Toe Up. I had tried to work Riding on the Metro with a different yarn that was self-striping and it just didn’t look quite right. I ended up making a different sock from the purple, black and gray yarn (also from Wendy’s book, go figure!). I decided to work these socks two-at-a-time, though I don’t like working top-down, like the book has you work. So I worked each toe on double points and then transferred the stitches onto the circular.
Here are both of my pasty white legs wearing my new pair of socks. These were knit up in Cascade Heritage Sock Solid in the Colorway Anis.
I ran into some issues when it came to the heel. Probably because of the way that Wendy has you work on the heels from the toe up. I’m not entirely sure how the heels are worked when they’re worked cuff down. The book shows photos of what looks like making a flap for the heel, but I prefer the way Wendy does it.
I love the way these socks feel and I love this pattern even more. I’m super excited to have a pair of socks that are already done and made, since I made both of them at the same time, but man oh man did it seem to take an awful long time!
Next project?? I think I’m going to work on a shawlette (also by Wendy), and some fair entries… Amigurumi dolls. I’m still working on the details of exactly what I’m going to make.
Filed under crafting, photos | Comment (0)The Epic Search for a Digital Camera
Over the last however many years digital cameras have existed, I’ve owned my fair share. My first was a really old, super bulky, Sony CyberShot. I love the hell out of that thing and while it didn’t exactly die, it just became a nuisance to carry. Digital cameras have been shrinking in size and portability, but expanding on their capabilities. Removing DSLRs from the mix, the Point-and-Shoot cameras have gotten so good that it’s nearly impossible to figure out which ones will be the best choice for my application.
The criteria for what I was looking for:
Point-and-Shoot (P&S): It had to be portable. Maybe not necessarily pocketable, but I didn’t want something bulky. As portable as possible, that’s for sure. I understand that DSLRs take the best true macro shots, it’s simply not in the cards for this gal.
Price: The price of the camera needed to be in the $350 and below range. I wasn’t looking to spend my rent money on a camera. The cheaper the better sure, but there’s an understanding that inexpensive cameras aren’t always very good cameras. Thus why I set the price range a tad higher than what I would truly rather spend (about $200). The name brand models fall in the more expensive range, but the technology that these cameras offer also tend to be better. It’s a cost/benefit analysis in the end.
Macro: This is a must. I needs to do macro/close-up shots. It doesn’t have to do them fantastically or like I said to a friend “I don’t need National Geographic quality pics.” And the statement can’t be more true. I’m less likely going to use the camera for things like bugs, flower, dew drops and the like and more for other macro type shots. Because of this, I don’t need perfection. I just need good. Damn good is ideal, but I’ll settle for good and able.
In searching for a digital camera that had these three qualities I ran into many opinions and articles. David Pogue’s over at the NY Times was the first article I read, many weeks ago. It was an interesting insight into the various feature sets of each individual camera and I looked closely at all of the three he mentioned as the top 3. However, no where could I find that any of them had the macro/close-up setting. I was terribly disappointed.
Next came the google searches on various word combinations in hopes that I night score with finding a nice comparison piece on macro enabled P&S cameras. Yeah, as you can imagine, I found an awful lot of junk and very little of anything that was fruitful. After much frustration, I gave up the search.
Until today.
And then I went on yet another search for macro-abled P&S cameras. A kind friend pointed me towards Steve’s DigiCams. Rather than hoping I find something I went straight for the Best Cameras link. For anyone curious about digital cameras, this site gives you an excellent quick look and separates all the cameras into nice little categories. However, no “does it do macro?” category. /doublesigh
After much searching and some additional frustration I stumbled across Engadget Labs article on the best point-and-shoot cameras under $400. So, first of all, thank you guys at Engadget for giving me the exact kind of comparisons (in shots, quality, gripes and goodies of each, etc) I needed to see and read. After looking at the photos and reading what was said about their first choice camera (of the small number they looked at, mind you), I think I’m going to go with their choice for the Samsung SL820. Now when I have a couple hundred dollars, I’ll be picking this up (and keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn’t disappoint).
Moral of the story from this entire many month long experience?? Read a lot of tech magazines. Look at the related links. And wait until the expensive camera comes down in price.
Filed under gadgets, media, techie | Comment (0)My nook… and ebooks in general
I am, without a doubt, a book lover. While I was in school I found myself buying books upon books where they sat, collecting dust on my bookshelves as the pile grew more and more. My large bookshelves (note: more than one) are already brimming with books that I have read and those I have not had the pleasure of reading including paperbacks being two deep that the new books are literally piled on top of each other, for lack of space. Books that I bought and loads of books that other people bought for me. My lack of free time kept me from being able to make a dent in the fantastic world of psychology as well as fiction stories.
I am also one that has many hobbies. I have tried to find a balance between my love of knitting and crocheting, video games and reading. After 2 years of intense schooling (my last semester yielding me 18 units and no free time) I needed a break from reading. I won’t lie, I had spent so much time reading that the last thing I wanted to do was read for pleasure. Period.
Since getting my nook, I find myself reading much more often. Initially there was the “Oh! Shiny!” factor, but it has now become something more significant than just a new gadget for me. The almost instant on to the last thing I was reading makes it so much easier to read a few pages, or a chapter, and set it down again. No need to prop the book open. No need to find a comfortable position to rest my elbow. I hold my nook in my hand or rest it in my lap. While laying in bed it weighs exactly the same if it’s 200 pages or 800 pages. I prop up my book light as I would with a paperback, but no need to shift from side to side, or change the way I lay down to read. The inconvenience of reading an actual book in bed is no longer there.
I must say though, I will not stop buying physical books. There is nothing I love more than walking into the infinite possibility that is a bookstore. Small or large, new or used. I have been known to judge a book by its cover or by its title. I found gems and duds, but rarely do I regret a purchase because I learn something from the experience of reading a new author, an unknown author, or a well-known author I’ve never had the pleasure of reading previously. My purchase of physical books will just slow down, tremendously. Especially with the only new bookstore within 50+ miles of me closing down.
Filed under gadgets, techie | Comment (1)
