Yesterday I was invited to a birthday party at the very last minute. It was for one of the girls that I go horseback riding with and since I wasn’t aware that it was her birthday, I hadn’t purchased a gift for the party. She had recently won a barrel racing competition and paid for a professional photograph to be taken during the event, so I decided to swing by Target and pick out a picture frame before going to the party.

When the birthday girl opened her present and tried to place the photo inside however, it did not fit. orz

The frame was the correct size, but the dimensions of the photograph itself were off by a few inches of odd white border. The “professional photographer” had printed the photo out on Hewlett-Packard glossy paper from their computer because they wanted to apply their copyright text to it in PhotoShop.

I offered to take the frame back and get a larger one with a matting kit, but the birthday girl decided to simply cut the edges of the photo to make it fit inside the frame. Edges of the image portion on the bottom of the photo needed to be cut to finally make it fit. I felt pretty bad about it afterwards…

My old apron was looking pretty nasty with all kinds of tomato sauce and grease stains, so I went looking for a replacement on eBay and found this cute one featuring Snoopy! Although the straps are a little loose in the back (it wasn’t made for a shortie like me LOL) it actually fits pretty well overall. It was the only apron I could find with more subdued colors too. There were a lot with really cute designs and bright colors, but they looked more pretty than practical and I did not want to purchase anything that was predominately white for fear of staining. I like how the little hand cloth with Snoopy and Woodstock is detachable too, because I won’t have to worry about staining it too much while working with tomato sauce or something. LOL

Yesterday night I watched some of the 2008 Olympic Games with Scott (PARANOiA) on NBC. The more eclectic events stream at night and in this case it was Sabre Fencing for the Gold. It was interesting to see how the judging process has been “modernized” by technology in recent years. The fencer’s blade now has a push-button on the point, which registers with the conductive lamé jacket of their opponent to signal whether a hit was on or off target (valid target areas vary between Foil, Épée, and Sabre). If a fencer executes a valid hit and earns a point, it causes LED lights within their helmet (and the floor facing the audience) to flash their assigned color of red or green; which in all honesty was almost comical and gave off a game show vibe. =P The bout we watched was between the USA and France, which France unsurprisingly won by 20 more points.

My favorite Olympic sport to watch however is obviously Equestrian (which involves the three disciplines of Jumping, Dressage, and Eventing). I was actually surprised to learn that the oldest Olympian competing this year is competing in Dressage: 67-year-old Japanese equestrian Hiroshi Hoketsu (法華津 寛). It is unfortunate that his age seems to be the only thing international media feels newsworthy enough to report upon, because his calmness, poise, and control on horseback almost make you want to hold your breath during his performances. The cues and aids that he gave to his horse were so subtle, and its responsiveness to executing maneuvers so immediate, that you can understand why it might have been named “Whisper.”

The equestrian training facilities prepared for Olympians also received the “modernization” treatment and it was enviable to get a brief glimpse of them. Air-Conditioned indoor arenas? Climate-controlled barns with mist fans? Separate indoor cleaning stalls with warm and cold water run-offs? I’ve never seen such pony pampering in my life! LOL It was like watching Lives of the Rich and Famous: Horse Edition. =P

Woohooooo~!! My Free People knitted flare cardigan arrived in the mail today! I found it auctioning on eBay and won it for $19 when it originally retailed for $119 in stores. Although the top is a year old and probably “out of fashion” now, I don’t really follow what’s in style/season like my other girlfriends or obsess over it too much. I just wear what I like and think is cute even if it “went out of style” ages ago. =P

When I first saw this top over a year ago I immediately fell in love with the style, but not the price. Although Free People is my favorite brand of clothing and I adore their whimsical designs, I think that their prices are absolutely ridiculous considering the materials that they use. I mean $100 for a top that is 80% cotton and 20% acrylic yarn?! I could knit myself the exact same thing from 100% cashmere for half the price (if not much less)! LOL So this is my dilemma usually when I go shopping for clothes; I fixate on the price too much because I imagine it in terms of the actual materials being used. Then of course I think of more important things that I could spend the same amount of money on like… erm… more videogames. =X LOL

Anyways, since I “saved” $100 I decided to treat myself to something on Steam. I bought the Source Multiplayer Pack which includes Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source, and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch. I’ve never played HL2, but after seeing so many references to it on modified TF2 maps/servers I became curious. I’m also super excited about DoD:S because I liked what I played of it during free trials (and being a military history buff I’m all over WWII-themed games anyways). The problem is that I don’t know anyone on Steam who plays these games and I’m a total newbie! ;_; I have 150 friends on Steam though, so I’m sure that eventually I’ll find someone in a game to drop in on unexpectedly.

Whenever I watch this video I always find it so inspiring. It is the story of Jolanda Adelaar (Miss Italia Olanda 2008) and her Fjord horse Guusje. Cold bloods are very stocky and not considered to be particularly “elegant”, so most people would therefore assume a draft horse not to be suitable for dressage. But Guusje danced his way through the competition and made it to the highest national level of dressage in Holland. Today both he and Jolanda are like superstars in the dressage world and compete internationally.

Even more astonishing than this little Fjord’s rise to fame however is the story of his humble beginnings. Guusje was merely a lesson horse at Jolanda’s riding school prior to being purchased. After becoming her very first horse, they trained together in many disciplines before finding that dressage is what they both excelled at most. Their immense popularity in Holland even paved the way for Jolanda to enter Miss Italia nel Mondo this year as Miss Olanda (Miss Holland). Her talent? Dressage of course!

I’ve really felt like crocheting lately, but because it reaches 100 degress Fahrenheit in the afternoons, I haven’t been motivated enough to work on anything that’s actually wearable. So my latest project is instead an outfit for one of my dolls. Yes, I’m 23 and still own dolls. U_U I enjoy making little outfits and things for them because it doesn’t take up as much time as knitting/crocheting something for myself, and it gives me the opportunity to try out all the cute baby patterns that I find in knitting and crochet books. Plus if anyone that I know has a baby, I can just recycle one of these completed outfits as my contribution to a baby shower. I know how cheap that sounds, believe me… so shhh~! Nobody else can know my secret!

Here’s a completed knitted outfit for my Freeke doll. Originally I was going to make a matching pinafore for her doll Bibi, but I ran out of yarn and couldn’t purchase more skiens. IIRC it was some combination of home-spun angora and alpaca purchased on a trip to the coast. I really like the color and how well it matches her dress.

While exploring a foreclosed orange grove yesterday I came across an abandoned fruit packing building. After walking inside I disturbed a colony of bats that had made it their home. Most had retreated back to their hideaways by the time I took out my camera, but you can still see a lot in the video.

Last night I played TF2 on a Japanese server setup by one of my friends. There were two other westerners playing on the server. As soon as I greeted one of my JP friends over the microphone, I became the subject of many vulgar and hurtful remarks by these two westerners. There seemed to be no end to their insults.

These players had never seen me in-game before. They did not know me, and if they were facing me in person, I doubt they would be brave enough to make those types of disgusting and unwarranted comments. But because this is the Internet and they are anonymous, somehow they felt compelled to make my gaming experience less enjoyable in order to entertain their own juvenile sense of humor.

Unfortunately my friend who adminned the server was offline at the time; otherwise these two would have been banned instantly. It just reminded me of how I’m normally treated on US/western servers and why I began playing on Japanese servers in the first place. I have been playing on Japanese servers for nearly a year now and with one exception, it has only been the random westerners who joined that have treated me in this way. On US and western servers of course, it is a common occurrence.

Westerners are rare on Japanese servers, so whenever I encounter one in this community I am usually very eager to make a new English-speaking friend. But occasionally the typical degenerate types from US servers find their way onto the Japanese servers for whatever reason. I feel that limited and predictable encounters like these are really starting to jade my perception of my own community (American/western) in an extremely negative way. For one thing, I have no desire to play with fellow westerners anymore. The idea of playing on a western server conjures up fears of reprisal in the event that I simply say “hi” over the microphone. I feel like I have to be on guard and restrict myself when I play on American servers. I can’t be myself, and therefore I can’t enjoy myself, like I do on Japanese servers among Japanese players.

If I could not play TF2 or FPS games with Japanese players, I think I would quit entirely.