I really need to make the Snook a Persian Love Cake. Looks like something he’d like!

There, I Fixed It. Ha! It’s like CraftFail but for DIY and home repair.

Sick. Ugh. I felt kind of crappy and tired last weekend, but it never turned into anything so I figured I fought it off. Turns out that wasn’t quite the case. Friday morning at work I suddenly became aware of a telltale tingling in my lip. Cold sore! Again! This is my second one this year, which is way more frequent than usual. I guess I was more sick and/or stressed than I thought last week. The problem is that as I’ve gotten older, my reaction to the virus has gotten more and more extreme. Having a blister is the least of my worries. The lymph nodes under that side of my jaw swell up and get painful and tender. If it’s really bad, I get shooting pains (neuralgia) all the way up the side of my face. That leads to a headache. It’s really pretty awful, and it can take more than a week to heal. Anyway, after my last one Dr. Chin gave me a prescription for an antiviral. The key, he said, was that I had to take it IMMEDIATELY when I noticed the symptoms. Of course, the prescription was at home and I was at work. I went to a drugstore at lunch to get some Zovirax and ask the chemist how long the window was for taking the antiviral. He said I could still take it that night when I got home, but the sooner the better. I finished up what work I could and then left early at 4pm. I grabbed the script at home and went straight to get it filled ($28 for three pills!). By then my lip was getting puffier and I was feeling more and more crappy. I took the antiviral, then doped up with lysine, vitamin C, and paracetamol. I basically spent all day yesterday in bed, which is pretty unusual for me. (I rarely nap.) The good news is that I think the antivirals have helped. The blister started disappearing yesterday and is now nearly gone. My glands are tender, but it’s manageable with painkillers. And I never got the shooting neuralgia pains, which is a big relief. I still feel dizzy and tired, and I’m annoyed that I’m going to miss my long run for the third week in a row. Still, it feels like this is going to be a much shorter recovery time. Back to bed, I guess…

New iPhone
Yes, I’m a bit of a Mac fangirl, but you have to believe this wasn’t my idea. The Snook started thinking about getting an iPhone a few months ago. (It was all due to wurdle, really, which he played whenever I set my phone down.) I told him he should just get one of the old 3G ones, because they’d be cheaper when the new ones came in. Except they aren’t. They’ve discontinued the 16GB (which is the one he wanted), and none of them have come down in price in Australia. So he started crunching numbers on plans, and he worked out that it was only a little bit more expensive to get a 3GS. Then, since he didn’t really care about video and a better camera, he’d swap with me! I got my phone unlocked last week so it would work with his Exetel SIM. The Snook is at the extreme low end in phone usage, so the original plan was just to get the Optus $19 Cap Plan (which actually had a lower TCO than buying the pre-paid iPhone from Vodafone and unlocking). We ordered it on Optus’s website last night. BUT – this morning I learned on Twitter (in between all the Michael Jackson craziness) that the Apple Store was selling them outright for $200 less than Vodafone’s pre-paid! I called Optus to cancel the offer while the Snook ran down to the George Street store. They have plenty in stock. He got the phone, and tonight we did the big switch. It worked perfectly! Expect more mobile video in the future, kids.

Button Necklace
I spotted a stall selling these necklaces when I was at the Kirribilli Art & Design Markets earlier this month. The seller had necklaces and bracelets of varying lengths, some in bright colourways and others subdued. I was drawn to the shiny discs like a toddler to candy. The buttons are strung together with tiger wire, and the whole things feels much much sturdier than it looks. I couldn’t resist. Yeah, I probably could have made my own if I really wanted to, but it was a case of instant gratification. (And given that it was only $15, pretty cheap too.) I like it!

From Alegrya today: “@web_goddess isn’t knitting supposed to be a way to dispel stress and drama??”

Ha! You’d think that. Instead last week started with a fellow Sydney knitter being harrassed by lawyers for a big craft company, and this week I copped it for an innocent email to my own guild group about Ravelry names. Maybe I should take up making cake balls instead.

Interview with the artists behind Wall-E‘s end titles. I loved the end titles; they were absolutely my favorite part of the movie. (Link courtesy of kottke.)

Buffy vs. Edward. A couple people sent me that link, and it was FANTASTIC. “In this remixed narrative, Edward Cullen from the Twilight Series meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer at Sunnydale High. It’s an example of transformative storytelling serving as a visual critique of Edward’s character and generally creepy behavior. Seen through Buffy’s eyes some of the more patriarchal gender roles and sexist Hollywood tropes embedded in the Twilight saga are exposed in hilarious ways.” I did feel like kind of a nerd to immediately recognize the few shots from Harry Potter.

Carnivores: Keep being awesome! Okay, that made me laugh a little bit. (I still love you though, vegans.)