So Much Lace

So I bought about a mountain of lace at the Antrim flea market the other week (and a cedar chest, but that's a different story). 

Then, at Bluesfest, this woman from Funk my Junk was selling lace gloves. She didn't have the exact one I wanted, so I was going to go back the next day, and then I got home and remembered the GIANT PILE OF LACE that I had. Lace I spent so much time selecting that I acquired a sun burn on the back of my neck. Lace that is PERFECT for me. Perfect because it is exactly what I would have picked because I picked it. Lace that I realize I have ten to twelve bags of and just ONE of those bags contains 15 meters (I have already started using lace instead of string). 

So now I'm making lace gloves out of various trim. Without a pattern. Basically willy-nilly.

That obviously needs something more. Wait, I know, lace that has RIBBON.

Now I just need to make a second one AND a matching collar piece. Ok, and work out that whole thumbhole thing, but hey, I have lots of lace to practice with. So pleased.

Goodbye Rogers and Good Riddance!

So I've decided to take the plunge and get rid of my abysmal Roger's internet connection and invest in a company that doesn't have a ludicrously low internet cap and is actively fighting for my internet rights (go team!).

Since I'm in the Ottawa area, I went with Teksavvy, because they're the one my friend mentioned and because I don't like the junkmail Primus sends me (ok, honestly, the Primus mail arrived the DAY after I called Teksavvy. I don't really have a good reason for my choice).

So I went to the website, found a fastastic deal with a 300Gig cap which costs less than  my horribly upsetting 15G current plan (which I have been going wildly over for the past three months. Dear netflix.ca, I am glad you are awesome now, but you made my plan sad, even with your readjusted data download plans) and happily filled out the form for my new set-up.

Now, you'd think that this would be good enough, but of course not, things are NEVER that simple. Turns out you need to make sure that you have already put in your one month notice with your original cable company so that Teksavvy can just transfer your connection on the day of deactivation instead of having to activate you anew and you have to buy a modem and plug it in and just sort of hope like crazy that the reason your current internet doesn't work with the new modem is because Roger's is kind of evil.

I guess I'll find out if it works soon enough.

Monday Update: TOTALLY WORKS! All I had to do was unplug everything and then plug them back in after activation and I have beautiful beautiful not Roger's internet. Huzzah!

The songs in my head

My friend asked for my Top Five songs of the moment, (yes, technically she asked for this a month ago, but Twitter is hard sometimes!) so here they are, in no particular order and subject to change.

Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal 

I love the Fleet Foxes for their lush dreamy playing, which is so terribly delicate and yet feels so full. Makes me want to stare out the window on a snowy day. 

Mother Mother - My Baby Don't Dance

I am hopelessly in love with the new Mother Mother album Eureka, and am PLEASED AS PUNCH that they are coming to Bluesfest. A little retro, lovely and upbeat, and I always feel like it is a strange mix between urbanity and the hayloft. This single is currently my favourite, and is also the one that is getting a lot of play on CBC Radio 3. (there is no nice video attached to this one)

The Faint - Glass Danse
Angry, with a driving beat that I find myself trying vainly to hum at the dinner table. I've always loved The Faint, and I hope I always will.

St. Vincent - Now, Now
St. Vincent's album "Marry Me" has had my favourite tunes to turn on in the morning while I'm still soft around the edges for years now. Mellow and sharp, with that sweetness of voice that I constantly gravitate towards.

Dan Mangan - Robots
Dan Mangan is totally and utterly adorable (he's from B.C.) and this song is totally and utterly adorable and robots do need love too!

In other news, I am also listening to Man Man and contemplating a purchase of The Real Tuesdays, but I haven't spent enough time with either of them to really know yet. 

Korean Dramas

I am an escapist at heart. When things go wrong, or if there are just too many things, or if the day seems just a little bit empty, I like to bury myself in some form of fiction.

This means I read a lot, I write a little, and that I watch a truly egregious amount of television (not to mention the daydreaming). But only sometimes and usually in truly epic binges.

For those of us who enjoy an escapist binge, it is hard to do better than Korean dramas. I was introduced to the glory of Korean dramas through rageprufrock (a familiar name in many fandoms) and have pretty much never looked back. Filled with angst and pretty pretty boys, convuluted love triangles, love interests that usually start out hating each other and packing entire seasons of plot into one hour shows to the point that I always wonder what could possible go wrong next (Amnesia! They might be related! The house burns down! Now episode 2!), these shows are a gold mine, especially since there are decades of shows that I have never seen.

Two general sites that are incredibly useful if you are interested in getting into Kdrama or Jdrama (Japanese dramas are way weirder, but sometimes more satisfying) are www.mysoju.com, which has mountains of links for watching online, and kdramawiki. Also useful is keeping an eye on WITH 2 subbing team, who magically always seem to be translating the best stuff.

There is also the whole hard subbing (watching a streamed show with the subtitles added in) versus soft subbing (where you download the subtitles separately and add them somehow, and this is moderately less likely to get anyone in trouble) controversy, which is written about very persuasively elsewhere (and of course I have lost the link. Sorry!). Also, a number of these shows can be found commercially available from places like netflix or zip.ca (I know American netflix has some, who knows if zip.ca does).

However, due to the enormous number of these shows now available (I love watching access to previously hard-to-find items take off), I have compiled a list of my favourite shows so far. Now, my normal method of recommendation is to make high pitched noises while waving my hands around like a CRAZY person, but I recognize that this is not always the most textually useful system, so I shall attempt to make moderately more sense.

Goong (Princess of Hours) - This show is the one that started it all. A good tempered and entertaining school girl finds out her grandparents had arranged her marriage to the prince. It posits that there is still a Korean royal family, much like the one in the UK, and the outfits and set are FANTASTIC. Of course the two do NOT GET ON. My mom ended up watching this with me while we sobbed quietly at the ridiculous drama. Also, a couple of my friends have fond memories of my flailing synopsis of the convoluted linkages.

The 1st shop of Coffe Prince - Classic plot of "she gets mistaken for a boy and ends up with a job working with very pretty men at a coffee shop". But the characters in this are some of the best I have seen in any television show anywhere, and although it has a ridiculous premise, everyone deals with it in very real ways. I'm currently force feeding this series to my friends, and we are enjoying ourselves excessively. Additional link. 

Kimi wa Petto (You are my pet) - This one is Japanese and based off a manga. It is ... odder but still one of my favourites. A driven and slightly cold career woman adopts a young dancer who she finds homeless on her porch. She agrees to feed him and take care of him so long as he will keep her company as her pet "Momo". He also very grumpily complains to his friends that there is no sex. I find the Japanese fixation with finding relationships where you can be "Real" fascinating.

Other Favourites: (all deserving of their own recommendations, but I will never get this posted if I keep talking about them)

Hotaru no Himiko (Hour of the firefly?)
Hana Kimi
Boys before Flowers

But the great thing about these series is that there is one for everyone. It is actually like the past twenty years of foreign television are at your fingertips. And unlike American Soap Operas, these shows have fairly short episode lists, so they wrap it all up tidily within one season (except for the historical dramas. those go on FOREVER). So Good.

The Magic Bluesfest Pipe Player

That 1 Guy was one of the odder Bluesfest finds. He plays a Magic Pipe, which loops and electronica and drums and is pretty much totally awesome and bizarrely compelling (and ladies, sometimes watching his hands can really make you blush).

You can watch the official music video if you want, but I recommend watching the live footage to get a sense of the ridiculousness that are his concerts. Also, his stuff makes hilariously awesome dance party music:

Every part in its place

I have a deep fondness for puzzle games and finding out how things interact, and the game Grow (both the original and the games that followed) does this better than any other game I've found. The goal is to find the optimum order to activate the different elements, but since everything affects everything else, this is WAY more enjoyable and challenging than you might think (after all, if you don't get the lake big enough before the sun shows up, you end up with something of a desert). I wait with perpetually bated breath for the next instalment.

Bluesfest is good for the soul

Michael Franti and Spearhead (fondly referred to by me and mine as Franky and the Orchestra [I am notoriously bad at names]) is probably the best concert I have been to in Ottawa and from Bluesfest 2009.
Political, angry, uplifting, and so very danceable, at one point he had us sing a chorus, and just left us for five minutes while we sang our little hearts out. The whole crowd was into it, and it was glorious.