Been busy

I've been uber busy in the past month, both in my work and home life, which hasn't left much time for my blogging/writing interests, crafting, gaming, or much of anything else.  I do have some big life changes coming in the next few months.  My husband has accepted a job in another state, so as we are living in different states,  I will be finishing up with work and be working on selling our home.  He'll be setting up our apartment and working at his new job.  We're super excited, but there's a lot of stuff that lies ahead for us.

As we were traveling this past week, we did have an opportunity to see two movies in the theater: one we liked and the other not so much.  We went and saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which was great.  A few days later, we went to see Captain America, which we didn't really care for.  We weren't huge fans of Captain America in the first place, but we are a fan of the Marvel and DC style super hero movies.  Captain America, for me, was too long and kitsch.  Rise of the Planet of the Apes was great.  It had a lot of soul, and by the end we were all rooting for the monkeys...those humans can be so cruel.

Mario Pixel Art Blanket Update

Updates on the Mario blanket.  I've reached the half way mark...ish.  My momentum is pretty steady on the project, so if I can keep up and I'm excited to keep going, then I will definitely make a border and box Mario in.  This blanket is just going to be huge!  with or without the boxed in border.

Here's what my workstation looks like.  I've been laying out two rows of the squares at a time and stitching them together.  Then I attach them to the main project.  I feel like stitching them together is taking more time than making the actual squares.

Of course, Doodles and Gizmo had to make a guest appearance in this post.  :-)

A reflection on music

In the past few days, I've been doing a lot of thinking about my music collection.  I have a deep, lifelong connection with the music.  I read and listen to music, so I often make connections between that music and book.  I also like to play video games and listen to my music.  I will usually turn down the game music and play something from my 68 gb collection.  Even though we didn't have extravagant things, we always had music.  My parents had great taste in music and passed that on to me.  I started playing the guitar around age 13 or 14 and played almost every day until I went to college.

I haven't always had the greatest taste in music.  Sure, I fell for the popular, trendy late 90s tunes that I could care less about.  I still have a soft spot for grunge, even though I know it's not the most ingenious music.  I just love it.  What can I say?  But I do love the music produced from 1960-1979.  The rock era dominates my collection.

Our family has music traditions.  We listened to music when there wasn't much better to do.  When we played outside or rode bikes, we usually brought the stereo.  Every Thanksgiving we would listen to "Alice's Restaurant."   My dad had a bunch of tapes and Steve Miller and Boston were our most common cleaning soundtrack.  There was always, of course, Christmas music.  My sister Karen hates Christmas music, but I hold a place for it in my heart.  Not the Christmas music, but my dad's quick-witted improv parodies of the music and lyrics.  When my sisters and I take road trips to visit mom who lives about an hour away, we blare our favorite music, both current and past, and sing.  Music is in our blood!

Recently on twitter a game of "desert island" was suggested where I had to pick the five albums I would take with me on a desert island.  What a difficult task!  Here's my 5 (in no particular order):

Mario Squares Project

As a child, we didn't have many of the "extravagant" things I now have as an adult.  We didn't have cable TV, Internet, cell phones-not even a home phone most of the time.  Sure we had some nice things here and there: a swimming pool for two summers, a trampoline, dogs, and of course, each other.  But as far as modern entertainment goes, we had what we had and that was it.  During hot, hot South Carolina summers, we'd spend hours and hours glued to the TV playing our Super Nintendo.  Sure, there were more advanced systems out like the N64 and PlayStation, but we were more than content with our gaming antique.  We only had a few games, but we played those games on repeat.  My mom hated it!  The TV screen constantly showing the same screens; that music; three daughters fighting over two available player seats (with the two oldest usually trumping the youngest-sure we'd share, but, in our minds, we were alive longer so that had to count for something!).  Of those games we played on repeat, Super Mario All-stars topped the list.

I could, to this day, draw the early level maps for you from memory.  As a tribute to the game being one of my all time favorites, I'm working on a pixel art blanket.  I'll be crocheting the blanket.  I gave a brief intro to the project in an earlier entry, but I thought I'd go into more detail now as I'm getting closer to finishing the squares on the Mario figure.  For the past few weeks I've been making 3x3 squares--hundreds of them.  I actually have the majority of the Mario squares completed.  The image I decided to go with is the raccoon tailed Mario.  The blanket will look something like this:

The majority of the squares are black, red, blue, and skin colored (as you can tell from the image above).  Here are the squares.  I'm storing them on the desk in my bedroom in stacks of 20 squares each.

                                      

An important factor in my continuing work on the project is the availability of my tools.  Next to "my spot" in the living room, I keep the skein for the color I'm currently working on, any squares that haven't accumulated to 20 for a stack yet, scissors, and my crochet hook.  I also keep the number of each color square I have to make.  Another tool that has been of particular use lately has been a wrist brace.  I spend the majority of my day in front of a computer at work, then I come home and crochet.  My wrist and arm start to tire quickly and get sore, so wearing the brace helps (not pictured).

At this point, I'm still deciding on whether or not to create a full background.  Making the full background means making nearly as many squares as I've made just for the Mario Figure.

Beginner Garden

My parents never had a garden, but as a child, I often had access to fresh vegetables, pickled peppers and chow chow, and fresh, delicious, strawberry jam. One of my earliest memories is one of skipping the last day of school to drive out to Pappy's house. He had a few acres of land he planted every year with strawberries, peppers, peanuts, and other vegetables. I was tasked with dropping exactly three seeds into each hole. We made a sort of assembly line out of it: Pappy dug the hole, I dropped in the seeds, and my dad covered it up.

My Parsley

So, gardening should be in my blood, right? I tried to plant a garden when I was a teenager. I planted some seeds from little paper packets purchased at a local dollar store. I tilled the small plot of land and closely followed the instructions for how far apart to space each plant. I was amazed when, in a week or two, life sprouted out of the ground. Who knew it could be so easy? Unfortunately, we ended up moving away from that house to another one before the plants fully matured. I tried to transport a few to the new location, but aside from some bean plants, nothing really matured or survived.

My Basil

My previous attempt at gardening was more of an accident than a planned attempt at gardening. I happened to find myself stuck in Wal-Mart for an hour after I survived my first flat tire while driving (it wasn't nearly as bad as the movies would have you believe-my tire just sort of deflated as I was driving. It was full of air one second and flat the next. But, I digress...). What does one do while stranded at Wal-Mart for an hour?  WANDER! I made my way to the "gardening" section and made a not-well-planned-decision to purchase a window box, some potting soil, and some seeds. I went home and planted the seeds, and not much came of it. It was a little late in the season for planting, and my sprout-lings were not getting enough sun light.

My Cantaloupe fruit!!!

This year I started early. I bought a few planters, used the rest of the seeds from last year and bought a basil and a cantaloupe plant that were already growing quite nicely. So far, I've enjoyed cooking some things with my basil and parsley. I planted some giant spinach that I really didn't know what to do with, so I did nothing. My tomatoes never came up and neither did my spring onions. But of my successes I do have a big, beautiful basil plant, a watermelon plant, a cantaloupe plant with my first little fruit, and my parsley.  I guess I will just have to say that I have yellow thumbs-green thumbs in training.

Hobo with a Shotgun-the review

In 2007 Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino revived the "grindhouse" style of B-movies with their release of the Grindhouse double feature (Planet Terror and Death Proof). These films brought back to life the traditional exploitation films of a previous film generation.  Exploitation films are not for everyone-they often contain highly suggestive scenes with over the top gore and violence, nudity, sex, and an overall brashness.  These films paint an unbelievable, bizarre picture of the world and are  usually ridiculous.  Fans of the genre find themselves laughing hysterically at geysers of blood or fake limbs being blown away.

The Grindhouse films began and end with fictional movie trailers and advertisements, one of them being a trailer for Hobo with a Shotgun.  Another of the fictionalized movie trailers to be converted to an actual film is Machete.  The movie is exactly what it promises to be about: a hobo with a shotgun.  Rutger Hauer stars as the Hobo who arrives to Hope Town on a train.  Hope Town or Scum Town is ruled by The Drake (Brian Downey) and his two sons-Slick (Gregory Smith) the favored and hopeful replacement for his father in his empire of terror, and Ivan (Nick Bateman), the idiot.  The hobo's first taste of life in Hope Town shows the Drake's brother being murdered in the street by his brother, Drake, and his nephews.  The town is forced to watch his brutal decapitation, reinforcing the Drake's hold over the city.  This is just the beginning of the gore in this 1 hour and 26 minute film.

The hobo saves his money and even earns some from a depraved street criminal filming hobos performing various degrading acts.  He arrives at a pawn shop to make a bizarre purchase (I won't spoil it) and finds himself involved in a robbery.  Instead of making his intended purchase he opts for a shotgun and becomes our vigilante hero.  After the hobo becomes famous for his brand of vigilante justice, the Drake declares war on hobos and the violence escalates to its gory conclusion.

Some folks might complain about the physics of the ridiculous and unlikely blood spurts and patterns or the randomness of some parts of the movie or even the cheese levels of the dialogue, but they would be missing the point entirely.  These are the things that make the film-these are the things that most fans of the genre are looking for and expect from this movie, and Hobo delivers.  If you're the kind who likes a good chuckle during a horror flick and you like your films on the bloody side, be sure to check out Hobo with a Shotgun.

Cooking for friends

Yesterday we had our friends Mike and Jori over for dinner and a few movies.  By request, I made steak burritos in an awesome, programmable, 6 quart crockpot.  If you don't have one, you should seriously invest.

The recipe is super simple.

Crock pot steak tacos:
1 5-6 lb chuck roast
1 can of tomatoes and chilies (like rotel)
1 packet of taco seasoning

Stuff cooking:















Mix the taco seasoning together with the rotel.  Put the roast in the Crockpot and pour the mixture over the top.  Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours or on high for 4-6.  The beauty of this recipe is that if you're using the crockpot with the programmable timer, you can cook it and after the cooking time has elapsed, the crockpot will move to warm and keep the food nice and warm for you.  Pull the roast out of the crock pot and let it rest for 10 minutes.  Shred and enjoy with your favorite toppings.

Toppings:
 














Shredded Beef :

This is a picture of the meat cold, so it looks a little off.

Then we watched two movies, Live Animals and Pandorum.  Live Animals was a part of a four movie pack for five dollars, so, as you can imagine, it was pretty terrible.  I did fall asleep for the first few minutes of Pandorum, mainly because it was so quiet, but I didn't miss so much that it made the rest of the movie unwatchable.

 

my big project

I've started work on my largest crochet project thus far.  I've made things before as gifts: a companion cube for Matt for his birthday (even though it was a bit late), Amigurumi  Monkey, Cat with Kittens, a Mario mushroom, afgans for my mom and sister for Christmas, but this is my biggest endeavor thus far.  I've used patterns for most of the other things I've created, but for this project, I'm flying solo.  I've decided to make a pixel art blanket with the iconic Mario 3 image.  Ya know, flying with raccoon tail Mario. 

To check out my progress on the blanket, follow me on ravelry or here on this blog: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/cmmiller

In the true style of pixel art, it will just be a bunch of squares.  This is the base: