I should be in bed, fast asleep, but unfortunately, I got swept away watching the latest movie from my Netflix queue, Casino Royale, and subsequently forgot to put a load of laundry in the washer this evening. Seeing as they prefer me to come into work wearing freshly-laundered clothes, I’m taking this opportunity to update the blog while my work clothes are in the wash. (Brilliant, aren’t I?)

It’s been a quiet weekend. Last weekend, which was predominantly spent reading the new Harry Potter book, felt nice and long. This weekend was quite the opposite - I got relatively little done, and it went by in seemingly less than a blink of an eye. The only really exciting stuff happened Friday evening.

A few of my friends - Wes, Maggie, and Laura - and I had planned to go see the new Simpsons movie Friday night. Since we were going to the theater that was relatively close to work (since the other three live on that side of town anyway), I had planned on going straight to Laura’s from work and hang out there until it was time for us to meet Wes and Maggie for dinner.

Around 3:00, I got an email from the company transportation department alerting us that at around 1:00 pm Friday afternoon, there was a huge crash on I-40 outside the exit for the Raleigh-Durham airport. The interstate was shut down in both directions, and since I-40 is how just about everyone in the triangle gets to and from work (yours truly included), and it’s usually pretty packed even under the best conditions, I decided to leave work early to avoid as much of the rush-hour traffic as possible. Laura, who also takes I-40 to get home, was let home early as well, and was able to navigate her way around the back streets to get home in a relatively short period of time. To give you an idea of how backed up the roads were, the route to Laura’s house from work - a drive that normally takes me 5 minutes - took me 25 minutes at 4:00 that afternoon, and that wasn’t even using highways or other major roads at all. Another friend of mine who didn’t hear about the accident til she was already in the middle of rush-hour traffic on I-40 was stuck on the road for nearly 2 hours on her way home, a route that usually probably takes her around 30-40 minutes.

At any rate, traffic conditions were made worse by the fact that by 5:00 or so, it was pouring buckets. When we got to our rendezvous destination with Wes and Maggie, I had to park twice, because the first place I parked ended up having something like 6″ of standing water, and I couldn’t get out. Oops.

Anyway, the margaritas at Chiles were yummy, and the Simpsons movie was hilariously fun. I shot this outside the theater - please pardon the poor quality of the photo - camera phones do have the tendency to suck.

Wes and Laura at the Simpsons display outside the theater

I’m sorry to say that the rest of my weekend was completely uneventful. I mostly stayed in and did some work, some knitting, some reading, and some movie-watching. Hardly worth blogging about (and that’s saying something, since I just wrote several paragraphs about a car accident I wasn’t even in…)

The only other thing worth blogging about, perhaps, is my newly acquired toys! I was required to get a Blackberry for work. It means I’m always reachable and can never say, “Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t think I got that email!” … but it’s still a toy, nonetheless.

My new Blackberry 8703e, next to a Sharpie to show scale

My next task is to name it. I always name my electronics. It’s sort of a ritual for me. I get a device, and I play with it for a few days, and then after I’ve learned a bit about its personality, I give it a name. These are my named devices to date:

• Desktop - Herbert
• iPod - Stewie
• Digital Camera - Marcel
• Flash Drive #1 - Methuselah
• Flash Drive #2 - Cruella
• Laptop (Vaio - Personal) - Puck
• Laptop (Dell - Work) - Brigitta
• Cell Phone - Zelda
• Scanner - Maury

So now, I need to come up with a name for my Blackberry. It’s definitely male, but past that, I haven’t really figured out its true personality yet. It’ll come to me shortly, I’m sure.

My other new toys are three bags of wool for spinning from Mom. They were ones I ordered from Louet when we were at TNNA, and Mom sent them along to me for my birthday. They arrived last week, and I can’t wait to have time to pull them out and start spinning with them. Too bad I’m so busy with other fibery projects right now. I tried to take my own pictures of them, but the colors just wouldn’t come out true, so I ganked these from the Louet website.

Louet Northern Lights - 18 Icy Winter, 20 Ocean Waves, and 32 Thunderstorm

So, with all that said, I bet my clothes are done in the wash and are ready to be moved to the dryer, and thus, it’s time for me to hit the sack. Happy knitting!