Four New Monsters

Montegue - Montegue is an old fashioned monster looking for a girlfiend (yes, fiend) with whom he can share a sundae at an ice cream social. Don't let his stilted way of talking fool you. He is quite well rounded and up to date on movies through the 1970's.


Bloop - Bloop is a distant relative of Mlergh. He has a striped body and a white shirt. He likes baseball and he's very loud.


Mlee - Mlee is part of the League of Lifeguarding Monsters. His specialty is kiddy pools and not the shallow end of the large neighborhood pool - the inflatable kind one might find in a suburban front yard.


Duke - My husband thought that Duke resembled the mascot for Duke University, hence his name. He is quite devilish. Don't let his diminutive appearance fool you.

Posting With The Boys

This is my headline.

No Country for Straight Men

Suspicious Packages

Suspicious Package Industry Falls On Hard Times

Get Back To Work

You know who I'm talking about.

Sold

All these monsters have found new homes.

Trip To The Met

I'm overdue for a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Maybe next week I'll sneak in a visit. I really want to see the painting of Venus and Cupid where Cupid is peeing through a wreath in some ancient symbolism for fertility. It's a beautiful painting and the last time Jon and I went to the museum the section that features Venus and Cupid was closed.

Warranty!!

Good news. Our camera is still under warranty. The bad news is we have to send the camera all the way to Laredo, TX for service. Hopefully we'll have the camera back in two weeks.

Coming Home From Curtains

Last night on the subway I watched the face of the woman sitting across from me. She was watching six young women on their way home from some kind of Fun Run or athletic work function. As she watched them, I could see she was getting emotional. Her face started to get blotchy as if she were about to cry and she was holding back tears.

One of the six women was particularly obnoxious and she seemed to be the leader of the group. She reminded me of those horrible girls in high school who always led their friends in group taunts of less popular students. And I have a feeling the woman sitting across from me was thinking similar thoughts.

I wanted to move across the empty space between our seats and sit next to her and comfort her, but that would have been weird, right?

Lou and Chester

Chester came out good. He's one of the six I made last week. I named him Chester because it rhymes with jester which is what he looks like - in a Val sort of way.


And the other one I really like from last week's mix is Lou. I take back what I said about not liking what I've been making lately because I changed my mind as is my wont.

Monster Burnout

I'm having trouble creating lately. I've been working but I'm not satisfied with how the monsters look. Here's an example.

I guess he's cute enough to give away to someone but not cute enough to sell. Actually, I think I'll give this one away tonight to my friend Julie who works as an usher where I'm working tonight.

Here's an example of one that I like but I'm not happy with the finishing. My technique is off. You can see lose threads behind his eyes. I may or may not put him up for sale. But he's cute though, right? I used mostly smooth socks to make him but fuzzy socks for his lips.

Here's a bigger version of one I made a month or so ago. I'm very satisfied with this one in terms of looking finished but didn't realize until after he was done that he was modeled after one I'd already made.

Camera Acting Funny

My really cool camera is acting funny. The lens goes in and out three times and then the camera gives me a message to turn the camera off and on again. I contacted Sony and they suggested I send the camera in to their repair center.

The repair could cost up to $111.00. I don't think the camera cost much more than that.

Anyway.

Does anyone else have a Cybershot DSCW80 with this weird problem? How did you solve it?

A New Day

It's bright and sunny out. And in about an hour or so, I'm heading into the city to spend the day indoors - working at The Country Girl. I didn't watch the show last night. Instead, I worked on a monster named Chester. You'll meet him next week.

I bought some new materials yesterday. I'm tired of pink fluffy socks so I'm moving on to cotton and polycotton blends. Chester came out pretty good but I'm interested to see where else my imagination will lead me.

The people upstairs are sawing wood - literally. It's noisy.

Michael Clayton

We finished watchng Michael Clayton last night. I thought it was a really good movie.

There is a death scene that is the most startling I've ever scene - very upsetting. All the performances were rock solid and the story was pretty easy to follow.

Good movie.

Monsters and Ovens

My oven is finally hooked up. Wahoo!!! I cooked rice and beans yesterday. Yum-o! Today, I'm making soup. The weather has certainly been cold and wet enough for that. And yes I have resumed monster making. I've already made three this week and will probably list them on my Etsy site once I have six ready to go.

Indiana Jones and The Carbon Monoxide Alarm

Last night, Jon and I had a bit of a scare. We were watching Michael Clayton and around midnight the Carbon Monoxide alarm started going off. We assumed that the battery was dying. So, we removed the alarm from the wall and proceeded to remove the battery. But when we read the instructions, turns out that our alarm was not alerting us to a dead battery but to a possible carbon monoxide problem. We opened the windows and called 311. 311 connected us to 911 who connected us to the fire department who showed up 5 minutes later to tell us that there was no carbon monoxide in our apartment and that our battery was dying. Our fireman commended us for opening our windows (apparently other people sit in their sealed apartments while waiting for the fire department) and advised us to get a new battery for our alarm. Crisis passed, we watched a little bit more of the movie and called it quits around 1 am. We still have a little bit more to watch.

We woke up bright and early so we could go see the 10 am showing of the new Indiana Jones movie at the Ziegfeld. I'm not giving anything away. No spoilers here. The movie was a lot of fun. Indiana Jones and his sidekicks went on a grand adventure. Spielberg did a nice job tying a neat little bow on his "Quadrology"? What else could you call it?

Go see it. It's a lot more satisfying than The Country Girl. That's for sure.

Starvation Diet

What's eerie about this fake Onion news video is that people really do this.


Diet Book Author Advocates New 'No Food Diet'

Waiting and Biking and Working

An oven was delivered on Monday but it still hasn't been installed. We were expecting someone yesterday, but that someone was called away on a rain emergency in another building - stupid rain. So, now my installation is scheduled for tomorrow. Knock on wood. From my lips to G-d's ears.

Knowing when someone is coming to do work instead of waiting for someone that is not coming is very freeing. I felt free for the first time in weeks to go bike riding. It's been a while since I've gone out. The bike ride reminded that it doesn't take much time to get out of shape. I only went 7.5 miles. Jon is still out there. He is in much better shape than me.

I'm working The Country Girl this week. What a treat. The show stars Morgan Freeman, Frances McDormand and Peter Gallagher in a show by Clifford Odets. With all that star power, you'd think the show would be a home run. It's not bad. But it's not great. There's something now quite there but I'm not sure what. I can't yet tell if it's the performances or the play. I'll let you know when I figure it out. Or I may completely contradict myself and find after a week of viewing that this is the best play ever.

The thing is I'm comparing this to Awake and Sing! also by Odets which ran two years ago at the Belasco Theater. Awake and Sing! is a better play. I just need some time with this one to figure out how I feel.

No Country For Old Men

Jon and I watched No Country for Old Men on loan to us from a friend. We started watching it on Sunday night and finished it yesterday morning. I personally couldn't make it through one sitting.

I really wanted to like this movie. But I didn't. I liked the actors. They did a great job. They may have even elevated the script to a high enough level that I could watch it just for their performances. But the movie - eh. Too much creeping. Too many slow pan shots. Too many pauses. Too much anticlimatic suspense.

Now if you liked this movie, you're going to want to argue with me about the movie's merits. I recognize there were things in this movie that could be considered flashes of brilliance. But I would argue that those flashes of brilliance were contrived. I felt the effort the Cohen brothers put into making this an Oscar winner. They pushed too hard for my taste.

If you didn't like the movie then you know what I mean and you most likely agree.

Let's discuss.

Clean Windows

It's a small thing but we cleaned our windows today. Small things like that are good for cheering up a place. The next time you're feeling like doing something to make your place look better, try something simple like cleaning your windows.

Happy 30th Birthday

You know who you are!!