Knitting/Cat Storage

A few weeks ago I decided it was about time I learned how to knit. I plan to post more about that soon (including photos, which aren’t transferred to my computer yet), but I have this photo on my iPhone just waiting to be posted…

See, with the knitting has come more yarn, with more need to find places to store it. I found some great containers, particularly perfect for balls of kitchen cotton.

And cats.

XXIX Summer Olympics – Are you watching?

I’m sitting here watching tonight’s (that would Monday the 11th, though I’m posting this early on the 12th) primetime Summer Olympics coverage, and thought I’d pose a couple of questions to whomever might wander this way: Do you watch the Olympics, and if so, what are your must-not-miss events?

I don’t remember ever not watching any Olympic coverage (I’m not sure where I get this, since neither of my parents care at all), but since getting a TiVo several years ago, it certainly is easier to watch as much as I have time for. Probably my favorite event of all comes from the Winter Olympics (figure skating; in high school I had photos from magazines hung up in my room, but they weren’t of the usual teen heartthrobs, but instead my favorite figure skaters of all nationalities), but in the summer I try to not miss any gymnastic coverage.

I’ve also always enjoyed diving, but I now watch a lot of swimming. I also try to make time for beach volleyball, equestrian, and synchronized swimming. So far this year I’ve at least watched a little water polo, handball, badminton, and rowing, and will probably watch a little of whatever else comes up on my television screen.

Something fun to peruse when you have a little time is the Wikipedia page for the Summer Olympics to see all the sports that have been played over the years. Tug of war? Croquet? Sounds like good times.

Because I Can

WordPress recently released their new iPhone app, and I’ve been wanting to try it out before going to the Stampin’ Up! convention next week, since I’ll probably want to do a little blogging but am really hoping to not need to bring my laptop.

So here’s a quick pic of the new item I picked up for my cats this evening at Menard’s (I really know how to spend a Friday night, right?). The box calls it a “Kitty Stepper,” and while it’s hard to tell from the photo (getting Guinness and Blazer to stay still enough for one photo was a chore), there are four full levels for them to enjoy.

Continuing Adventures in Tea

Sometime in May, I started thinking that drinking tea at home would be so much easier if I had an electric tea kettle. At work we have hot water spigots both on the coffee machine and the water cooler, so making a hot drink is quick and easy whenever you’d like. But at home I find that if I have to wait five to ten minutes just for the water to heat up, let alone the added time for the tea to steep, I’m probably going to just grab a can of pop instead.

Because I’m at least trying to do a few small things that are healthier, I began investigating my options in electric kettles. It turns out that there are models out there where you can choose different heat settings, perfect for steeping different types of tea at the various temperatures they’re best at. I ended up choosing the Upton Tea Imports Variable Temperature Electric Kettle, which my parents agreed to order for my birthday. However, my mom only got around to ordering it a few days beforehand, and my birthday fell on a Saturday to boot, so I figured I wouldn’t be seeing it for a while. To my surprise, it had shown up in time after all, taking at most four days. I made a cup of Scarlet Cloud white tea to enjoy in the sunroom that morning, and it really did taste better steeped at a lower temperature.

I was so impressed by the shipping speed from Upton Tea Imports, that I decided to put in a small order that following Monday to see how their tea is. I ended up selecting Season’s Pick Earl Grey Crème Vanilla, Assam Zaloni Estate TGFOP, and a few handy clips that make using loose leaf filter bags so much easier. The first pleasant surprise was that all of this arrived in a mere two days for the same $4 standard shipping cost, even though the total order was only about $17. The second very pleasant surprise was just how much tea I received. I hadn’t considered at all how much tea 125 or 250 grams was going to be (if you’re supposed to learn conversions at some point in school, this is probably the greatest failing of my education). I’m used to buying by the ounce at Teavana, and figured that if the prices were comparable, $4.20 for 125 grams of the Assam would probably be about two ounces, and $5.40 for 250 grams of the Earl Grey would be about four ounces (though this one in particular would still be a really good price compared to Teavana). It turns out that 125 grams is nearly 4.5 ounces. This tea is seriously going to last me a while.

And I liked how they tasted so much and found the prices so agreeable that I put in another order on Thursday (I swear, this will be it for a while), and am hoping it will arrive today or tomorrow. It will contain Mélange de Chamonix, New England Harvest Blend, Summer Blend, Scottish Breakfast Blend, a strainer (I’m experimenting with making iced tea from some of my loose leaf teas with the Bodum Ceylon Ice Tea Jug, but having trouble with some tea bits creeping their way into the tea, which I’m not finding appetizing), and an Upton Team Imports mug. Because I need another mug, right?

Miscellany

Thanks to Dawn for mentioning the diet soda popsicles — I finally tried a couple, and they’re fabulous. Except no jokes on mine; maybe next time. I don’t usually go for popsicles of any type — I think it has more to do with having senstive teeth than anything, but thanks to sensitive-teeth toothpaste they don’t bother me as much — but I’m glad I sought these out. Not that it was difficult; I only had to look at Super Target.

Also at Super Target, my favorite everyday ice cream is back: Archer Farms Peanut Butter Fudge. I’m not sure why it was gone (my best guess is that it has been downsized, like I’ve been reading about lots of products lately), but it’s just as peanut buttery as ever, and I think the ice cream is actually being back to being more fudgey and less just chocolatey.

In other news, the 2008 Stampin’ Up Convention — 20th anniversary! — is a mere month away. I really need to figure out what I’m doing for swaps.

Blogging Does a Mind Good

Thanks to my RSS feeds, I ran across a story at Scientific American about a study that suggests that blogging might be therapeutic, even “self-medicating.”

Now, I don’t really have any serious medical issues I’m dealing with, such as cancer (those undergoing cancer treatment were the focus of the study), but it does seem to me like often just writing something down will help me deal with it. I don’t really blog — most of the time — about things I might want to complain about or stressful things, but sometimes venting those concerns in writing (such as by email or IM with a friend, or maybe writing/typing in a personal journal) does help me clear the air or at least clarify my thoughts about something.

The difference for a blog to a single conversation or journal entry, however, is that it can foster more widespread feedback on whatever it is you’re writing about. From the SciAm article:

Unlike a bedside journal, blogging offers the added benefit of receptive readers in similar situations, Morgan explains: “Individuals are connecting to one another and witnessing each other’s expressions—the basis for forming a community.”

What blogger doesn’t like to see a few comments to her post?

Mix CD

I’ve kinda been missing putting together mix CDs for the exchanges over at the Batcave, so when I was putting together a little Minnesota care package/birthday gift a couple of weeks ago for my friend Jessica who moved to New York State a while back, I thought it would be fun to include a mix CD with some of my current favorite music, focusing on things I enjoy listening to while driving. This mostly means that the songs are either upbeat or I enjoy singing along with them…or both.

• Philosophy – Ben Folds Five
• Love Song – Sara Bareilles
• Let Me Go – Sonya Kitchell
• Bubbly – Colbie Caillat
• I Want You – Rachel Yamagata
• Dirty Little Secrets – The All-American Rejects
• Shut Your Eyes – Snow Patrol
• Madly – Tristan Prettyman
• Suddenly I See – KT Tunstall
• Shy That Way – Tristan Prettyman & Jason Mraz
• Myriad Harbour – The New Pornographers
• Kate – Ben Folds Five
• I Turn My Camera On – Spoon
• We Used to Be Friends – The Daddy Warhols
• Down in Mississippi (Up To No Good) – Sugarland
• Beautiful – G. Love & Tristan Prettyman
• 9 Crimes – Damien Rice
• Hey There Delilah – Plain White T’s
• Keep Breathing – Ingrid Michaelson
• Did You Get My Message? – Jason Mraz
• Heavenly Day – Patty Griffin

I’m kind of amused that Tristan Prettyman ended up on there three times; I didn’t realize it until I was listening to the playlist.

Video Games I Want

[Note: If you're a Batling who frequents the Batcave, a lot of this is going to seem like déjà vu.]

I think I’ve mentioned the various video gaming devices I own: Sony PSP, Nintendo DS, and most recently a Nintendo Wii. (I also own a Nintendo Game Cube…though that’s mostly because I haven’t gotten around to figuring out how best to get rid of it yet.) Lately I’ve been on the lookout for upcoming games that sound decent, particularly for the DS since it’s what I tend to play the most.

Viva Piñata news: It’s coming out for Nintendo DS in the fall. Since I still haven’t figured out what the deal is with the PC version not working properly (probably my graphics and/or video card — I’m really not a hardware person — but it’s the only program I’ve had trouble with and I haven’t had time to investigate much), this might allow me to finally play the game, and a portable edition sounds great.

A couple weeks ago I had an opportunity to try out Rock Band. I have no idea why they tried to put me on drums first, but it was a good deal more difficult than it looked. They switched me to bass, which I started picking up fairly well before the song was over. The sad truth is that if I can figure out where to put all the equipment (a definite problem at the moment) I may end up getting the Wii version eventually (it’s due to be released June 22).

Also due out June 22 is the DS version of Guitar Hero. I’ve watched videos online of kids playing and I’m still not sure how that’s going to work, but I’m seriously intrigued.

One game that I want and will actually have soon is Mario Kart Wii. It and a few extra wheels are due to arrive Monday. I actually played this when I was at Best Buy recently — something I don’t think I’ve ever done, at least in part because the games are usually monopolized by kids — but now I’m looking forward to it even more.

Also due to arrive before the end of the month is the Wii Fit. I preordered that the minute the email from Amazon arrived letting me know it was available.

So, any games you’d like to recommend?

Series Challenge Season 2

I love the series challenge that is being hosted by Kathrin, because I can be really horrible about not keeping up with series. I start lots of new ones, but end up neglecting ones I’ve already started in the process. I didn’t participate in the first season (it’s entirely possible I just didn’t know about it early enough), but I have a few series that I’d like to reconnect with in the next few months so might as well hop on board.

I’m not going to go crazy and think I’m going to catch up with J.D. Robb’s In Death series or anything (at the moment I’ve read 13 of the 27 full-length novels), but instead will focus on a few series where I have just a few books remaining to catch up. I’m also not including those series where I only have one left to catch up, since I’m already trying to keep up with those. Here’s my list:

1. Madelyn Alt – Maggie O’Neill

• #2, A Charmed Death
• #3, Hex Marks the Spot

2. Monica Ferris – Betsy Devonshire

• #9, Embroidered Truths
• #10, Sins and Needles
• #11, Knitting Bones

3. Linda O. Johnston – Kendra Ballantyne

• #2, Nothing to Fear but Ferrets
• #3, Fine-Feathered Death
• #4, Meow is for Murder
• #5, Fright of the Iguana

4. Victoria Laurie – Abby Cooper

• #4, Killer Insight
• #5, Crime Seen

5. Emilie Richards – Aggie Sloan-Wilcox

• #2, Let There Be Suspects
• #3, Beware False Profits

6. Ayelet Waldman – Juliet Applebaum

• #6, The Cradle Robbers
• #7, Bye-Bye, Black Sheep

I hope I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew! Two to three books a month doesn’t seem unreasonable and still leaves me time to read other books, so I might actually be able to finish this challenge unless something unexpected happens.

Get Thee to an RSS Reader

A few weeks ago my friend/former coworker Linda wrote about Google Reader on her new blog. I had certainly heard of Google Reader before, but had no idea why I’d want to use it until I read this post. It suddenly clicked that it was solution to my problem of not being able to keep up with various friends’ blogs, or at least the problem of remembering to visit them on a regular basis. What could be better than those new posts coming directly to me instead?

I wasn’t really sure how it would all work, but within a few days I decided to give it a try. It was easy and marvelous. I put pretty much my entire blogroll in there, and while it was nice to catch up on recent posts I had missed, it is even better now that they just arrive on their own, no effort on my part at all except to read and enjoy. And if I want to post a comment or there’s content I want to view that doesn’t show up in the reader, I just click on the link for the post and proceed as usual.

It wasn’t long before I realized that I could get all sorts of other things fed to me automatically: all my other favorite blogs, news, baseball blogs and news, my favorite content from EW.com, Dilbert…I just can’t believe how much stuff I want to read is available without me having to go look for it more than once to grab the feed’s URL. It’s sort of like TiVo for the Internet — everything just shows up and I read it when I want to. One other really nice thing is that I’m actually able to unsubscribe from a bunch of things I have been receiving by email and never get around to reading.

One test of the reader was when I went to Las Vegas a couple weeks ago. Vegas was a general test for my iPhone, to see if I really could get by on a short trip without dragging my laptop along and still keep up with important email, fantasy baseball rosters, and the like. But would I enjoy the mobile Google Reader as much as I had been in a browser? Yes and no. All the content was there, and it’s optimized for iPhone a bit so it was easy to read and navigate, but it lacked the organization I had set up in the standard reader and was a little more work than the regular version.

I had intended to try out other web-based readers to see which I liked best, and finally got around to doing so after realizing that one thing I didn’t like about Google Reader was how limited the area for my list of subscriptions was; even after organizing them into just a few tags I was constantly scrolling around this small area. Earlier this week I decided to check out Bloglines, and I fell in love all over again. There is more room for my list of subscriptions (which has grown quite a bit this week as I find more and more sites that have RSS feeds); it has a Clippings area that for some reason I like better than starring them in Google Reader; and the iPhone version, after tweaking my preferences a bit, is everything I could ask for. Plus, for some reason I’ve never been particularly fond of the Google “look,” and Bloglines is just more appealing to me aesthetically.

So now I’m trying out lots of different feeds, trimming them out if they don’t work for me, hopefully ending up with lots of stuff I’ve already been enjoying the hard way, plus new things I otherwise wouldn’t seek out or have time for. If you haven’t already, give an RSS reader a try. If you like it half as much as I do it’ll be worth it.