Thanksgiving weekend movie day

It's Saturday and we actually got to go out and see a movie in the theatre! Some of you might be able to guess what we saw, knowing our movie tastes.... and if you guessed Quarantine , you'd be right. It's a movie about  people in a building who are quarantined due to a fast-moving, aggressive illness. Which is trapped in the building with them, of course. The movie is shot by the cameraman from a two-person camera crew who were following the firefighters into the building before the quarantine went down.

It's sort of like Cloverfield in that it's a "shaky-cam" movie shot by one person - the cameraman. This makes the movie more realistic because it limits what we can see; there were several times that I found myself trying to look around something to see better. There are parts that I would have loved to see more clearly because they gave an explanation to what had happened. This kind of shooting-style is also more like a first-person video game, in a way, which is one of the reasons that I think this type of filming is gaining popularity.

We both really enjoyed the movie and would recommend it to people. There are a few very gory bits but not as many as in other movies. It's mostly a very suspenseful film.

This evening we went to a friend's place and watched 88 Minutes . It's sort of an interesting movie where after the first 15 minutes or so, the protagonist gets a phone call that says that he's got 88 minutes to live. The rest of the movie is all about the guy trying to figure out who's behind it and at the same time trying to fend off the police, who think he's committed a bunch of murders. It wasn't as great as it could have been - there were a couple of issues with the acting and dialogue - but it was entertaining. There's an alternate ending on the DVD that is a bit better than the actual movie, but it's longer, so I think that's why it was cut.

Yesterday I meant to write here but I ended up with a chill and had a hot bath to warm me up. I start sweating when I'm cold and I can get a chill afterwards, especially if my clothes get wet and it's breezy. Getting a chill isn't just shivering; my hands and feet get extra-cold and numb (I have Raynaud's Syndrome in my hands and feet so the circulation starts to dwindle in them) and my lips go blue.

Apparently what I'm experiencing are cold sweats and they're menopausal side effects. So I guess I'm getting these cold sweats instead of hot flashes .... but I'm not sure it's a fair trade. People understand hot flashes but not everyone has heard of cold sweats.

Anyways, if I can catch it before I get a chill, I dry off and change my clothes, which results in a lot of laundry. With the colder weather over the last few days the chills have been worse and I've found that a hot bath is just about the only thing I can do to get warm again. There have been days lately where I've had two hot baths just because I'm so cold and chilled.

If anyone knows of something I can do to make me warm after I get a chill *other* than a really hot bath, please let me know. I can't always stop the chills from happening, even if I change my clothes. It's like once the chill starts, I have to get overwarm for it to stop. And I'd like to not have to spend the entire winter in the bath, you know?

Still alive but sleepy

Last night I meant to write here and then I went and fell asleep. Not that I have much to say these days - all I've done in the last couple of days is sleep. It was very nice today but I ended up sleeping most of the day away. I've been getting up early for the last couple of days and after doing that for a while, I need to catch up on my sleep.

I'm typing this while enveloped in the smell of the brugmansia flower. We brought our plants in because we had frost here. Since then, the one plant has blossomed twice and the other one (the transplanted one that we thought was dead) has grown new leaves. The smell is quite pretty, if a bit heavy, and it's something that we don't get to smell often.

I started curling today and my new shoes are awesome!!! I can slide so much further on them than I could with my old ones, and they were lighter than my old ones, too. I had an easy time delivering my rocks and sliding forward - it felt sooo much better to be on these shoes! The left foot was slipping a bit on the heel and so I have a blister on that heel. I should have worn both pairs of socks tonight.

In case you thought I wasn't doing anything with my days, I'm still working on sewing things. I traced out a skirt and have made all of its alterations so I can cut it out tomorrow. I've still got the other dress I'm working on - it's on hold while I find the right trim colour between the regular and bias portions. I want to insert something like piping just to make the dress look a little more finished.

Sadly, with the dropping dollar, I don't want to (well, I shouldn't) buy much more in the way of patterns or fabric so I'll have to work with what I have (which is admittedly quite a lot). The only thing I want to buy right now is some gorgeous fabric. The fabric is out of print so it's hard to find but I love it! The thing is, I just can't decide which colourway to buy: the blue or the red. I think I'm leaning to the red (although I do love both!) but buying both isn't/shouldn't really an option. Thoughts?

Surrounded by another person's memories

When I'd seen my late friend last , she told me that she had a bunch of her bellydance stuff that she wanted me to have. Her husband got all of it together, got in touch with me, and I went over there this afternoon to get it. He showed me a picture album of her when she was bellydancing. She was so beautiful! I could tell from the pictures that she knew what she was doing and was very graceful and elegant.

What's more, she taught herself how to bellydance, made all of her own costumes, taught other people, and set up her own business delivering bellygrams!!!! She was a single mother with two kids, working somewhere and doing all of this to try and make ends meet. I looked through the things she left me and I have all of the jewellery she made and bought (the earrings! headpieces! neckpieces! sterling silver!) as well as all of the costumes she made, including the bras, belts, skirts, and veils, and the leftover embellishments. I also have the books she used to teach herself, the books on costume design, *and* all of her music. I was so excited when I looked through it! It was like finding the perfect pair of shoes (some of you have seen that reaction and you know how obvious it is).

Ok, all of this stuff is from the late 70s and early 80s (and the music is on cassettes), but in a way that makes it even more valuable and interesting. It's not just bellydancing costumes  and information passed from one bellydancer to another - it's a piece of history, both hers and the bellydancing community.

I wish I had known how much bellydancing she had done - I knew that she had bellydanced but not that she had done everything else - and I'm sad that I didn't ask more about it. I wish I had told her how much I admired her.

Tonight I went out with a group of people for dinner to celebrate my friend's life. We toasted her and conducted ourselves in the fashion of which she would have approved: lots of laughter, food, wine (for those who drink it), and yummy desserts. At least we could give her this. 

Awash in memories

One of my sisters was given a stuffed animal made of fabric panels when she was very young. That animal was loved to death by her and was a huge fixture of my childhood. Today I found replacement panels! I was so excited because it was like bringing back my childhood to me.

Later on I came across an envelope addressed to me and Ian in my father's printing. As soon as I saw it, I burst into tears. It had contained a gift from my parents and I could just imagine my Dad addressing the envelope, excited (in his own way) about giving the gifts away. He liked to give us gifts.

Seeing my Dad's handwriting brought back another childhood memory. Leading up to one Christmas I was coming to believe that Santa didn't really exist but I wasn't sure of that one way or another. I wasn't sure how to prove it and so on Christmas morning, I compared the handwriting on the packages from Santa and from my Dad. They were the same and right then, I knew that Santa didn't exist.

I miss my Dad so very much. I think about him just about every day but this is the first time I've cried like this in weeks.

Fall is here

I've finding that my everyday activities have been changing a bit to deal with the autumn in the air. I get chilled - and hot - really easily and I've started taking baths to warm up. And so after being a shower person my entire life, I think I'm becoming more of a bath person. I make it really hot and read my book and soak in the bath. I never really understood why people would want a hot tub or jacuzzi but I do now. Oh, the luxury!

I've always associated baths with my mom - when I was growing up, she had a bath most evenings. At that time, she was my age and I was at an age where I was really starting to see her as a separate person from me. Now that I'm the age she was then, I sort of feel like I understand her so much better than I did before. And so every time I find myself doing something that she does or did, I feel so much closer to her. I like this.

Adventures in curling shoe shopping

I got new curling shoes today. I'd meant to replace my shoes last year but never got around to it. The shoes had metal eyelets that had shifted and that left scratches on the curling ice, and I'd worn through the heel cup. I wavered between two pairs: the Goldline Regal and the Asham Slam (second from the top). I very much liked the fit of the Slam but the disks on the bottom were weird. As well, the outer part isn't leather and I was worried that they wouldn't last as long as a leather toe. The Regal is leather and it's a shoe that should last a long time - part of the point of buying a good-quality curling shoe is to get something that will last a long time.

I ended up with the Regal but I have to say that the buying process was quite an adventure. The first pair I tried on was my normal size (36.5, or a 5 1/2 in their sizing) but I couldn't get my foot in because the tongue is stitched down to the top at a higher point than most shoes (most likely for stability when delivering). If I can't put the shoes on, I can't curl in them, so that pair didn't work.

Next, I tried on the half-size up and the right foot was fine but the bottom of the tongue dug in strangely on my left foot. I kept saying "ow" and Ian finally told me that it sounded like something was wrong. And that if it hurt now it wouldn't stop hurting later. So that pair didn't work, either.

The sales guy then said that the shoe I was trying on was the *new* version of the Regal and that there was an older version still available in the back. He went back, searched around for a bit, and brought me out a pair to try on. It fit just fine on my right foot but it was a bit loose in the heel on my left. This isn't unusual - my left foot is about a half-size smaller than my right foot - but I don't want to buy a shoe that didn't fit. So that pair didn't work too well, either.

After that I went back and forth, trying on first the Regal and then the Slam and then the Regal and then the Slam, trying to figure out which pair to buy. Another sales guy came by and said that sometimes different pairs of shoes in the same brand and size can fit differently. He also said that as long as I bought a right and a left shoe in the same size and version, he'd be fine if I got the two shoes from two different pairs. So he went in back, searched around for a bit, and found another pair of the same size in the old Regal version. He brought them out to me and the left shoe fit perfectly! The pair I got was a combination of the first right shoe I tried on and the last left shoe I tried. Crazy, huh?

This whole process took quite a bit of time and the help of two different salespeople. I am very pleased with the result and I'm grateful for all of the help I got. I'm also grateful for Ian's patience - he was there the whole time and encouraged me to be absolutely sure that I was happy with the shoes. Hopefully we won't have to go through this process again for a while.

A new vintage pattern

I bought this vintage pattern off of etsy - the top is very similar to one I used to have, with princess lines and lots of buttons. It was black and I remember replacing all of the original flat buttons with little round buttons (there were 16 or 17 of them, if I remember rightly) and it looked so awesome. I don't know what happened to that top - it either fell apart or I got too big for it.

Anyways, I bought the pattern and it arrived today. The listing said that it was in good condition but when I checked it, the collar piece was missing and there were three extra pieces in the pattern. I didn't think that "good" meant "incomplete + extra pieces" and honestly I was a little annoyed. I sent a message to the seller and she's giving me 20% off the purchase price (or a refund, but I'll take the 20% because I can draft a collar), which I appreciate.

I was looking at the pattern and instructions to try and figure out how the buttons and buttonholes are applied. These are the worst pattern instructions I've read, and that includes other vintage pattern instructions which are notoriously scarce. Apparently the dress need not have a collar but can have a sort of sweetheart neckline instead - but there's no picture anywhere of what that pattern would look like. As well, the picture makes it look like the top closes via buttons and loops, not buttons and buttonholes, but the instructions don't say anything about making button closures at all.

So when I get around to making the top, it'll be quite an adventure (and I might make a princess line in front, like in back, so it's more like the top I used to have). Fortunately, I've made tops like this before so I think I'll be ok.

Curling already?

Today was the first night of curling for us. We went to a workshop tonight on improving our delivery in preparation for the actual season which starts next week. The first thing we had to do was deliver without a rock. If you're balanced correctly, it should be possible to go through the entire delivery without actually holding a rock. I think my body forgot how to deliver a rock because I fell while trying to deliver. :) Things got better by the end of the night.

This season Ian is curling three nights per week and I'm curling twice a week. That's all assuming that the Friday night curling goes forward; at the moment, there aren't really enough people to carry a league through the entire season. We'll see. It wouldn't be all that fun if hardly anyone shows up.

My favourite book into a movie

Thanks for your tips on finding argyle sweaters. I looked today and saw a few but they didn't fit right - some were too long and others were too boxy. I also did a search on eBay and there are a few there that I think I like. I'll keep looking.

I think I remember mentioning that Blindness is one of my favourite books ever. There is so much to the book that every time I read it, I get something new out of it. Now, I'm very excited because the book has been made into a movie (shot partly in Toronto)opening this weekend! The movie isn't getting great reviews but I still hope that it will be a movie worth seeing. From what I've seen, I think I'll like it.

I'm watching a show right now on the making of the movie and it seems like the director really worked to capture the anonymity and humanity (or lack thereof) in the book. Before shooting began, apparently all of the actors had to wear blindfolds and be led around, following the sound of a bell. There are special contacts that the actors wore that prevented them from seeing well during critical scenes so that they would act blind.

I am annoyed that the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) is calling for a protest of this movie because they feel that the movie discriminates against blind people since it shows people becoming monsters after going blind and being unable to take care of themselves. WTF? It's a post-apocalyptic movie! It's not like newly-blind people automatically know how to take care of themselves, and it's likely that they'd make a mess. Think of the mess in the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina - those were sighted people in the dark, and the mess they made and things they did are equivalent to the mess and actions in the movie. And as for monsters - well, people do what they need to survive. If they weren't blind but were in the same sort of situation, they'd still be monsters. I'm thinking that this group hasn't got that much credibility, really, and their protest is a knee-jerk reaction without thinking things through.

Fortunately, no NFB people will be protesting here in Canada. I'm very much looking forward to seeing this movie even though I know that it can't possibly be as fundamentally moving and thought-provoking as the book. Still, I'm interested in seeing how closely the movie follows the book and what, if any, new things the movie brings to the already multi-leveled story.

A mostly regular day

When we rented the movie over the weekend, we also rented Storm Warning . It wasn't really all that scary or gory. It was one of those couple-gets-lost-and-find-themselves-among-lunatics movies. I very much liked the way the woman handled the lunatics - some things were very creative and had a definite "eewwww" factor. The first half of the movie was sort of boring and it would have been better without most of that bit.

I haven't been able to sew for the last couple of days. I realized that the dress I'm making should have been done with the plaid on the bias but I didn't do that. I looked briefly at one store to see if there were any good plaids there but there weren't. I might see if another store has any... or not. I think the dress will look great as-is, but I also think that another dress in a bias plaid would look awesome :)

I'm also looking for a decent argyle sweater. I tried one on today but it didn't have the right neckline - the V was too deep. There was a cardigan version that was ok (it was petite; the other sweater wasn't) but it was a cardigan and I want a sweater. And not one of those fake shirts under the sweater, either, or a vest. You'd think it would be simple to find a sweater in cotton or acrylic (not cashmere) with an argyle pattern on some part of the front. Well, I thought that - and I was wrong, as so far my search has proved futile.. but I'll keep hunting. There's got to be one somewhere. I don't know if I dare to hope for one in petite sizing, but wouldn't it be awesome to find that, too?

Another look outside my bubble

I've been reading some of the news lately and I saw that the US House voted against the bailout package. I knew that people didn't necessarily like it - some didn't like it because it was a vague plan, some didn't like it because they felt the money shouldn't go to the people who made the mess in the first place, and some didn't like it because they thought it was the first step on the road to socialism. And of course we can't ignore the fact that all of this is happening when there's an election a few weeks away so there's all sorts of political crap involved that wouldn't be there at another time. For whatever reason, the bill was defeated. As a result, the Dow tanked in its greatest point drop ever.

No one can really say what's going to happen now. Maybe the bill will come forward again, and maybe it won't. What happens if another major financial institution in the US files for bankruptcy? How far away is the US economy from a Depression? What about the rest of the world - money and banking are global now? I thought I read that banks aren't lending as much right now... what would happen if banks stopped lending money to each other or businesses?

And what's going on in Europe? Banks are collapsing there, too. How often do banks normally collapse - is it happening more often than usual?

In some ways I feel like I'm living in an Ayn Rand novel. Even the new conditions under which the mortgages were to be loaned could have come right out of Atlas Shrugged , as could many individual's reaction to the bill. Not that I always subscribe to the theories in the books (there's an implicit assumption that the people who are the most industrious have an internal sense of responsibility - but there's no room for, say, sociopaths), but it's kind of strange to see things happening as though they came out of a book. And scary, too, because in that book the entire economy and society collapsed. I hope that this doesn't happen here.

In any case, like many people, I'm watching what's happening with the US economy very closely.

Fun hobby day

I've been working on a pair of earrings for someone and I finished them today. They're here . I thought they were gorgeous! I used the pink amethyst stones I bought at the show the other weekend. I can't wait to use some of the other stones that I bought. Right now, I keep picking them up and playing at them, looking at them in the light, and looking at the facets and the shine and the colours.

I've started work on another dress in a plaid - I thought it was a brown and black plaid but it's got navy blue and forest green in there, too. I'm using a pattern I'd sort of used before - it's a vintage reproduction pattern. So it was an actual pattern issued in the 60s but it's been updated with current sizing and (possibly) construction. I hope this doesn't take too long as I want to start work on a new pattern - I think it'll work in the corduroy I have. It's got tabs under the collar and in the center back that I think might look good in a red contrast (like, say, the red contrast I used on the last dress ). We'll see.

It's Saturday so it must be movie night

We rented The Cottage tonight; it's a funny English movie with kidnapping, a crazed psycho, and lots of improbable plot points. The first half is sort of funny with the botched kidnapping and then the second half is really gory and bloody. I can't remember the last movie we saw with that kind of gore and violence - it was definitely unusual, which was a nice surprise. If you like these kinds of movies, you'll like this one a lot.

You know, finding good horror/zombie/scary movies is really hard. Most of the ones that are made are direct-to-video because there isn't that much demand for these movies in the theatres. Not to mention the fact that the kind of gore and violence that we watch would get an 18+ rating which doesn't make as much money in the theatre. As well, these movies don't usually come with recommendations or ratings, so it's possible to end up watching some really awful movies.

Fortunately for us, there is a company that distributes a good subset of these movies: Dimension Extreme! Even better, our local video store carries them :) The best part is that we know we're getting a decent movie if it's distributed by this company.

Oh, and I guess I should make something clear: it's mostly me that picks these movies. I don't know what Ian would choose to rent if he was on his own but when we're there together, I push for the horror/zombie/gory movies. It's probably better that I don't think too hard about why I like these movies so much :) How about I stick with this: I've always had a fondness for the genre. I've been reading horror stories since I was quite young and it's not such a big jump from this kind of book to this kind of movie. How does that sound?

What if there were no humans?

Going to my friend's funeral today definitely did help. It was more a celebration of her life than sadness at her passing and so while I cried, I felt a lot better. My friend had written something in her funeral program thing - I haven't been able to read it yet. It's definitely written by her in her "voice" to the people who attended her funeral and I'm not sure I can read that just yet.

This evening we watched Aftermath, a tv program that examines the question of what would happen to the planet if humans suddenly disappeared. It's an interesting show and I'd recommend you see it if you get a chance. After 200 years, traces of humanity would be almost gone! In a way it's shocking to think that people have had such an impact on the planet in only a short time. We've polluted our atmosphere, totally changed the paths of many major rivers (causing problems at various points of those rivers), and interfered with many, many ecosystems. And yet within a few centuries of the disappearance of all humanity, all of that would be reversed.

If only we could clean up the planet without having to leave it. Part of our problem is that we do things without fully realizing what the impact would be. For example: the Mississppi used to flood its banks regularly. So they built walls to contain it and force the course to change. But now the Mississippi delta is basically destroyed because of that "solution", which means that there is less natural protection against hurricanes there. Who's the winner here?

If only we sought to fully understand the natural forces we're playing with, maybe we'd do a better job of "fixing" the problems they cause us.

What to sew next?

I've been sleeping a lot over the last couple of days - 18 hours yesterday and then another 13 today. I'm not sure why; my best guess would be that it's because my friend died and I'm a little depressed. Tomorrow morning is the funeral and I hope to get some closure then.

I am hoping to do some more sewing. I'm waffling a bit on what to sew. I have some gorgeous kaufman cherries corduroy - it's as light as dress fabric but drapes well and doesn't wrinkle. I also have the menswear-type fabrics that drape well. A couple of them have some stretch to them and I'd like to use those for sheath-type dresses, maybe. I'm also thinking about shirtdresses... but I'm not sure. I have patterns that are similar to the last dress I made and I'm sort of thinking about those, too.

Hopefully I'll be able to make a decision about what to sew next soon. I'm itching to make something - maybe I have too much to choose from?

Some test results

Unsurprisingly, the fine needle biopsy results are negative - there's no cancer there. That's good, of course, but I wonder how many more of these tests I'll be having. I also found out that the CT scan for my jaw will be on October 16. It's not urgent and those take about a month to schedule.

On the bright side, some mets people on one of my online support groups are getting together in Westport, CT for a few days in November. I'm going to go with them and have booked my ticket (I get to fly out of Waterloo!). I'm looking forward to meeting them in person instead of just online.

Recently, on that board, someone was caught lying about some serious stuff - like, that they had lost a son in one of the recent hurricanes. The person had been posting sporadically for about a year and people had sent her gifts and stuff. Some suggested that the person was deliberately misleading people. My guess is that the person has a serious mental illness because her posts were inconsistent.

Meeting people in person is a good idea :)

A few appointments

I saw the oral surgeon today. He basically said that he didn't think that there was anything wrong but of course he didn't have the previous xrays to compare. My dentist dropped off the comparison films and the surgeon did see a small change. Because of this and my history he's going to send me for a CT scan just to be sure that there's nothing going on.

He said that most osteonecrosis shows up as exposed bone in the mouth. (Umm, yes. We are hoping that if it's this, we have caught it early - looong before the bone starts showing through my gums.) He said that it's possible that the lower teeth have shifted from the previous orthodontic work, and that the roots of those teeth did appear shorter than the other teeth but again that this was probably from the orthodontic work as well.

So he's not worried and doesn't want me to worry because all of this is most likely nothing. But it is good to be thorough.

Oh, I also had my port checked - the doctor was able to get a good blood draw and it didn't hurt when he accessed the port. I wish the nurses were as good as that doctor was :)

Another friend gone

Remember I drove a less-mobile friend to a mutual friend's visitation a week and a half ago? The friend I drove died tonight.

She'd run out of treatments and went into hospice this past weekend. I knew last week that things weren't going all that well as she had the same colouration as my friend did in March which was a sign that the liver had failed. Still, I didn't expect her to decline so quickly and had been hoping to visit her before she died. I had sort of thought of going tomorrow or the next day because I thought there was still time. I was wrong :(

It's so hard to think that I saw her only a little while ago. I told her then that if she wanted to go somewhere, I'd be happy to take her and she said that she would be at a dinner (that I'm also going to) this coming Thursday. She was a wonderful woman - so kind and so caring. She always seemed positive, even when things weren't going that well.

When I last saw her, she showed me her head: her hair all came out because of the whole-brain radiation treatments she had, so she went to a hennaist and had butterflies and strawberries hennaed on her head. I wish more people had been able to see it because it really represented who she was.

I miss her so very much.

Another movie

We finally got around to watching Save the Green Planet, a movie we'd recorded ages ago. It's a South Korean movie with English subtitles. The subtitles were one reason that we hadn't watched it yet because they require more attention than a non-subtitled movie.

The movie is very, very good. The main characters' acting is amazing; they were able to convey their emotions and thoughts even though I couldn't actually understand a word they were saying. The movie references a number of different genres and incorporates them all seamlessly. The plot is believable and the dialogue well-written and there are twists in this movie that make it quite compelling. Some of the movie could be quite disturbing as while there is quite a bit of implied violence, but this violence is an intrinsic part of the movie. We highly recommend this movie.

BTW, in case you're interested, here's a picture of the beads that I bought yesterday. I didn't get a chance to brighten the picture or anything but the beads are still quite visible. You may notice that much of the picture is sparkly because all of the beads are faceted :)



From left to right, the beads are: faceted crystal coins (2), faceted rose quartz rounds (2), faceted pink amethyst hearts, faceted amethyst hearts, faceted amethyst rondells (2), faceted amethyst rounds (2), onion-cut iolite briolettes, onion-cut labradorite briolettes. Some of the strands have been doubled in this photo and these are noted with a (2) in the list of items. Aren't they gorgeous? Don't you just want to reach out and play with them and start making things?

A little shopping

Remember I was working on that vintage pattern and I finally finished the dress? I wore the dress today and we got a picture of it.

Here's the pattern and the dress:

I think that it turned out ok. I don't look as thin as the pictures but I think that the dress looks pretty good, all things considered and I'm quite pleased with it.

There was a bead show in Toronto today and I went. I haven't had the "pleasure" of driving in downtown Toronto for a while. I didn't know that the Gardiner was closed or that there was a baseball game this afternoon, both of which made the drive in and out that much more difficult.

I managed to buy the most beautiful faceted pink and purple gem-quality amethyst teardrops (don't worry, I got a very good price!) as well as some gorgeous labradorite onion-cut briolettes with flash on almost every stone. And I got the rose quartz and amethyst faceted round stones that I'd been looking for. Not only that, I got some beautiful onion-cut iolite briolettes. I can hardly wait to play with them!

I'm finding that I'm much more selective in what beads I'll buy these days. Before I'd buy a strand of beads as long as they were the rightish colour and shape but now I check the strands very carefully to make sure that the beads look the best possible. This isn't possible when buying off of the internet but in-person, at least, I can get some quality stuff.