Random Bits (With An Emphasis On Retail Therapy)

I am now the sort of man that celebrates special events, like the new job, by splurging and buying two knitting books from the Internet.* Rock on!

After being sick and tired of my less than fabulous tv reception at home, I broke out and bought a digital set top box late last week. Folks, it's a miracle. I'm still struggling with getting one of the channels properly, the signal keeps breaking up, but aside from that everything is crisp and lovely. O joyous day! I had a moment of pause when I realised that the channel I wasn't able to get properly was Channel 7 and that meant no Sunday night Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy. I think I even cried bitter, bitter tears a bit. But then the stars aligned and I was able to get passable reception long enough to watch my stories. Yay! George being pensive in high def! Izzie cried (again)!

I spent a lovely afternoon on Saturday with Mikey (the lovely ex) buying house paint for his apartment. Artisanal house paint. Not just any house paint, but the bloody Gucci of house paints, sweetie. Then of course, being who we are, there were drinks afterwards.

I've been knitting a ::blah, blah:: ::secret project:: ::blah, blah:: for a friend and I have one row left to knit before I can take it off the needles and sew it together. w00t! The first time I've followed a pattern. I was dead dog tired last night but I considered powering on regardless. Except, that my friends is when you drop stitches at a critical point and completely screw it up. [/end voice of experience]

Speaking of knitting, yesterday afternoon we had a visitor all the way from the U.K. for our pub knitting session at The Courthouse Hotel. New Zealand last week, and Scotland (via Yorkshire) this week. International Pub Knitting that should be. It's interesting because hobbies like knitting (and the same goes for photography I've discovered) are the great icebreakers. With a common interest like these there are plenty of experiences that are universal, and it's never that hard to get a conversation going.

* For those who might be interested - I bought Knitting Without Tears by Elizabeth Zimmermann, because I secretly aspire to joing the Cult Of Zimmermann (and I want to be Brooklyntweed when I grow up). I also bought Scarf Style because there are at least 3 or 4 patterns in there I want to make.