Reminiscing About the Nintendo DS; Plus One Sock Off One Sock On.

Hey everyone! How's your Wednesday going? Today is the last day of the month so that means tomorrow is the first day of December and the 25th day before Christmas!

So recently the Nintendo DS turned 12 years old here in America as the original release date was November 21st 2004. I'm surprised how long it's been since I first got this machine and with this 12th anniversary I've been thinking back to my memories with this machine so I thought I would share some of these memories and thoughts with you guys.

My first experience with machine actually dates back to when I was in elementary school I believe that I was 7-8 years old and the DS had just been released. See my school let us bring things to entertain ourselves after we took this big test. I don't remember exactly what test it was, a LEAP test or an IOWA test it's been too long for me to remember, it was one of those big tests you took back in 3rd grade. But yeah I brought along my Gameboy Advance SP with my copy of Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga (Yeah my memory game is on fire right now I'm remembering everything.) and I was sitting outside playing it. Of course all the other kids were sitting outside doing things too and this kid sitting close to me was playing on a blue Nintendo DS (The ol big chunky one too).

I was completely shocked to see him playing on this brand new dual screen machine, I had no idea the Nintendo DS was a thing at that moment (Either I didn't watch enough TV or Nintendo didn't advertise this machine at all). I don't really know what game he was playing but it definitely made my 7 year old eyes widen. That wouldn't be my last sighting of this machine though I saw someone playing NintenDogs on the bus just before Christmas break that year. Two screens? A touch screen? Yeah sign me up. Actually I don't think I ever told my parents this but I actually got a kid to let me play his DS for a bit... Mum if you're reading this I'm sorry for never telling you, haha.

Of course I then bugged my parents and convinced them to buy me the Nintendo DS for Christmas like any kid would... or at least annoying younger me anyway. To this day I still have the same DS and it still works! (Nintendo built this baby to last a long time.)

It's a little worn on the outside but it still works great. When I got this DS it came with this little demo cartridge for Metroid Prime Hunters. I never actually got the full version of this game it kinda freaked me out as a kid so I never really played it much. I only really liked it because it had Samus in it... who I only knew from Super Smash Brothers at the time. Games I got for Christmas with this machine was Pokemon Dash, a game where you flick the touchscreen to race against Pokemon in these awesome courses across all sorts of terrain (Though you only got to play as Pikachu... kind of a bummer.) and Super Mario 64 DS.

Oh Super Mario 64 DS has quite a big part in my memory of this machine. I was already a lifetime fan of the original Super Mario 64 and being able to play it on the go off TV with THREE new characters to play as? This game was and still is a blast. This game had quite a few control options too, such as the ability to move your character via the touchscreen, I swear I never used this control scheme. Of course it was a bit different from the original game as far as control was concerned because you were using a D-Pad instead of a control stick but have you tried plugging the game into a 3DS? The Circle Pad makes this game work even better. Super Mario 64 DS also had a multiplayer mode me and my sister would spend hours playing and a Mini Game mode with a bunch of cool mini games... including poker and other casino card games. Hey I can't gamble yet but when I'm 21 boy you better be ready casinos, Luigi taught me well.

Anyway another big part of my Nintendo DS memories were Pokemon... Yes I sure had a lot of Pokemon games for this machine, take a look.

Yeah that's a lot right? Hahaha yeah I could go on about all these games but this blog would end up a mile long. This isn't even my full DS library too. Yeah Pokemon, especially Pokemon Diamond was a big part of my Nintendo DS memories. I'll probably talk more about each individual games in future blogs. That reminds me of another great part of this machine... Well kind of. It had the ability to go online! I think it was mostly used on Pokemon games but the DS could actually connect to the internet, this was mind blowing and allowed for people to trade and battle Pokemon from around the world. Only problem was it didn't really like connecting to WPA2 Broadband access spots... Which meant my use of the DS's wifi was minimal, ohh well.

Another great thing about the Nintendo DS was the GBA slot. I could have a GBA game in my machine AND a DS game at the same time. Meaning all I had to do was turn off the machine and turn it back on to switch games. I had two games with me at all times. I was kinda disappointed when the GBA slot was removed from the DSi models (Which is a whole another story on it's own).

While I did love the addition of the touchscreen oh boy the styluses... Remember how tiny they were? They were lost so easily. I'm really glad in future models they increased the size of them. Actually the stylus was kind of awkward to hold in my hand too, which is why I ended up using larger separate licensed stylus products for the most part.

Overall this machine was and still is an incredible piece of work with a huge library of games, most games I never even owned (I only own like 2-3% of the entire library of games for this machine.). I'm glad this machine still works, yeah I have a 3DS XL but every so often I like to boot this ol boy up and play some games. This is also my preferred way to play GBA games now. (Truth be told my old Gameboy Advance SP doesn't work anymore.) 12 years and this machine still holds up as one of the greatest portable gaming machines if not one of the greatest video game consoles in general.

With that little nostalgia trip out the way it's time to put down the DS and pick up the needles... Or cast off the needles anyway because...

I finally finished my first sock... The FIRST sock. Yup still got one more to go but hey I'm just happy I finished this! I even used kitchener on the toe perfectly too. I started this sock project back on October 25th so it's not been all that long. Since I've written down everything my second sock should come along a lot faster, I've already casted it on and finished my ribbing. Now you're probably asking yourself... Why did Zach just knit a Christmas Stocking? Well I got giant feet so this was how big I had to make it, hahaha. To be honest on future sock projects I might come down to a 2.7 MM needle or a 2.5 MM needle, it is a lil big even for my feet but it doesn't slide around and this sock is also super comfy. So yeah that's about it on the knitting, I'm going full steam ahead on the second sock and my Shawl is still growing. Possibly going to be starting my cable hat project I talked about in a previous blog soon as well.

Mum also finished her socks yesterday as well! Both socks actually. Her socks are a lot more nicer and fancier then mine are but hey I'll get there. I purposely went for plain vanilla socks for my first pair because of the fact I have never knitted socks before. Before you know it i'll be making awesome socks just like these. (I'm learning at a pretty fast pace too.) Mum knitted these socks for Dad for Christmas so his feet will be pretty warm and cozy. Though Dad is getting these for this Christmas, Mum actually started these two years ago. Haha yeah I guess she kept putting them off but mum told me she knitted one of these socks per year. These have a reinforced toe as well, Dad tends to wear his toes of his socks out often so these reinforced toes should prevent that. Mum used Size 2.75 MM (US Size 2) Needles and Knit Picks Fingering Weight Yarn on these socks.

So yeah we're still going knit crazy, Mum actually started up a new pair of gloves project and I'm going good on my projects as well.

One last thing before I end off the blog. Sometimes when I'm knitting I have to (sadly) put the needles down sometimes and help out the the cooking for dinner.

You saw it here first folks... This is me cooking some Spaghetti. I do know how to cook and I make a pretty mean Spaghetti if I do say so myself.

Haha anyway hope you enjoy the rest of your day and thanks for reading! Tomorrow is December the 1st so we're counting down 25 days to Christmas Day! Expect some Christmassy stuff in the upcoming weeks. If you don't celebrate Christmas no worries I won't be flooding the blog out with it or anything. Anyway don't forget to follow me on my social medias, especially Instagram!

See you on the next blog!

Learning How to Tie My Knitting Laces

Welcome back to the ZAK Entertainment blog everyone! How was your Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving weekend? Hopefully you didn't get too stressed out shopping because boy did things fly of the shelf fast.

If you're new here this is an Entertainment Website/Blog run by me (You can call me Zach or Zachary) where I talk about my interests, life, hobbies and so on. Some of my big topics on here are film, video games, travel, books, knitting, and just stuff I'm passionate about in general. One of my hopes with this blog is that it allows you, the readers, to explore their interests through mine. Basically I'm a big nerd and this is my nerd blog, hahaha. Who knows I might get you guys hooked onto knitting or something if you're not already... Or should I say casted onto knitting? Because saying getting hooked onto knitting doesn't make sense unless you crochet and knit. You can follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest to keep up with me (I'm mostly active on Facebook and Instagram.) and this is also a great way to keep notified on when I post a blog. My blogging schedule at the moment is Monday, Friday and Wednesday at 11:00 AM Central American Time, which would be 12:00 AM Eastern American time and 9:00 AM Pacific American Time.

Quick reminder that today is the start of the epic DCTV cross over on the CW, It starts with Supergirl tonight so don't forget to check it out if you're into DC superheroes like I am.

So I recently got into knitting over two months ago now and I've enjoyed learning how to knit and knitting in general so I don't plan on stopping any time soon. I've actually got a library of finished projects building up. Amazingly I've already finished 7 projects! You can check them all out on my Ravelry ZAKMan. The 7th finished object was actually finished on Saturday... I actually did this entire project in one day's sitting.

This is an experiment dishcloth/swatch I made to practice some lace! You see I'm trying out all sorts of lace patterns in order to help myself create an awesome edging for my WIP Shawl that I mentioned in my previous blog.

My shawl is growing at a pretty nice pace. I'm loving how the variegated colors of my Knit Picks Imagination Pixie Dust yarn is coming out on this. It won't be too long before I'm ready to start my edging (Okay I got a lot to go this is going to be a decent sized shawl.) so I'm preparing to make my edging my practicing different lace patterns.

This is book three of The Stitch Collection (I have the entire collection by the way.) written by Debbie O'Neill (She's on Ravelry as DebbieO). This collection of 5 books teach you how to do knitting/purling, cable, specialty, ribbing and lace while giving you cool patterns to experiment with. I've been reading, studying and practicing patterns from this book in order to give me some awesome ideas for my shawl as well as teach me some awesome lace techniques. I don't know if I will be using this zig zag technique on my shawl or not yet but it really taught me cool ways to manipulate stitches.

The pattern I used out of this book is the Zig Zag pattern, it's an intermediate pattern I guess because it does take a lot of concentration. What I did with this swatch was I casted on 25 stitches (Because the pattern calls for cast ons with multiples of 6 + 1) knitted 4 rows of garter stitch then began the pattern, ending it off with an additional 4 rows of garter stitch before casting it off.

There are quite a lot more patterns I want to try out of this book, reading through this book is pretty fun and I really enjoy how simple the book makes it seem without lacking any vital information. These books can be pretty portable too I realize I can have it in my knit bag and take it around with me. Each book has tips and tricks for each kind of knitting so it's a great read for any beginner knitter and a great reference guide for experienced knitters too. Oh yeah they also have an abbreviation guide that will teach you all the different knitting terminology. 

Of course I forgot to mention that the yarn I used for this swatch was some of my Peaches and Creme Candy Sprinkles yarn which I showcased back in October on my Dishcloth blog. This is the same kind of yarn I used for my very first dishcloth project and is the same color mum used for her's. I decided to use this because why not? If I'm going to make a swatch to try out some patterns I might as well make them in yarn I can use for dishcloths that way my swatches are useful afterwards. I also used size US 6 (4.0 MM) straight needles.

One last thing I have to mention and obviously you've probably already pointed it out... When I did this pattern the zig zags actually made the dishcloth all wavy. I have absolutely no idea if making a border on either side would of fixed this or not. Actually I kind of like the waviness of the dishcloth, it's unique and awesome so it's not such a bad thing. Though how would this pattern affect the shape of my shawl? Would it make my shawl go all wavy and weird? Or would it give my shawl a nice pattern on the edge? These questions have been floating around inside my head.

Anyway that's my current Lace work and Shawl progress! I'm also buckling down on my Sock, I'm at the home stretch now!

I only have about 2 inches left before I start on my toe and finish of this sock. I'm hoping to get it done today or tomorrow so I can finally start on my second sock. The total length of the foot of this sock, not including the toe, is going to be around 9 inches. Haha, yeah I have big size 11 feet and my toes aren't exactly short either. Of course my first socks would be for myself aka Big Foot himself but it seems to be breezing by pretty quickly, especially while listening to some podcasts. 

One podcast I recently came across that I've become and avid listening of is a knitting podcast called The Knitmore Girls. An Audio podcast done by Jasmin and her mother Gigi as they talk about whats happening in their life and what they're knitting. I love the whole Mother and Daughter dynamic and the episodes I've listened to have been pretty awesome and enjoyable. The way they've set up their podcast is pretty cool too, they got multiple segments where they talk about what they're knitting, what they're wearing as far as knitting, they're yarn attacks and more. You can check their podcast out on iTunes and on their website http://www.knitmoregirlspodcast.com/ 

So yeah a couple more podcasts and I'll be officially done with this sock, really can't wait to start on the next one, which will hopefully knit together faster then this first sock. I mean I love knitting them and all but I feel like I've been dragging a bit... Or maybe time just seems to be moving slowly when really it isn't. Christmas always seems to slow down to a crawl for some reason.

Aside from knitting what I've been doing in my spare time is I'm continuing my journey through the Unova region in Pokemon Black 2. I currently just got my 6th Gym Badge from Gym Leader Skyla and I got to ride in an airplane... Seriously this is the first and only time you get to do this in Pokemon. So yeah that's pretty fun, I've also been picking up and playing some Super Smash Bros for Wii U lately, forgot how fun this game can be.

Anyway Time to wrap up the blog for today! Hope you enjoy your Monday, it's Cyber Monday so more crazy deals are happening online... Though not sure what on, everything sold out online, like everything, on Friday morning. Always seems like such a frustrating time to shop, I mean people are up at crazy hours, and I mean near midnight hours shopping. I can actually give out a little hint toward's Wednesday's blog... It may or may not involve the DS. The Nintendo DS, and I'm talking the old grey fat DS too. So stay tuned for that and...

See you on the next blog!

Diving Into a Shawlette Journey

So Thanksgiving has come and gone... How was your day yesterday? My family and I watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and the Purina Dog Show like we always do every year. You probably know this if you watched it also but it was Macy's 90th Anniversary of the Thanksgiving Parade... Which means I've actually lived through 20 years of a pretty awesome tradition.

Today is Black Friday so some of you are probably rushing around looking for great deals on gifts and such. Normally it gets pretty hectic and I usually avoid shopping on this day. If you don't want to shop in store Cyber Monday (Okay really it's more like Cyber Weekend, deals are already happening) is also a thing.

I finally got around to balling up my Knit Picks Imagination yarn (Which I talked about on Monday and Wednesday).

As this was my first time doing this I got the honor of holding the yarn taut between my hands as Mum balled the yarn into, well a ball. This is what Mum calls the newbie position, haha. I wasn't clever enough have it on my hand and ball it at the same time. Maybe I can wrap the yarn around my legs and do it myself.  My arms actually got pretty tired after a while and it took around 15-20 minutes to get it all balled up.

This is the end product, a well balled ball of yarn.

I still have one more skein to ball up but I'm not in any urgent rush until later in the project I'm using this for... Which about that I couldn't resist; the moment I balled the yarn up I immediately started my brand new and very first shawl! 

As I stated last Wednesday I was using the Traveling Woman pattern for this shawl. I casted on 3 stitches using the crochet hook provisional cast on, that my Mum and I taught ourselves, using some cotton scrap yarn. (I talked about this on my Knitting Cast On Nightmares blog.) Then I made myself a little garter tab using my project yarn, which is basically doing a straight stitch on the 3 scrap yarn cast on stitches for around 6 or 7 rows. After making my garter tab I picked up the little bumps on the side of the garter tab, knitting them as I went down, and picking up the three bottom stitches while pulling out the scrap yarn as I picked them up. Okay so I'm still having issues undoing the scrap yarn on this cast on but we got it done. Basically now I have 9 stitches which I'll increase using yarn overs through the course of this pattern.

This is about as far as I got on the pattern before things got really complicated... I really thought this pattern would be an easy first shawlette for me to make but it seems it's far from it. I kept making mistakes constantly. Now you're probably wondering why I'm talking in past tense.. Well I frogged it... Yeah I am giving up on this pattern. I'm sorry, this pattern looks like such a fantastic shawl and it's not a bad pattern by any means but I just can't wrap my head around it. So sorry Traveling Woman but this man has to go the opposite direction. Maybe one day I'll come back and try again but for my first shawlette this is a no go.

I did not give up on my shawlette though! I have decided to team up with Mum and come up with our own pattern for my shawlette. I will basically be doing a simple shawlette pattern to start off with, which means I'll have two yarn overs on either side of the spine going all the way down. At the end of my shawl I'll be making a really cool end edging pattern that Mum and I will be coming up with to finish it off. It's going to be a lot easier this way in my opinion and I've already gotten so far on my shawlette. It'll be our own awesome custom shawlette in the end so I'm even more excited for this shawlette then I was in the beginning.

I did get farther then this but I actually had to undo it back to this. Apparently I accidentally purled the last three stitches instead of knitting them like I was supposed to on each row, whoops. Anyway yeah the pattern is going to be custom made, I'm going off of Mum's instructions and they've proved to be a lot easier to wrap my head around then the other pattern. I'm still using the same yarn and the same knitting needles as before.

I mentioned on Wednesday that Mum has made quite a few shawls in the past and she's allowed me to show off some of them on the blog for you guys!

This is Mum's Rainbow Shawlette she made a while back. My shawlette will probably be most similar to this one. This is a plain shawlette with a Feather and Fan kind of edging.

On this Shawl Mum got a little crazier and added this awesome Yarn Over then Knit Two Together kind of ridge rows that repeat every so often down the shawl. This shawl was made for my little sister and Mum actually has this project up on her Ravelry.

This is a much more drastic shawl Mum made for Annie (My little sister.) I don't think I could do anything like this on my first shawl or two. You can also check out this pattern project on Mum's Ravelry.

I never realized how customizable a shawl can be. There's so much I can do and so many different patterns I can put into this. So Mum and I are putting our heads together and lets see how how cool we can make this first shawlette of mine! I'll be keeping you all updated on my journey in future blog posts!

I think I've turned into a giant beach ball or something after all the food I ate on Thanksgiving. For breakfast we had Eggs, Bacon, Sausage and Hashbrowns with HP Sauce. I never realized how HP Sauce goes so perfectly with all of this I have seen the light and I'm never turning back.

For our big Thanksgiving meal, after cooking it all day, we had some Chicken Breasts, Thighs and Legs with some awesome roasted potatoes, cornbread stuffing with veggies such as carrots, Brussel Sprouts(Eat your brussels kids, they're really good.) and green beans. We also had some Yorkshire Pudding, Mum made this all from scratch and the Yorkshire puddings were really fluffy and yummy. Oh yeah of course we had a chicken gravy poured over top. Now I know people normally eat Turkey on Thanksgiving but hey we spared a Turkey for Thanksgiving because we're not super big on Turkey in this house.

Of course the awesome food didn't stop there. For dessert later we had Rocky Road Ice Cream with some Chocolate Cake... I know that's a lot of Chocolate but I wouldn't have it any other way. Though the Rocky Road seemed to be a bit over nutty, is that possible? Finally we had some potato chips to end off the day. I ate a lot apparently but it was good and made for a pretty awesome Thanksgiving.

So hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving and your Friday! Whether you're out doing shopping, sitting at home, or in the middle of the chaos working hope you're enjoying yourself. We're about to jump into December on the blog so the countdown for Christmas is happening! Also the Countdown for when I finally get my mitts on Pokemon Sun and Moon... Mum is still teasing me. We're down to 30 days away! A whole month to go. I got all sorts of cool blogs planned for December so stay tuned!

Don't forget to check me out on Instagram as ZAKManK I've been trying to get into using it more often and it's the website I'm most active on other then Facebook. I post updates on my knitting and other cool stuff related to me on there. Also don't forget to check me out on Ravelry as ZAKMan!

With that all said and done...

See you on the next blog!

End of a Knitting Beginning and Crossing a Lake of Birds

Hey everyone! Today's Wednesday which means tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day. As my blogging schedule is Monday, Wednesday and Friday I will not be posting a blog on Thanksgiving so Happy Early Thanksgiving! If you're reading this on Thanksgiving then ignore the word early, haha. Hope you enjoy your Holiday. I'm pretty thankful for a lot of things in my life such as my awesome family. Don't over stuff yourself on food though, alright? Oh yeah the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade is on tomorrow morning as well (Check your local times for this... Unless you live near Times Square of course and get to see it live.) so don't forget to tune in for that! Always love watching the Parade and also the Dog Show that always comes on afterwards.

So another chapter in my knitting journey has come to an end... Remember the Baby Blanket I was making for my little brother Chrissie? If you don't you can catch up by reading the very first blog I featured this blanket in.

Tadah! I casted it off yesterday finally after working on it for months (I started this in September!). It's kind of said to see this project come to an end as this was my very first project I took over. (By that I mean my mum actually started it off and I took it over a little ways in. I did most of the work on this regardless). I've put a lot of hard work and love into this blanket so hopefully Chrissie loves it when he receives this as a Christmas present. I was using size US 10 (6.0 mm) on this blanket and three different colors of Bernat Softee Baby yarn. The Yellow is 02003 Lemon, White is 30008 Antique White, and the green is 02004 Mint. Funny thing is about using such big needles is that when I switched over to using 7s and 3s it felt so.. odd. This is the only project I've done so far where I've used such large needles; all my other ones were on much smaller needles. This is just a plain straight stitch but after doing 6 rows in one color I swapped out colors. I love the combination of colors here they all work great together. You can check out the project on my Ravelry!

Anyway with that project finished a new chapter begins and some new projects!

I talked about these yarns in Monday's blog but now I've finalized what I'm using them for and I've got my needles set and ready.

This is the Lana Grossa Lord (Dye lot is 61101 and the color says 005) yarn I talked about on Monday. This yarn was discontinued a while back which makes these pretty rare. Rare yarn deserves to be knitted into a special hat so I've decided to make my very first Cable Stitch hat! This pattern looks like a great way to get into and learn about cable so I'm pretty excited to start this project. I'm going to be using size 7 Options Rainbow Wood Fixed Circular Knitting Needles but I haven't decided what kind of cable needle I'm going to use just yet. (My mum has quite a few cable needles actually) This pattern is Splendor; The Natural by Homero Luna. This yarn is pretty thick compared to most Worsted yarns I've handled so this will be a pretty warm hat to wear, perfect for the upcoming winter (If it ever gets cold enough to wear it here) Now onto the next planned project...

I'm putting my Knit Picks Imagination Pixie Dust (Dye lot is 84788) yarn to good use on my very first shawl! Of course I still need to ball up all this yarn I'm going to get around to this perhaps today or sometime this week so wish me luck, this is going to be my first time converting a skein to a ball. I'm using the Traveling Woman shawl pattern by Liz Abinate and this will be my very first shawl. My mum is very fond of making shawls as she's made quite a few in the past so I decided to give it a go. I am making this for someone other then myself but I won't say names as she's probably going to be reading this blog. Uhh the needles I'm going to be using are size 6 Options Interchangeable Rainbow Wood Circular Knitting Needle Tips from Knit Picks. These are actually (Along with the hat needles I'm using) on sale for 10% off so it might be a good time to get yourself a pair. (These don't come with a cable by the way.)

The hat I may not be starting for another week or two but I really want to get this shawl started within the next few days.

So those are the two projects I want to get going soon, really excited to get them going. The shawl I'm not too nervous about it just uses yarn overs and increases (Which I've been practicing on.) but I'm a little nervous about the hat. Never done cable before but I have help and I learn pretty fast so I should have no problems. I'll be taking you guys along for the ride so stay tuned for my Cable Knitting and Shawl adventures!

So a couple of days ago I went out with my family to a local lake (It's a pretty big lake) and to my surprise there were a whole load of awesome birds just sitting out there on the lake.

I come out to this lake quite a bit but I've never seen this many birds gather in one spot here. I believe these are seagulls, they were pretty far away (I was zoomed in pretty far) so I couldn't get a perfect glimpse at them. There were so many just sitting out there on the water, crazy huh? They were joined by some brown ducks as well. Actually I didn't see it before but if you look real closely at the back a whole group of them were sitting together far in the back as well.

I managed to snap this photograph of them flying as well. It was pretty cool to see these birds just all sitting in a massive group like that.

So I'm pretty sure there was land here once upon a time. We had a lot of rain earlier on this year so the lake expanded a lot in such a long time and covered up all the land around this bench and chairs. I mean if you want to dangle your feet in the water along with all the fish while you eat your picnic lunch then this is the perfect sitting area for you, though I don't think getting water in your SANDwich is really a good idea.

There's also this pretty spooky tree sitting out in the middle of the fields next to the lakeshore. I'm assuming this tree is dead but it looks pretty cool where it's positioned.

So yeah that's all for my lake trip, I actually recorded some video footage I'm going to be compiling for all of you so stay tuned!

Also did you know they're already setting up Christmas lights here? Yeah it's happening all over the place, I mean Thanksgiving isn't even here yet and people are already rushing to get their Christmas lights up. Natchitoches (Which I talked about in this blog here. It's a very early blog from when I started the blog up... Which was three months ago.) already have their Lights over the Cane happening as well. I'll be giving you guys photographs and videos of all the lights I can find this upcoming Christmas season so get excited for that!

Speaking of Christmas we're already starting to get some goodies in for the Holidays.

Can't have Christmas without HP sauce, Custard and Candy Canes and you can't forget the awesome knitted Christmas cloth! Made by yours truly of course.

Okay I think I should end the blog off now, got some knitting to do. I'm still working on my sock, though I'm on the foot part now so it's going to be same old same old until I get to the toe. In my spare time I'm playing some Pokemon Alpha Sapphire and Black 2 to keep my thirst for Sun and Moon quenched until Christmas. Hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving and the rest of your week!

See you on Friday! (Haha wanted to switch it up from the "See you on the next blog" I've been using for the past 30 blogs.)

New Knitting Video and Mum Gives Me Some Rare Knitting Yarn!

Boy the Holidays are upon us already, this Thursday is Thanksgiving and it won't be too long now before Christmas. How is everyone enjoying themselves today? I've been cracking down on some knitting, mainly focusing on my sock and Chrissie's blanket. I also have a brand new ZAK Knits Episode for everyone! After the last ZAK Knits Episode I wanted to do some more knitting videos, they're really enjoyable to make. So about a week ago I recorded some footage of me working on my sock, some of it was when I was still using DPNs and the rest was recorded on magic loop (Recorded on magic loop... Okay that may be a confusing use of words for non Knitters. Hahaha.) I put it all together into this video with some commentary on top, I guess you could call it a showcase of my sock. Unlike the first video though this is actually post commentary. I did it like this because of the nature of the video and the fact I had audio issues on the original footage anyway. So sit back and enjoy! It's 12 minutes long so it's a lot shorter then the first episode.

That was pretty fun to put together, was my first time trying out post commentary. I might try this again in the future but I think I prefer live commentary. I'll probably mix things up and try it new every time.

So somehow I managed to convince my mum to give me more yarn... I have no idea how I did it, I didn't even ask, but I got to go back into her yarn stash (This blog post tells the tale of the first time I did this.) and I got ahold of some new yarns for some awesome new projects.

The yarn on the left is Knit Picks Imagination Pixie Dust. It contains 50% Superwash Merino Wool, 25% Superfine Alpaca and 25% Nylon. This is hand-painted fingering weight and one skein of this has 219 yards and 50 grams each. Dye lot number being 84788.

Yarn in the middle is some Lana Grossa Lord yarn. It's 70% wool, 20% silk and 10% polyamide. It's worsted weight and it weighs 50g per skein (Okay technically these are balls not skeins) with 131 yards per skein. I was amazed to find out that this yarn is actually kind of rare now as it's been sold out and discontinued for a while now! Amazing what Mum keeps stashed all this time huh? Anyway this yarn says its worsted but its a much heavier yarn then what I'm used to with worsted.

Finally the two yarns on the right... The purple yarn is some hand dyed (And by hand dyed I mean my Mum actually hand dyed this yarn!) fingering weight sock yarn. I believe this has 462 yards in it and after weighing it on my handy dandy scales it comes out to 90g. We believe this is 75% Merino and 25% Nylon... But Mum says its been a while since she dyed it so it could actually be 25% silk. It feels like sock yarn anyway.

Last but not least the orangey yarn is some Fingering Weight Knit Picks Essential Gold Kettle Hand Dyed. It is 75% and 25% a mixture of Nylon and Polyamide The yardage is 237 yards and it weighs 50g. This is another rare yarn actually, it was discontinued because the yarn wouldn't dye correctly so a lot of the yarns out of the dye lots would end up being unevenly dyed.

So it seems I got some pretty rare and awesome yarn out of all that actually! I have plans for all of this yarn actually. For the Imagination Pixie Dust I've decided to knit my very first shawl. I've been eyeing some patterns for a while now and I've decided to use the Traveling Woman by Liz Abinate. Mum says this would be a pretty good choice for my first shawl and uses some cool stitches. It looks easy enough but still with that wanted challenge and a really nice design so I'm going to give it a shot and see what happens. This pattern is actually only for purchase for 6.00 USD so it's not free but with how pretty this looks it may just be worth buying.

An idea I have for the Lana Grossa Lord yarn is to use a hat pattern called The Natural by Homero Luna. I think this'll be a great introduction for me into cable knitting.

Pretty excited to start all these new projects but there's some I need to finish first such as Chrissie's Blanket which I'm just about to cast off.

I'm on the home stretch with this blanket, just got two more rows to do then I'm finally casting off. It's going to be kind of sad to see this project end in a way, this is my very first knitting project I started over two months ago, before I even started this blog. But all great things come to and end eventually and I believe Chrissie, my little brother, will absolutely love this blanket for the winter.

Now I can't end this blog without updating people on my sock, the video was actually a tad bit behind on my current progress.

I've finished the gusset on my sock so I'm just knitting all around now in the usual stockinette until I get so far (About 8 and a half inches) then I'll be decreasing once again and using kitchener to end my sock. I'm just about done so I need to power through so I can finally, FINALLY start my second sock. I know it's not a race but these socks seem to be taking forever so I need to speed up a bit I think.

So that's about it for the blog today! But before I go.. I have to say something.. My mum is teasing me... She's so mean I swear.

Yeah that's exactly what you think it is... It's Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon.. ONLY PROBLEM IS I have to wait until Christmas. See we're a pretty tight knit (Haha, Tight Knit, oh my god I'm getting worse somebody help.) family and we like doing Christmas so I'm having to wait for my copies of Pokemon Sun and Moon. I don't mind waiting... But the problem here is Mum keeps teasing me. Don't you worry you two... You will be mine soon enough. Anyway to keep myself satisfied on my Pokemon craze I've been replaying Pokemon Black 2.

So that's finally the end to today's blog. Oh boy it was another long one wasn't it? Maybe I should spread the stuff I want to talk about out more I don't know, it never seems long in my head and I even edit out most of the rambles... Hope you enjoyed the video and hope you enjoy your day!

See you on the next blog!

Celebrating 30 Blog Posts Into the Final Frontier

Incredible how we've already hit 30 blog posts on this blog. I've talked about quite a few awesome film and video game topics, taken you on a trip through my knitting saga as well as show off some awesome cars. This has been a really enjoyable and fun experience so far and has allowed me to get my interests out there for the world to see. Also I've been encouraged to start writing a lot more often... Well at least writing stuff for people to see anyway instead of keeping everything locked up. My confidence has increased a bit as well which has surprised me. There are still a lot of topics I've yet to dive into that I have planned for the future. For the most part what I talk about depends on what's happening in my day that I'm writing it, which explains a lot of the knitting blogs as I've been doing a lot on that for winter and such. To those reading I hope you stick around as I improve and dive into more awesome topics and to those who are reading this in the future. So with that out of the way it's time to go... Where no one has gone before.

Space... The Final Frontier... 

So yesterday I finally got around to watching the brand new Star Trek Beyond movie. I'm not much of a theatre fan so I don't usually watch movies until they're out on iTunes and DVD. Don't worry though I won't be talking about any spoilers so no need to click off!

Now this is the third entry in the rebooted Star Trek movie series starring Chris Pine as James T Kirk. Which might I add he's actually looking a lot like Kirk now. It released in theatres earlier on this year and on iTunes and DVD about a week ago. The previous two movies, Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness were directed by J.J. Abrams but this movie has changed directors (With J.J. Abrams still producing) to Justin Lin, known for directing movies such as Fast & Furious 6. Though there were some people worried about this choice of director I believe he stayed pretty truthful to the Star Trek Franchise in this movie.

Without spoiling anything the movie takes place a couple of years into James T Kirk and the Enterprise Crew's 5 year mission to explore the unknown. They interrupt their mission to visit a Federation Space Station and end up facing against an enemy who puts everything the Federation stands for to the test.

The movie's storyline kind of feels more like something out of an old episode or one of the old movies and in general the film feels more like Star Trek then the previous movie. (I can't say anything about the first Star Trek it's been ages since I've watched it... Need to watch that again.) Though there were a few plot points that confused me and I actually had to rewatch the movie again to really understand the full picture, that's not really a good thing if you're only able to watch this one time. Actually truth be told there's one plot point that confuses me still.

The cinematography was pretty good and kept up with the action without completely losing me. I noticed a lot of the crazy lens flares that were present in previous Star Trek movies have been toned down without losing that sleek and futuristic vision. (J.J. Abrams has a fascination with Lens Flares apparently.) Really to be honest those lens flares always distracted me from the previous films slightly.

One last thing I liked about this movie was Dr. Bones; I swear he was the best character in this movie. Karl Urban looks almost like the late DeForest Kelly and he pulls off the character perfectly. The relationship between Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Dr. McCoy was one of my favorite parts of the movie.

The movie also paid a little tribute to the late Leonard Nimoy (The original Spock himself) who passed away in February of last year and Anton Yelchin (Who actually played Chekov in this movie before passing.) who died earlier on this year in June. You'll love when you see how they worked the tribute into this flick. All in all (I say this a lot for some reason) this was a pretty good movie. Still has some flaws that bugged me such as their being some plot points I didn't understand but I actually enjoyed it more than the previous Into Darkness movie. I need to rewatch the first Star Trek movie again it's been a while now.

As you may have noticed... We kinda have the Sun and the Moon in the sky at the moment... At the same time. What I mean by that is Pokemon Sun and Moon both released today for the Nintendo 3DS! Tons of trainers all over the world are now traveling the wonderful islands of Alola as they take on the Island Trials while meeting brand new Pokemon and dealing with the new baddies in town Team Skull. Okay I have to admit I absolutely love Team Skull, they're the best evil organization in Pokemon since Team Rocket (Not saying I didn't love the other guys but yeah Team Rocket was always my favorite.) They're goofy and like to believe they're a street gang or something. Anyway it's been awhile since I first talked about Sun and Moon and a lot has been revealed since then. Truthfully I believe they revealed a little too much with all the trailers (Seriously were they worried these weren't going to sell? It's Pokemon.) but it isn't taking away from the excitement. I'm going to be getting Pokemon Sun (Solgaleo Squad Unite!) first but I still haven't decided on a starter Pokemon yet... Yeah I'm having a bit of a dilemma on who I want to pick. Who are you picking? Are you excited for your journey through Alola? Comment below or on my social media posts! Will be talking more about Pokemon Sun in the future so stay tuned!

On the subject of Sun and Moon something else interesting is happening over here in the states... The Pokemon TV Series has actually switched channels for the first time in over 10 years. Pokemon The Series Sun & Moon as well as all previous seasons of the show will now air on Disney XD. Crazy huh? Not exactly sure how I feel about this change. Pokemon has been on Cartoon Network since the Ruby and Sapphire Advance series but recently they've been shoving it in a corner in a really early time slot on Saturday mornings so the switch may not be such a bad thing. On the other hand Disney XD is a TV channel that on certain cable plans you have to actually pay for an extra Digital Package to view it. I mean in my area you have to pay for practically the highest cable package AND add on the Variety package on top of that to even get Disney XD. It's even hard to get it on Satellite as well you gotta go up two packages on Dish before they offer it to you. There is a bright side to this change though... With how close Disney and Netflix are working lately there's a chance Pokemon Sun and Moon will be up on Netflix before you know it. I mean look how long Yokai Watch (Also on disney XD) took to end up on Netflix it was almost instant. It also looks like their keeping the voice cast as in the recently Disney XD trailer Ash still had the voice he has had since Battle Frontier. So yeah if you're a parent with kids who love Pokemon (Or like me who still loves it at the age of almost 21.) and you don't have Disney XD keep an eye out on Netflix. Actually I'll let everyone know on here if and when it turns up on Netflix.

Boy do I ramble a lot when talking about Pokemon, don't I? Oops. Anyway one last thing for today's blog I want to show off this cool little knitted object I made real quick while watching the new Star Trek movie...

This is a little earbud pouch for keeping your... well earbuds in. It was a quick knit I decided to do to help me practice with increases, decreases and kitchener stitch. I used a circular size 2 needles in a magic loop situation and I used a pattern by Mary Keenan. So this was my first time doing kitchener stitch... And it was not the smoothest process. Well I got to the end and found out that I did it completely wrong... COMPLETELY. Apparently the video I was following wasn't very good or I just didn't concentrate properly but I gave Mum a nightmare trying to help me unpick it. Though I did find a better video that taught me to knit on, purl off on the first needle then purl on, knit off on the second. It looks like a little baby's hand mitten actually and I love the colors of this. It was actually scrap yarn I found in a ziplock bag. Mum says that this is Lorna's Laces Fingering Sock Yarn and she's used it for quite a few projects so it's a pretty good yarn. I mean Lorna's Laces yarns are always great to knit with. Going to be making a couple more of these so I can practice Kitchener some more.

Anyway I think it's time to wrap up the blog for the day. 30 blog posts already huh? Well I'm going to be sticking to it and bringing you better and better content. I still got a lot to learn but hope you stick around! Don't forget to follow me on all my social medias (Links on the side) so you can keep track. I'm mostly active on my Facebook and Instagram so you can message me stuff on there if you wish. Also don't forget to check me out on Ravelry if you like my knitting stuff. I make videos for my YouTube you won't want to miss as well!

See you on the next blog!

Welcoming Amiibo to Animal Crossing New Leaf (Review)

So I may not look like the kind of guy who would be into Animal Crossing but hey don't judge a book by it's cover.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf - Nintendo 3ds released back in November of 2012 for Japan and June 2013 for the rest of the world, introducing tons of new concepts to the Animal Crossing series. Ever since then players have created awesome towns, caught tons of bugs and fished to their heart's content. Lots of people have been playing this game for a long time now but come last week Nintendo has given Animal Crossing New Leaf a fresh coat of paint with the Animal Crossing New Leaf: Welcome Amiibo Update!

This update brings some brand new features such as Amiibo Support for the previously released Animal Crossing Amiibo Cards and Animal Crossing Amiibo figures. What surprised me was the support for Legend of Zelda and Splatoon Amiibos such as the brand new Wolf Link Amiibo and Squid Sister Amiibo figures. These figures, as well as the normal Animal Crossing Amiibo Figures (Not the cards) will send different new characters to your RV Campground, which is a brand new open area that appears on either side of your village, allowing you to buy furniture from them and even adopt them into your village.

In order to buy furniture from the campground though you will need a new form of currency called Mutual Exchange Of Wealth Coupons... This by the way means MEOW Coupons... Yeah Nintendo is at it again with the cats.

These coupons are obtained by completing town initiatives, a list of different activities (You can view the list of your initiatives by viewing your TPC by clicking the little silhouette icon on the touch screen.) such as catching a certain amount of fish and so on. After completing some initiatives you go to the CAT Machine, which is in front of the town hall, and redeem your coupons.

By the way on the subject of Amiibos usable you can actually use the Super Smash Brothers Ganondorf Amiibo. Yes, that's right; you can adopt Ganon from The Legend of Zelda series to be in your village... GANON. You won't be able to adopt people like Tom Nook into your series but who could resist having Epona (Using the Sheik Amiibo) in your village? Seriously. Soon to be released Amiibo RV Cards (Series 5 in other words.) will be available and allow you to bring even more villagers with cool furniture into your campground.

Now the Series 1-4 Amiibo Cards work a bit differently, after updating and playing the game for a bit you'll randomly see a text box open up with someone calling your name, spooky right? Well search the surrounding areas until you find a magic lamp.

Inside this magic lamp is a character called Wisp and after placing him inside your house you can use Wisp to turn your Animal Crossing Amiibo cards (Using the Touchscreen on New 3DS and the Amiibo Adapter on the old 3DS) into villagers you can invite into your town, or ask for gifts from, though Wisp will only accept one request per day so keep that in mind. When wanting to move a villager from your cards in you'll be asked if you want to move one of your villagers out (Only if you have no room for anymore of course) don't worry if he asks for the wrong villager to move just turn him down and he'll suggest someone else. I really have no idea why they couldn't of just given a list of your villagers to choose from but ohh well. You actually get quite a few MEOW coupons for using Wisp as well.

One last cool feature that was added is the Amiibo Camera option that appears on the main menu of the game. Using this you can take photos like normal but using your Animal Crossing Amiibo Cards and Figures you can add any character you want to your photos in all sorts of awesome poses and situations. It may not seem like much but features like this add so much more flavor to the game.

While it does suck that all of that is locked behind Amiibos this update introduces so much more that doesn't even require Amiibos in the slightest. For one the RV Campground doesn't need Amiibos to have RVs there, every day a new RV will turn up offering some cool items. Harv, the Campground Manager, will also have some cool knick knacks to offer you as well. Most of the items cost around 3 to 5 coupons so it's not hard to get a lot of what you want.

The biggest new addition to this game other then the Amiibos in my opinion is the ability to have a completely brand new separate storage area in your house; it's not a new room but a button you tap on your touchscreen while you're in your house. This opens up a brand new separate storage with a massive amount of storage. Actually this has more storage in it then the normal locker storage that came with the base game and as this doesn't replace your old storage I don't think you'll be running out of space for a long time to come. To obtain this secret storeroom you have to pay off your remaining loan, Tom Nook at Nook Homes will then have the option "Something New" when you ask him to expand your house.

After unlocking the extra storeroom a new character will turn up in Tom Nook's place. You may recognize her as Lottie from Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer. Crazy thing about that is she actually gives you the ability to decorate your house just like you can on HHD, which means no more squeezing your character around trying to place items in your house you can just place whatever you want wherever you want. You don't even need a copy of Happy Home Designer to do this but if you do have a copy you can link the game to your Animal Crossing New Leaf to unlock 20 extra furniture items. Forgive me if I'm nitpicking but I really wish it was possible to place items outside your house too, really who wants a bird bath INSIDE their house?

There's something important I need to point out though, when you update you will have to update your Dream Town again, all your old dream town stuff is no longer compatible so it's been erased.

The last feature I want to point out are the new Minigames added. Remember those fortune cookies that cost you 2 Nintendo 3DS Play Coins? Yeah there are some new items you can receive from them, including two Wii Us and a 3DS.

When placed in your house they unlock special minigames for you to play, though be prepared to spend a LOT of Nintendo 3DS play coins on these minigames. The Minigames themself such as Desert Island Escape are fun and all but boy do they cost a lot of play coins so better get walking around with your 3DS if you want to play these minigames.

Also when you boot up the Wii U you actually get the Wii U bootup screen and sound, that's a really cool touch if you ask me. Introducing the Wii U portable! Oh wait... That's called the Nintendo Switch isn't it?

Oh yeah! Apparently they've added 50 new villagers from previous games that weren't in this installment, so that's pretty cool.

All in all this update really brings a fresh coat of paint to the games and while there are still some features I would like in the game that were included in Happy Home Designer I believe what was included really refreshes the game, even if you don't have Amiibos. I don't really want to give ratings to my reviews unlike most reviewers (This isn't really a super professional review anyway I guess... I mean this is a blog.) but I think this update is pretty good and if you don't have the game already it's dropped in price to $19.99 so you're practically buying a new game for a lower price.

Ah who am I kidding about the rating! You can sit on rocks now! Rocks! All those random rocks in your town and you can't break them? Well sit on them! Ten out of ten!

Hahaha okay I'm done now...

See you on the next blog!

PS: Friday will actually mark the 30th blog post on this website! I have no idea how to celebrate this or what I should do so yeah... I'll figure it out by then.

ALSO POKEMON SUN AND MOON COME OUT THIS FRIDAY (Everywhere but Europe... Sorry Europe.)

PREPARE YOURSELVES...

You can check out more about this update on Nintendo's Animal Crossing Website.

A NASCAR of M&Ms and Besting a Sock Heel Flap

There are a lot of things in life I love so very much... M&M candy and NASCAR would probably hit in the top 10 list. So what happens when these two wonderful items come together?

I came across this completely on random while going shopping, it completely shocked me to see this here. This is the Toyota Camry M&M Race Car Number 18. Of course the driver who this car sponsors is Kyle Busch who currently drives this car in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, which is actually happening right now and Busch currently is moving on to the top 4 in Miami. This year is the 75th anniversary of M&Ms so that's probably why they're taking this car all around the place. Oh yeah I also got free M&Ms... Pretty sweet deal if I do say so myself.

Love the fact they have the old M&M designs as well as the new guys on this as well, they even had M&M plushies in the car window which was pretty cool.

They even had the 2015 Sprint Cup Championship Trophy here which was Busch's first Championship win. So all in all this was a great find and I'm glad I got the chance to checkout the car and the trophy. This has further fueled my love for NASCAR... Yeah I just made a car joke... Fuel... Get it? So yeah I love that I got the chance to see this awesome NASCAR and even the Championship Trophy up close and in person!

Anyway onto a knitting update! Been focusing solely on my sock the past couple of days. If you've been keeping track of my instagram you'd see I've been working on the heel flap and I can proudly say I have bested my first heel flap AND heel turn with no big issues!

I was a bit nervous to start this heel flap and heel turn but with some help from mum I pulled it off and now I'm currently working on the gusset, which means now I'm decreasing stitches on the heel flap row of stitches to get it back to 32 stitches so I can continue on with the final part of the sock. Everything is going smoothly but I hope on my second sock I don't get, as my Mum calls it, second sock syndrome, though these are my first pair of socks so I shouldn't be such a perfectionist. Actually there are no more tough parts on this sock now, it should be smooth sailing now except for the very end where I use a kitchener stitch to seal the toe and finish the sock. The second sock should be a lot faster to knit as I will already know exactly what to do.

Anyway that's all for today, I know it's a short blog but not all blogs are going to be super long like the previous couple have been. Hope you enjoy your Monday last week was a bit crazy with the election and all but this week should be a lot more relaxing to ease off the tension. Oh yeah! I forgot show off something on the blog relating to the election...

Got out and voted today and I got this super awesome I voted sticker. #worth Now we wait... #election2016 #ivoted #bluedog

A photo posted by Zach Kuhn (@zmanstarz) on Nov 8, 2016 at 3:43pm PST

I got this super awesome I voted sticker with the Blue Dog (From the late Artist George Rodrigue) on it, a really cool souvenir if I do say so myself. Anyway enjoy your day and...

See you on the next blog!