At Long Last, This Year's Face Painting Website

It seems as though over summer I accomplish fewer "projects" than I do during the school year. In fact, the opposite is true. Well, that's a lie, but it has the spirit I intend. The projects I complete over summer are the ones I care about most because I'm the only person pushing for them to be finished.

That said, I'd like to introduce this year's site to advertise myself as a face painter. I'd love to hear any feedback on the design and/or the implementation. Heck, if anyone reading this lives in the Bay Area and wants to hire a face painter, I'd love to hear from you, too.

Amusement at Best Buy

We've all heard the stories of woe associated with shopping at Best Buy. People come home with computer boxes full of bricks or find that their local store won't honor a sale. I avoid making any substantial purchases at Best Buy, but I get a kick out of shopping there every so often, as I happen to live right around the corner from one. I found myself in need of a power strip today (not a surge protector, just a power strip) and decided to take a walk around the corner. Sadly, I accidentally left my phone at home, which is unfortunate because I would have liked to have a picture of some of these.

• Best Buy sells Logitech cordless mice, specifically the V220 Cordless Optical Mouse for Notebooks. They even come in three colors: pink, metallic red, and standard black. However, if you want a mouse of a certain color, you'll have to pay for it. The pink mouse was $29.99, the standard mouse was $32.99, and the red mouse was a whopping $49.99. Each mouse had the same design, accessories, and even the same packaging, the only difference being a small sticker over the bar code of the pink and red mice. I can see charging a bit more a special color, but $20 more? And charging less for the pink mouse? I just can't see the "logic" in it.
• Elsewhere in the laptop section was a shelf displaying a Windows laptop with a sign over it warning (as I recall), "CAUTION! This PC is infected with malware! Having your PC restored is expensive! Save money with Anti-Virus software!" Next to the sign was a smaller one showing Best Buy's pricing, where anti-virus software was something like $49.99, whereas having the Geek Squad fix malware would cost $199.99. This whole thing threw me off for a moment, because the laptop in question looked just fine; it was happily running an aquarium screensaver. Intrigued, I tapped the touchpad to revive it from its slumber, and lo and behold, it brought me to a mostly black screen with a little warning in the corner saying something to the effect of "Warning! Trojan malware has been detected! Would you like to run [name of anti-virus product]?" I thought it was unusual that Best Buy would show off that the pre-installed software was, in fact, not working to protect this particular computer. The sign was hilarious, too; you'd think they were warning people to stay away, lest they catch the virus themselves.
• Finally I was ready to find a power strip and check out. They had a small selection, ranging from $13 to $40, but all of them were surge protectors as well as power strips. I had done my research and knew that I should have found a power strip in the range of $4 to $8. Thinking that perhaps there were more in another section, I asked an employee if they had any power strips that were not surge protectors. He thought about it for a second, then said to the employee next to him, "Do we have any power strips that aren't surge protectors?" He thought about it for a second, then said, "No, we don't actually. I think they don't really make them anymore," (or something to that effect). Unconvinced, I said, "Oh, okay," left the store without buying anything, and walked to the OfficeMax next door. Not only did they have power strips for $5, but they had surge protectors for $7, so I went ahead and bought a surge protector anyway.

I was oh so tempted to get the power strip just so I could go back and show the Best Buy employee that they do, in fact, exist, and that I wasn't, in fact, crazy for thinking they might carry them. Or maybe I really was crazy to think Best Buy would sell a reasonably-priced product.

I'll have to actually bring my camera next time I go back for amusement and take discreet pictures to highlight Best Buy's crazy practices.

A Redesign of My Face Painting Site

I'm working on a redesign of my site to advertise face painting services. I've got a preliminary draft I did in Photoshop. I would really, really love to hear any critique. (Obviously, I haven't written the final copy in there, yet.)

Cabled Baby Hat

I knit this hat for a friend's daughter (though it was originally intended for a friend my own age). She looks quite spiffy in it. The pattern was improvised using size 6 needles and Red Heart Soft yarn.  

Ravelry.com

I recently discovered Ravelry, and its sleek layout and fantastic aggregation makes me wish I'd thought of it first. I highly recommend it to any knitter using the internet. It offers individual project pages, space to document your yarn stash, and a great community interface including forums, groups, and friend networks. My favorite part is the pattern search. Patterns are indexed from both books, blogs, internet resources, and personal uploads from members and can be easily searched by keyword, yarn, needle size, or gauge, and more! The only downside is that you must wait around four days for a membership. I still highly recommend it. It even has blog integration. Find me on Ravelry as Mystitat, and check out my projects!

Green and Rainbow Hat

After being unable to decide for a while what to do with the Bernat Louie yarn my friend gave me for Christmas, I have knit this hat with it. It is a pretty combination of green, black, and gradiated rainbow plies. It will imminently be for sale on my Etsy account (which I will announce here once I have it set up). My friend Anthony graciously consented to modelling this hat.

   

Pudgy Little Dice Bag

I knit myself a little dice bag because my old one was coming apart and the d4's were falling out through the gaps and ending up loose in my bag. Now I have a little bag that has a cute little pudgy shape, and holds more dice than the old one did. I knit this on 10.5 circular needles, with two yarns, a red and a purple, held together.

     

My dice are so cozy!

Knit Heart

I knit a heart for my friend Sonia! Here it is, in all its stuffed glory.

You can find the pattern here.

   

Updates on completion and projects

Things that I have done:

• Chainmailed boyfriend Sam's 21st birthday present (chainmail with yarn)

• Knitted roommate Katie's Christmas present (key lime pie hat and scarf)

• Knitted friend Foster's fuzzy dice bag

• Sewed ribbons, lace, and extra bows and things onto a maid costume for a convention I attended and helped to produce

Things I have yet to do:

• Knit friend Sonia's heart

• Knit whatever it is I come up with for friend Jackie

• Knit binary scarf for myself and line with black fleece

• Knit myself a new dice bag (mine is kinda falling apart)

Spring break is coming up. For most of it, I'm staying at friends' houses, so I suspect we shall have lots of time to knit together. I'm excited.

As for not updating much lately, the reason is less that I'm not working and more that it's difficult to get pictures of my completed projects. Coding projects are difficult to post here, and my camera is fritzy. I'm going to make a valiant effort in the future, though!

Updates for Finals Season

It's finals time in school, which means lots of work for me. An updated project list:

Programming Projects

• A program to display a list of minterms given a (boolean algebra) expression. (Assembly - due 12/8/08)
• Candy Machine Simulator (C++ - due 12/13/08)

Craft Projects

• Present for friend's baby's first birthday.
• Present for boyfriend's 21st birthday
• Roommate's Christmas present: key lime pie hat and scarf (hat is done!)

I also need to buy more yarn and chain mail supplies; I'm running dangerously low. Thanks to everyone who has subscribed so far!