Archive for November, 2006
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wanted: guitar tab.
By Karen | Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006 | 2 Comments »
A guitar tab contains chord instructions for a particular song. Never having seen one before, I assume it’s the equivalent of sheet music for a piano.
Song: “Pressing Lips”.
Artist: “Pursuit of Happiness”.
Help?
no longer car-less.
By Karen | Saturday, November 18th, 2006 | No Comments »
After 4 years of living together, Kurt and I finally broke down and bought a car. Odd that we bought it now that we are living and working in downtown Vancouver, and not during our suburban days. To celebrate our newly acquired 2005 Hyundai Elantra, we spent most of today driving to things outside the downtown core.
First stop: dim sum at Sun Sui Wah on Main and 20th. Great food and pretty attentive service. If only the servers didn’t mistake me for Chinese and shoot me disappointed looks when I didn’t understand their Cantonese. I should wear a sign that says “I’m Filipino, damn it” whenever I venture into Asian establishments. I feel like I need to learn Mandarin and Cantonese just so I don’t lose face…
Next stop: the Costco-like liquor store on Cambie and 41st. Grabbed a couple of bottles of wine that aren’t available in our normal 10-minute-walk radius.
Then to: Wreck Beach. Yes, we did indeed go to Vancouver’s only nude beach. I’d only been there one other time, in the middle of winter. Little did we know that we’d be welcomed to the beach by a sunbathing nudist in his 60’s. Besides the nude reception, the trail that we took and the short walk on the marsh that is the beach was a great little day trip, and I highly recommend it.
We lastly tried to find Urban Yarns, a crafts store that my memory placed somewhere on West 4th. When we couldn’t find it there, we tried West Broadway, but no luck there either. Our futile attempt at least resulted in a shortlist of the restaurants we plan to try in the next few weeks (Banana Leaf, Bishop’s, Las Margaritas, and Rugby’s).
Wanna see the car? Visit the photoset on Flickr.
feeling crafty.
By Karen | Thursday, November 9th, 2006 | 2 Comments »
With less than two months until Christmas, I’m starting to get the needlework bug again. My net explorations have lately introduced me to two new craftsy concepts: knitting boards and amigurumi.
Knitting boards are a step up from two-needle knitting. The double row of pegs allows you not only to knit faster but to also create a double-sided fabric perfect for scarves, afghans, and any other kind of not-to-be-assembled-further rectangle. You don’t even have to know how to knit; it is the hand-operated precursor to knitting or weaving looms.
I have just invested in a starter kit and scarf pattern that I hope will arrive with enough time to knit up a few Christmas gifts for the Hamilton and Clement women. (Men don’t tend to appreciate a homemade gift unless it explodes or has some sort of mind-altering effect.)
My other newfound craft is amigurumi. It’s a japanese technique of single-crocheting in the round to create the cutest stuffed toys imaginable. I spent 40 minutes tonight awww-how-adorable!-ing and soooo-cute!-ing the amigurumi designs I’ve seen on Flickr.
Tested out two patterns so far, each of which took only 2 – 4 hours to complete. They’re the “Bo the Snowman” and the “Rory the Reindeer” Christmas ornaments from this great amigurumi website I’m lurking. I didn’t use the right yarn colours or bothered to size them right, but I’ll try them again with the proper materials and post (gasp, non-food) photos on Flickr soon.
I have a couple of amigurumi Christmas gift ideas in the works, but until they pan out, I won’t give any more hints on the blog. Here’s to reverse engineering from a picture!
this is my kind of church.
By Karen | Tuesday, November 7th, 2006 | No Comments »
Most of you know my disillusionment with the Catholic Church that schooled me for eleven years. This article about the new United Church ads gives me hope that there are organizations out there that aren’t drowning in dogma.
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