The Flu Shot

To the best of my knowledge, I have never had a flu shot. I qualify that statement because nearly every early childhood memory of the doctor's office involves needles, and nobody was giving my toddler self any specifics, so they might have snuck a flu shot in there with the polio and the mumps, I don't know. Anyway, today at work I got an e-mail about our fabulous workplace health fair, where we can get a flu shot, and our biometrics, and find out how to save on our car health insurance. Yippee! Except now I have to make a decision.

Pros to the Flu Shot:
-Covered by my health insurance premiums.
-Solidarity with other flu-shot getters. You know what I mean. People are always asking, "Did you get your flu shot? I got mine!!!!!" and then I say, "Oh, no, I've never had a flu shot..." and then they say, "Oh!!" and inch away slowly. This could also be a con, because clearly people aren't that confident in the flu-shot effectiveness if they're afraid of my un-immunized self. So actually, this one doesn't count as a pro.
-10 minutes that I don't have to be working, more if I do all the other health fair stuff at the same time. But I like my job, so maybe this isn't a pro either. I'll let it slide, but it's kind of weak.

Cons to the Flu Shot:
-Last time I remember having the flu was my junior year in high school. In the ensuing eight years I have been flu-free despite my exposure to co-ed university dorms, public transportation, and myriads of germ-laden children.
-Only covers 70-80% of flu strains. I have terrible luck. I would get each and every one of the remaining flu strains back-to-back, and then I would get fired for being disease-ridden and also weird.
-Possible injection of government-issued nanotechnology designed to read my mind.
-Furthering of paranoid ideas derived mostly from dystopian novels and science fiction television. There probably aren't nanobots in the flu shot...but WHAT IF THERE ARE? Then I set myself up to be a government (or alien!) science project. My ultimate demise would be my own fault. I could never hide on a farm in the middle of nowhere because they would find me and steal my brain and kill all my sheep.

So that's two pros and four cons. I think I've worked this out rationally.

In which I attempt to write coherently on four hours of sleep and Red Bull

You don't even want to know what sort of rambling monstrosity I was typing up to post here earlier this evening. Onward with the listage!

1. I pretty much destroyed my living room to move my desk into a position where I can watch Stargate while I spend all weekend making paper flowers for my wedding. I have decided the only solution to the now-revealed and terrifying clutter is to move. Soon.

2. Red Bull and watermelon is not the most nutritionally balanced dinner combination, but it is rather refreshing.

3. I took a sock to knit on the treadmill last night. It went ok, except the whole time I was in mortal fear of dropping a needle and causing gross personal embarrassment, damage to expensive equipment, death, or a lifetime ban from the gym. Next time...circular needles. And maybe a helmet, just in case.

4. There's a pond right outside my front door. This pond houses bullfrogs bigger than my head. I am sure their constant nighttime croakings are a plot to overrun the apartment complex.

5. There was a little family of ducks and ducklings swimming around the pond over the weekend. I hope the frogs didn't eat them.

6. This post is awful. I'm going to bed. Better luck next time!

They Called it 'Night of the Treadmilling Pincushion'

Right now (or rather, in about five minutes after I finish telling the internet about it) I am finishing my knitting so I can start new knitting so I can go knit at the gym. I haven't been to the gym in...well, let's just call it 'a while' because I'm not really sure how long it's been, and I don't really want to go right now, because I had a crappy day and I just want to hide in my bed. Actually, I just got done talking myself out of going to bed, because I convinced myself that I would be angry tomorrow about wasting all that perfectly good knitting time with sleeping. I'm not sure where the thought that I should go to the gym slipped in like an uninvited party guest, but this is where I am right now.

So if I never post anything again, it's probably because I'm just a bad blogger, but you can use this post as an excuse to envision a spectacular accident involving a treadmill and sock needles. If you want.

Breaking Out the Nerd Badge

(I will apologize in advance for the unseemly use of capital letters in this post.)

A couple of weeks ago, I was at the library perusing the DVD section. This activity always makes me feel…illiterate. Usually I check out a book too, so all those people paying so much attention to me at the library don’t judge me (I don’t know why I worry about this. I know exactly zero people in this town, and exactly zero percent of those people that I know are library snobs that hang around libraries judging people. The public library here doesn’t even make me deal with the librarian to check my books out. In fact, the librarian shoots you with her laser eyes if you dare talk to her or say, tell her that one of the very warm and personable check-out computers is frozen.).

Anyway, I was perusing the DVD section in search of a television show, preferably completed and with at least five seasons, so I could have something to watch over the summer since my DVR now consists mostly of Mythbusters, and I can only watch those crazy guys blow up a car so many times before I need a break. I decided on Stargate S.G. 1, which has not five but TEN seasons of nerdy awesomeness, plus a movie and a spin-off series. Score!

The thing I love best about this show is that I can just picture the writers in a little room, hyped up on coffee, delivering their ideas for crazy plot twists IN ALL CAPS OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!! Because that’s what every plot point feels like. OMG YOU THOUGHT THEY WERE SAFE BUT NOW TAKE THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Last night, I was watching a very dramatic episode in which Our Beloved Main Characters were trapped where NO ONE HAD EVER ESCAPED, and they were about to ESCAPE when suddenly their death-defying plans were thwarted by THE REALLY BAD GUY FROM THE PREVIOUS SEASON, who, it should be mentioned, THEY ALL THOUGHT WAS DEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Because that is the Number One Rule of Stargate: No one is ever really dead. You can all hang around and watch someone die, and he will come back FROM THE DEAD with an evil plan next season (which Our Beloved Main Characters will conveniently thwart in under forty-five minutes, even though the evil bad guy spent MONTHS perfecting his evil revenge. I love television.).

I might have burst into hysterical fits of laughter. Especially when the music crescendoed and the screen flashed ‘To Be Continued…’

Posty post

Hello, bloglets! Long time, no typey. I believe the last time I graced this free webspace with my prose, I announced that I was participating in the Knitting Olympics (a la Yarn Harlot and not a la Ravelry, because I love Ravelry but I am terrible at team sports. See: every knit-a-long I have ever joined) and I was going to crush them with my amazing knitting amazingness.

And really, I almost did, but I was taken down at the final stretch (seriously, the last three days) by a migraine. The throwing-up, turn the lights off, stay home from work and lay on the kitchen floor because the cool tiles feel SO GOOD sort of migraine. So I did not finish the afghan in time to be awesome. BUT, to my credit, I did in fact finish the afghan a week later. I took Mouse’s advice and went ahead and sewed the squares together without blocking them and it all worked out just fine.

I do not have a picture. If you came to this blog expecting pictures, you are not in luck. I refer you to pretty much every post since 2007 and my Ravelry page.

Things worth mentioning:

I moved (again).
I’m getting married (in August).
I have a new job (can’t think of an exclamation of joy strong enough).

So far

So far, I have 11 squares knitted out of a total of 48. If I continue at my current pace, I predict I will fail miserably. I'll no longer be able to visit the the Yarn Harlot's blog out of shame for my abject failure. The unfinished blanket will sit in a shopping bag, filling my apartment with its resentful presence.



I should probably knit faster.

As soon as I knit the first square, I knew I had even more to contend with than originally thought. I'm going to have to block each and every one of these suckers before I sew them together.

See how it isn't square? Isn't that a great plot twist?

This guy wanted in on the photo shoot. Blog, meet Max. He likes to eat yarn. And toilet paper.


Also, I don't know why my horizontal pictures aren't horizontal. If I stop to figure out why, I will never post this blog. I'll try to fix it before my next post. Toodles.

Knitting Olympics

I'm coming out of blog hibernation to participate in the 2010 Knitting Olympics.

I'm knitting this blanket (Ravelry link) out of some reclaimed Goodwill yarn.

Should be fun! Who's DVRing Olympic curling?