I spent all my time not blogging and eating an unspeakable amount of food. I finished my summer semester successfully and I decided that I should celebrate by getting fat. My boyfriend and I barbequed a couple of steaks and kabobs which turned out pretty amazing. Adding tomatoes, green pepper, onions and bananas really added to the flavor. Barbequing is so much more entertaining than slaving away in front of the stove. Last night, I decided to try handling a couple of balls. That’s right, I made meatballs. I made the recipe from 1000 Best Recipes by Bay Books Publishing, a book that gets zero results on Google which is vaguely suspicious. Peparing the meatballs took some time but they cooked up within minutes and using spaghetti sauce out of the jar saved even more time.

Aside from stuffing my face, I’ve been preparing for the Fall semester and my upcoming Public Relations internship. My goal is to graduate in Spring 2007 with an English Degree and try to do something with it. I’ve spoken with an academic advisor who registered me for the rest of my core courses that I need in order to graduate. It seems impossible to juggle a twelve credit semester with a part-time internship, a part-time job and a semblence of a social life but somehow, I will make it all work. Despite what may be the most stressful part of my acadamic career, I’m really looking forward to the change of pace. I anticipate one of two outcomes: failure or total failure. Either way, if I succeed in becoming an adult it will be a pleasant surprise. I really like to shop for school supplies. I think my only regret about being a grown up is not having an excuse to buy markers, crayon boxes and Lisa Frank folders. Fortunately, CVS has adorable notebooks, notepads and folders in stock for the sophisticated and trendy student. Check out some of their designs at Notebound. I figure if I’m going to do some learning, I might as well be cute about it.

I’ve neglected my letter-writing just as much as I’ve ignored the blog and now that I’ve accumulated a sizeable stack of letters, I’m not sure where to begin or what to write about. I hope something exciting happens to me soon.

The penpal section is gone, not because I don’t write letters anymore but because I simply didn’t update the section. I’m sure you’re heartbroken. I also got rid of the progress indicators in the side bar because I wasn’t making any progress in anything and you pretty much don’t care. I’m still knitting but nothing worth telling you about.

I recently joined Yelp, the website community where members posts reviews to restaurants, bars, stores and other local establishments. I will most likely use it to complain about movies, music and bad food but check out my profile to help plan your next amazing vacation to Orlando, FL.

Like sunglasses and other jewelry, even the handbags are now coming studded in diamonds, as if the earrings were not enough.

I want to bring a few things to your attention:

1. Shibooya Radio is MIA until further notice. Oh, come on, you weren’t listening to it anyway.
2. Shibooya Radio was replaced with a reading list so you can marvel at my ability to read books that don’t have pictures in them.
3. Archives were added in a drop down so you can get all nostaglic and shit.
4. Cool Shit section is now in the form of a gallery which should make it easier to navigate.
5. Two new printable stationary sheets were added. WOW.
6. Use the contact form in the About Me section to reach me.
7. I added new plugins and you can check out where I got them in About the Site.
8. You’ll want to finish this entry, trust me, it’s good this time.

A penpal from Finland is expecting her first child so I came up with the brilliant idea of knitting her a baby blanket as a gift. I went to Jo-Ann Fabrics only to pick out the most unsoftest yarn I could find. It’s not as baby-friendly as say, 100% cotton, but I simply picked out the colors I liked and am now faced with a decision. Unravel my 15% done masterpiece of knitting? Continue knitting the thing and pray to God the kid doesn’t erupt into bleeding, open sores from an allergic reaction to my poor choice in yarn? I have nine months to make my decision. I’ll most likely start anew, but since I’ve already started this abomination of creation, I’ll see how far I can get with it. I’ve decided to use a broken rib pattern for the blanket which is probably useless since it’s hard to tell through the multi-colored yarn. I started off this well-meant but poorly executed gift by squeezing all 79 cast on stitches on to a single needle (I was sans circular needles at the time). This was a challenge but I managed to knit the border successfully.

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Yes, those are glitter knitting needles.

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I forgot to mention in yesterday’s post that I had the great displeasure of watching the unnecessarily long preview for the abomination of a film United 93. I did a little googling in order to prepare for my entry and was extremely pleased with the first search result for “movies about tragedies”. I thought this was extremely appropriate considering the premise of the film. I have a small problem with movies that capitalize on terrible human tragedies (i.e Pearl Harbor, The Passion of the Christ). Of course, there are always exceptions such as Schindler’s List, a film that does more than just show the horrors of the Holocoust; it attempts to tell the story of a man who saves the lives of hundreds of Jews only to fully comprehend his actions after the fact. At the end of the film as Liam Nielson’s character looks out into the crowd of surviving Jews he tells himself and the audience, I could have done more. But what are we to learn from the theatrical version of United 93’s mostly unintelligible black box transcripts? I find it atrocious that Americans consider watching a slew of second-rate, aspiring actors (and 4 Middle Eastern looking actors who apparently never want to work again) play Mark Rothenberg or Marion R. Britton or Wanda Anita Green as patriotic. I shudder to think that the best way we can remember the victims of this terrible plane flight is by fictionalizing their astonishingly cruel and shocking death. Tastelessness aside, I was surprised by the great lengths screen writer Peter Greengrass went in the absurdly long trailer to tug at the heart strings of audiences. Why, the flight attendent calls ground to order more pillows for the passengers and to think, her thoughtfulness was all for naught. Greengrass would have done well to throw a couple of cute kittens and an orphan into the mix, you know, just to make doubley sure that if the real thing didn’t make us shed a tear his stupid movie will.

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