out for a while

the audioblog about this never showed up.

my middle right finger is busted so i can only type with my left hand. i won't be online until my finger is healed. *cross healthy fingers that it's not broken*

this would be funny if it wasn't painful.

pink hair

hooray! i've finished one of the canvases!



it's a pretty silly painting but i've enjoyed working on it. AND i'm happy to report that i can still paint as fast as i used to on larger paintings! (i know, this doesn't matter to anyone but me but it was nice to see that i can still crank out paintings should the need arise.)

do i ever sleep?!

no! no, i don't! (but clouseau (the cat in this photo) does!)

in addition to reorganizing the entire house and running to and from the post office, i've started two new paintings



and have been making more prints.



(that's the inked master. mmmmmm...inked master!)

the paintings are based on a character from love hina. i'm really enjoying this whole large scale painting thing. i've been working tiny, tiny, tiny since college. (it saves on space which is important since i don't have a studio.)

etsy hearts pacman too!

as promised, i'm back and the self pity's been banished to the other room. sorry about that last post.

today i have reason to be doing cheerleader type kicks and jumps! because my pacman card is one of the featured items on etsy's home page!! the screengrab:



i mean, how totally freakin' unexpected! i almost didn't print that card because i thought no one would like it. thanks for the self esteem boost, etsy! *happy smiley*

one short post in which i bitch very quickly

je suis fatigue. i am tired. ich bin ein berliner. no, hang on, i'm not a jelly doughnut. unless they're hella exhausted. in which case, berliner = me.

on top of exhaustion (which is directly caused by the pseudo in-law's pending visit)let's add a heaping helping of resentment because WAAAAAAH!! i'm going to miss the ddr4ever party. (grrr! + boo hiss! at the pseudo in-law's bad timing!)



(isn't that the greatest invite?)

i'm pissy, it's rainy and my left shoulder is all knotted up with stress. poor me. pity party, etc.

*storm cloud over head*

tomorrow we'll return to our regularly scheduled programming in which i don't have the smallest violin in the world accompanying me in the background. promise.

more good news

i finally get to watch kamikaze girls/shimotsuma monogatari!



it was only playing in seattle for about a week and i missed it. probably because i was buying groceries or something equally lame.

but now i can watch it as many times as i want! viva netflix! long live netflix!

keyboard confessional

ok, i have a confession to make. i've been thinking about joining a roller derby team since leff and i were looking into austin in '04. shut up! don't laugh! (ok, you can laugh. but, you know, try to keep it down, ok?)

i've been talking about this mania of mine with leff lately, esp during commercial breaks for rollergirls and while he's concerned about two things 1) my busted-up knee and 2) the fact that i don't heal very quickly, he's down with it.

i also mentioned it to cb today and, yes, he can see me doing roller derby too. (esp since we used to skate together. he was much better than me, btw.)

so, given these votes of confidence(sometimes, my own is not enough)i've decided to start training for tryouts. not this year though! omg, no way! i haven't skated in YEARS and i need some time to relearn that skill! but if there are tryouts for the rat city rollergirls next year, i'm going to be there.

i probably won't make the team, in fact, i'm fairly certain that i won't, but at least i'll try.

and won't that be a lovely thing to write home to padre about. hahaha!

post -ern of late

why do i insist upon inflicting these titles on you?

since i'm feeling better now (although i reserve the right to retract that statement if i end up in the middle of 30 some days of rain again) i thought it might be nice to post something.

i'm not counting the etsy post as an entry, are you?

besides etsy i've not been doing much but sketching and getting ready for leff's mom to visit from d.c. (i won't go into details about it. let's just say that i've got two weeks to become perfect for the psuedo in-law. we can all laugh at the futility of that venture but i'm going to try. because i'm a masochist.)

but before i become ms. manners and martha stewart remixed and redux, let's get on with this post, shall we?

i've had a huge flirtation with cupcakes all week. it started when i visited leff at his office on monday. we had lunch at zack's(?? whatever the name, killer chicken sammich) and quickly followed it with treats from cupcake royale.



aren't they tempting? leff and i split a vanilla baby cake. here it is in the wild



and a chocolate mofro (mofro = mocha frosting. deeeeliciuos! i can never get my mocha frosting to equal theirs.)



you'd think that those cupcakes would have been enough. nope. i made a batch of chocolate ones with meringue as icing later that week.



and then, since i couldn't eat any more sugar, i drew a cupcake yesterday.



i think that's going to become a print of some sort.

before we finish "the week in food" i'll mention the banana hello kitty cake



chotda sent me this kit when i was still living in memphis. i don't know why i hadn't made it yet because i love fake banana flavoring. it was, quite simply, wonderful. although i think i might be the only living person that might think so. i'm fairly certain that zombies might agree with me, however.

the weekend before all of this food, leff and i went to pacsci to see their annual model train show. (look, leff and i like models and dioramas, ok? there are stranger things to like, i just can't think of any right now...)

pacsci rocks. they have animatronic dinosaurs!



and a tropical butterfly room! (i think it's the warmest place in seattle. i know it was the warmest i've been since colorado. i heat, er, heart the butterfly room!)



(that's a photo of a butterfly on leff's hoodie. i love this photo because of the cracked out looking lady in the background. hee hee!)

speaking of photos of strangers, this one *still* makes me laugh!!



can you believe how good his aim is? *LAUGHING!!*

the day after pacsci, we hit the international district. yes, uwajimaya because of ramen, the best locally made tofu in seattle and the close proximity to kinokuniya which happens to have pinky st figures in stock!



can i get a "EEEP! EEEP!" (yeah, that's not got quite so much street cred as asking for a "wha wha" or a "whoo whoo" but i want eeps, damn it!)

we also hit pink godzilla which is a retro gaming store (can i tell you how giddy it made me? me, giddy. 'nuff said!)



and international model toys where leff got me one of the figumate figures!



he got himself some cowboy bebop and thunderbirds figures as well.

speaking of toys, if leff ever wakes up, we're going to drop by okok today and check out their selection. (it's a hybrid gallery/cool stuff place. kind of like blue bottle.)

the same day as the international district, we meandered around pioneer square. i FINALLY made it to elliot bay books--- HUUUUGE! COOOL! OVERWHELMING! must go back later

also, same day, the seattle mystery bookshop. and, oh my goodness! vintage agatha christie books for 99 cents!



did i mention a whole shelf of allinghams? and comfy chairs? and fake blood on the floor? *heaven!* perfect for crazy cat ladies such as me!



and on that note, i'm going to wake leff up. it's the grand reopening of the seattle asian art museum today and we've already missed the chinese lion dance. at this rate, we're going to miss the free coffee and taiko drummers too. silly old leff!

my etsy store is open for bidness

yessirree, bob! and here's the link.

i included a screenshot for those of you who can't be bothered.



i only have two things listed at the moment because the other two cards that i've printed are drying. and you can't scan a wet card. seriously, it's in the owner's manual.

i'm going on very temp sick leave

remember how i mentioned that it didn't rain here (seattle) all that much? uh huh, yeah, well, um...i think i might've been a bit premature in writing that.

we're now in the middle of 23 days and counting of rain with occasional bouts of rain. the record for most consecutive days of rainfall for the city (33 days) was set in 1953. if all of the meteorologists in king county are correct in their forecasts (and let's face it, 50 million elvis fans can't be wrong)(it's a "king" joke, get it?), we may be giving 1953 a run for its money.

that brings me to the point of this post. me and winter? never a good mix because of the lack of sunlight. me and winter with pretty much no sun for 23 days? it's becoming a bit of a problem.

i'm going to be hibernating for a while to recharge my batteries, bury myself in work and drink a hell of a lot of coffee. which means some time away from the keyboard.

don't fret, cupcakes. i'll still be going live with the etsy store next week. just not much blogging for a bit.

but here's a picture of a plastic virgin mary riding a papaya on a moving sidewalk to tide you over.



it's an immaculate procession. sort of.

i told you that i really need to take a break. see you soon!

quick update

i'm in a bit of a funk so i'll make this short

new stuff:

1) ms peel, my cat, is sick. details here.

2) scorecard for the toe this week--bashed twice against the same chair. i think i'm going to wear steel toed boots around the house from now on.

3) lego star wars is better than all three of the prequels combined. lucas should have left everything to the video game and to clone wars

4) there's been a dead gull in front of our building for three days now. i think west nile. leff thinks the thing just died. (i think west nile because it's followed me across the country starting in 2000 when i was living on the east coast of the u.s. seriously, look at what the mosquito killing chemicals did to my hair!



5) supplies for valentines cards have been ordered. which means that i'll be printing things for etsy. the store should be open within the next week or so. HOORAY! (sorry to have made you wait so long.)

music for listening to with your ears

who have you been listening to so far in 2006? me, i'm super into lushy and buttersprites. which makes sense because they're related. (buttersprites bassist lunarre omura is also in lushy.)

the next buttersprites show is feb 18 @ the rendezvous and i'm absolutely going to be there esp since i missed them (and everyone else) at the rockrgrl conference. (although i did get to see a replay of some of the patty smith action on the seattle channel. (yes, i'm a goober for watching the seattle channel but i don't care. goobers are cool.)

psychonauts psychosucks

yesterday i made the mistake of opening the copy of psychonauts that arrived from gamefly.

why was this a mistake? have you fucking played psychonauts?!?

between the crappy controls, piss poor camera angles, glitchy glitches, repetative character "catch phrases" and the awful character design, there ain't much to love, pudding pop.

mmmmm...pudding pops...

where was i? oh yeah, this game? ejected, put back in envelope and now on it's way back to cali all in less than eight hours.

toys in the attic and everywhere else!

not much is new. but i did get the rest of the kid robot order today. check out what ups delivered!

one of the insurgents minis



the seriously phallic himelin from the enviroboy series



a rascal redesign plush from devilrobot



aome from the husky x 3 series



and snaphina from tribes of monsterism! (i heart pete fowler!)



i guess that's enough of a post today. if it's not, tough. i got baba ganoush to make.

aught diggity six

happy new year, everyone!



i hope you had a fantastic 2005 and are on your way to a super dooper 2006!

what did you do the last week of aught five? me, i've...

* finished 100 books for the year. i know that i said i was going to try to read 150 but moving cut down on reading time. my last book of '05 was dungeons and dreamers: the rise of computer game culture from geek to chic by brad king and john borland, a suitably geeky tome for the likes of me. (it's a good read too. if you're interested in the very direct role that d&d has played in game development from spacewar! to quake, pick this one up.)

next year i'm setting my goals a little lower by trying to read 100 books. i've almost finished lucky wander boy, hard boiled wonderland and the end of the world and cheng and eng so i'm off to a good start! (full reading list should be available at all consuming. i know that i said that last year but the bugs seem to be worked out now.)

* went to pike place market. i know, i know, it's so touristy, but i LOVE pike place market! i've been there three times since we've moved here and i still haven't been to all the stores. (mostly because all the tourists get in the way.)

the last market trip included pan au chocolat from la panier



mac and cheese from beechers. they aren't kidding. it IS the best mac and cheese in the world!

and a stop at the great wind up where i got this pink turtle. so cute!



the flan was from one of the stores in post alley. i can't remember the name of it. sorry. but i will tell you that everytime we go to post alley, leff says either "welcome to diagon alley!" or "diegone-illey!" which makes me laugh. we're such harry potter geeks.

* forgot to call dr fusbender back yesterday. dr f, if you're reading, i'll call you today!

* went to archie mcphee's with leff and d.



we were holiday shopping. yeah, yeah, it's a little late for that. shut up. i still haven't mailed all of the cards yet either.

* had pizza at a great place in first hill. again, the name escapes me.

* ate some new year's noodles.



yes, they're udon and not soba. i thought we had soba in the cupboard but we didn't.

* got the house in order for the new year. yes, it's true that i clean obsessively as it is but this is NEW YEAR'S CLEANING, people! it took me five hours.

today i'm making hoppin john. i'm boiling the black eyed peas right now. (i wish i could boil the other black eyed peas so they'd stop making "songs". (puking at the thought of lovely lady lumps))

what's in store for the new year? things. some big, some little. some new stuff too. but if i told you what i was planning on doing it wouldn't be a surprise and we'd all hate that since surprises are cool.

so, in summation, kick 2005 in the ass, baby! it's time for a new year!